The_vagabond7 said:
Ok, so in the interest of political correctness, how should I have written my little satire? I didn't want to say christian, because that's too broad, same for protestant (from which evengelican descended). No christian fundementalist refers to themself as a fundementalist (by now that's a negative term), so that wouldn't make sense. Evengelical christians did have a history tied to fundementalism (but they split somewhere halfway through the 20th century), and draws the largest parallel. Many even in the christian world simply see fundementalism as a more conservative evengelicalism. I may be crass at times, but I am not uneducated when it comes to matters of religion. I apologize if using that classification offended you, but for satirical purposes it's the closest to accurate. Also you are now claiming not that I am bigoted of christians, but that I am wrongly bigoted towards a specific classification of christians. Though, had I chosen a denomination (such as Jehovah's witness) and said that their ideas were dumb, would you see that as better? Furthermore, I do not think you understand what kind of "tolerance" tolerant people espouse. I am not tolerant of Neo-nazism for instance, I am not tolerant of racial prejudice, I am not tolerant radical violent ideologies, I am not tolerant of kitten stomping. Tolerance doesn't mean "Anything goes". It means "anything goes that isn't going to harm or infringe on the rights of other people". I don't have to be tolerant of trying to teach special creation in classrooms, I don't have to be tolerant of trying to create a church state, I do not have to be tolerant of trying to prevent homosexuals from getting married. Furthermore I don't have to "have respect" for every idea, I only have to respect one's right to hold that idea. David Icke believes that the world is secretly ruled by an alien race of reptiles, and that many reptile half breeds have infiltrated our government. I am tolerant in that I will not try to destroy his right to beleive that, but I will openly say that is an incredibly dumb ass thing to believe. I suppose in interest of being PC I should always say "some" whenever I make a reference to anything. Some muslims believe it's ok to kill their daughter if they dishonor their family. Some christians let their children handle poisonous snakes as a proof of faith. Some christians think the earth is less than 10,000 years old (thought that is a disturbingly large portion). Or I'll attempt to use specific figures like "In a study of 34 countries, the US is second to last next to Turkey in the populations acceptance of Evolution". I don't want to offend. |
Its best to keep generalizations to a minimum and to keep them as accurate as possible ...
As much as it is fair to be critical of some evangelical Christians for being fundamentalists, you have to be fair to the branches of evangelical Christianity (in particular the Emergent Church movement which is heavily based in evangelical Christianity) by not grouping them together. Of all religions in the world, Christianity is the most diverse and there is little agreement on anything beyond the virgin birth of Jesus, that he was the Messiah from the old testament, that he was crucified, and that he was resurrected days later.
I'm not even a Christian and I find it sickening to see what some people say about Christians. I would much rather see someone argue against the belief that the world is under 10,000 years old that some fundimentalist evangelical Christians believe than hearing people make wide spread claims about Christians in general.
