Why aren't Christians allowed to tell people about the greatness of God without being persecuted? (religion, religions)

[Hulsker 1856]

Originally Posted by DeCastro

I just don't understand why we cannot tell people about how good God is and how he can help people who have a relationship with him without people saying we are cramming our beliefs down their throat. Christians just want to help. I think some go overboard but if a person has a rough time in their life I try to tell them to pray and trust God. Nowadays, you can't even go public with your beliefs yet it is ok for people to say that they don't believe in God. This is why I am scared to try to convince people to come to God. Folks get so upset.

'persecuted'?

Believer: "Let me tell you about God!"

Non-believer: "Go away."

Believer: "Stop persecuting me!"

And in what sort of a fantasy world does a person live where they actually believe that you 'can't go public with your beliefs'. There are 635 sitting members of Congress. Total number of professed atheists among them? Zero. And half of them never shut about about how their religion.

And... this:

The 25 Most Religious Athletes | Bleacher Report

Top 10 Rockers Who Found God | Rolling Stone

18 Extremely Religious Big American Companies - Business Insider

The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood - Beliefnet

'persecuted'? Get real.

[khminh]

Originally Posted by Texan2008

He has the right to spread his belief in an open society. I also have the freedom to call his beliefs delusional and childish.

Absolutely,

It's not like I'm asking a Christian what he believes. He intentionally comes to me to preach. That comes from the assumption that I need to be saved from something. That assumption presumes judgement. Hence, Christians are not entitled from criticism.

[bulmabriefs144]

Because of political correctness. Sometime after the 1960s the hippies who survived the drugs grew up, sold out, and took power in government. They became Marxist atheists with an agenda against Christianity. So they sold political correctness and talked about how oit might offend some people to be talking about Christmas or Easter.

Now, some of this is Christians being stupid, there is a sense of persecution because things aren't properly understood. For instance, many Christians think Xmas is a secularization of Christmas. Xmas actually means (cross)mas. Likewise the paranoia about pagan holidays like Halloween. Halloween is actually (as is the case for Christmas and Easter) a merged holiday. The pagan aspect was Samhein (saw-wane), the day of the dead. The Christian event is All Saints Day, but it is important to remember that it is a good thing we Christoians found common ground weith the pagans. What isnt good is the hamstringing effecyts of poloitical correctness.

[Objective Detective]

Religion and faith are not, nor were never meant to be sales mantras and pitches like many make them out to be. They are work best discovered and practiced mutually exclusive of coercion or subjective opinions regarding what one believes.

You can state your beliefs and facts regarding what you believe, which is fine, but you should avoid trying to convince others that your beliefs are better than theirs.

[mordant]

Originally Posted by bulmabriefs144

Because of political correctness. Sometime after the 1960s the hippies who survived the drugs grew up, sold out, and took power in government. They became Marxist atheists with an agenda against Christianity. So they sold political correctness and talked about how oit might offend some people to be talking about Christmas or Easter.

You certainly do have a vivid imagination. I don't expect that you can substantiate even one of these statements you've made here.

There is for example no such thing as a "Marxist atheist". There used to be Marxists who happened to be atheists, and I suppose you could still find those who like Marxist ideology who also happen to be atheists. Just as you can find Marxists who are Christians.

Then there is the bogus connection between those two things and "political correctness". Political correctness is arguably overdetermined but it's not like it has zero validity. It IS respectful to not use terms that large groups of people find insulting and offensive, particularly if those terms have been used to repress them in the past. It IS respectful to let others indicate what their actual likes and dislikes are, rather than to tell them what their likes and dislikes SHOULD be. These things are valid or not regardless of whether some might use them disingenuously or excessively to support an unhealthy narrative of victimhood. So political correctness is, as usual, an issue that requires nuance and tolerance to properly engage with. I realize that it's ever so much easier to reduce it to a black and white issue driven by dark hidden conspiracies -- it saves you the heavy lifting of making the effort to understand other people respectfully as fellow humans rather than as otherized opponents, as well as the hard work of having responsible personal moral convictions with some basis in reality.

[Shirina]

Originally Posted by DeCastro

I just don't understand why we cannot tell people about how good God is and how he can help people who have a relationship with him without people saying we are cramming our beliefs down their throat. Christians just want to help. I think some go overboard but if a person has a rough time in their life I try to tell them to pray and trust God. Nowadays, you can't even go public with your beliefs yet it is ok for people to say that they don't believe in God. This is why I am scared to try to convince people to come to God. Folks get so upset.

What the HELL?

I have news for you.

Being disagreed with -- or having your beliefs challenged -- is NOT persecution.

Do you even understand what persecution is?

What rights have you lost? How many Christians have been thrown into prison -- often without a trial and with indefinite sentences -- simply for believing in God?

How many Christians have been executed because they were caught praying, attending church, reading a Bible, or even proselytizing in the street?

If you want to know what it means to be persecuted, ask a woman in Saudi Arabia. Ask a homosexual in Iran. Ask an African-American who lived through the Civil Rights era of the 50's and 60's.

I am so SICK of Christians who make the false claim that "Nowadays, you can't even go public with your beliefs." I'm sick of it because of how blatantly false, wrong, and misleading such a claim actually is. How are you not free to go public with your beliefs? Is it because someone might actually DISAGREE with you? Is it because someone might actually CHALLENGE your beliefs?

Oh my! How AWFUL!

You claim that Christians just want to help. Okay ... that's fine. But you're NOT helping when you spread these kinds of toxic, poisonous accusations that it's perfectly fine to be an atheist but Christians are persecuted. It's utter rubbish -- especially since the OPPOSITE of what you claim is actually the truth.

About the only place where it's "okay" to disbelieve in God is right here on an internet forum. If you shoot your mouth off about your lack of belief in God in the REAL world, however, you risk being fired from your job, being ostracized from your community, your kids are vulnerable to being bullied in school, and you may even be disowned by your own family.

When these things happen -- and they DO happen -- on an individual basis, you're not going to read about it in even a local newspaper. You're not going to hear about it on the nightly news. It's unlikely you'll even see it on an internet site unless you're reading someone's personal blog. And, because you don't SEE it happening, I guess it never happens -- right?

Christians hold ALL the cards in this country. You can't even get elected to public office without wearing your Christianity on your sleeve -- which is why Trump claimed his favorite book was the Bible even though the guy probably hasn't read ANY books in his entire life. He HAD to say that to ingratiate himself with the Christian voters, to prance around saying, "See? See? Look at me, I'm a Christian so it's safe to vote for me!"

If it's so "okay" to be an atheist, please explain to me why polling data seems to indicate that atheists are the least trusted, most hated minority group in America -- even worse than Muslims and gays!

Of course, I know why people feel this way. Christians from televangelists to small town preachers are poisoning the well against we atheists, telling falsehoods and outright lies about who we atheists are and what we believe.

The fact that you actually think you're being persecuted proves beyond a shadow of a doubt what I just said -- because obviously SOME religious zealot got their hooks in you, managed to convince you that merely being disagreed with is persecution. We atheists are just so awful when we challenge your beliefs when Christians try to convert us, try to get us to pray and fail to respect OUR beliefs.

I can guarantee you, sure as I'm sitting here, that it is HIGHLY unlikely that an atheist ever just sauntered up to you and started criticizing your beliefs without any provocation. It could have happened, sure, but as I said, it is HIGHLY unlikely and, even if it has ever happened, I doubt it's ever happened more than once by more than one atheist.

THIS is why some atheists feel that Christians are always trying to cram religion down their throats. I doubt very much that any atheist ever asked you for advice or for your counsel and said, "I'd really like to know more about Christ and the Good News." YOU brought it up first -- I'm almost certain of that -- and then you have the audacity to blame atheists if they either DON'T want to hear about your religion or they don't like having a Christian fill their ears with God blather.

They don't believe -- and you should respect that. If you did, and you could talk to an atheist without interjecting God and religion into the conversation, you would experience a lot less *ahem* "persecution" and a lot more receptiveness and perhaps even friendship from the atheist.

Got it now? Good. You seem like a nice enough person and I know your intentions are good. I really do. But you first have to disabuse yourself of this idea that Christians are being persecuted. That's NONSENSE. Then you have to disabuse yourself of this idea that YOU are allowed to try and sell your religion to an atheist while the atheist is utterly forbidden to try and sell his lack of belief to YOU -- and if he does push atheism, then, oh my, Christians are being persecuted; they can't even go public with their beliefs.

Yeah right ... how many Christians are in the closet with their religious beliefs, hmm? How many "coming out" stories have you heard regarding Christians? I don't mean people who've simply converted and said, "Wow, I'm a Christian now!" No, I'm talking about people who were public atheists but were secretly Christians and who kept their religion in the closet for fear of genuine persecution -- the way gays are persecuted? How many stories like that have you heard?

I'll leave you with a quick true story that happened to me while in college. Yeah, I was in college and had a female roommate. Nothing odd about that, right? She and I rented the bottom floor of a big house in the city about half an hour's drive from campus. As anyone who has gone to college knows -- the rents get considerably cheaper the further away from campus you go, and the apartments get considerably nicer, too. This place even included the electricty in the rent, so it was a good deal.

Yet a sizeable gaggle of children in this neighborhood -- roughly 9 to 13 years of age -- thought that because two females were living together, we must be gay. Because of that, the door to my apartment was repeatedly egged and vandalized. Every time I walked to my car, the entire group of them would stop what they were doing and hurl gay slurs at me. The windshield of my car had the "F" word for homosexual written across it with soap. My roommate got it even worse as one of the brats spraypainted "Lev 20:18" on the side of her car -- Leviticus 20:18 is, of course, the verse that says homosexuals should be put to death.

And we're not even gay. Gee, I wonder where these CHILDREN learned to be so hateful? I wonder where these CHILDREN learned to find Bible verses to use as both weapons and threats? Hmm.... d'ya think it may have been their "good" Christian parents?

So I don't want to hear another word about how, "Woe is me, I'm being persecuted and I can't go public with my beliefs" because think about how gays feel. Imagine if my roommate and I HAD been gay? How would have that constant harassment made us feel? Because we weren't gay, we didn't take it personally but it was a colossal nuisance that the cops eventually sorted out. Of course, once the kids and their parents found out we weren't gay, the harassment stopped. But would it have stopped if we had been gay?

I received just a little taste of what homosexuals go through every single day. THAT is why so many stay in the closet -- because THAT is a form of persecution. Christians are not persecuted. At all. Period.

If you want to be a persecuted Christian, move to an African Muslim nation. Live there for a few years. Then come back to America and tell me ALL about how you're being persecuted HERE.

Have a nice day.

[Rafius]

Originally Posted by Objective Detective

You can state your beliefs and facts regarding what you believe, which is fine, but you should avoid trying to convince others that your beliefs are better than theirs.

It's a good job those that fought to abolish slavery and a thousand other unjust laws and practices didn't think like you.

[shorman]

Now not being receptive to the sales pitch from a proselytizer is persecution? Some Christians just need to get over themselves. If you come up to me with your pitch that your sky daddy is the bestest and all the other sky daddies suck, you best believe that I am going to mock and humiliate your ass. If you come onto my property and interrupt my day to sell me on your stupid religion you will be treated rudely and asked to leave. I don't need religious poison and hatred in my life and just want you to leave me alone.

How would a Christian feel if I told them that what they believe is false and will lead to an eternity of punishment unless they do, feel and believe exactly the same way I do.

The arrogance of evangelicals is a sickness that I want no part of.

[SusanG_O]

Originally Posted by DeCastro

I just don't understand why we cannot tell people about how good God is and how he can help people who have a relationship with him without people saying we are cramming our beliefs down their throat. Christians just want to help. I think some go overboard but if a person has a rough time in their life I try to tell them to pray and trust God. Nowadays, you can't even go public with your beliefs yet it is ok for people to say that they don't believe in God. This is why I am scared to try to convince people to come to God. Folks get so upset.

I enjoy hearing about how good God is. And heaven knows the world allows you to speak of God publicly. Ever heard of televangelists? Street healers? I don't think it's cool for Christians to bemoan how "persecuted" they are then turn around and say they can't even talk about God. If. you keep quiet you can't be persecuted.
As far as people saying they don't believe in God, where are those people? I absolutely never hear anyone saying that except my ex husband. You can read them typing it out on the internet but other than that I never hear it. Atheists don't wish to be persecuted or shot!

[mordant]

Originally Posted by SusanG_O

As far as people saying they don't believe in God, where are those people? I absolutely never hear anyone saying that except my ex husband. You can read them typing it out on the internet but other than that I never hear it. Atheists don't wish to be persecuted or shot!

Yes discretion is the better part of valor. I don't talk about my lack of faith in public, not just because the information is somewhere between unwelcome and confusing to most people, but because it's no one's business and it's not necessary for 99% of social discourse.

Today I had a business phone meeting with a client. The client hasn't the vaguest notion what my religious (dis)beliefs are, and I haven't the vaguest notion what hers are. Nor is that information even vaguely necessary for us to conduct our business. I also had a brief discussion with workers who are doing some things with our landscaping today -- again, they have zero clue what my beliefs are, and I have zero clue what theirs are, and this information has zero to do with deciding what to do with extra stones after they're done cutting them for the new patio. Yesterday in fact I got a foot massage from a nice Asian lady who barely even speaks English -- nor was it necessary to the transaction that she do so.

There is something to be said for economy in communication.

MOST believers don't overtly proselytize in public either -- other than fundamentalists and especially Bible Belt fundamentalists, who have been socialized to not understand the rudeness of offering unsolicited personal advice to total strangers.