Christian nutjobs have no self awareness, apparently

[Dominus Atheos]

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... -extremist

Take This Test To See If Most Americans Would Consider You To Be A ‘Religious Extremist’

Are you a religious extremist? For years, world leaders have been endlessly proclaiming that we need to eradicate “extremism”, but what actually is “extremism”? Many would point to the ISIS jihadists over in the Middle East that are beheading people that don’t agree with them as examples of religious extremists, and I think that very few people would argue with that. But our politicians (especially the liberal ones) rarely use the term “Islamic terrorists” anymore. Instead, they tend to use the term “religious extremists”, and that has a much, much broader connotation. In fact, if you are a Bible-believing Christian, you are probably included in that category.

Most Bible-believing Christians would never think of themselves as being similar to radical jihadists in the Middle East, but that is precisely how many of their fellow Americans very them. The Barna Group has just released a shocking new study which found that 45 percent of all “non-religious” Americans believe that “Christianity is extremist”…
The perception that the Christian faith is extreme is now firmly entrenched among the nation’s non-Christians. A full forty-five percent of atheists, agnostics, and religiously unaffiliated in America agree with the statement “Christianity is extremist.” Almost as troubling is the fact that only 14 percent of atheists and agnostics strongly disagree that Christianity is extremist. The remaining four in ten (41%) disagree only somewhat. So even non-Christians who are reluctant to fully label Christianity as extremist, still harbor some hesitations and negative perceptions toward the religion.

Even more troubling is what the study discovered about how the general population views specific religious activities. There has been a tremendous shift in society, and behaviors that were considered to be completely mainstream a few decades ago are now considered to be “extremism”.
Are you ready to take a test? Look over the Barna infographic that I have shared below very carefully. Have you ever participated in any of these “extremist activities”?…



If you have ever participated in any of the activities listed in category 1 or category 2, you are a “religious extremist” according to most Americans.
Of course every single one of the behaviors in category 2 would potentially apply to me, so I guess that would make me an “extremist” according to this definition.
This is where our society is heading. Of course “Christian extremists” are not normally put into prison in the United States quite yet, but hatred toward our faith in rapidly rising in society. Church attendance is dropping like a rock, the Christian faith is relentlessly mocked in movies and on television, and incidents of hostility toward Christians have doubled over the past three years.

No, praying for a stranger in public, possibly in tongues, is completely sane and saying that it isn't is anti-Christian hatred.

You know how oppressed Christianity is in this country.

[Flagg]

Funny how this fails to mention male and female (almost totally male in western countries) genital mutilation. But then, the Christians managed to snooker public health officials in the US (at least) that circumcision of males is for hygienic reasons unless Jewish/Muslim. In reality it started during Victorian times as a purely religious exercise to get naughty boys to stop playing with themselves.

And given that absolutely no males who've been circumcised against their will as newborns masturbate at all, it totally worked!

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly I think the biggest problem with the original article is that "Category 2" is too broad. There is a huge difference between behaviors viewed as 'extreme' by 50% of the population and by 79% of the population.

Two things in the eighty-plus category are things that even most fundamentalists probably consider extreme: religious violence and refusing medical care for children. "Refusing to serve someone" is interesting; it's actually kind of nice to know that 80% or more of Americans think this is wrong, or at any rate 'extreme.'

But category 2: Put this way, street preaching isn't the same as attempting to convert others, and I strongly suspect that one is viewed as more extreme by the public than the other. Thing is, if 75% of people consider street preaching 'extreme' and 51% consider holding a demonstration 'extreme,' they still get lumped into the same category.

It would be more honest to have categories for 80-100 (nearly all Americans), 60-80 (most but by no means all), 40-60 (somewhere close to half), 20-40 (a large minority) and 0-20 (a small minority).

Funny how this fails to mention male and female (almost totally male in western countries) genital mutilation. But then, the Christians managed to snooker public health officials in the US (at least) that circumcision of males is for hygienic reasons unless Jewish/Muslim. In reality it started during Victorian times as a purely religious exercise to get naughty boys to stop playing with themselves.

That isn't a religious thing. Christian sects do not mandate circumcision (with maybe the exception of some obscure minority sect). And there have been plenty of fanatically religious Christians who didn't practice it.

It's not religious extremism if it's not being done for religious reasons. It's just generic cultural stupid.

[Broomstick]

Funny how this fails to mention male and female (almost totally male in western countries) genital mutilation. But then, the Christians managed to snooker public health officials in the US (at least) that circumcision of males is for hygienic reasons unless Jewish/Muslim. In reality it started during Victorian times as a purely religious exercise to get naughty boys to stop playing with themselves.

That isn't a religious thing. Christian sects do not mandate circumcision (with maybe the exception of some obscure minority sect). And there have been plenty of fanatically religious Christians who didn't practice it.

It's not religious extremism if it's not being done for religious reasons. It's just generic cultural stupid.

Also, it's not "western countries", it's the United States. Male circumcision never caught on in Christian Europe. So it's really specifically American stupidity.

[Flagg]

Funny how this fails to mention male and female (almost totally male in western countries) genital mutilation. But then, the Christians managed to snooker public health officials in the US (at least) that circumcision of males is for hygienic reasons unless Jewish/Muslim. In reality it started during Victorian times as a purely religious exercise to get naughty boys to stop playing with themselves.

That isn't a religious thing. Christian sects do not mandate circumcision (with maybe the exception of some obscure minority sect). And there have been plenty of fanatically religious Christians who didn't practice it.

It's not religious extremism if it's not being done for religious reasons. It's just generic cultural stupid.

As I said, it started for crazy fundamentalist Christian reasons. That being that masturbation is sooo sinful that a big chunk of a boys dick should be chopped off. But it became so common in America (as Broomstick said. I didn't want to single out the US because I wasn't sure if it was also prevalent in Canada, the U.K., and other "western" nations, but she's right.) because Victorian age Christians thought removing the foreskin would reduce the punching of the clown.

However when Victorian bullshit started to fall out of favor, most males were circumcised as newborns as a matter of course and many females never saw an uncircumcised penis and when they did, found them unattractive. So the Christians who wanted monkey-spanking curbed (Not that circumcision does that, but people are dumb. Who knew?), and the parents who didn't want their non-mutilated children to be mocked in the locker room got an excuse from quacks during the early 1900's who declared it should continue to be performed for "hygienic" reasons. Because teaching boys to wash their dicks properly is so hard that they should just have most of the nerve endings in their wangs chopped off as newborns.

But it's still done for religious extremist reasons, it's just that the vast majority of parents have no fucking clue. So I guess you are right in that the vast majority of dick-choppings are not done with the knowledge of why it really started being done, that being Christian extremism, but that's really why male American males are dick-chopped.

[Flagg]

To clarify a bit more: I'm not claiming that male circumcision is practiced as a Christian extremist act now, rather pointing out that since male genital mutilation became prominent in America for purely Christian extremist reasons, it refutes the notion that Christians are sooo persecuted in the USA.

[Lictuel]

What I find amusing is that there is a sizable set of persons that start quoting studies showing that male circumcision reduces risk of infections stds etc. These studies refer to African countries with poor health standards though... Happens on sites like reddit all the time.

[Simon_Jester]

Frankly, I think blaming male circumcision in the US on Christianity is like blaming female infanticide in China on Confucianism. While the religion may be enabling the practice, or may be tangentially involved in the origin of the practice, the evidence that the religion caused the practice is rather weak.

Certainly, the people saying masturbation was bad and male circumcision was the correct response in 19th century America weren't necessarily more religious than their peers of the same era. They were just... obsessed with the same thing.

[Dominus Atheos]

The "poll" isn't the most scientific, that graphic was just released as a promotion for a new book that is either for how nutjob Christians can be less nuts... or how to hide how nuts they are, I can't tell which.



They have a reading/seminar in my town tonight for the book. Wonder if I should go, it should be fascinating.

http://idccentral.com/event/good-faith- ... id=2220639

[Elheru Aran]

When the subtitle of the book includes the word "extreme", well.

I can only speak for myself, and I do live in a urban extension of the Bible Belt so it's not as bad as it could be in some parts, but in general I don't think most people (that I interact with during the day) give *that* much of a shit about Christians. Part of that is cultural-- there's almost literally a church every other block around here, going to church on Sundays is still a fairly notable tradition, and the state goes Republican pretty much every election since Jimmy Carter-- so it's not too strange that they wouldn't care that much.

But increasingly I'm seeing a social divide form between "the Church" and the rest of American society. This is worse in some churches than others, obviously, but it becomes quite clear when you see the growth of church-funded private Christian schools, note that social life for most families within those churches are confined largely to members of the same church or other Christians, and very rarely do their social interactions involve people outside Christian circles unless they're specifically trying to proselytize.

The general message being propagated by this mindset is that there is somehow a risk of cultural contamination, that they have to "bring up their kids the right way", and that if they start hanging out with other people without trying to bring them into the church, they're not "doing their job" as "good Christians".

Fact of the matter is, this book is more or less literally preaching to the choir. It's not going anywhere outside the religious circles that I'm sure it'll explode within. It'll reinforce conservative/Christian fantasies of persecution, but that's about it.

[Dominus Atheos]

I think I posted the wrong video.

https://youtu.be/jyIFxDrrSFU

[Joun_Lord]

Some of those I wouldn't consider "extreme". Though I also think there is a difference between being devout and being extreme. Someone can be devout, not eat pork, wear a wig because whatever reasons Judaism says women shouldn't show hair, not drink alcohol, or wait until marriage to pork without being an extremist, without having any hate in their heart or going full retard extremist. They are devout but without the creepy cultist slavish devotion adherent to extremists.

The definition of an extremist is kinda muddled by the modern definition that tends to just call violent religious morons extreme, someone who uses violence and coercion to impose their ultra devout beliefs on others. Groups like the Taliban, ISIS, clinic bombing Christians, ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel committing knife attacks on gays, shit like that. But by the definition posed by this article someone who works at a soup kitchen and might pray with a down on their luck bum is also an extremist. And that to me does not make fracking sense.

Even some of the more assholish Christian groups like the abortion protestors or the people who throw some baby hissy fit about making a gay cake, they are dicks sure, very annoying, very whiny, very stupid dicks, but extremists? I dunno. And goddamn are they annoying, fucking had to walk several blocks yesterday because they were protesting in front of some clinic I usually catch the bus in front of. I know you motherfuckers think babies are being killed in there and you're thinking of the children but you ever think of the me? I guess I don't matter because I'm out of the womb!

Now don't get me wrong, there are Christian extremists in this country, I alluded to them earlier. But someone who waits til marriage to bone, some food pantry worker, some dude wearing a turban, someone who goes to church regularly, some close minded old fart, or someone who reads the frelling Bible/Koran in public aren't extremists. Atleast I don't think they are.

Though I have to wonder if using the definition of someone being devout means they are extremists, does that translate to other groups? Is say a OT purist or movie purist or Lucas only purist in Star Wars a extremist? Is a TOS purist or Roddenberry only purist in Star Trek an extremist? Because by that definition I might be an extremist. That sounds extremely radical dude.

[Elheru Aran]

OK, you see that video? All the churches, the imagery they're using? That's a straight up blatant appeal to Christian circles. It's not very secular at all (which may be part of the point), but I assure you with 95% certainty this won't sell much outside the religious bookstores apart from bulk purchases by churches or whatever to punch up the sales numbers.

And as Joun says, their usage of 'extremist/extreme' is somewhat suspect. What *is* 'extreme'? By some definitions merely calling yourself a Republican means you're 'extreme'... I strongly suspect their numbers are coming from a badly worded and quite skewed set of polls.

[Flagg]

Frankly, I think blaming male circumcision in the US on Christianity is like blaming female infanticide in China on Confucianism. While the religion may be enabling the practice, or may be tangentially involved in the origin of the practice, the evidence that the religion caused the practice is rather weak.

Certainly, the people saying masturbation was bad and male circumcision was the correct response in 19th century America weren't necessarily more religious than their peers of the same era. They were just... obsessed with the same thing.

I don't quite understand what you're saying. I mean it's my understanding that male circumcision stemmed from Judaism and skipped Christianity (for the most part) and was picked up by Islam (though I fully admit my knowledge there is lacking).

It's my understanding that during the height of the Victorian era, there was a pretty big American "revival" fueled by post Civil War Christian extremism, mostly Protestant. And that's when they started with the spiked codpieces, circumcising males, and blue laws to really tamp down "self abuse". Now they may not have been Christian Extremists for their time, but by today's standards... I mean do we judge them by the standards of today for the stuff that got carried over like blue laws and truly disgusting things like male circumcision

I'll happily concede if I'm wrong.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Half that stuff I wouldn't consider extreme. Devout, yes, misguided, yes in the delightfully arrogant way atheists can say such things. But extreme? Nope.

In my opinion, you go from being "devout" to being "extremist" when you start attempting to force your beliefs on others (including your kids). The key word there being "force." I wouldn't consider, say, the folks down in Cardiff with a little stall offering free literature or Bible study sessions to be forcing their views on anyone. Street preaching is a different matter, I would call that a grey area.

Some of the best people I know would be classified as "extremists" under this table when they aren't. Sure, they're very devout Christians/Muslims/Hindus, but in no case would I count them as extreme. My Muslim friend, for instance, doesn't drink but still comes to the pub with us for a night out. My Hindu friend doesn't care if I eat a burger and so on. They have their beliefs and that's all they need.

[Broomstick]

I don't quite understand what you're saying. I mean it's my understanding that male circumcision stemmed from Judaism and skipped Christianity (for the most part) and was picked up by Islam (though I fully admit my knowledge there is lacking).

Circumcision probably pre-dates Judaism, in fact, it's likely the Ancient Hebrews picked it up from the Ancient Egyptians. Variations on circumcision, both male and female, are pretty common among all the cultures in North Africa/Middle East, including animists as well as Abrahamic monotheists. I don't know, maybe it's something about living in a desert that brings it on

It's best known from Judaism, but that group isn't the only one nor likely the originators.

Quite likely Islam picked it up from the various other Middle Eastern cultures that practiced it and not just Judaism.

(It's also indigenous to Australia, although the practice there didn't influence Islam. Probably other places, too, I'm not aware of. WTF is it with people lopping off bits?)

[Zaune]

Circumcision probably pre-dates Judaism, in fact, it's likely the Ancient Hebrews picked it up from the Ancient Egyptians. Variations on circumcision, both male and female, are pretty common among all the cultures in North Africa/Middle East, including animists as well as Abrahamic monotheists. I don't know, maybe it's something about living in a desert that brings it on.

You really wouldn't want to get sand trapped in there, that's for certain.

[Broomstick]

Yes, and that's an environment where getting sufficient water for hygienic purposes can be problematic. It might have some sort of advantage in that particular environment - but there's no reason for it anywhere else.

[biostem]

To me, the defining characteristic is whether you condone/are in favor of the killing or stripping of rights/imprisonment for actions or beliefs that cannot be demonstrated to cause physical harm to anyone.

Even then, I think we can agree that being against same-sex marriage, even to the extent that you protest against it, is worlds apart from calling for the death of homosexuals.

[Lost Soal]

And as Joun says, their usage of 'extremist/extreme' is somewhat suspect. What *is* 'extreme'? By some definitions merely calling yourself a Republican means you're 'extreme'... I strongly suspect their numbers are coming from a badly worded and quite skewed set of polls.

Thats the entire point of the article. He's complaining that religious practices are becoming so percecuted in America that something as simple as reading a bible in public is considered by some americans to be religious extreamism.
The only question they need to ask is "do you consider these acts to be an example of religious extreamism, yes or no?" Read list.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't quite understand what you're saying. I mean it's my understanding that male circumcision stemmed from Judaism and skipped Christianity (for the most part) and was picked up by Islam (though I fully admit my knowledge there is lacking).

It appears to have been invented independently in at least one other region of the Earth and perhaps more.

It's my understanding that during the height of the Victorian era, there was a pretty big American "revival" fueled by post Civil War Christian extremism, mostly Protestant. And that's when they started with the spiked codpieces, circumcising males, and blue laws to really tamp down "self abuse". Now they may not have been Christian Extremists for their time, but by today's standards... I mean do we judge them by the standards of today for the stuff that got carried over like blue laws and truly disgusting things like male circumcision.

The thing is that mostly-secular physicians continued to support the idea. Much as there were quite a few mostly-secular temperance advocates who favored banning alcohol.

You can argue that this (like Prohibition) has its roots in Christian religious belief, but it was not explicitly coupled to a religious movement. It's not something we did because preachers told us to, it's something we did because doctors did it when the preachers didn't seem to much care one way or the other.

It must also be noted that describing circumcision as "Christian" doesn't make much sense when the practice is virtually unknown in many Christian countries, including both Catholic and Protestant nations.

[Flagg]

I don't quite understand what you're saying. I mean it's my understanding that male circumcision stemmed from Judaism and skipped Christianity (for the most part) and was picked up by Islam (though I fully admit my knowledge there is lacking).

It appears to have been invented independently in at least one other region of the Earth and perhaps more.

It's my understanding that during the height of the Victorian era, there was a pretty big American "revival" fueled by post Civil War Christian extremism, mostly Protestant. And that's when they started with the spiked codpieces, circumcising males, and blue laws to really tamp down "self abuse". Now they may not have been Christian Extremists for their time, but by today's standards... I mean do we judge them by the standards of today for the stuff that got carried over like blue laws and truly disgusting things like male circumcision.

The thing is that mostly-secular physicians continued to support the idea. Much as there were quite a few mostly-secular temperance advocates who favored banning alcohol.

You can argue that this (like Prohibition) has its roots in Christian religious belief, but it was not explicitly coupled to a religious movement. It's not something we did because preachers told us to, it's something we did because doctors did it when the preachers didn't seem to much care one way or the other.

It must also be noted that describing circumcision as "Christian" doesn't make much sense when the practice is virtually unknown in many Christian countries, including both Catholic and Protestant nations.

That's my point, though. It started during an age in the US during a period of general religious extremism when, particularly male masturbation, was viewed was a horrible sin. I mean they had all sorts of horrible spiked contraptions just to prevent males from getting erections. So what I'm saying is that the practice in the US started as a form of religious extremism, became "normal practice" to the point where even after the age of religious extremist reason for cutting off part of a males dimgus at all, was justified by doctors and parents who had been circumcised themselves as "normal" when in most of the rest of the world it was not.

[Joun_Lord]

I mean they had all sorts of horrible spiked contraptions just to prevent males from getting erections.

Ah man, I remember seeing some of that shit in some history class way back and more recently during some circumcision conversation on soem website. Some of those devices were inhumanly fucking barbaric. Really alot of the things done to kids in the name of stopping masturbation were pretty barbaric back then. Acids applied to genitals, wires through the genitals, enemas, electric shocks, just all kinds of fucking fucked up shit. Its pretty bad when circumcision was probably the least terrible thing done.

And it wasn't just religious nutters doing it, people like the inventor of Kelloggs cereal were huge proponents of that crazy shit and even recommended eating the cereal to prevent masturbation. Guy was fucking obsessed with enemas too. Even the person who invented the graham cracker did so for anti-masturbation purposes.

I know the West has its fair share of problems but thats something I'm glad to say we've moved past for the most part. Very few of our modern problems are quite as bad as some sex obsessed old fucks threading metal wires through children's dingus's or putting acid on girl's clitoris's.

[adipose1913]

The chart shown in the OP convinces me that most Americans have never read the bill of rights. People assembling to protest something, or speaking out an opinion, even for religious reasons, isn't extreme, it's an American right. As long as your freedom of religion isn't being attacked or you aren't being barred entry to a store, they can stand there with their candles. Also, they may be a nuisance, but they aren't directly harming you as long as they respect your right to go to a clinic. I am okay with people exercising their first amendment right as long as they aren't going all baptist, "fire and brimstone" on me. EDIT: also, Really?! people consider helping those in need extreme?! That's it, I'm moving to Canada. They have their problems, but at least the populace has some grasp of the definition of charity.

[LaCroix]