What is a 'true Christian'?

I agree with much of your attitude and proposed approach, but at the same time alarmed and troubled with other aspects, that alarm being bolstered by Christian aspirations in general in the US.First, there's the sub-topic title: True Christian Soldiers. Why be so bellicose? Why aspire to be bellicose? Your "true Christian soldier" brethren have openly declared "culture war" on the rest of society. Ever since the rise of the Radical Religious Right c. 1980, "true Christian soldiers" have repeatedly attempted to co-opt the government to impose their religion on the rest of society, to give their religion the force of law, even to the point of dissolving that most precious of all our liberties, religious liberty. At the same time, those "true Christian soldiers" have cried very publicly about how they are being "persecuted" because others disagree with them and even express dislike for them. Well, speaking here for the other side, in the face of such fervent and unrelenting "true Christian soldier" belligerence that , how are we supposed to react?So the very tone set by this sub-topic's title is unsettling. Then why not name the movie so that an atheist could watch it and share his thoughts about it with you? If not in this topic, then perhaps in the next.I have heard about that movie, but I don't remember what its title is nor how to find it. What I recall having heard about it is that it is fairly standard "true Christian" fare, albeit executed a bit better than is usually done in this genre. That it relies on standard "true Christian" stereotypes about atheists. That it's yet another treatment of the standard "true Christian" tract depicting a Christian student standing up to an atheist teacher and winning, the one that we have seen redone over and over again, including in both versions of the Chick Pubs tract, Big Daddy?. That while it plays well to the choir by appealing to all their expectations as well as tapping into their shared experiences in dealing with outsiders, outsiders who don't have those shared experiences would find it inane -- indeed, outsiders trying to deal with "true Christians" have their own set of shared experiences which give them a different perspective on such dealings.Do you remember the name? I think that it might have been on NetFlix. Yes, I agree. I agree with the first part and I agree with the necessity of the second part. As I have quoted on this forum several times already:

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Sun Tzu, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):

31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles
    you will never be in peril.
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32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of
    winning or losing are equal.
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33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every
    battle to be in peril."

(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)

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Although that is widely quoted, hardly anybody has ever heard of the need to know yourself, let alone that that is the more important form of knowledge of the two.Most people, including Christians, hold childish ideas about God and religion, because they had formed those ideas in their childhood and have not given them any further thought -- as per Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a leader in Jewish-Christian dialogue, in his Stupid Ways, Smart Ways, to Think about God. All they did was "put in their pew-time" (as described in Doonesbury). Even in the case of the flood of new converts into fundamentalism and evangelical churches which had started with the burned-out hippies of the "Jesus Freak" movement c. 1970, they received their initial indoctrination and have never really gone back to question and reevaluate those initial ideas. Everybody needs to examine their beliefs and to question them in order to correct misconceptions but more importantly to gain a greater and more mature understanding and to grow spiritually.Unfortunately, too many, especially "true Christians", are very reluctant to question their personal beliefs and can even be very resistant to the idea. They seem to think that questioning their beliefs is the same thing as questioning God, when in reality they are only questioning their own inevitable misunderstanding of God and of other matters.So then, I believe that you are attempting to do what every truly religious person must do: to think about what you believe and what it means. The same thing holds true for everybody, even non-Christians. And it holds true at all levels, not just in the fact of highly severe circumstances and adversity. We all want to be comfortable, to avoid discomfort, to stay in our "comfort zones". But it is only by moving out of our comfort zones that we can grow, learn, become stronger.Of course, as we face adversity, severe circumstances, and other great discomforts, we will draw on the resources available to us. As you described, for a Christian that would be your faith, which includes the Bible. For non-Christians, those resources would be different. One person's resources will not necessarily help another person and may even have the exact opposite effect.For example, there's DivorceCare. I have been an atheist ever since leaving Christianity half a century ago (I had started reading the Bible and found that I simply could not believe what I was reading; subsequent learning and experiences, including close association with the "Jesus Freak" movement, have only strengthened my atheism), but I have no problem associating with Christians, just so long as they don't start attacking my beliefs. Around the time of my divorce, a woman organizing dance classes for her Baptist mega-church's singles ministry (15,000 strong at the time) recruited me to help try to balance out the classes (typically 100 women and 50 men would enroll, then after a few weeks most of the women would get frustrated at the imbalance and drop out). Then when I was considering a divorce program that was on the same night as the classes, she talked me into taking their DivorceCare program instead. Bad move! Yes, there were some helpful kernels in there, but those few kernels were buried until a mountain of religious and sectarian chaff. But it was worse than a near-complete waste. One particular pile of chaff that they constantly reiterated and harped on was that we cannot possibly recover from divorce on our own, but only Jesus can do that for us. While that is very much in keeping with Christian doctrine, especially with "true Christian" doctrine, and is undoubtedly very helpful for Christians, it is of absolutely no use for non-Christians. Far worse, it sends the message that the only way to recover from divorce is to be a Christian and that a non-Christian could never ever possibly recover from divorce. That is the primary lesson from DivorceCare. F**k you very much, DivorceCare! But wait, it gets even worse! I have received word that the chaplains of the US Army have adopted DivorceCare to be used by all soldiers going through separation and divorce. Every US Army soldier going through separation or divorce is required to go through the DivorceCare program regardless of his own religious affiliation. The SNAFUs just keep getting worse and worse. That's even worse than the US Air Force last year suddenly imposing a religious test for enlistment in direct violation of the US Constitution (Art.VI, Para.3), though at least that offense was finally challenged and rescinded.But here again, you speak of "true Christians" being subjected to "persecution". What "persecution" are you talking about? Not being allowed to impose your religion on others? Others disagree with you? Others not trusting your intentions? Even not liking you? I have been threatened by Christians in the USA with physical violence just for being an atheist. Have you been so threatened just because you're a Christian? Really, this "we Christians are being so persecuted in the US" game is getting very tiring. There's far too much actual persecution in this world that needs to be opposed for you to be creating that distraction. I agree wholeheartedly! Refer back to the Sun Tzu quote.For example, consider the opposition to the teaching of evolution. If those parents truly wanted to oppose evolution, then they would also want their children to be able to oppose evolution. The only way they can be at all effective in their opposition to evolution is to learn everything they possibly can about evolution, so that they can find all its weaknesses. Instead, they work zealously to keep their children ignorant of evolution. Worse than ignorant, school in misinformation and misconceptions about evolution and all of science. So that the only way they have to oppose evolution is with false claims that are transparently bogus to anybody who knows anything about the science involved. Nothing could be more counter-productive to their cause.According to a blog entry I read a couple years ago, it would take a strong Christian to become well read in those other philosophies. From the beginning of my studies in "creation science" (starting in 1981), I had known about Christians who had suffered severe crises of faith and even becoming atheists when they learned the truth about evolution and science. Youth ministries have noted the massive loss of Christian youth from the faith, even from any religion at all -- estimates run from 65% to 80%. But according to that blog, it's the humanities that contribute most to those figures. Those youth were raised to think that there was only one valid perspective, only one valid way to think about things. It is their exposure to other perspectives, other religions, other philosophies, other cultures, other ways of thinking about and looking at things. Perhaps the worst is literature as they learn to see through the perspective of a character in the story. A Christian would need to be very secure in his faith to withstand that. Or simply go into it with an already mature perspective.And, yes, open and honest discussion with others. Not as soldiers! But rather as ambassadors and friends.

Then your curiosity will be satisfied, thanks to Capt Stormfield's Message 97. Watch the video! I just did. It's an in-depth review of the entire movie by two atheists. Nearly half an hour, but well worth it.I'll be discussing this with the Capt in a short, but do you remember when I wrote this in my other reply, Message 96: Yeah, I pretty much got most all of that right. Only the tracts that it chose to use were the ones in which the "atheist" accepts Christ just before he dies, etc. Watch that review! Your questions will be answered.

Yes, that's the movie! Thanks for posting that. Even though the review is not professionally done (as noted by NosyNed), it does provide Phat with precisely the atheist reaction to the movie that he desired. And it confirmed my predictions of what it would be like.Circa 1970 I became associated with the "Jesus Freak" movement for half a decade, albeit as a "fellow traveller". I had become an atheist half a decade before that because I had started reading the Bible and quickly found that I just simply could not believe any of what I was reading. My association with those fundamentalists very greatly strengthened my atheism. I read and listened to a lot of their "literature". Most of it was in the form of tracts, such as the infamous "Chick Pubs" (which could be quite hilarious). The general form would be a fictional conversation between a believer and an atheist in which the believer was able to respond to all the atheist's questions (much to the atheist's confusion) and the atheist was completely unable to respond to the believer's questions, for which the believer would readily have the answer (completely "Bible-based"), the conclusion of which would be the atheist's conversion. Often that conversation would be between an atheist teacher or professor and a single Christian student brave enough to stand up to him; eg, both editions of Chick Pubs' Big Daddy?. Sound familiar? Like in that movie?Those pamphlets were written like scripts, scripts that the fundamentalists would memorize and then use to proselytize. And it appears that they're still being written and memorized and played out by proselytizers. And played out when they "engage in discussion" with "atheists". So many times I've watched creationists charge in with their "brilliant" arguments and hit me with one of their "unanswerable" questions, only to be stunned when I'd go off-script and answer their question. So they'd through another one at me, demanding an answer from me, promising, insisting, that they are vitally interested in hearing the answer, only to lose all interest in the question and the answer the moment I would give them the answer. The whole thing would be hilarious if it weren't also so tragically sad and pitiful.And, yes, the movie played on all the stereotypes and the Christian audience's ignorance of what an atheist even is. Or the reasons why a person would be an atheist. Again, they have their little scripts that they're running in their heads telling them everything, so that they end up ignoring the real reasons that the atheists are actually giving them and instead only hear the scripts playing inside their heads. For example, a creationist discovered about the death of my son 12 years ago and claimed that that's why I became an atheist, even though he knew full well that I had become an atheist about 50 years ago, two full decades before my son had even been born. I corrected him in no uncertain terms, but he still believed that that was what had turned me into an atheist. Absolutely pitiful.

Thank you very much for reminding me! I had forgotten to add a suggestion.I had wanted to suggest that we try to find positive reviews for this film. I think that it might prove interesting to see where the positive and negative reviews differ (even though that appears obvious) and also where they agree (which may prove surprising. Or just to see what elements of the movie appealed to the positive reviewers, which would reveal much about the reviewer (the same applies to the negative reviewers and what didn't appeal to them).This movie was targeted to a rather specific audience, the fundamentalist/evangelical/etc Christians, along hopefully with anyone on the fence about to fall into that camp. It certainly played to the stereotypes and prejudices that their other literature has been feeding them, so we should expect them to receive the movie well as it reinforced those stereotypes. For that same reason, we should expect non-targeted audiences (eg, "lukewarm" mainstream Christians, non-Christians) to not react positively to those stereotypes and even negatively, particularly if they are members of one of the groups being stereotyped. For the targeted audience, there's also the added element of being able to identify with the protagonist and his struggle to defend his faith; I think that our two reviewers did comment on it, but I very much doubt that they identified at all with him -- I do suspect that Phat did identify with him strongly, since he was obviously very emotionally engaged in the story.This review included very little of the actual dialogue and especially not the arguments presented by the protagonist. From my experience with the fundamentalist literature, all those pamphlets with their scripted "debates", I would predict that those arguments were fairly standard ones, ones that the targeted audience already knew all too well from their own readings and proselytizing training, ones that they found to be very convincing. As I've noted before about creationist claims, they are only convincing if you are already convinced, and rather unconvincing if you are not. Unfortunately, in order to answer that question someone would have to bite the bullet and actually listen to the movie. That would be too much to ask.So then, has anyone found a positive review for "God is NOT Dead"?

I agree with Faith that you should post excerpts from that link, especially the ones that you do agree with and hopefully some of the ones that you don't agree with -- unless you are saying that you agree with everything posted there. Besides, aren't you engaging here in "debating with bare links"? Also, you label that link as "My take", but the link is to something written by a Craig Lloyd. Is that you?If we think about it, "God is NOT Dead" isn't really a movie, but rather a propaganda piece. Like the pre-war German propaganda films depicting Polish atrocities against the indigenous German population. Like the US propaganda films and comic books in their depiction of the Japanese as inhuman monsters. Stir up hatred for "the enemy" both by removing all their humanity and by depicting their evil machinations against our very way of life which heaping helpings of mindlessly savage atrocities, against which our hero sticks to his ideals, our ideals, and defeats evil by fighting the good fight, all while taking you on an emotional roller coaster (quite necessary in order to impair your ability to think rationally while watch it; strong emotion causes the brain's limbic system to go into action while shutting down the neo-cortex, as seen by changes in the amount of blood going to those parts of the brain). Part of training young civilians to kill other people in combat, even in close quarters, is to dehumanize those other people as "the enemy" and repeatedly reminding the recruits of what "the enemy" intends to do to them and to our country.From that link, "Understanding Atheists":

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This is what I found, from one such atheist on the web:

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The Chief Failure of This Film

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In the end the central injustice of this movie is its failure to fairly represent a class of people whom Christians purport to love. But it’s not loving people well to misrepresent them this badly. This movie caricatures, dehumanizes, and depersonalizes people like me, portraying us in the worst possible light. How could I not find this movie disgustingly offensive? Every single atheist in this film is a spineless, uncaring jerk. This is how you love someone like me? You made atheists the bad guys! And not even complex bad guys. You made us two-dimensional cartoon villains who rub our hands together menacingly, tweaking our pencil-thin moustaches above our sinister grins. Children should be afraid to come near us. Employers should think twice before hiring us. And clearly women should steer clear of dating us because obviously we lack hearts.

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This is not love. You cannot love people while ignoring everything they tell you about themselves. You are not loving people when you refuse to listen to their stories. You are not loving them well when you decide before hearing them that you already know all that you need to know about them, overruling their own self-descriptions and self-identifications because you are convinced you know better than they do what’s going on inside of them. When you continually speak of people in terms to which they cannot agree, you are not showing them respect or validating them as real people. This movie represents a grievous failure to love people like me. If you watch this and then beg me to go watch it as well, it tells me that in some way you accept its presentation of what I am like even though I’m telling you it’s not accurate. If you say you are to be known by how you love, then this should upset you. The words may be there, but the thing your words promise is not.

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So if you are a Christian and if you are able to make it through this film without cringing at the stereotypes and misrepresentations it presents, I cannot imagine you will be able to see me for who I really am or relate to me in any way that is based in reality. If you harbor such a grotesquely caricatured straw man picture of what I’m like, then I dare say you won’t be able to hear a word I’m saying. . . . But someone you love may be an atheist, and I’m trying to warn you that as long as this movie doesn't make you nauseous for all its misrepresentations and clichs, you aren't gonna love your loved one well.

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We have seen the impact of that last line in the gay marriage issue. The opponents have certainly worked to use these same propaganda techniques of dehumanizing gays and of generating fear for the imagined consequences of allowing gay marriage. And yet, we then saw leading Republican politicians who had fought so strongly against gay marriage sudden stopped fighting and even going so far as to endorse gay marriage. What had happened? The worst thing that could happen to a soldier in battle for the first time is to suddenly lose the mental and moral protection of dehumanizing the enemy, to come face to face with "the enemy" and see that he's also a scared kid the same as him. In every case I've seen of an opponent of gay marriage suddenly change their position, they had learned that a close family member is gay. The pro-marriage side's most effective tactic has been to counter their dehumanization by coming out letting everybody know how many of their friends and family members are gay.But we still see atheists being dehumanized and demonized in Christian propaganda. You must have realized that yourself, since the movie had motivated you to choose to discuss it under the banner of "True Christian Soldiers". You keep making sounds about peace, but the imagery you have chosen is still quite war-like and you expressed your favorable reception of a propaganda piece for that "culture war" which you (pl) imagine that you are waging.In US public polls of which religious groups are most and least trusted, the bottom three groups are traditionally (in descending order): Mormons, Muslims, atheists -- one of the effects of 9/11 has been to change that order to Mormons, atheists, and Muslims. And I have repeatedly received emails about my website from Christians that are filled with extreme hatred and accusations of thoughts and deeds that are completely foreign to me and which I have never expressed on my site nor ever would. What I have never been able to understand is: Why? Why are atheists hated so much? We're the good guys! While leading religious groups are fighting to destroy religious liberty, we are the leading supporters and defenders of religious liberty, mainly because we are more aware than everybody else of what losing that liberty would mean. In creation/evolution, we are the ones on the side of truth, truthfulness, and honesty. Unlike the evangelizers, we have no agenda to convert others. We are the good guys!And yet the hatred for us is there and continues to be expressed. As in that quote above, no amount of explanation can get through to these people. They have this atheist-hating script running inside their heads and they cannot hear anything else.Why hate atheists so much?

WWJreallyD? Well, for starters:

1. Wither the sucker for no reason. (eg, the fig tree that wasn't in season)
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2. Revile the gentiles. ("dogs" 'e called us!)
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3. Hate hypocrites. (eg, the majority of "true Christians"; see below for yet another example)
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4. Throw almost everybody into a Lake of Fire. (are you really sure that you're saved?)

But Phat just simply tap-danced his way out of answering that question. "True Christians'" hatred for atheists very clearly exists and is being actively fueled by such blatant propaganda as "God is NOT Dead". Instead of addressing that clear and blatant hatred, he offers a weak disavowal of hatred and throws in a cute Xtian mind-bite. I'm surprised he didn't follow that up with a row of smilies and graphic of a cute kitty.But in dodging the question, he also exposes yet another instance of "true Christian" hypocrisy. "True Christians" clearly hate atheists (and also most, if not all, other non-"true Christians") enough to declare war on us (a war that Phat is chomping at the bit to join into), yet Phat is trying to say that Jesus is against such hatred. Therefore, from what Phat is saying, those "true Christians" are hypocrites. And what did Jesus think of hypocrites? And they really believe that they're saved?The question still stands: Why hate atheists so much?Edited by dwise1, : italicized "really"

If you are really that determined to create a war, then you will succeed and you will indeed have your war. Even though it may take two to tango, in a divorce all you need is for one party to want it, particularly in a divorce-on-demand state, and there is absolutely nothing the other party can do or say to keep that divorce from happening. So if one party (yours) really wants to start a war, then they will have their war regardless of what anybody else has to say (eg, mid-20th century Germany v. Belgium/Netherlands/Poland/Denmark/Norway/France).What history will determine will be whether there was any actual justification for that Christian-created war. Which will be largely moot considering the horrific casualties that those "true Christians" will create on their march for world domination.I'll be back later for the rest of my reply. It's time for Rueda de Casino class.

No, it does not. Rather, psychology tells us about how we react to things and ideas that we perceive to be threatening, even if they in fact pose no actual threat.The reaction that you are describing is xenophobia, fear of the foreign, of anything that is not characteristic of your own tribe. "True Christians" do display signs of suffering strongly from xenophobia. They are frightened, even terrified, of other ideas, other beliefs, other ways of viewing the world, and they feel very threatened. Not that any of those other ideas, beliefs, or perspectives do pose any kind of actual threat, but they feel threatened so they want to fight back, war against them, vanguish them, eradicate them. Because anything that is not within their narrow limited perspective frightens them.Yes, dehumanizing your enemy once you have identified him is the common practice. In the 1980's, PBS aired a short British series narrated by a British military expert who documented part of the training of USMC recruits going through basic training at Parris Island. He pointed out how the DIs would repeatedly tell the recruits about "the enemy" and what "the enemy" wants to do to them and how their training will keep that from happening. How this dehumanization of their opponents was needed to training civilians to kill other humans in combat. He recounted the experience of a young soldier in Nam being in combat for the first time where he suddenly came face-to-face with a VC, another young scared kid like himself. They both just stood there staring at each other, both snapping out of the same dehumanization training at the same time. The soldier recovered from it first and killed the VC; otherwise he wouldn't have been able to tell the story.We also see the same dehumanizing techniques in propaganda produced for the civilian population. The Red Scare, the Hun, rat-faced Japs, etc. Classic were the Nazi films comparing Jews to vermin, cutting between swarms of rats and European Jews with exaggerated Semitic features. Playing on the stereotypic features that the audience finds to be the most foreign to them."True Christians" don't need to actively dehumanize non-"true Christians" (remember, to "true Christians" the majority of Christians are considered to be among the "others"), but rather that happens automatically because of their xenophobia.Funny how "true Christians" don't realize how the others view them. Assuming that you are a typical American and only speak one language, how do you feel when another language is being spoken in your presence? I've heard monoglots express the xenophobic fear that they are the subject of that conversation, "They're talking about me!" Relax! They couldn't care less about you! Unless they are indeed talking about you, because your presence as a strange foreigner is triggering a xenophobic response in them, scaring them and making them feel threatened. As well it should. No less horrifying is the very idea of fundamentalist Christians waging their own holy war against the rest of society. And just as we are horrified by the thought of Sharia Law being imposed, we are also horrified by the thought of the implementation of the Christian threat to impose Old Testament law. I am not making that up! That was very much a part of the Christian Reconstructionist agenda of eliminating the US Constitution and replacing it with an Old Testament theocracy. And even though that movement seems to have died out (more a case of it having dropped out of sight), we still see that idea popping up again and again with people expressing the desire to see us living under "God's Law".What's the difference between an Islamic fundamentalist and a Christian fundamentalist? I cannot see any. {eyes roll and head shakes}Are you familiar with Dan Barker of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, "America's Leading Atheist"? He grew up a fundamentalist Christian and was called personally by God to the ministry, where he served for more than a decade until he started to think and to read and to question. He tells his story in the beginning chapters of his book, godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists. I heard a presentation he gave a couple years after the completion of his deconversion. His entire family was so into fundamentalism that his mother would sing in tongues all day while doing the housework. He lived the first 30 years of his life that way before he started the three-year process of deconverting. He did a lot of thinking and self-evaluation during that process. I would think that if anybody would be qualified to speak about how a fundamentalist thinks, it would be him.In that 1985 presentation, he described the way that the fundamentalist mind works as being "then your theology becomes your psychology." His point to that atheist audience was that fundamentalist Christians think differently than normal people do with everything being motivated, interpreted, and filtered, frequently very heavily, through their theology. I have seen Barker's observation confirmed many times. Eg, with my friend from church, Gary, a former fundamentalist now a self-described "complete atheist and thorough humanist" who now feels far happier and more spiritually fulfilled than when he was a fundamentalist, who told me of how deeply in denial he had been as a fundamentalist such that he constantly blinded himself to the myriad everyday things that contradicted his beliefs. Eg, the fact that fundamentalist/evangelist/conservative Christians have to have special counselors trained as "Christian counselors" to deal with their theology-based psychology -- normal counselors would not be able to treat them adequately, nor would a Christian counselor be able to adequately treat a normal (which includes non-fundamentalist/etc Christians). Eg, that DivorceCare program that was designed for use by Christians but which proves worse than useless for non-Christians. Also, the friend who had roped me into DivorceCare also pressured me to attend a weekly presentation on relationships for singles (this was through the two churches' singles ministries) at the other local Baptist mega-church given by two Christian counselors. As with DivorceCare, a lot of what they presented used the same ideas as normal counselors would (eg, setting boundaries, choosing your friends wisely), but then they would invariably twist it to fit their theology and turn it into something meaningless ... for a normal, that is. Like, choosing the right kinds of friends (good) which is defined by them leading you to God (wrong! Thanks, guys, you've screwed up another one). And you need to be take care of yourself (good) because that's what Jesus wants for you (What kind of reason is that? You can't give one good reason for me to take care of myself? Well, that was meaningless!). And of course there have been the countless attempts at dialogue on-line and in emails. When I would try to get a creationist to learn something about evolution so that he could at least come up with some kind of proper argument against it, many refused because "that would require me to believe in evolution", meaning that his Christian understanding of education was the same as indoctrination, which is what Christian education is. And the far too many hate emails I've received from "true Christians" flaming me viciously for things in my website that aren't even there; as described in the review by that atheist that you reposted, their Christian mind told them what I had to have written instead of what I had actually written.The reason for laying this background information is because you just did the same thing. "... worships the US Flag and the dollar bill ..."? Worship? Like you worship the Christ? You think that we kneel down before the flag and paper money, pray to them, and sing hymns to them? Yes, of course, that would be ridiculous and I hope that you can see that for yourself. But when you place whatever we may feel and think about such things above what you feel and think when worshipping the Christ, then your Christian mind is blinding you to reality, just as Dan Barker described. In your mind, worship is a very important activity and attitude, so you project it to normals as well. I have seen others make this same mistake many times. You think that everybody must worship something, so, since they no longer worship God then they must now worship something else, like Flag or money or science or Darwin. Wrong! Yes, I know that that is what your Christian propaganda keeps telling you, but it's still wrong. Perhaps a better word to describe what we feel for those things would be that we "value" them. But would that word be acceptable for how you feel about the Christ? Saying that you "value Christ" is much weaker and far less descriptive than saying that you "worship Christ".Do you understand my point? Worshipping is something that you do, but not that we do. It's kind of like what Gary said about giving thanks to God: as a fundamentalist he was always thanking God for everything, but of course now as an atheist he no longer does that nor feel a need to -- though he did say that that is the one thing that he misses from that time, that constant attitude of gratitude. And for further example, I cannot say that I value the US Flag that much, but rather I show it my respect, not because it's the Flag, but for what it represents. In my 35-year military career, never once did I ever swear an oath to protect or defend the Flag, but at least seven times I did swear an oath, the Oath of Enlistment, to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. I took that oath very seriously and, even though I'm now retired, I still take it very seriously. Not because of the actual document, but rather for it's being the basis of our government and of all laws in this country, as well as for the liberties, rights, and responsibilities that we derive from it. That is not worship of the document, but rather respect and concern because our way of living depends on that document remaining in effect. A Christian once asked me what I value. I gave it serious thought and what I came up with may sound corny: Truth, justice, and the American way.You need to keep in mind that we do not think in the same manner as you do. Forgetting that can cause a lot of lost communication and worse. You should have already read my Message 114reply to Ringo's Message 113 about this.It looks like you tried to just avoid that question. Are you suggesting that Jesus would not hate atheists? In that case, since "true Christians" very clearly do hate atheists then they are not following Jesus. Or are you suggesting that Jesus would also hate atheists? In that case, then your "Why hate anyone?" becomes very ambiguous and obfuscative.I do very much want the answer to that question. Is the hatred because of something in the Bible? Is it just because of blind bigotry? Is it solely whipped up by your propaganda? Is it because you need to use us as scapegoats for your religion's problems? Or that you need to use us as bogeymen to scare your congregations with (refer to the classic Outer Limits episode, The Architects of Fear, also Watchmen whose ending was based on The Architects of Fear)?Please answer the question.

Landover Baptist Church is a fictional on-line satire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landover_Baptist_Church:

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The Landover Baptist Church is a fictional Baptist church based in the fictional town of Freehold, Iowa. The Landover Baptist web site and its associated Landoverbaptist.net Forum are a satire of fundamentalist Christianity and the Religious Right in the United States.

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Origin
The site was created by Chris Harper, who obtained his Master's Degree in English Literature from George Mason University in 1993 after being expelled from Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) in 1989 for producing a satirical radio show which Liberty's administration found offensive.

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Description
The fictional Landover Baptist Church is a parody of fundamentalist, Independent Baptist churches and Biblical literalism.

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The church is described as operating under a dictatorial structure whereby its "Pastor" holds all authority over the church, its members, and its extensive holdings. The church supposedly uses an elaborate fine system to maintain its authority over its members, parodying Jerry Falwell's system at Liberty University, and in addition can force its members to comply with any and all of its wishes (a common phrase on the website used in such cases is that the member "mandatorily volunteered" to comply). In cases of expulsion the member is also removed from the church property. The website describes Landover as having a "permanent injunction" against all "unsaved" persons, prohibiting them from being within ten miles of the Landover property as well as forbidding them to enter Landover's website.

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The Landover site also features material from Betty Bowers, a fictional central character on the satirical website BettyBowers.com. Bowers is portrayed by voice actor and comedienne Deven Green, appearing both in photographs and numerous satirical videos. According to Bradley's fictional satirical biography of Mrs. Betty Bowers, she proclaims herself "America's Best Christian". Bowers operates several Christian ministries with names like "Bringing Integrity To Christian Homemakers" (B.I.T.C.H.) and "Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals" (B.A.S.H.). She is listed as a member of the Landover Baptist Church.

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Betty Bowers videos show up fairly regularly on FaceBook.You're not the first one to mistake Landover as being the real thing. As we have learned all to well in this forum, a parody of fundamentalism or severe right-wing politics is virtually impossible to distinguish from the real thing. While this can make it difficult for the satirist to write something more outlandish than the real thing, it also makes his work easier since the fundamentalists and right-wingers end up doing most of his writing for him, plus they are the never-ending source of
ideas for him. While sites like the ONION are obvious spoofs, Landover remains uncomfortably close to its source material. Did you check out some of those links? Unless Landover spoofed the BBC site, that story of the Nigerian being institutionalized for being an atheist was real. Phat pointed out a link to Conservapedia, which is real. Landover doesn't need to make up any of this nonsense, because the target of its satire is a cornucopia that keeps pouring out more and more nonsense that is more and more outrageous. Landover doesn't have to make any of it up; they just play the part of someone who actually believes that nonsense.That said, what they present about atheists can be used to ascertain how fundamentalists do view atheists, since their presentation is based on those actual views and on what fundamentalists actually teach about atheists. And since that appears to be based on a boiled-down, concentrated form of what Christians of all denominations have been teaching about atheists for centuries, then it may well be instructive of the reasons for the wide-spread prejudice against atheists. Once we can examine those teachings, we can see which teachings make valid points and which are pure bollocks * or even out-right lies. These could be either direct teachings about atheists or conclusions drawn from other teachings, such as that morality can only come from God and that without God there is no reason for being moral.That one about morality can explain the wide-spread prejudice that atheists are immoral and untrustworthy, when, compared to Christians (and especially to "true Christians"), the opposite is true. But Christians have not thought that teaching through, though their children have. Those kids are taught from the beginning that believing in God means you have to be good, whereas if you don't believe in God then you have nobody to answer to and can do whatever you want. Then as their adolescent hormones start to bubble, they draw on what they have been taught and decide to "become an atheist" so that they can sin without guilt. That is precisely the story that a local creationist activist tells of how he had "become an atheist" (though he inadvertently admitted to me that he had never actually become an atheist, but rather had just fooled himself into thinking that he had). And even now after he had converted back, he still believes that it was having been taught evolution that had turned him into an atheist, even though his real stated reason was to satisfy his adolescent urges and evolution was just a flimsy excuse. What was really at fault was his religious education and the gaping legalistic loophole that it had created for him and for too many others fooled by their religion. And he believes that the "real reason" for becoming an atheist is to escape responsibility, when in reality atheists are fully aware of their moral responsibilities and try to fulfill them, while "true Christians" do whatever they want to just so long as they can justify it as serving Jesus, thus escaping personal responsibility for their actions by transferring that responsibility to Jesus and to God, like in the infamous Nrnberg Defense ("I was only following orders.").But while I have been asking that question out of a genuine inability to see any rational reason for such hatred, I am also asking Phat to answer that question, because he needs to understand why he believes what he believes. I'm seeing a lot of self-contradiction in Phat. He absolutely loves that movie and is inspired by it and feels motivated to enter into Holy War against atheists, but at the same time he claims to be embarrassed by the movie's stereotyped misportrayal of atheists and other Others. It would be like a fanatical Nazi feeling highly motivated to implement the Final Solution, while at the same time trying to look he thinks that Jews are being unfairly treated and depicted. Something very seriously does not make any sense there.

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{ * FOOTNOTE:
First, if I misused that Britishism, I apologize and hope I did not cause any offense.
Second, in college (c.1971) we had a friend from Yugoslavia from whom I learned three things about being multilingual:

1. Regardless of how well we know a foreign language and even when we are living it full-time, we still do our mental arithmetic in our native language.
2. When she was learning English, at the end of one hour of English class her mouth would hurt from trying to make all our weird sounds. This prepared me for Robin Williams' joke in Moscow on the Hudson where he asked another immigrant worker, "At the end of the day, does your mouth hurt too?"
3. Only the profanity of your native language has any emotional impact on you.

She would swear in English quite readily and casually, but, she explained to us, if she were to try to say the same thing in Serbo-Croat (which itself is now a dirty word in the Balkans) then she could not because she'd be too embarrassed to.So when a Yank picks up a Britishism and starts using it, it's without knowledge of the emotional impact of that term. Which could unintentionally lead to causing offense. Like if someone relied on British TV for how to sound like an American (eg, in an Inspector Morse a woman was supposed to be American, so to establish her character as such every third sentence she spoke contained some form of the word, "fuck").
}

Like I said, the problem with trying to do satire or a parody of fundamentalism is that it is all too often indistinguishable from the real thing. The best that they can do is to make their presentation more extreme, but there again the real fundamentalists are able to match and surpass their efforts.I will be off-line for most of the day.

A lot of the humor is in the forum members' titles, the list of icons that we see on Christian sites, and the members' signatures. Of the "atheist" posters, the one who had posted a cogent reply had his own contribution "mysteriously" disappear leaving only the text he had quoted, not unlike what we've experienced on such sites where message they do not approve of disappear.

Enough for you (pl) to want to create a war against us. And for you to want to join. War is not something that you get into for no reason or because you're feeling bored. And your propaganda movie makes it very clear whom you (pl) are targeting as the enemy and its treatment of atheists not only displays hatred for atheists but also is designed to generate hatred for atheists.You may think that it's nothing but a big joke, but it's damned serious! And I'm not asking the question so much for my own sake (though I still cannot think of any rational reason for that hatred), but rather because you need to examine the question yourself. You said that you feel that we are threatening your way of life. What do you base that feeling on? What threat do you feel that we are posing? How are we posing that threat? Where are you getting your information from? From your Christian propaganda? Why would you feel that that should be a good source?You have not yet answered that question. You really do need to answer that question. So then you were trying to pull a fast one, a form of "smiling you out the door". Use a misleading response that would be misinterpreted by an outsider. I caught Pat Robertson pulling that trick when he ran for President in 1988. A reporter asked him whether he believed that a non-Christian could be saved and Robertson replied that, yes, he could, if he obeyed the whole of the Law. The reporter and the general public accepted that answer, but that is because they had no eyes to see nor ears to hear. But my fundamentalist training did give me eyes to see and ears to hear, so I saw through Pat Robertson's trick and knew that his answer was actually "No." At least in that church (Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Calif), the teaching was that God had designed the Law to be impossible to follow completely and faithfully without ever breaking even one of the myriad laws, thus making a Redeemer absolutely necessary. Since you would have to be perfect to do it on your own and nobody is perfect, in that view and in Pat Robertson's it is humanly impossible to be saved without going through the Christ.Many people have heard of WWJD and they have a view of Jesus as Prince of Peace, "love your neighbor", "turn the other cheek", "walk an extra mile" (albeit not in the other person's shoes), etc. IOW, they view Jesus as a super-nice guy, so to them WWJD would be to love them and not hate them. They are not aware of the hateful side of Jesus, such as I shared in Message 114 and which you were also thinking of. You were hoping to fool me.Please refrain for resorting to such dishonest tricks. First, atheists are not oblivious to your beliefs. Well, yes, many are, but they are ones who just have no interest in religion nor in discussions about religion, so they do not come to fora such as this nor engage in discussions such as these. In that same manner, I am oblivious to the aesthetic nature of rap, grunge, or "dance" music and I have absolutely no interest in discussing any of that; I am infinitely more oblivious to sports and have extremely negative interest in discussing it. But the atheists who do engage in these discussions are far from oblivious to religious beliefs. In many cases, they know much more about religion than the believers do. And in many cases, they used to be believers themselves. So then, no, atheists are far from oblivious to your beliefs.Now as for the details of your own personal beliefs, for anybody to know what those are would require full and honest disclosure on your part. But somehow I doubt that is what you are talking about.Second, being agnostic is the only true position to hold regarding the supernatural. I am agnostic. You should also be agnostic. What can we know about the supernatural? How can we know anything about the supernatural? We cannot sense the supernatural in any objective way. We cannot detect the supernatural. We cannot even determine objectively whether the supernatural even exists. How then can we possibly determine the nature of the supernatural? How then can we possibly determine the intentions of supernatural beings or their motivations or their long-term intricate plans?That is all impossible for us to know, so the only honest position to hold is that "We do not know and we cannot know." From that point, we can make one of two assumptions: 1) that the supernatural exists or 2) that it does not or 3) that we couldn't care less and so drop out of the discussion. If we decide to believe, then we may decide to believe that certain supernatural beings, the gods, exist (and thus become theists). If we decide to believe in the gods, then we may decide upon particular gods and then build a theology around those gods. But since it is impossible to actually know anything about the supernatural, not only can a believer also be agnostic, but he should be agnostic in order to be honest. Unfortunately, far too many believers are not aware that they should be agnosticSo what does a believer have to base his beliefs on? Subjective feelings. Revelation, which can be problematic. In closed-revelation theologies, beliefs are based on a tradition that somebody had received a revelation, a direct communication from a god, which he passed on to his followers and which has since been passed down to each generation. In open-revelation theologies (eg, Mormonism, mysticism, oracles), followers my themselves receive communications from a god which are then incorporated into the theology; in Mormonism new revelations are often received in dreams. And then the beliefs gained from the theology would in turn have an effect on those subjective feelings and direct communications (eg, dreams). And those revelation-based theologies are completely dependent on their revelation actually having been genuine, having been accurately passed on from generation to generation to generation many times over. And that that revelation has been accurately interpreted into doctrine and that that doctrine has been validly constructed. Those are a lot of requirements.If we make the assumption that the supernatural does not exist, then we are taking an atheistic position. However, there are also atheistic positions that can be taken if we assume that the supernatural does exist, or if we take a "don't care" position regarding the supernatural. It should also be noted that an atheist could take a non-agnostic position and assert with no doubt that God positively does not exist; that is a very extreme position that not even Richard Dawkins takes (his position is that while the existence of God is possible, it is so highly improbable that we can safely assume that God does not exist). Another atheistic position would rest on theists' own agnostic reality by, such that the atheist cannot believe what the theists mistakenly believe about the supernatural; this partially describes my own atheism.

quote:

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Militant Agnostic: "I don't know ... and neither do you!"
(bumper sticker)

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Now, if your understanding of "agnostic" or "atheistic" is radically different from that, please present it. Arriving at common terminology or at the very least defining one's terms is an absolute necessity in successful discussion. Unfortunately, by our very human nature and the realities of agnosticism, it is virtually impossible for you to be right. Oh, sure, you are undoubtedly right about some things, but it is virtual certainty that you've gotten other things wrong. The likelihood of you being wrong about something increases in rough proportion to the degree of complexity and intricacy of your theology.Similarly, there's that old argument when comparing various religions that only one of them must be right. More correctly, to paraphrase a Lincoln quote I recently encountered, either only one is right or they're all wrong. All religions are wrong, because they have teachings that are wrong. But at the same time, they are also all correct, because they also have teachings that are true (caveat: it is possible for there to be a religion that is completely wrong, but that is irrelevant for this point). Ideally, believers should try to decide which of their teachings are correct and which are wrong, try to correct those that are wrong, or at the very least not be so arrogant about clinging to the wrong teachings. Which is in keeping with the dispelling of stereotypic dehumanizing when you encounter an actual individual. Do you even know what my beliefs are? Or are you relying on the stereotypes that you have been taught and the "threats to your way of life" that your propaganda keeps frightening you with? Are you even aware that my beliefs include defending your rights to keeping your own way of life? First, you are not being asked to fully empathize, but rather to understand and to respect. You are not being asked to adopt my thought processes, but rather to understand.Second, you are not being required to "live in my skin". You yourself stated your intentions to read and learn other philosophies in order to understand them so that you can do a better job discussing them with others. Learning and understanding other ways of thinking does not require that you adopt those other ways. I already described that mistake having been made by several creationists I've encountered, the ones who refused to learn anything about evolution because they mistakenly believed that it would require them to accept evolution. In the USAF Leadership School, we NCOs were taught Marxism and Communism. Did that require us to become Marxists and/or Communists? No. Did the Air Force want us to become Marxists or Communists? No, of course not. So what did they want? For us to understand something about the enemy IAW Sun Tzu (this was in the midst of the Cold War).This is illustrated by the difference between the goals of education (as stated in The California Science Framework, 1990) and the goals of creationist "education" (as observed in action):

quote:

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from The California Science Framework, 1990, Anti-Dogmatism Statement:

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Nothing in science or in any other field of knowledge shall be taught dogmatically. Dogma is a system of beliefs that is not subject to scientific test and refutation. Compelling belief is inconsistent with the goal of education; the goal is to encourage understanding.

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To be fully informed citizens, students do not have to accept everything that is taught in the natural science curriculum, but they do have to understand the major strands of scientific thought, including its methods, facts, hypotheses, theories, and laws.

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Ultimately, students should be made aware of the difference between understanding, which is the goal of education, and subscribing to ideas.

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In contrast, creationist "public school" materials actually used in classrooms would end every lesson urging the student to choose between "atheistic evolution" and the "unnamed" Creator. The result that the creationists won't tell you about is that a number of students responded by becoming atheists. Did I mention that this happened in elementary school?Oh, were you aware that part of my beliefs is that we must prevent Christian children from losing their faith and becoming atheists for the wrong reasons? Eg, by being raised on nonsense such as "creation science", which teaches them that they must become atheists if evolution is true or the earth actually is old.Learning does not require indoctrination. You do not need to adopt a way of thinking in order to learn about and understand it. And the fact that we are both of the same species (human) and living in the same society (US) should be more than enough of a common basis for empathy. Really? Seriously?When you have to bend down to pick something up, you think that you're worshiping it? Like when you look at your phone? Or at your computer keyboard? So you think you're worshiping your electronics? Calling it the "Blackberry Prayer" is just a joke! Or looking through a card catalog in the library? Or reading a book? So you think that you're worshiping books? Get real! Have you ever been a parent? You have been a worshiper, so tell me something about that. Are you trying to raise Jesus? Are you having to teach Him everything? To pass down to Jesus all that you have learned, to pass on some of your wisdom? Do you have to constantly monitor Jesus' behavior and to discipline Him when necessary? To protect Him against harm? From my understanding of worship, none of that would apply. If anything, you are looking to Jesus to provide those things for you, not you for Him.Now, it is possible for one person to worship another. But that is an indication of poor mental and emotional health. Is that what worship is to you? Mental illness? And yet you love and feel greatly inspired by hateful propaganda that instigates religious warfare against atheists and other Others. No, you still have not answered it. To reiterate from above:I'm not asking the question so much for my own sake, but rather because you need to examine the question yourself. You said that you feel that we are threatening your way of life. What do you base that feeling on? What threat do you feel that we are posing? How are we posing that threat? Where are you getting your information from? From your Christian propaganda? Why would you feel that that should be a good source?