*Please note that this applies to America specifically.
There is a rather bizarre trend among Christians. Many Christians in America like to say that they are part of a persecuted minority. They like to talk about Obama going after Christians because he is a secret Muslim, a "War on Christmas," the banning of religion in the military, and any law that prevents any Christian from doing anything they want (including getting away with murder) as an attack on Christianity. For the most part, these claims are untrue. It seems to me that they are convinced that Christians are a minority group in America.
No, they are not a minority group. The Pew Research Religious Landscape Survey** lists Christians as a total of 77.5% of the adult population. Christianity has always been, and most likely continue to be for a significant period of time, the majority religion in America. It takes willful ignorance born out of desperation to pretend otherwise. They are desperate to counter the claims by practically every other religious group that Christians persecute them by saying "Hey, we're being persecuted too." They have seen how well it serves to rile people up when you claim Christianity is under attack when in truth, they are performing the attacks.
I have hope that people will stop this. Of course, I'm sure someone wants to respond with "Willful ignorance is what Christianity does best, what makes you think they will stop?" I think we can stop them. If we call BS every time they try to cry persecution, we can show them that people aren't dumb enough to fall for this. If we can show people that Christianity is and won't ever be persecuted in any real way anytime soon, we can stop them. Of course, this requires all of the rational people (Deists, Atheists, and Christians alike) working together to work. I think we can do it.
The problem would be that even if we got all the Atheists and Deists working together, Christians would just keep doing exactly what they've been doing: tuning us out. We'd have to be able to recruit rational Christians to stand up to the BS. I think we should try. We need to be willing to work with Christians to achieve our common goals. We would see it as stopping extreme Christians, they would see it as bettering Christianity. By working together with all enemies of extremism, we can move towards a society in which Deism could thrive.
**http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations
There is a rather bizarre trend among Christians. Many Christians in America like to say that they are part of a persecuted minority. They like to talk about Obama going after Christians because he is a secret Muslim, a "War on Christmas," the banning of religion in the military, and any law that prevents any Christian from doing anything they want (including getting away with murder) as an attack on Christianity. For the most part, these claims are untrue. It seems to me that they are convinced that Christians are a minority group in America.
No, they are not a minority group. The Pew Research Religious Landscape Survey** lists Christians as a total of 77.5% of the adult population. Christianity has always been, and most likely continue to be for a significant period of time, the majority religion in America. It takes willful ignorance born out of desperation to pretend otherwise. They are desperate to counter the claims by practically every other religious group that Christians persecute them by saying "Hey, we're being persecuted too." They have seen how well it serves to rile people up when you claim Christianity is under attack when in truth, they are performing the attacks.
I have hope that people will stop this. Of course, I'm sure someone wants to respond with "Willful ignorance is what Christianity does best, what makes you think they will stop?" I think we can stop them. If we call BS every time they try to cry persecution, we can show them that people aren't dumb enough to fall for this. If we can show people that Christianity is and won't ever be persecuted in any real way anytime soon, we can stop them. Of course, this requires all of the rational people (Deists, Atheists, and Christians alike) working together to work. I think we can do it.
The problem would be that even if we got all the Atheists and Deists working together, Christians would just keep doing exactly what they've been doing: tuning us out. We'd have to be able to recruit rational Christians to stand up to the BS. I think we should try. We need to be willing to work with Christians to achieve our common goals. We would see it as stopping extreme Christians, they would see it as bettering Christianity. By working together with all enemies of extremism, we can move towards a society in which Deism could thrive.
**http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations
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