Christian Arrested!

[DaShi]

I know people who do the same with The Lord of the Rings.

[jsorense]

I know people who do the same with The Lord of the Rings.

Now that is down right sad if not somewhat scary.

[loinburger]

...

I completely agree about arguing with a fundamentalist about the accuracy / inerrancy / whatever of the Bible. But it's entirely something else for somebody like Ben to post about how he hates a lot of people, most of them black or brown, and to then say "you're not allowed to quote the 'love your neighbor' passage because you're not Christian or you're the wrong kind of Christian or I just don't like you" or whatever. That would be like my saying that the Pythagorean theorem is a^2 + b^2 = c^4 or something, and your linking to a math website and saying "actually it's a^2 + b^2 = c^2," my saying "you're an English major [were you an English major? I'm pretty sure it was some kind of liberal arts major] and I'm a computer science major therefore you're not allowed to disagree with me on math even when I'm obviously wrong." It would be one thing if he said "that passage doesn't apply to me" or "my interpretation of that passage means that I can hate black and brown people" or whatever, but merely saying "you're not allowed to criticize me in any way shape or form" is the height of laziness.

[Elok]

Well ****, arguing with BK about anything is pointless to begin with, you know that. I was thinking more in terms of arguments with somewhat narrow-minded but not sociopathically dishonest Christians, where someone pulls up some part from the Pentateuch about not wearing linen underpants on a Tuesday. And the Christian doesn't feel like explaining his POV on Scriptural exegesis to some wiseass. Especially not a wiseass who hasn't read the twenty parts of the NT where St. Paul says "Hey, how about that 'Law' thing? Boy, that sure was a piece of crap, wasn't it? Ha ha!" Or the council in Acts 15 where all the apostles get together and decide to chuck all the Mosaic Law except the parts about fornication, idolatry, and eating blood or strangled animals. The wiseass doesn't give a damn about that. He's just looking for a cheap point to score.

I don't agree with the fundamentalist at all in most of those arguments, but I can't help but wince for his situation all the same.

[Elok]

Jon Miller

[loinburger]

Yeah, I ran into a handful of fundamentalists in college, and they taught me a. there's really no point in arguing with them because I don't really care that they think that they're right and they definitely don't care that I think that they're wrong, and b. they're usually not bad people, a bit loopy maybe, but not malicious. I used to argue with them online when it was obvious that the person had just recently decided to become a fundamentalist and there was a possibility that they'd see the tomfoolery of this decision, but the hardcore fundamentalists (e.g. one ones on the Straightdope message board before it became a pay site) I left alone because who cares?

[Kidlicious]

You won't catch me defending Kim Davis or whatever gibberish Kid is pushing here, but there is a rationale to this part, at least in the context of quoting the Bible. Your average Fundamentalist Evangelical Whatsit is ignorant of any number of things, but the Bible is typically not one of them. He reads the Bible daily. He reads it for fun. He goes to Bible study on weekday nights after a hard day at work. And when he's not reading the Bible, he's reading inspirational quotes from the Bible or books by people quoting the Bible or even extended commentary on specific books of the Bible by famously dead and humorless individuals like John Calvin who spent half their lives reading it till they went bat**** insane. His entire worldview is based on a specific school of scriptural interpretation, which he may call "literal" but is in fact based on a number of specific assumptions, many of them unconscious. But you may be fairly certain that it all makes cohesive sense to him.

The average person criticizing said F.E.W., by contrast, is a relatively secular person either repeating a verse he remembers from Sunday School or quoting from GodSucksLOL's Facebook feed. F.E.W. could try to explain how that one verse you picked out fits into his complicated tangle of a worldview, but he knows from experience that you are no more interested in his understanding of Scripture than he is interested in your particular brand of rational materialism or whatever. Your response, no matter what he says, will be to roll your eyes and accuse him of trying to explain away a contradiction. The same as he would do to you if you tried to correct his grotesque distortion of a scientific study he thinks "disproves" evolution.

So Shakespeare it is.

So what's a real Christian Elok?

[loinburger]

I didn't see him trying to define what a real Christian is, though you on the other hand have made several posts in this thread to that effect

[Kidlicious]

I didn't see him trying to define what a real Christian is, though you on the other hand have made several posts in this thread to that effect

I don't see any real difference except that I'm not really sure about his reason for hating Christians and wonder why he wants to be one.

[loinburger]

Where did he say that he hates Christians? He disagrees with some Christians, but so what? You're doing the exact same thing by disagreeing with him (or "hating" him as you would put it)

Do you agree with everybody who self-identifies as a Christian? Alternatively, do you have some way of differentiating the True Christians who you agree with from the False Christians who you disagree with (other than "somebody is a True Christian if I agree with them and a False Christian if I disagree with them," which would obviously be the height of conceit)

[Kidlicious]

I didn't see him trying to define what a real Christian is, though you on the other hand have made several posts in this thread to that effect

Do you know what his answer would be?

[loinburger]

Oh **** off you hypocritical piece of ****, you're even worse than you were before your unfortunately short hiatus. You're going back on the ignore list so that I can preserve what's left of my sanity.

[Kidlicious]

Oh **** off you hypocritical piece of ****, you're even worse than you were before your unfortunately short hiatus. You're going back on the ignore list so that I can preserve what's left of my sanity.

???

As you said, he hasn't defined what a Christian is, but I have. So you call me a hypocrite. Do liberals ever do anything but bull****?

[loinburger]

I'll give you one last chance:

Where did he say that he hates Christians? He disagrees with some Christians, but so what? You're doing the exact same thing by disagreeing with him (or "hating" him as you would put it)

Do you agree with everybody who self-identifies as a Christian? Alternatively, do you have some way of differentiating the True Christians who you agree with from the False Christians who you disagree with (other than "somebody is a True Christian if I agree with them and a False Christian if I disagree with them," which would obviously be the height of conceit)

[Kidlicious]

I actually missed that post.

You have to know what a Christian is to be one. I just can't understand why someone who calls themselves a Christian hates another Christian because they read the bible and obeys God's Word.

I can understand differences in opinion. I tolerate differences in opinion. I go to a Methodist church bud. I'm not a fundamentalist or an evangelical.

I'm simply asking him a question, because I don't understand his hatred. I really don't.