Persecuted Christians finally getting noticed

Either that or Christians are not special at all and every group that gets persecuted largely gets ignored. Christians, Ahmadis, former Muslims and Atheists are among the groups that get persecuted in Islamic countries.

Two entirely different things. Here is the rest of what I said before you lifted that out of context: Are you claiming to be able to perceive the supernatural? And I don't mean odd feelings. You can get that from a "God helmet", an experimental device which manipulates the brain with electromagnets, inducing mystical and religious experiences. Claiming to have personally experienced God does not mean that you have actually done so, but rather it is far more likely that you have simply interpreted an odd feeling to be God. It could just as easily have been something you ate which disagreed with you, the proverbial "bad burrito". Of course, you are free to believe that it was God, but there's no reason for anybody except yourself to be convinced by it.Again, it is not God Himself that you nor anyone else believes in. Rather, it is your own image of God that you believe in and worship. You created that image from what you have been told by others about their own images of God. Everything you believe or "know" about "God" is based on hearsay from others who themselves had based their ideas on hearsay.And a lot of those ideas are stupid. That's what Rabbi Jack Bemporad and Michael Shevack wrote in their book, Stupid Ways, Smart Ways, to Think about God. A lot of those stupid ideas (eg, God as your personal "cosmic bellhop" gratifying your every desire, God as "little Mary Sunshine" who will take care of everything for you, the proverbial "God of Wrath", "God the general" a nationalist god, "God as Master of Ceremonies" officiating at all events) were developed in our childhood and never got revisted and matured as we matured, which is why they are so childish. What a believer needs to do is to revisit his ideas about God and to replace the stupid ideas with smart ones. Of course, I'm saying that the first step is to realize that your current ideas about "God" were invented by you and are not necessarily correct. That does not mean that there does not exist some supernatural entity that could be identified as "God", but rather that fallible human ideas about it would be insufficient. Especially when it comes to all those really fine details. You're being persecuted? Really? What a joke! You have no idea what religious persecution is. Have you ever been threatened to your face with grave physical violence just because your beliefs are different? Well, I have. I've been an atheist for about 50 years now, which has made me a target for threats. I have also had to suffer gross religious discrimination while the public gleefully cheered on my persecutors. What backwards society was that in? That was right here in Southern California.You have no idea what religious persecution is. It is highly insulting for you to pretend that you are suffering from persecution just because others don't believe the same things that you do, or because society will not give you free rein to persecute others.

That "story" in the Wall Street Journal is not a news story, but rather an opinion piece. So just who is this Charlotte Allen and why should we consider her opinion to be valid? Unable to read that opinion piece (the site requires us to subscribe), I Google'd on her name. The hits I got indicate that she's a right-wing ideologue. Do I need to remind you that it's right-wing ideologues who invented and fuel the flames of your persecution fantasies?

Please quote the part that says this. Behind a paywall and I wont give WSJ my money. Also, it is not an article, it is an opinion piece. You can tell it is an opinion because it is listed as opinion.Charlotte Allen is known as a rightwing nutball. She blamed Sandy Hook on the "feminized culture" of elementary schools. Whatever she has to say about the subject is biased and irrelevant.ABE
I see Dwise was on the same wavelength as me.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.Edited by Theodoric, : spelling, punctuation

What exactly is it in her opinion piece that has you so riled up? The idea that there is an anti-Christian attitude in the West? Since you all share it here I don't see why that would be controversial. Anything else?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Of course we aren't being persecuted like they are in the rest of the world, and we can be very grateful that there is still freedom of speech here, but the atmosphere has very clearly turned hostile against Christians over the last few decades. You may not have noticed it but I sure do. It's just an atmosphere, not persecution, but it's a big change from half a century ago.

The atmosphere has been hostile toward atheists, gays, and pretty much anyone who is not Christian all along. So now you know how it feels. But in our case it is actual persecution, not just an atmosphere.

I used to be an atheist and was never even remotely persecuted for it.But at least you acknowleddge that now Christians are persecuted. In some sense.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

We already told you that we are unable to read it because we would need to buy a subscription. How then could you expect us to quote the article to you? For that matter, Theodoric specifically requested that you provide the quote.All we have to go by is your personal opinion of what it says. Given your consistent history of misunderstanding what you read, such that you have frequently claimed support for your ideas that simply did not exist in the articles. If your history on things that we were able to check has been so poor, why should we suddenly believe you when we cannot verify the article?Then it turns out that the author is notorious for being what Theodoric called her, "right-wing nutjob". You may as well have cited FOX News as an "unbiased" source for your persecution fantasy.

Every fundie makes that claim. I don't believe it.

I'm sorry Faith but there is no hostility directed towards Christians in the US. That is simply another example of you misrepresenting reality.

Well, things were quite different half a century ago. For one thing, there wasn't a Religious Right trying to seize political power in order to use government to impose its will on society. Nor was there a highly visible right-wing religious presence declaring culture war on the rest of society.You're upset because you're not liked? Do you want to be liked? Well then be likable. You feel that you are hated and you don't want to be hated? Well then stop being so hateful! When you talk about wanting to make all who don't believe exactly as you do second-class citizens who will have no voice in the government and be subjected to harsh Christian laws, didn't it ever occur to you that they might not think very kindly of you either?Learn to play nicely with others. Stop demonstrating that "Christian love" is a code-word for vitriolic hatred. And please stop with all that damned lying! Creationists constantly lying about science and about what scientific sources say. Christian revisionists constantly lying about US history and about what the Founding Fathers said -- you yourself fell victim to those lies, so you know what I'm talking about.IOW, if Christianity is supposed to make us better people, demonstrate that!

There's a local creationist activist who always claims that he used to be an atheist, but it turns out to be a lie -- the guy is the most pathological liar I have ever encountered.His story is that he became an atheist as a teenager so that he could indulge his bubbling hormones without guilt. In his story, he claims that it was evolution that did it since it offered him the excuse to sin without guilt. In reality, it was his religion that had done the trick since it had created that gaping loophole for him and many others. But the real kicker is that he told me that when he was an atheist he would lie in bed every night praying to God. Yeah, some atheist that!More often, when a fundie claims to have been an atheist it was usually that they just didn't both with religion.

I was able to read it when I posted it. I think it must have gone into archive after that so now I can't read it either. I thought it was a good overview of the history of persecution of Christians starting with the Roman Empire and focusing on the last couple of decades in Africa especially. Too bad it's gone.

I really was an atheist. An atheist teacher plus atheist friends influenced me in that direction in high school. Before that I was sort of kind of a Christian but had no real personal investment in it, had been sent to church, learned a few Christian things, but didn't really understand anything about the gospel or salvation, gave it up fairly easily at fifteen as the "rational" thing to do. Became a real Christian about thirty years later after coming to believe in the supernatural, getting involved in occultic stuff, falling in love with the Catholic mystics and finally reading my way to Reformation Protestantism.