And while I'm at it, when the privileged are made equal with those who are not, to them, that feels like oppression. Yeah, it's not the elegant quote that we may be familiar with, but so what? Christians have for the longest time been on the top of the heap, but their more recent behavior has suggested to many (including US!) that their position was not only not deserved but that they could stand to be taken down a notch. And so they bawl like babies.
In general, I like to say that respect is the default and disrespect must be earned.
That said, Christianity earned the disrespect it receives and then some for its entire history. We all can come up with examples of the institution and its subsidiaries earning disrespect till the cows come home. Individual Christians can be the good, upstanding people Christianity falsely claims of all its people, but plenty are not and use that reputation to their advantage to be the corrupt despicable people their own conscience allows them to be. And so, the individuals get the respect or disrespect they individually deserve, their status as Christians notwithstanding. Individual churches get this treatment to an extent. Some are independent and do some good in the community as decent people run them well, and maybe they’re part of a larger corrupt church but they don’t provide support to the corruption. A bit of their reputation is tarnished by association, but we can respect their decency. Then there’s some churches who are just terrible. Greg Locke is a fine example, but pretty much all Catholic Churches are tarnished and the good ones get a small area of polish, still it cannot pull its support from the overarching institution that’s completely morally corrupt. There’s just no overcoming that.
Christianity as a whole never deserved its good reputation.
To a degree, you're right. Mostly, on first contact with someone I haven't met, I'm quite willing to give that person the benefit of the doubt. Then, too, first impressions are a BIG HONKING DEAL, and you know the saying about no second chances to make a first impression.
Fact is, to this day, I have positive memories about the Northfield Congregational Church, where I spent a fair portion of my teen years. Frankly, the people were terrific, and indeed, I got a LOT more respect and support from the adults around me in the congregation than I EVER got from my peers (they should only sink in the ocean!). Would that all churches were like that.
Sadly, they aren't, and the ones that aren't have this bad habit of sticking out like a sore thumb. I would suggest to Renn something about dealing with the pole in his own eye first, but I doubt he'd listen.
I have a real problem with their insistence that they can just pray to be forgiven of whatever they think is sin or evil actions. It's very natural for humans to do harm and then ask for forgiveness. So much so that they subconsciously start using that as an excuse while doing great harm to others. All the forgiveness in the world won't make the harmed better in any way. If they are challenged on their behavior, they just retreat behind faith-based excuses.
There's always the assumption on their part that they know better than others what is good for them. That way leads to theocratic dictatorship like the one described in Project 2025 or in Iran. The Founders deliberately put freedom of religion into the Constitution because they saw how religious wars plagued Europe.
This is going to sound terrible, but IMHO it seems to me that fundamentalist religions tend to use the tactics of "convince, coerce, kill." We're already into the "coerce" stage in the US. I have been told by evangelicals that "freedom of religion" means that you HAVE to pick one, with the unspoken part being "approved Christian religion." Arrogance and condescension.
"...their position was not only not deserved but that they could stand to be taken down a notch."
Taken down a notch? More like a freefall far enough to attain maximum velocity. They're sawing away at their climbing rope right now. No need to hurry that along; just don't stand underneath them.
There is a deeply entrenched sense of Christian privilege and entitlement in this country and in the wider western world as well. Never the less the evangelical crowd often speak about how badly they're being persecuted. How dare people object to having our religion forced on them! I have felt for a long time that, at least up to a point, religion thrives on persecution, real or imaginary. It unifies the faithful like nothing else. I know from personal experience that a great many of the people who self-identify as Christian do so only because they avoid critical thinking like a dread disease.
I am all for a 'diversity that works' which increases the median or mode US household income to $117,000/year. But as we all suspect, he probably means "4% minority" instead.
"I want complete and total control over you, your choice, your life. I want to force my beliefs on you. I want to use the state's monopoly on violence against you if you disagree, and I want to utterly destroy our nation's principles and system of government. Why aren't you ungrateful people thanking me?"
Nailed it Exactly! This is the exact message creationists like Dumb Idiot Ken Ham, Joel Osteen, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and other Scamvangelicals and conservative Christians are preaching to their brainwashed, ignoramus followers.
This jerkoff is not new, or even news. The Benedict solution— being in the world, but not of the world. It’s been around a long time.
But they still want power, money, and religious dominion. They just want to be nice white people about it.
Back in 1978, I was willing to see christianity as, at worst, a somewhat neutral thing. Then, Anita Bryant raised her well-coiffed reptilian snout above a florida swamp, and Reagan got evangelical support for supporting him. Although I have always supported the idea of not painting all christians with the same brush, the christian support for the most immoral, corrupt, evil, fornicating, adulterous dishonest grifter ever to disgrace the office has changed that. There are the christians who support him, and the christians who seem to make an occasional squeak that maybe that isn’t a good idea.
“ Renn also notes that Trump’s election was only possible in a “negative world” because supposed Christian values are no longer taken seriously.” every accusation is a confession, every single goddam time. Anita Bryant was a liar, a slanderer, a reviler, divorced, hypocritical, an adulterass, who sought treasures and power on earth. Peter popoff sells holy water guaranteed to make you rich and healthy if only you believe that god will do exactly what you tell him to. ‘You’ll know we’re christians by our love”— and our lies, our greed, our power mongering, and hurting other people.
This "Negative World" hypothesis nonsense Mr Renn concocted sure is using one hell of a lot of words to say that criticism = persecution. Of course the Christian Nazionalists ran with it. Their whole persecution complex depends on it. It is part of the fear and anger they needed to whip up in their followers to take the undeserved political power they currently enjoy.
"If I discriminate/criticize you, it's called "Religious Freedom." If you return the favor, it's called persecution."
Sound familiar? It should. It's the exact position of your religion. That quote may have been by a Canadian atheist playing a character described as "America's Best Christian," but that doesn't change the fact that she got you accurately on your religion's bullshit mindset.
“Carmel, Renn argues, has “diversity that works.””
Of course it has diversity that works for him, there’s very few “others” for him to interact with. Those people are regulated to other towns that don’t have the same financial resources because DEI only does so much (and still they can’t compete) to equalize the opportunities for minorities.
Cancel culture is a right wing occurrence. Sure the left does boycotts and stops following celebrities who out themselves as hateful bigots, but there’s no cancel culture like right wing cancel culture. The right has many groups dedicated to find the tiniest possible insults and starts huge campaigns to boycott companies, One Million Moms, Libs of Tik Tok, boycott Disney, Target Starbucks for stupid shit, every year it’s another boycott. They never work, and they’re about performative allyship rather than actual support. Then there’s the actual violence against the others. This started centuries ago, crusades, witch hunts, Holocaust, but continues today, Matthew Shephard, Nex Benedict, and so on. When was the last time a Christian was cornered by a group of non Christians in a bathroom and beaten? Or dragged down a dirt road behind a pickup?
The deference Renn spoke about in 1994 was unearned, a brainwash of the populace, something that still provides cover for some of the most atrocious behavior by Christians. The Bakkers got away with far more than they were charged with. And they only got prosecuted because they put their life on television to be viewed by the masses. Ted Haggard too. Part of the reason the feelings about Christianity has changed is because they put themselves in the spotlight and continued to commit crimes in full view so that they couldn’t be ignored and swept under the rug very easily. They’ve always been corrupt, they’re just being held to account for a change.
I think we need a new term to describe what Aaron Renn is doing here: "Jesus-splaining." He would have us believe that Christians are somehow on the bottom of the heap when they have for the large part held the top spot for longer than any of us can remember. It's all about persecution, of course, and Christians LOVE to be persecuted.
Excuse me, but can you tell me again about Christians sheepishly masking their faith in public and being ashamed of the Gospel in a society that proudly and shamelessly display hardcore Christian propaganda everywhere?
Would you want to be treated the way you treat others as inferior to yourselves? You know damn well you wouldn't. So why do you continue to do it when you'd scream if you got a dose of your own medicine.
Jesus told his followers to treat other people as they themselves wish to be treated and that this was the essence of everything taught in both the law and the prophets. So do it if you truly believe what your Jesus tells you.
That's why they are so afraid of losing power. They assume that we will do to them as they have done to us. While a few of them may deserve harsh treatment, we are not the monsters they think we are.
Akin to what happened to the South at the end of the Civil War. They feared that ex-slaves would exact bloody revenge. Didn't happen. What DID happen? Why, that all-white Protestant gentlemen's club called the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski, TN during Reconstruction. They were the ones who did the bloodying.
Yeah but these guys subscribe to the inquisition-version of the golden rule. Which goes something like:
"I AM doing unto others as I would have them do unto me, because if I were a hell-bound heathen, I sure would want some Christian to coerce me into belief, because that would save my soul. So I'm going to treat you like I would want to be treated in your situation, and coerce you into a Jesus life."
Dan Barker knows whereof he speaks. He was an "on-fire for Christ" evangelical minister for nearly 2 decades before rejecting Christianity and all religion.
He's been told by believers that he was never a true Christian. He simply provides his bona fides and adds "If I was not a true Christian then nobody is."
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡.
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
THIS!!!!!
And while I'm at it, when the privileged are made equal with those who are not, to them, that feels like oppression. Yeah, it's not the elegant quote that we may be familiar with, but so what? Christians have for the longest time been on the top of the heap, but their more recent behavior has suggested to many (including US!) that their position was not only not deserved but that they could stand to be taken down a notch. And so they bawl like babies.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Suck it up, guys. Trust me, you'll live.
In general, I like to say that respect is the default and disrespect must be earned.
That said, Christianity earned the disrespect it receives and then some for its entire history. We all can come up with examples of the institution and its subsidiaries earning disrespect till the cows come home. Individual Christians can be the good, upstanding people Christianity falsely claims of all its people, but plenty are not and use that reputation to their advantage to be the corrupt despicable people their own conscience allows them to be. And so, the individuals get the respect or disrespect they individually deserve, their status as Christians notwithstanding. Individual churches get this treatment to an extent. Some are independent and do some good in the community as decent people run them well, and maybe they’re part of a larger corrupt church but they don’t provide support to the corruption. A bit of their reputation is tarnished by association, but we can respect their decency. Then there’s some churches who are just terrible. Greg Locke is a fine example, but pretty much all Catholic Churches are tarnished and the good ones get a small area of polish, still it cannot pull its support from the overarching institution that’s completely morally corrupt. There’s just no overcoming that.
Christianity as a whole never deserved its good reputation.
To a degree, you're right. Mostly, on first contact with someone I haven't met, I'm quite willing to give that person the benefit of the doubt. Then, too, first impressions are a BIG HONKING DEAL, and you know the saying about no second chances to make a first impression.
Fact is, to this day, I have positive memories about the Northfield Congregational Church, where I spent a fair portion of my teen years. Frankly, the people were terrific, and indeed, I got a LOT more respect and support from the adults around me in the congregation than I EVER got from my peers (they should only sink in the ocean!). Would that all churches were like that.
Sadly, they aren't, and the ones that aren't have this bad habit of sticking out like a sore thumb. I would suggest to Renn something about dealing with the pole in his own eye first, but I doubt he'd listen.
He'd take that pole and beat the daylights out of someone with it, and still deny that it even exists.
I have a real problem with their insistence that they can just pray to be forgiven of whatever they think is sin or evil actions. It's very natural for humans to do harm and then ask for forgiveness. So much so that they subconsciously start using that as an excuse while doing great harm to others. All the forgiveness in the world won't make the harmed better in any way. If they are challenged on their behavior, they just retreat behind faith-based excuses.
There's always the assumption on their part that they know better than others what is good for them. That way leads to theocratic dictatorship like the one described in Project 2025 or in Iran. The Founders deliberately put freedom of religion into the Constitution because they saw how religious wars plagued Europe.
This is going to sound terrible, but IMHO it seems to me that fundamentalist religions tend to use the tactics of "convince, coerce, kill." We're already into the "coerce" stage in the US. I have been told by evangelicals that "freedom of religion" means that you HAVE to pick one, with the unspoken part being "approved Christian religion." Arrogance and condescension.
Few things terrify the religious right quite like the prospect of being treated fairly.
Oh, BER-ROTHER! There it is! 👍👍👍
Because if you’re accustomed to preferential treatment, fairness will feel like persecution.
"...their position was not only not deserved but that they could stand to be taken down a notch."
Taken down a notch? More like a freefall far enough to attain maximum velocity. They're sawing away at their climbing rope right now. No need to hurry that along; just don't stand underneath them.
Xtians: "If I can't discriminate against you and impose MY theology on you, I'M being oppressed."
Exactly.
Do you realize your phrasing can come across as being an attack on us?
There is a deeply entrenched sense of Christian privilege and entitlement in this country and in the wider western world as well. Never the less the evangelical crowd often speak about how badly they're being persecuted. How dare people object to having our religion forced on them! I have felt for a long time that, at least up to a point, religion thrives on persecution, real or imaginary. It unifies the faithful like nothing else. I know from personal experience that a great many of the people who self-identify as Christian do so only because they avoid critical thinking like a dread disease.
👆🎯I think you are right. It certainly seems to appeal to authoritarians who want to be told what to think.
If they think critically, they would have to give up their religious community, they’d be out in the cold
𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒—𝑓𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 4% 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑦, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 $117,000 𝑎 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟. 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑙, 𝑅𝑒𝑛𝑛 𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑠, ℎ𝑎𝑠 “𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑠.”
"Diversity that works." Meaning "See! we have a poor person and a black person!" That's not diversity, that's tokenism.
"Look at my African-American over there!"
-- Donald (the idiot) Trump
I am all for a 'diversity that works' which increases the median or mode US household income to $117,000/year. But as we all suspect, he probably means "4% minority" instead.
They allow several flavors of christianity.
Not for long...
"I want complete and total control over you, your choice, your life. I want to force my beliefs on you. I want to use the state's monopoly on violence against you if you disagree, and I want to utterly destroy our nation's principles and system of government. Why aren't you ungrateful people thanking me?"
Few things disgust me more than the people who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices.
Nailed it Exactly! This is the exact message creationists like Dumb Idiot Ken Ham, Joel Osteen, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and other Scamvangelicals and conservative Christians are preaching to their brainwashed, ignoramus followers.
Someone should say those same words back to him, then ask him how HE would feel. Sauce for the goose, Aaron. Sauce for the goose...
Sauce for the goose-stepper.
🎯🎯🎯
This jerkoff is not new, or even news. The Benedict solution— being in the world, but not of the world. It’s been around a long time.
But they still want power, money, and religious dominion. They just want to be nice white people about it.
Back in 1978, I was willing to see christianity as, at worst, a somewhat neutral thing. Then, Anita Bryant raised her well-coiffed reptilian snout above a florida swamp, and Reagan got evangelical support for supporting him. Although I have always supported the idea of not painting all christians with the same brush, the christian support for the most immoral, corrupt, evil, fornicating, adulterous dishonest grifter ever to disgrace the office has changed that. There are the christians who support him, and the christians who seem to make an occasional squeak that maybe that isn’t a good idea.
“ Renn also notes that Trump’s election was only possible in a “negative world” because supposed Christian values are no longer taken seriously.” every accusation is a confession, every single goddam time. Anita Bryant was a liar, a slanderer, a reviler, divorced, hypocritical, an adulterass, who sought treasures and power on earth. Peter popoff sells holy water guaranteed to make you rich and healthy if only you believe that god will do exactly what you tell him to. ‘You’ll know we’re christians by our love”— and our lies, our greed, our power mongering, and hurting other people.
This "Negative World" hypothesis nonsense Mr Renn concocted sure is using one hell of a lot of words to say that criticism = persecution. Of course the Christian Nazionalists ran with it. Their whole persecution complex depends on it. It is part of the fear and anger they needed to whip up in their followers to take the undeserved political power they currently enjoy.
Hey, Kylo Renn...
"If I discriminate/criticize you, it's called "Religious Freedom." If you return the favor, it's called persecution."
Sound familiar? It should. It's the exact position of your religion. That quote may have been by a Canadian atheist playing a character described as "America's Best Christian," but that doesn't change the fact that she got you accurately on your religion's bullshit mindset.
Strange, is it not, that so many of "America's best" turn out to be Canadian.
And how so many best Christians turn out to be atheists. 😎
Canada is a secular nation. We can be reasoned with, and we won’t let PP turn us away from that
“Carmel, Renn argues, has “diversity that works.””
Of course it has diversity that works for him, there’s very few “others” for him to interact with. Those people are regulated to other towns that don’t have the same financial resources because DEI only does so much (and still they can’t compete) to equalize the opportunities for minorities.
Cancel culture is a right wing occurrence. Sure the left does boycotts and stops following celebrities who out themselves as hateful bigots, but there’s no cancel culture like right wing cancel culture. The right has many groups dedicated to find the tiniest possible insults and starts huge campaigns to boycott companies, One Million Moms, Libs of Tik Tok, boycott Disney, Target Starbucks for stupid shit, every year it’s another boycott. They never work, and they’re about performative allyship rather than actual support. Then there’s the actual violence against the others. This started centuries ago, crusades, witch hunts, Holocaust, but continues today, Matthew Shephard, Nex Benedict, and so on. When was the last time a Christian was cornered by a group of non Christians in a bathroom and beaten? Or dragged down a dirt road behind a pickup?
The deference Renn spoke about in 1994 was unearned, a brainwash of the populace, something that still provides cover for some of the most atrocious behavior by Christians. The Bakkers got away with far more than they were charged with. And they only got prosecuted because they put their life on television to be viewed by the masses. Ted Haggard too. Part of the reason the feelings about Christianity has changed is because they put themselves in the spotlight and continued to commit crimes in full view so that they couldn’t be ignored and swept under the rug very easily. They’ve always been corrupt, they’re just being held to account for a change.
"Diversity that works" insofar as Renn is concerned is more like: "Diversity that *I* control and dictate terms for."
He's a scared little kid whose overreaction is utterly predictable and pathetic.
Diversity works for him because there is essentially NO diversity. That's his template for a successful community - overwhelmingly white and right.*
And he wants the rest of the US to look like that. Jesusfuckingchristonnaharley.
*only in the political sense.
I think we need a new term to describe what Aaron Renn is doing here: "Jesus-splaining." He would have us believe that Christians are somehow on the bottom of the heap when they have for the large part held the top spot for longer than any of us can remember. It's all about persecution, of course, and Christians LOVE to be persecuted.
Mostly, what they need to learn is to SUCK IT UP!
"Christplaining" rolls off the tongue better.
Thought about that, too. Either one works, really! 😁
Like the rest of us have had to do.
Being known as a [insert faith tradition here] has both positive and negative connotations contextually.
Also, fuck that guy.
Ah, martyrbation- the only Christian tradition with as long and rich a history as child abuse.
And gullibility. The three main traditions are gullibility, martybation, and child abuse...and sanctimony. The four main traditions are.......
Come in again.
oh, damn...
👆👆🎯
“Elite Domain” in other words, educated people who are not fooled by the bullshit and oppression of group think.
No shit. I am so tired of being sneered at for being educated, thoughtful, nuanced, and not a dittohead.
Ditto
Excuse me, but can you tell me again about Christians sheepishly masking their faith in public and being ashamed of the Gospel in a society that proudly and shamelessly display hardcore Christian propaganda everywhere?
"They feel they’re owed respect despite doing absolutely nothing to deserve it."
Fucking. Nailed. It.
To Christians...
Would you want to be treated the way you treat others as inferior to yourselves? You know damn well you wouldn't. So why do you continue to do it when you'd scream if you got a dose of your own medicine.
Jesus told his followers to treat other people as they themselves wish to be treated and that this was the essence of everything taught in both the law and the prophets. So do it if you truly believe what your Jesus tells you.
That's why they are so afraid of losing power. They assume that we will do to them as they have done to us. While a few of them may deserve harsh treatment, we are not the monsters they think we are.
Akin to what happened to the South at the end of the Civil War. They feared that ex-slaves would exact bloody revenge. Didn't happen. What DID happen? Why, that all-white Protestant gentlemen's club called the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski, TN during Reconstruction. They were the ones who did the bloodying.
Bloodying? Nah, just pre-emptive strikes. Gotta protect our delicate flowers of Southern wimminfolk, dontcha know.
KKK: "Lynch 'em! That'll learn them uppity niggras!"
Unfortunately their Jesus is Republican Jesus.
Exactly. They crucified woke Jesus
Yeah but these guys subscribe to the inquisition-version of the golden rule. Which goes something like:
"I AM doing unto others as I would have them do unto me, because if I were a hell-bound heathen, I sure would want some Christian to coerce me into belief, because that would save my soul. So I'm going to treat you like I would want to be treated in your situation, and coerce you into a Jesus life."
Should have provided the scripture by Jesus (Matthew 7:12, in the Sermon on the Mount).
A lot of them think that the Beatitudes are "too woke" now.
Ironically, the Beatitudes really aren't all that great. Dan Barker took them down one by one
rosarubicondior.blogspot.com/2012/08/matthews-bad-beatitudes.html
So did Matt Dillahunty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2V5ZWVUpn8
Thanks!
Thanks for read. When folks like Dan Barker explain religion & the Bible, it sounds all the more crazy. Critical thinking is the enemy of xtians
Dan Barker knows whereof he speaks. He was an "on-fire for Christ" evangelical minister for nearly 2 decades before rejecting Christianity and all religion.
He's been told by believers that he was never a true Christian. He simply provides his bona fides and adds "If I was not a true Christian then nobody is."
👍 met Dan Barker, Andrew Seidel, Marc Pocan at an FFRF convention in Madison ❤️