Is there a double standard between criticizing Evangelicals and other religions?

[TJ in Oregon]

I don't think it's normally a good idea to bash anyone.

Religion, like many subjects, is on some levels a truth claim. Different people have different answers to basic existential questions and they have come to these answers through a wide variety of factors, from biological to conditioning to emotional to rational and everything in between.

In the US, we deemed that freedom of thought was an important thing to protect. That goes back to our understanding of rights in our civic framework. If people are free to consider whatever set of fundamental ideas they believe in, then freedom to practice a religion is critical to that. It is one of the most critical aspects of freedom of thought, since it involves the most deeply personal and comprehensive classes of thought. As such it makes sense for religion to be protected in the US.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

[DC Al Fine]

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

Mormonism?

I've seen the first two but not Mormonism. People are surprisingly respectful of it, given some of the church's social stances. Ir maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong boards

[Santander]

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

Mormonism?

I've seen the first two but not Mormonism. People are surprisingly respectful of it, given some of the church's social stances. Ir maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong boards

I openly ridicule all religions and denominations except Judaism, Islam, and nihilist Christianity.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I criticize Evangelical Christianity from many perspectives...societal, cultural, political, and most seriously, from a religious/Christian perspective.

I grew up in a non-church going family but went to a non-denominational (read:  Evangelical) Christian school that used Bob Jones University Press and Abeka books, was involved with ELCA and LCMS churches and an independent Baptist church.  Then I went to a Catholic university.  I’ve made the rounds.

I only ever saw evangelical christianity as a restrictive, oppressive, authoritarian, incurious, insular, closed-minded, judgmental form of social control. (Will this be deleted for trolling too?)

These were things I noticed early on.  Then I realized I was gay and that alienated me to it completely so I always felt like an outsider looking in and an imposter.  It allowed me to see it for what it is.  It is destructive to people who are forced to grow up in it that do not fit the “correct” mold.  I would say even a form of child abuse after a certain point.

I’ve met plenty of absolutely wonderful Evangelical Christians.  I’ve met a good handful of gay ones who go to liberal churches and worship God almost as an act of defiance. 

But the type that cones to mind when someone says Evangelical...is the closed-minded, judgmental, hard-hearted, controlling, and frankly miserable hypocrite.  I can imagine God cringing at the sound of their prayers.

[IceSpear]

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

Mormonism?

I've seen the first two but not Mormonism. People are surprisingly respectful of it, given some of the church's social stances. Ir maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong boards

I think that was more of a 2012 thing due to Dem hacks wanting to attack Romney over it.

[Xing]

On Atlas, sure, but that's because Atlas is left-leaning, and Evangelicals are (as a whole) strongly Republican-leaning. Surprisingly, there's also a decent amount of malice towards atheists here, not sure why.

In America as a whole, definitely not. While you could certainly find people who attack Christians in America, there's much more anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-secular sentiment here.

Hate to generalize, but there really are two kinds of atheists.  Only one type gets ridiculed here, and for good reason.

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the two *types* of atheists, exactly?

[RINO Tom]

On Atlas, sure, but that's because Atlas is left-leaning, and Evangelicals are (as a whole) strongly Republican-leaning. Surprisingly, there's also a decent amount of malice towards atheists here, not sure why.

In America as a whole, definitely not. While you could certainly find people who attack Christians in America, there's much more anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-secular sentiment here.

Hate to generalize, but there really are two kinds of atheists.  Only one type gets ridiculed here, and for good reason.

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the two *types* of atheists, exactly?

Militant ones who refuse to accept that anyone *rational* can be anything other than an atheist (i.e., they'll be "civil" with you as long as you go into the debate with the preconceived agreement that YOU hold your positions due to FAITH, which is just fine by them, but they hold their positions due to LOGIC ... if you do not adhere to this, and maintain that you believe in a God or whatever due to rational or scientific theories, their panties get into a very big bunch) and, well, normal ones who don't let being an atheist define who they are/don't think being an atheist says something overly special about who they are.

[Badger]

I see plenty of people ragging on Islam, Catholicism and Mormonism on this site.

Mormonism?

I've seen the first two but not Mormonism. People are surprisingly respectful of it, given some of the church's social stances. Ir maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong boards

I think that was more of a 2012 thing due to Dem hacks wanting to attack Romney over it.

This. There was quite a lot of it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

On Atlas, sure, but that's because Atlas is left-leaning, and Evangelicals are (as a whole) strongly Republican-leaning. Surprisingly, there's also a decent amount of malice towards atheists here, not sure why.

In America as a whole, definitely not. While you could certainly find people who attack Christians in America, there's much more anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-secular sentiment here.

Hate to generalize, but there really are two kinds of atheists.  Only one type gets ridiculed here, and for good reason.

Forgive my ignorance, but what are the two *types* of atheists, exactly?

People who simply don't believe in God, and the Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens types and the people on r/atheism. People who think being an atheist makes them intellectually superior or some sort of ubermensch. Also who push pseudo-historical crap like mythicism.

[lfromnj]

Sorry evangelicists. I changed my mind. There is a huge double standard.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I actually was not born into an Evangelical family.  My parents were moderate Lutherans when I was born (I think it was Missouri Synod, but I don't remember, it might have been ELCA).

While not frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist, I've never heard the LCMS described as moderate except perhaps in comparison to the Wisconsin Synod. Note also that despite the name, the ELCA isn't what most people today mean when they use the term "Evangelical". Granted, they aren't a fully liberal denomination like the UCC, but at the time your parents would have been members they had some conservative congregations that have since split off.

(Sorry for the necropost, but the post I'm quoting from just got added to the High Quality Posts thread.)

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I actually was not born into an Evangelical family.  My parents were moderate Lutherans when I was born (I think it was Missouri Synod, but I don't remember, it might have been ELCA).

While not frothing-at-the-mouth fundamentalist, I've never heard the LCMS described as moderate except perhaps in comparison to the Wisconsin Synod. Note also that despite the name, the ELCA isn't what most people today mean when they use the term "Evangelical". Granted, they aren't a fully liberal denomination like the UCC, but at the time your parents would have been members they had some conservative congregations that have since split off.

(Sorry for the necropost, but the post I'm quoting from just got added to the High Quality Posts thread.)

Okay, did some research and the LCMS seems conservative.  It must have been ELCA.  I was thinking LCMS because my dad went to an LCMS as a child.

[Gracile]

Evangelicals are criticized more frequently because they wield an outsized amount of political power relative to other religious groups in the United States.

All religions deserve criticism, though.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

Not from me, I hate all religions fairly equally.


To be clear, that doesn't mean I hate religious people, as my spouse and many of my friends are religious - I just hate religion itself.

[Badger]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

[Goldwater]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

How is that statement edgy? Surely everything in life deserves at least some criticism...

[Theodore]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

How is that statement edgy? Surely everything in life deserves at least some criticism...

[Santander]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

How is that statement edgy? Surely everything in life deserves at least some criticism...

That interpretation would make what he said completely meaningless.

[Gracile]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

I fail to see how this is an "edgy" statement, and I was mostly implying that people (secular people, specifically) who criticize Evangelicals should similarly discern problematic attributes in other religions.

[James Monroe]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

Enough implication of secular people being neckbeards. It's a small minority of the agnostic/atheist/deist/pantheist population.

[Santander]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

Enough implication of secular people being neckbeards. It's a small minority of the agnostic/atheist/deist/pantheist population.

People who make edgy comments like that are. And Deists/Pantheists? All 5 of them are surely neckbeards.

[TJ in Oregon]

All religions deserve criticism, though.

You'll cut your Fedora on that edge.

Enough implication of secular people being neckbeards. It's a small minority of the agnostic/atheist/deist/pantheist population.

People who make edgy comments like that are. And Deists/Pantheists? All 5 of them are surely neckbeards.

That's the thing... the content of the comment itself is actually something I agree with. Religions are truth claims and ought to be considered as such. However, "criticism" of this sort usually more closely resembles a random and illiterate heckling than an entertainment of ideas in good faith.

[Gracile]

FWIW I did not intend to be edgy at all with that comment, and it was little more than a throwaway thought at the time. I am sorry that it got mischaracterized it as such.

I should clarify that "All religions deserve criticism" was more of a direct response to the question posed by this thread ("Is there a double standard between criticizing Evangelicals and other religions?") from a secular perspective. There is somewhat of a double standard with the way irreligious people criticize evangelicals because of their outsized influence, and it should be logically consistent for them to criticize other religions to the same degree. I have noticed that there is often a tendency in secular circles to go after the most egregious religious practices or churches with the most power in society (or worse, discriminating against members of a specific group rather than the institution itself). My comment was more an earnest expression of how it is important for secular people to look at how religion functions on the whole, rather than attacking one antagonistic group.