I'm an evangelical Christian. I go to an evangelical College. I'm sure I know many more Evangelical Christians than you do. They can be intolerant or close minded or legalistic. They're also pretty well to do people. They're morally good(I'm not talking about adultery or whatever else. I'm talking about kindness, respect towards others and being unselfish) people. To say they're violent is absolutely wrong though. The rednecks in the communities who are known for violence and drinking go directly against their communities values. Equivulating rednecks with evangelical Christians, which is what you're doing, is false. They're two different subcultures within rural America.
1.) First off, I'm Swedish
AND American, have lived in the US for at least half of my life, did my undergrad and grad studies there, and did extensive fieldwork throughout the bible belt and midwest where I intimately interacted with America's splendidly diverse peoples that included Christian Evangelicals. Moreover, my mother is a practicing Norwegian Lutheran and I spent a fair amount of my formative years in one of the most religiously diverse (and devout) communities in the US. I say this to say, I never speak from a place of ignorance.
2.) "Morality" is subjective; I don't consider unabashedly intolerant bigots to be good, "moral" people. Personally I've only ever experienced Christian evangelicals that treated me with kindness and hospitality (at least until they learned my brand of politics and belief system); the problem is that they were far less kind, gracious, tolerant and hospitable to those who did not look, act and (especially)
believe (as far as religion) the way they did. They're as kind as can be to be those who exist within their bubble which stands in stark contrast to (the alleged) Jesus, who (allegedly) opened his heart to those from wildly different, diverse and controversial walks of life.
3.) "To say they're violent is absolutely wrong though." LOL For someone who supposedly knows a lot of Christian Evangelicals, you sure don't know what you're talking about.
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/06...calls-gun-physical-violence-transgenders.html
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/the...y-celebrating-the-orlando-nightclub-massacre/
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/12...olence-planned-parenthood-womens-clinics.html
In my experience evangelical Christians are peaceful and kind people. Because someone wants gun rights and wants to hunt doesn't mean they're violent. That's logical fallacy. The people who want gun rights are a non violent demographic. I know an evangelical pastor who owns an endless collection of guns and knifes, an endless collection of animal furs and bones, and he's very nice. The most violent people in America by far are Black men between the ages of 16 and 40. I'm not intending to be racist I'm just stating the fact. You can respond with that fact with your obsessive condemnation of "the white man" if you want, which is a type of bigotry you possess. I'm also mentioning it because you don't like to accept problems in the world where white people aren't the primary source of it. Statistically Evangelical Americans are probably some of the most non criminally violent.
1.) To say that people who own and sometimes idolize guns and gun culture don't have a violent streak is beyond preposterous and ridiculous--that's patently
illogical; furthermore, evidently you're unaware of the fact that there are degrees of violence and violent behavior. I am an avid hunter; I have an arsenal of weaponry and I'm a collector of ancient weapons in particular; They fascinate me because I'm very interested in humanity's relationship to life/death, power/dominance, predator/prey dynamics and I, myself, am innately a "hunter" personality type. The adrenaline rush I receive is unlike any other--I most certainly have a violent streak. I can be honest about that.
I know people who could never in a million years pick up a gun to harm a living thing, whether for sustenance or sport but I, on the other hand, actually enjoy it. To pick up a gun and kill something is a form of violence. Granted, I only (humanely--for some, this is very ironic) hunt and kill what I intend to eat but if a vegan from the PETA organization claimed that I was violent towards animals and possessed a potent violent streak, how could I easily refute that or at least, not see their perspective? I commit acts of violence against certain animals but not against human beings--that's where I draw the line. Obviously, others draw the line differently. I'd never participate in a war, for example, because I don't want to kill people. But again, there are those who don't want to kill anything, whether spider, deer or human--imo, that is true non-violence. From what I've seen and experienced, Christian Evangelicals seem to be quicker to gun violence against people who don't share their belief system and I personally find that to be troubling.
2.) Let me tell you why you appear (to me) to be racist, subconsciously or otherwise: whether from a place of actual ignorance or willful obtuseness, you consistently say things and cite "facts" that are either untrue, half true or if true to whatever degree, almost certainly lack context, which I find to be intellectually dishonest. When people don't tell the whole truth about something, there is an agenda behind it and a degree of confirmation bias--they want to believe that the low nutrient crap they digest is good for them.
a.) If one considers the absolute number of offenders and it turns out that there are a larger number of white offenders than there are of black offenders, then it stands to reason that white men are the greater threat in terms of likelihood of criminal acts. The
statistical fact is that you’re more likely to be a victim of a white perpetrator than a black one just because there are so many more whites in the population.
b.) When talking about risk/threat assessment, yes, black men are about 7x more likely to be
ARRESTED and
CONVICTED for violent crime than white men. But, a single criminal could be counted several times if he is arrested for different offenses; and it is an undeniable and proven
FACT that police departments patrol certain neighborhoods more than others, which makes arrests in those places more likely.
The point is that racial bias factors into the arrest and conviction rate of black men. This is a crucial and important contextual item to take into consideration when assessing one's
actual threat. But people like you rarely utilize context because that would alter and balance the stigmatizing, hate propagating narrative you choose to endorse.
c.) When conservatives hurl accusations of "anti-white hatred" and "white guilt" at liberals, it makes me laugh to keep from crying because all they are doing is projecting > classic projection 101. Conservatives have done more to stifle, debase, disenfranchise and dehumanize than any other American demographic and so it's fitting that they project their guilt on those who seek to fight for and defend the disenfranchised. I have never felt guilty about being who I am because I know that I don't persecute or propagate hatred against the disenfranchised. I can't help my "privileges," what I look like and what some of my ancestors may have done, I can only affect what I do and the choices I make with the information I now have. Neither I nor any of my progressive friends who are white EVER feel guilty about being white. But we do take issue with
white supremacist systems and institutions that perpetuate hatred, bigotry and injustice. A lot of people unknowingly support racist and bigoted systems and institutions put into place centuries ago. But when conservatives directly and indirectly support voter suppression, for example, that explicitly targets people of color in order to silence them, I can't help but put the blame squarely on their cheating, corrupt, racist shoulders where it belongs.
This is true. A teacher of mine, who's evangelical, says there's sexism and subtle racism in evangelical churches. He has also mentioned they're statically the most involved fathers and husbands. Thinking women should only be in the kitchen and sexually abusing women/"bitches" are two different things. Donald Trump is the former and some evangelical Christians are the latter. Evangelical Christian men are often the opposite of the former. Like I said morally sound people.
Wrong. One sets the foundation for the other. And I'm going to use the words, thoughts, opinions and research carried out by Christian Evangelicals themselves to prove my point and invalidate yours.
It's sorta fun (though annoying and slightly disheartening) to educate people who claim to know their people so well about the plights of their own people:
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/January/Combating-Domestic-Abuse-in-the-Church
CBN News recently spoke with Dr. Benjamin Keyes, with Regent University's (a Christian Research center) Center for Trauma Studies, about the problem.
He shared why so many Christian women stay in abusive relationships; and, the conversation the church needs to have on the issue.
"Unfortunately, in Christian marriages we have a much greater frequency of domestic violence than we do in non-Christian homes," Keyes explained.
Keyes said part of the reason for that is in a traditional role structure, whether in evangelical, fundamental, or charismatic home, the woman is subservient to the man. When that gets out of place the man gets disturbed.
"He will do anything, including physical violence to maintain that control within the family structure. And he'll do it with his spouse, he'll do it with the children, and that's why we have a continuing rise in Christian homes," he said.
http://www.imaworldhealth.org/images/stories/technical-publications/PastorsSurveyReport_final.pdf
The top priority in sexual and domestic violence should be to ensure the immediate safety of victims or potentialvictims. This philosophy is well understood among anti-violence practitioners and those in the health community,but it may be countercultural for U.S. clergy, especially those who are strongly affiliated with values that viewfamily matters as strictly private, place a high priority on family “stability,” teach an absolute prohibition againstdivorce, practice “male headship” and submission of women, or who see untrained “counseling” as part of theirpastoral duty. As a result, research indicates that abused women who seek help from untrained clergy typicallyfind themselves in a worse situation than before.9
The Survey revealed that pastors who have responded to incidents of violence among their flocks indeed may behandling them inappropriately or even harmfully. For example, counseling someone to remain at home with theirabusive spouse or partner and “work it out” can potentially lead to devastating consequences for the safety andhealth of the victim and others in the home. A large majority (62%) of pastors surveyed say they have respondedto sexual or domestic violence by providing couples or marriage counseling. This is considered a potentiallydangerous or even potentially lethal response.10
Domestic violence is a leading cause of injury and death to women worldwide, and gender violencecauses more death and disability among women ages 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, orwar. Regrettably, and statistically, the church is not immune to this problem. Numerous studiessuggest that incident rates among active churchgoers are nearly the same as those among the general populace.11
If you detect some snark in my tone, then your nose is working properly because I must admit that I have little patience for people who thrive on anecdotal evidence and avoid facts and research, especially when they proport to actually have the facts and "statistics" but don't. If you want to discuss logical fallacies, let's discuss a false balance, which it seems that most conservatives subscribe to:
when people confuse treating competing views fairly—i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance—with treating them equally, giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false information.
Um.....how common are these attackes? "They" you mean one crazy guy, who I'm pretty sure never mentioned he was Christian at all. Lets be honest here your rant about evangelical Christians is hate speech. You hate us, be honest. Hate can have truth to it. What you do is exagerate the truth to justfy your hate. Your intolerance is no different from theirs. It's human intolerance. Just admit it man. When everyone in the left and right can admit where they're wrong and where they're hateful, we can have a much more peaceful and productive country.
IF YOU REACT WITH ME WITH AGGRESSIVE HATE THEN YOU'RE IMMATURE AND ALLOW CHILDISH EGO and TRIBALISM TO CONTROL YOUR BEHAVIOR
1.)
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/...ger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
They and untold thousands like them are the extremists who hide among us, the right-wing militants who, since 2002, have killed more people in the United States than jihadis have. In that time, according to New America, a Washington think tank, Islamists launched nine attacks that murdered 45, while the right-wing extremists struck 18 times, leaving 48 dead. These Americans thrive on hate and conspiracy theories, many fed to them by politicians and commentators who blithely blather about government concentration camps and impending martial law and plans to seize guns and other dystopian gibberish, apparently unaware there are people listening who don’t know it’s all lies. These extremists turn to violence—against minorities, non-Christians, abortion providers, government officials—in what they believe is a fight to save America. And that potential for violence is escalating every day.
The fundamentalists are primarily Christian identity groups that believe the biblical war of good vs. evil is between descendants of Anglo-Saxon nations and all other ethnic groups. Tangential to the fundamentalists are the anti-abortion attackers, who also invoke religion as a foundational motive for their violence. These disparate groups of people—violent and nonviolent—pine for different versions of a highly idealized past.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2015/11/...ommitted-by-christian-terrorists-not-muslims/
The Top Five Attacks On America Committed By Christian Terrorists, Not Muslims
1. The Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church Shooting
Jim David Adkisson, a devout Christian and anti-abortion right-winger, walked into a Knoxville church on July 27th, 2008, and began firing a shotgun at children who were performing Annie Jr. He killed two and wounded seven, targeting “the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country.”
2. The Campaign of Terror Against Abortion Doctors
In 1993, Dr. Richard Gunn was shot dead by an anti-abortion protester. In 1994, Drs. John Britton and James Barrett were shot to death by Reverend Paul Jennings. In 1998, Dr. Barnett Sleipan was shot dead in his home by a Christian terrorist. In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was shot by Scott Roeder in a church. The ability for Christian right-wingers to justify cold-blooded murder in the name of their pro-life beliefs is a colossal hypocrisy worthy of a terrorist group like ISIS. According to the National Abortion Federation, there have been 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, 13 wounded, 100 butyric acid attacks, 373 physical invasions, 41 bombings, 655 anthrax threats, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers since 1977. Terrorist groups like the Taliban and ISIS are very fond of acid attacks and chemical weapons like anthrax; apparently Christian right-wing terrorists share that same preference.
3. The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombings
Timothy McVeigh, America’s most notorious domestic terrorist, was obsessed with the Seventh-Day Aventist splinter group known as the Branch Davidians, who resisted an ATF raid on their citadel at Mount Carmel in 1993. He travelled to Waco, Texas during the Waco Siege and heavily supported the religious extremists within it. Two years later, he detonated a fertilizer bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing a hundred and sixty-eight people, including nineteen children, and wounded 648 others. This Christian specifically targeted innocent civilians and committed horrific acts of violence to make his political point heard – something Mr. Huckabee believes he should be incapable of, since he’s not a Muslim.
4. Everything The Ku Klux Klan Has Ever Done
Since its creation after the American Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan has been terrorizing Americans in the name of Protestantism and racial purity. Known for their terrifying costumes and hoods, they wrought have fear and violence against blacks, Jews, immigrants, gays, and Catholics for hundreds of years, responsible for countless massacres, lynchings, rapes, and bombings that have killed thousands. In the modern day, it still has a membership of 5,000 to 8,000 terrorists that operate in individual chapters. Just two weeks ago, Frazier Glenn Cross, the leader of the Carolina Knights of the KKK, was sentenced to death by lethal injection for murdering a fourteen year old girl and two seniors outside the Overland Park Jewish Community Center in Kansas City. The man gave the Hitler salute during his trial and declared that “Jews are destroying the white race.” None of his victims were Jewish.
5. The Massacre At Zion Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.
On Wednesday, June 17th of this year, a man rose from a pew in the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, and opened fire with a .45 caliber pistol, killing nine worshipers, including pastor and State Senator Clementa Pickiney. The shooter has been photographed wearing patches representing the racist apartheid regimes in Southwest Africa, had a Confederate license plate on his vehicle. All signs points to this being a hate crime- not only is it the oldest black church in the South, it was a symbol of resistance against slavery, and a survivor reported that the shooter yelled ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Roof was a member of a local Lutheran church, yet somehow his baptism didn’t prevent him from gunning down innocent people in a house of worship, defiling a sacred place with hate and murder.
So the next time one of your conservative friends tries to “school” you on the “evils of Islam,” just name a couple items from this list. The rampant xenophobia that has taken hold of the Republican Party is an affront to everything this nation stands for. Terrorism spawns from the desperation of humankind, and for that, we are all guilty.
2.) "
South Carolina Lutheran Pastor: Dylann Roof Was Church Member, His Family Prays For Victims"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/dylann-roof-religion-church-lutheran_n_7623990.html
Roof, who reportedly sat in a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for almost an hour and argued with congregants about Scripture before pulling out his gun, was himself a member of a Lutheran church in Columbia, the church’s pastor confirmed Friday.
“He was on the roll of our congregation,” Rev. Tony Metze of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, told The Huffington Post. Metze is also the pastor to Roof’s family, and said he has been providing them with “Christian care” since the shooting. The pastor did not respond to questions on how often Roof had attended the church or if had been there recently. He referred HuffPost to the South Carolina Lutheran synod bishop, who did not immediately respond to request for comment.
3.) "Hate speech is a term for speech
intended to degrade a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity." Here is the legal definition:
Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence. It is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups and other discrete minorities or to women.
I didn't intend to degrade anybody, nor do I say things to incite hatred with no meaning or basis, I have just given my opinion based on objective and subjective data. Therefore, you need to understand the words you use before recklessly distributing and attributing them out of clear ignorance.
a.) But this is how hypocritical and disingenuous you are: you have no problems spouting off (non-contextual, skewed, doctored) "facts" that affirm whatever "racial reality" you subscribe to concerning black men while claiming not to be racist
BUT take severe umbrage with me providing
actual, contextualized data and statistics concerning Christian Evangelicals and then accuse me of hate speech. LOL Will the double standards ever cease with you people? Undoubtedly. But that's fine, it just makes it all the easier to discredit you.
b.) I don't hate Christians or anyone for that matter--my mother is one of the best people I know and she is a proud Lutheran. If more Christians were like her, I'd gladly be one. I have friends and family who are very religious--I, too, am religious or more aptly, spiritual. I identify as an agnostic but I also subscribe to various tenets of Norse spirituality. Granted, I am not a fan of the Abrahamic religions, but that is largely because (objectively and as far as religion is concerned) they have had the most destructive and disastrous effects on humanity and that is an undeniable FACT and not hate speech. If you don't like the truth, that's your problem and not mine.
4.) Correct me if I'm wrong but from what I've gathered, you are a teenager at the beginning of his college education. If that is in fact the case, it's important that you know I have about a decade more living and life experience than you do and a decade of undergrad, postgrad, and post-post grad degrees and scholarship under my belt from the best institutions America and the UK have to offer. Though I now work in a STEM field, a decent amount of my studies were rooted in history, theology and social anthropology with a New World focus. I've done extensive field work all across the United States, with a hyperfocused lens on inner cities and rural communities. I say all of this to say, I know what I'm talking about and I prefer to engage those who also know what they are talking about. Take from that what you will.
