Growing Hostility towards Evangelical Christians on Atlas

[Devout Centrist]

They hate us because they ain’t us, ER!

White men from suburbia? That describes 95% of the people here

[Devout Centrist]

Or as I heard one pastor put it "Catholicism is Jesus + works, we believe in Jesus + nothing."

Okay, nihilist

[Devout Centrist]

As evidenced by some of the responses in this thread, there's no shortage of posters who either too vacuous or too ideological to engage in a serious discussion about religion. I should know because I used to be that person!

Surely the worst offenders (*cough* Zinneke *cough*) should be escorted off the premises for their borderline psychopathic rants against religion. I also empathize with some evangelical posters who find themselves dogpiled by a neverending stream of bad faith arguments from the usual suspects. These types of comments aren't productive and add next to nothing to the conversation.

All that being said: This is a political forum at the end of the day. The impact of Evangelical Christianity on political discourse is unmistakable and the two concepts are often inseparable. The vast majority of evangelical posters here want to articulate a political message of some kind. Arguments around those ideas will inevitably get quite heated. This is nothing new. Anyone who remembers online political debate in the 2000s would feel right at home in the forums of today.

This makes empathy and respect all that more important. I respect the right for evagelicals to advocate for an explicitly political message here. In turn, there must be respect for LGBT (emphasis on the T, since there are a great many people here who love hating on Trans folks) people and their viewpoints. This has been severly lacking in the past, but has gotten better over the past decade.

Also, the incident that appears to have sparked this thread, a post in the "would you date a bisexual?" thread, appears to be gentle ribbing more than anything else? Sometimes people will poke fun at your beliefs; that's part of the assumed risk of posting on Atlas forum. When it crosses the line into harassment and threats, then it becomes a major issue.