Growing Hostility towards Evangelical Christians on Atlas

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

I’ve seen a few posts like Torie’s and Xing’s that were good-faith responses, but like 80% of the responses here (to say nothing of the obnoxious troll threads that are now clogging the arteries of this board) are really proving the OP’s point far better than OP ever could.

Pray tell, what exactly is a good-faith response to the assertion that you're a sinner, your life is full of sin, and that you must repent from your sin otherwise you're going to hell. But I love you and want you to leave your life of sin. I will continue posting here about how depraved and immoral a large part of this forum is in the hopes of convincing some of these sin-filled delusional fools to repent from burning in hell forever.

Oh, and this is all a part of my faith, therefore any pushback at all against this worldview is religious intolerance and hostile.

Shall we all just lie down and smile, turn the other cheek, and accept that being repeatedly informed of your impending rejection by God is simply a matter of faith, then?

[afleitch]

but it strikes me that there is also pushback against Evangelicals as a concept that illustrates a view of them as a political entity, fundamentally little different from any other political entity.

In the United States (Brazil, South Korea and others) that is undoubtedly the case.

[7,052,770]

Large portions of the world, including most of the Atlas Forum hate you and always will. If they don't, you are probably doing something wrong. That's simply a result of standing for something. Truth is inherently divisive. Never change your beliefs from pressure.

They will hate you and you have to love them anyway. And until that is something an outsider sees from the Christians they know and not from everyone else, it's going to keep getting darker outside.

It's extremely generous for you, as a Catholic, to refer to Evangelical beliefs as "truth," when the vast majority of them would never do the same back to you.

You're committing the common fallacy here of assuming that almost all evangelicals are hostile to Catholics like it's still 1928 or whatever. That's not true at all today. For one look at how many evangelicals supported Rick Santorum in 2012 and Marco Rubio in 2016. Also try to find a Catholic bashing article in Christianity Today. Etc.

Would you refer to Catholic doctrine as "truth" ? Would right-wing Evangelicals?

[7,052,770]

 Good grief, indeed. We did not close our doors until the governor forced us to. Two months in, when the restrictions were first loosened ever so slightly, my parish re-opened while negotiating the various rules put into place, because my priest understood that nothing is more important for the faithful than being in church and receiving the Eucharist. When that happened, new people started attending from other parts of the Bay Area, where the local authorities were ensuring that churches remained closed for public health reasons, so they could also worship and partake of the Eucharist.

That's weird. All the Catholic Churches around here were insisting people stay home and watch the livestream, rather than spread the disease, and our bishop is a super-right wing zealot.

[Associate Justice PiT]

but it strikes me that there is also pushback against Evangelicals as a concept that illustrates a view of them as a political entity, fundamentally little different from any other political entity.

In the United States (Brazil, South Korea and others) that is undoubtedly the case.

     Having attended Evangelical services with my wife, who is one, I have seen a very different side of things from what Atlas sees. People who are on the outside of the movement heavily overestimate the extent to which political causes characterize the relationship of Evangelicals to their faith.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I’ve seen a few posts like Torie’s and Xing’s that were good-faith responses, but like 80% of the responses here (to say nothing of the obnoxious troll threads that are now clogging the arteries of this board) are really proving the OP’s point far better than OP ever could.

In fairness like half of the responses here are BRTD shifting the conversation to topics that are only tangentially related and making inane statements about said topics. I don't think this thread was really needed to prove that hostility towards Evangelical Christians exists on the forum - the general conduct has certainly not been unexpected.

[Non Swing Voter]

In recent weeks, I've noticed a lot of hostility towards evangelical Christianity on this forum.  While most of these posts haven't necessarily been reportable individually, they are currently collectively making it very difficult for evangelicals to post candidly and boldly about our faith.

In particular, recently, the belief that Christianity is the only path to Salvation has been roundly mocked on this forum in recent weeks.  For Christians who take the Bible as the literal and inerrant Word of God, that is a central belief that informs how we interact with the world- because we love everyone and want everyone to have eternal life.

I have also seen mischaracterizations about Christian views on sexuality, suggesting that they are hateful, rather than a commandment from God that applies to all sex- including heterosexual sex- outside a Biblical marriage.  I try to share Biblical Truth as lovingly as I know how (on both of the issues referenced in this post).  I fully acknowledge that I'm certainly not perfect at that, though.

The hostility of many on this forum to evangelical Christianity would never fly if similar comments were said about literally any other religious tradition.  And, before you say that it's because we are "advantaged", I would push back on that.  Evangelicals see very little representation in entertainment, for example (and, when we are represented, it's usually a cartoonish portrayal).

Your moniker is literally "AMERICA NEEDS JESUS CHRIST" - which is essentially shoving your religious views on everyone else.  Get real, that in essence is being hostile to the 70% of the country that doesn't want you shoving your religious beliefs on everyone else.

[Non Swing Voter]

The impetus for this thread isn't "hostility towards Evangelical Christians" - no-one is being hostile towards them.  This is because most people don't agree with them.  It's not democrats trying to make laws that discriminate against evangelicals.  It's evangelicals trying to make laws that discriminate against everyone else (through the courts of course as 70% of the country doesn't agree with them on pretty much anything).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I’ve seen a few posts like Torie’s and Xing’s that were good-faith responses, but like 80% of the responses here (to say nothing of the obnoxious troll threads that are now clogging the arteries of this board) are really proving the OP’s point far better than OP ever could.

Pray tell, what exactly is a good-faith response to the assertion that you're a sinner, your life is full of sin, and that you must repent from your sin otherwise you're going to hell. But I love you and want you to leave your life of sin. I will continue posting here about how depraved and immoral a large part of this forum is in the hopes of convincing some of these sin-filled delusional fools to repent from burning in hell forever.

Oh, and this is all a part of my faith, therefore any pushback at all against this worldview is religious intolerance and hostile.

Shall we all just lie down and smile, turn the other cheek, and accept that being repeatedly informed of your impending rejection by God is simply a matter of faith, then?

I literally started my post by listing two examples of good-faith responses to OP’s post  

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

[Хahar 🤔]

The impetus for this thread isn't "hostility towards Evangelical Christians" - no-one is being hostile towards them.

This is obviously false, as we can see from many posts in this very thread.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

Because you can ultimately choose your religion but not your sexuality

[Biden his time]

In particular, recently, the belief that Christianity is the only path to Salvation has been roundly mocked on this forum in recent weeks.

It's a terribly sh*tty thing to believe, given the low % of humanity that are Christian, and absolutely affects the worldview of people who believe it, and how they look at current events and history.

It would be one thing if Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Catholics, etc., all believed something like that that and it was just a normal aspect of religion and the human experience, but that's just not the case - it's not literally unheard of, but it's pretty rare outside of Evangelical Christians.

The belief that one's own religion is the sole path to salvation is exceedingly common.
It is not at all unique to evangelical Protestantism

In fact, a majority (or close to one) of the world population probably would say that about their belief system.

[Pedocon Theory is not a theory]

I’ve seen a few posts like Torie’s and Xing’s that were good-faith responses, but like 80% of the responses here (to say nothing of the obnoxious troll threads that are now clogging the arteries of this board) are really proving the OP’s point far better than OP ever could.

Pray tell, what exactly is a good-faith response to the assertion that you're a sinner, your life is full of sin, and that you must repent from your sin otherwise you're going to hell. But I love you and want you to leave your life of sin. I will continue posting here about how depraved and immoral a large part of this forum is in the hopes of convincing some of these sin-filled delusional fools to repent from burning in hell forever.

Oh, and this is all a part of my faith, therefore any pushback at all against this worldview is religious intolerance and hostile.

Shall we all just lie down and smile, turn the other cheek, and accept that being repeatedly informed of your impending rejection by God is simply a matter of faith, then?

I literally started my post by listing two examples of good-faith responses to OP’s post  

Those are responses to the post, but the entire substance of the post is centered around the idea that non-evangelicals owe it to evangelicals to stand around idly and pay lip service. How is going around telling others that they are fundamentally lesser people somehow a defensible way to behave?

You have one side making statements about how they're "lovingly" delivering a "commandment from God" about why all gay people are sinners and going to hell, which is patently impossible to counter because it's a matter of faith. And on the other, anyone who so much as dares to push back against this sort of smug, condescending, immovable assertion is "hostile" and "proving the point"?

What's the expectation here, that all the LGBT members of Atlas should simply understand that some people are allowed to tell them they're going to hell and have no way to counter that?

Edit: just noticed my post about growing hostility towards homophobes on atlas is now gone. Love to see that the moderation team is willing to suppress all attempts to highlight the hypocrisy of this post's tone.

[DC Al Fine]

The past couple years, I've had at least three posters suggest that the state should take away my children and put them in foster care, and another who said that I keep my children chained in my basement and abuse them day and night.

In each instance the poster either made such claims in response to my posting about common Evangelical opinions or practices, and in one case was in response to a post I made opposing hijab bans, and explcitly referenced my Evangelicalism. To top it all off, I don't even spend much time on the nastier subforums like US General Discussion.

The notion that Atlas does not have a signficant minority that are bigoted against Evangelicals is complete and utter nonsense.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

Because you can ultimately choose your religion but not your sexuality

Is it okay to criticize or question this belief?

[Non Swing Voter]

The impetus for this thread isn't "hostility towards Evangelical Christians" - no-one is being hostile towards them.

This is obviously false, as we can see from many posts in this very thread.

No agreeing with evangelical views (which are far far outside the mainstream) =/= hostility.  Isn't it your side who calls everyone else snowflakes?

[Хahar 🤔]

The impetus for this thread isn't "hostility towards Evangelical Christians" - no-one is being hostile towards them.

This is obviously false, as we can see from many posts in this very thread.

No agreeing with evangelical views (which are far far outside the mainstream) =/= hostility.  Isn't it your side who calls everyone else snowflakes?

Ah, so it's not that you can't read those posts, it's just that you're making up new definitions for words. While you're on this, please explain to me what exactly "my side" is here.

[Non Swing Voter]

The impetus for this thread isn't "hostility towards Evangelical Christians" - no-one is being hostile towards them.

This is obviously false, as we can see from many posts in this very thread.

No agreeing with evangelical views (which are far far outside the mainstream) =/= hostility.  Isn't it your side who calls everyone else snowflakes?

Ah, so it's not that you can't read those posts, it's just that you're making up new definitions for words. While you're on this, please explain to me what exactly "my side" is here.

I don't need to do that.  You've pointed to no specific posts that make my claim false.  I'm not going to give long explanations when you've pointed to no evidence for such an outlandish assertion.

[Non Swing Voter]

Did someone have the "growing hostility toward homophobes" or whatever it said, thread deleted??  How is that not blatant one sided censorship?

[Xing]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

Homosexuality is not an ideology or belief system.

[Non Swing Voter]

The past couple years, I've had at least three posters suggest that the state should take away my children and put them in foster care, and another who said that I keep my children chained in my basement and abuse them day and night.

In each instance the poster either made such claims in response to my posting about common Evangelical opinions or practices, and in one case was in response to a post I made opposing hijab bans, and explcitly referenced my Evangelicalism. To top it all off, I don't even spend much time on the nastier subforums like US General Discussion.

The notion that Atlas does not have a signficant minority that are bigoted against Evangelicals is complete and utter nonsense.

Do you think this only impacts blue avatars/evangelicals?

A blue avatar accused me of probably being a literal "murderer" last week because I disagreed with their CA recall projections (which he was wrong about).

[Non Swing Voter]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

You can't just decide to be gay one day the way you can decide to be a religious man like Trump did, right before he ran for President.  This is pretty obvious.

Would you criticize someone for being black?

[Non Swing Voter]

I also fail to see why we need so many evangelical-related threads and discussions.  If you listened to people here and political talking heads on TV you'd think this country was half evangelical white.  It's nowhere close to that.  Evangelical white christians are a tiny minority of the population and shrinking (16%):

https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/

And as a group they have an outsized influence on politics and political discussions yet somehow challenging those views = hostility?  Even though they already get way more in politics than you'd assume for a group so small (they've basically had the final say in 2/3 of the SCOTUS).

[Hindsight was 2020]

Xing's post is good.

Religion should not be immune from criticism, and obviously if you express religious-based beliefs that homosexuality is bad, expect as sharp a rebuke on an LGBT-heavy forum as you would if your homophobia was secular-based.  This applies to any religion.  Disliking a religion is not the same thing as say, racism.

Why is criticizing religion good, but criticizing any aspect of homosexuality automatically a "phobia" ?

Because you can ultimately choose your religion but not your sexuality

Is it okay to criticize or question this belief?

Depends on the context of what you mean by that