Hollywood proves Christianity

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I'll use this thread as a prime example.

BS. If you wanna use a gay analogy, atheists would be like homosexuals functioning in a predominantly straight society. Christians, like heterosexuals, are in the majority. Hell, many atheists even have to "come out" to their families, often to reactions of varying levels of disappointment and/or disapproval. As an agnostic, christianity concerns me, not because I think it's any more likely than any other religions, but because it's god damn everywhere in the US, even in the most liberal, educated and diverse cities. Christianity concerns me because my mother's explanation for horrible horrible s**t is "god works in mysterious ways". It scares the s**t outta me every ash wednesday, which I never remember until I walk outside and see otherwise normal-looking people walking around with black crosses on their foreheads, but only after a brief moment of panic when I'm wondering just wtf is going on. It's even invaded my language. In this very post I've said "hell" and "god damn". IT IS ON MY FRIGGEN MONEY! And yes, I think we all know that the "god" on money is the christian god. So no, rational people who are concerned about christianity are not like homophobes hanging around gay bars, and that analogy will not hold up until christianity is a fringe religion and not in the majority.

where are your stats? i just don't see atheists as a persecuted minority. christians are not a majority in this country according to census stats.

i very much doubt they're a majority in germany or scandinavia, so bring on your stats all you who claim to be a minority.

you could always emigrate to china, you won't have to deal with evil christians there!

Last edited by Postperson on 22 Jun 2009, 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Unbelievers who hang around christianity are like homophobes who hang around gay bars."

There are Christians who approach gay communities hoping to evangelize to them. Surely this isn't much different. They want to practise their debating skills, just as the Christians want to practise their witnessing.
Save minds instead of souls.

"Maybe you should ask yourself "Why am I so interested in this?"

I can think of a few reasons -

Feeling stressed at fundamentalists percieved bad effect on the world - supressing sex education, contraception, abortion leading to over-population, stem cell research, trying to put bad science into classrooms.

Or maybe they just like debating, and want to practise their skills.

Or maybe they have a genuine interest in theology, the history of religion and want to trade ideas with believers.

Or maybe they just feel confused at how "logic-leap" some beliefs are, how anyone can believe that the world was made for us and not vice versa, or how they justify God's commands to rape virgins in the Old Testament. I can't blame someone for simply being curious as to how Christians reach conclusions about such difficult questions.

I personally can't understand why Christians on here complain about atheists upsetting them, for 2 reasons -

1, if their faith was as solid as they say, it would easily stand up to these questions - there would be no need to stress.

and 2 - Jesus warned them the world would hate them. These nasty atheists are just proving that prophecy correct.

Theist in denial? How interesting and provocative. *runs away to self-psychoalalyze*

Wow you must be high. When almost fifty percent of the US population isn't just christian but says they don't believe in evolution... well it kinda points in that direction right?

Besides not wanting to crunch numbers here but do you even know what the whole majority/minority thing is about?

No it is not strictly related to how many people of a certain demographic there are, though lots of people make that mistake.

It comes from sociology and is used to describe who has more power and influence. So yes you can have a minority majority, in fact they do in south Africa where for a long time the white elite made laws and were the only ones in power even though they made up a rediculously small amount of the total population.

A minority is a group that for whatever reason is marginalised, which non-christians in this country are.
If an atheist ran for president and was up front about their beliefs there is no way they would ever get elected by a long shot.
Obres gave some good examples with how christian slogans and terminology are in even the most mundane things from our currency to the salute we offer our national symbol.
Despite our growing numbers we far from outnumber you christians and our influence is also far less.
In many areas its still seen as a dark mark on your character to be non-christian and almost everywhere simply being a christian seems to be seen as something deserving of respect.

Remember when one of the big things against Obama during the election was that people were saying he was a muslim? Now if he hadn't have set the record straight do you really believe he would have been elected? Heck he even did so in away as to try and distance himself from islam as a whole because he pretty much had to if he wanted to win.

When most people see something about you as being toxic in some way, even to the point where just the name of that trait can be construed as an insult or a "bad word" ..... well then my friend you are officially a minority.... big time.

So you can whine about the verry verry slow movements our country is making towards tolerance, however superficial they may be, as somehow attacking your belief system or way of life but really in truth all your doing is complaining about verry small loses in your overeaching control of things.
Which is greedy, self-righteous, and sad.

Shes not an American.

Rule of thumb: when someone says "this country" one looks at their avatar to see where they are talking about. A stereotypically high portion of Americans seem to assume everyone else(on the web) is American.

What is really funny is on youtube when they say "speak American, this is America!" Yes folks. Dont speak English, speak American. And remember folks.. even though you can connect, the internet only exists in America.

While we are laughing about those Youtubers, lets have a look at their average connection speeds.



Oh noes! Even the French, the Swedes and the Kiwis have better(moar???) internet that the Americans. The Italians have finished downloading all their dried tomatoes while the average American is still pinging servers.

(Of course the Japanese have the best connections!)

I have completely crappy internet, despite that nice graph...

They has moar internets?? Oh noes!! !

You can easily interpret a biblical message from some movies. Take the Jacket for instance: Adrian Brody plays a man who believes he is sinless and tries to prove that he doesn't deserve is lot in life. Jeff Bridges, his phychiatrist, tries to show him that he's wrong in the most f****d up way imaginable. At first, our protagonist resents this, but eventually learns to accept his fate because of his love for other people. While he hated Jeff Bridges more at the end of the movie, he learned to truly love another person and in the end we don't know his outcome. You can argue away from a biblical message but you can connect the dots to see one.

Another example, Donnie Darko: He hates the world and holds out in every way, he's unsure of god's existence. In spite of all this hate, he finds one person he can truly love and decides to accept his demise and save the people he can't stand in order to save the people he loves, that's a christian message.

I can point out movies that send other messages as well, it doesn't just stay in the realm in judeo/christianity, but those two movies are fun enough to watch repeatedly. Not to sound sexist or anything, but there's nothing like a male actor who knows his stuff.

Well I apologize Fuzzy.
That was my error.

It was late and such.

http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/affil ... itions.pdf
http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/Amer ... t_2008.pdf
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109108/Belie ... rn-US.aspx
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflif ... christian/

Our census apparently doesn't take religious stats, but all those put the christian population of the US at between 75% and 78%. That's a rather overwhelming majority. And most of them are focusing on how far DOWN the christian majority has gone from its 85-90% a decade ago. As you'll note, none of them say "christians are STILL everywhere". As I said in another post, I wouldn't be surprised if every city, town, or any other major area in the US has a christian majority. NYC is one of the most diverse and liberal cities in the US, and we have a christian majority here. And no, I'm not looking up more stats, if you want to challenge me on that one look it up yourself.

I'm with Postperson on this one. The idea of popular culture and Christianity do go hand in hand, but there's no need to constantly point it out and moan (IMO). If you're really so superior to Christians, why can't you just walk away from it? What's wrong with just saying 'fine' and then shutting up about it. Both side is looking to have to last word, and it's never going to happen.
Of course, saying that, you can't deny the overwhelming stats about AMERICANS and Christianity. I see Postpersons point though. If you want to find stuff about Christianity just to give it a good bashing and have a nice theologians chest thump, then have a quick think first.
*rant over, dons flame suit*

I think your missing the point. Its not about being superior or any other BS, its about being equal and recognised as such by others.
As long as christianity is seen as the baseline of what should be and faith in the christian god is seen as a virtue for some reason by most of the population, those of us who aren't (christian, edit) will continue to be looked down on by those Cross toting hordes out there.
I mean its rediculous when any idea of goodness or right regardless of it's origin gets claimed as a so-called "christian idea", I think someone was doing it earlier on this thread as it pertains to messages in pop culture.

I'm not worried so much about being right as I am about not being marginalised.

Also for you christians out there who think some of our arguments seem confrontational or aggressive.....
Well yeah they can be but just remember how alot of you feel threatened if your belief system is questioned, alot of you get rather snippy if I do say so myself.
Now put yourself in our shoes. We get questined just like you, things pertaining to a different belief system than ours seem aggressively imbedded in much of the society we live in often times in a kind of aggrsssive and assuming way, also the fact that believing what we do is seen as a lack of character for some reason to many.
So yes we can be confrontational, its only natural that after a long time of feeling pushed aside/around that we not only want to be equated the same status/normalness as you, but also in trying to do so there is going to be an urge to push back a little.

Its just how humans work. I mean we may not go to the point of shooting abortionists or others we don't agree with like a small handful of you do but hey....... wait then again we did have Timothy Mcvae so.... yeah I guess we all can be psycho A-holes.