Christ Centered Gamer

http://www.patheos.com/Jewish/Christian ... -2013.html

It's a good read

Overall a pretty good read. It's easy to be unaware of the persecution that Christians face in China and the Near East. It's sickening and frustrating. It makes me appreciate our religious freedom in the West even more! The very end of the article brought up points about intellectual disrespect that Christians endure in the West. It reminds me of comments ArcticFox made recently on the debate subforum. But, I'm given hope. I know of many well-respected Christian intellectuals such as Francis Collins, Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig.

I've seen debates on this subject often include that insipid little pie chart that shows a majority of Christians in the U.S. as a percentage of population, eith the caption "Help! I'm being repressed!" Or something like that. (There's several versions.)

Here's one example:



The problem with that graph is that while a majority of Americans still regard themselves as Christians, the level of activity and adherence to their church varies wildly from very devout, strict adherents to people who call themselves Christians but only vaguely know who Jesus is. Additionally, when someone deploys that graph what they're doing is failing to acknowledge that while Christians may represent a raw majority in the population, it doesn't help much in a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christians in the media and in non-Christian sectors.

To illustrate: How many examples have we seen of people being hauled into court over religious objections to things like gay marriage? How many people have lost their jobs over Christian iconography? (They did win their court case though.) Did you know in some medical institutions medical students have been required to participate in abortions or get ejected from the program, on the grounds that a med students needs to experience all of the possible procedures they may be called upon to assist with? And no, there's no exception for people with moral conflicts with that. (On the upside, the students are winning court cases on this one, but the very fact that they had to force the issue in the first place suggests a lot about the direction or culture is going in.)

Does having a majority in the population help one iota?

Newp.

But the frustrating thing is, as I was looking for links to include in this post, a lot of sites I found basically mocked Christians for having these objections and claiming persecution. It's a weird mentality that says "Oh stop whining you aren't being persecuted. Now put aside your morals and do things our way."

They don't get it, and yet write with a very smug, self-righteous tone. I don't know whether to laugh or break something.