What do you assume people mean when they accuse Christians of being hateful?

I am a “Non Practicing Agnostic”... And I think the placards of gay bashing by baptists at funerals of soldiers on the news , in the U.S. are an example…. Also the old residential school system in Canada… and I personaly had some bad experiences in a separate school system. Their used to be a car dealership in my town that never rented cars to Non-Christians .

I’m an atheist, have never accused Christians of being hateful though, clearly, like all people…some Christians are. I’m assuming people making these claims have either experienced hatred in their direction or making claims that aren’t supported.

I’m not a Christian, but I was raised that way – as a non-hateful Christian – and I know how “hateful” applies.

Jesus taught several very good things – things that apply to atheists, agnostics, Jews and members of other religions (or none at all) – but were especially delivered to those who would follow him:

Love thy neighbor as thyself.
Love the least of us as well as anyone else.
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And so forth. His message was of “acceptance”, “tolerance”, “forgiveness” and basically “live and let live”. One of his companions – whom he did not disavow, and who was with him at the end of his life – was a prostitute.

Many so-called Christians have forgotten these elements of Jesus’ message. “Sinners” are shunned from polite society, and “the poor and the weak” are often considered as undeserving of the alms they receive.

In particular, sects such as Westboro Baptist Church should be sued by real Christians as some kind of diabolical trademark violation. Sadly, not enough real Christians stand up to admonish them and call them out on their obvious hypocrisy.

I have a distant relative I’ve friend-ed on Facebook. Almost daily she posts pictures of uplifting Christian sentiment, complete with fluffy clouds and rainbows. And then yesterday she posted a picture of a Bible and a gun with the caption, “Two things they don’t teach our kids how to use in school but should.”

W exactly TF?

Anyone who looks at killing others as a solution to disagreements is hateful. That’s my opinion.

I don’t see treating people as outsiders who can’t go to heaven as hateful. It’s exclusionary, certainly, and telling someone they will burn for all eternity is not exactly a “loving” thing to tell someone (whether or not Hell even exists, it doesn’t make it any more “nice”). That said, that isn’t what I think of as being “hateful”. I think of protestors who claim to be Christians shouting “get out of here, you fag!” during some gay marriage protests as being hateful (yes, I have known this to happen). I think of Christians telling people they’re evil, disgusting, they should be killed, etc. Christians being hateful isn’t really different from anyone else being hateful. Hate is hate, whether or not it has a religious spin on it.

And I probably use “hate” strongly here. To me, saying “ur religion/atheism iz dum lol” isn’t hateful. It’s judgmental and rude, but I wouldn’t call it hateful. Hate, to me, has to be stronger than simple condescension.

For the record, I am an agnostic atheist.

@DominicX Known of this to happen? Hell, I’ve got so many pictures with those ’ we hate you fags, die ’ protestors, I can plaster my wall. As I always say, it’s my favorite part of Pride, because they get so livid when we pose with them. Granted, however, it’s not always Christians standing there, sometimes there are Jews.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Yeah, that’s terrible. Probably so hypocritical in so many ways. And that’s exactly the kind of thing I think of when I think “Christians being hateful”.

For me, I think it’s how married they are to their particular dogma to the exclusion of how other people express themselves. But that could be said for any religion or ideology. So, basically, a “hateful” Christian might be one who filters the world through their dogma and judges others first based on their appearance to live or not live up to the dogma. A “non-hateful” Christian might one who balances their dogma against respectfulness for people embracing other religions or ideologies. I’m vague on the source, but I remember reading an anecdote about one pope telling his emissaries headed to a meeting with Islamic holy leaders to not presume some kind of superiority because, he said, “there are many paths to God.”

In general, I think getting wrapped up in dogma is problematic for peace. Unless peace means eliminating everyone who doesn’t subscribe to the dogma. In that case, a peace-like result comes from a prevailing dogmatic order.

I am Christian, and when I refer to my fellow Christians being hateful, I am talking about them getting angry and hateful when non Christians choose not to conform to their Christian code of morality. It could be gay bashing, forcing businesses to close on Sunday, protesting in front of abortion clinics (or blowing them up) or fear mongering that some politician is the anti Christ.

I’ll just say, there’s an abortion clinic within walking distance of my home. Every Sunday there’s a group out there holding signs that say “Pray to end abortion!”

The only reason I haven’t stood with a sign saying “Keep praying. No one’s listening anyway”, is that I’m reasonably afraid someone will hit me with their car, or shoot me, then steal the sign and make it look like I was on their team, and that a pro-choice protester shot one of them.

I am a Roman Catholic. Applying the term “hateful” to Christians is a response to the actions of some denominations and sects within the broad spectrum of faiths that describe themselves as “Christian”. When some denominations use hateful language against gays and Lesbians, or against other religions, it tends to paint all Christian denominations as hateful.

I don’t think all are, only some, just like a group from every demographic. People like Tim Pawlenty are hateful christians. He hides behind his false exclusive club to demonize gay people.

I don’t kno0w. I’ll wait to see what others will say ^^

I’m an Agnostic Athiest, but I was raised Christian. People see Christians (the EXTREME type at least) as hateful because they mostly have a my way or the highway attitude. If you don’t believe in what they believe, your gonna get punished. I’ve seen soo many people in the military who have no family support not because they were going overseas to fight in a war, but because of their sexual preference or the fact that they have a kid before marriage from a person they knew for only a couple of months. The whole religious system is a bust, but that’s my opinion…

It’s interesting how so many of these posts mention anti-LGBT sentiment. Is homosexuality really a hateful Christian’s biggest enemy? It seems like hateful Christians hate homosexuality more than they hate atheism, which is an outright rejection of their God. Interesting. Maybe Freud was right; sex really is everything…

@DominicX I don’t know…I really do think they fear atheism more than they hate homosexuality. It’s not the same thing. Like when I say I’m an atheist, some people move away like ‘look, there she goes with no soul, bound for hell’..when I say I’m queer, they just sort of scrunch their nose like ‘oh that’s so dirty’ but it’s not the same degree of discomfort.

@DominicX Christianity just has a bad record in general. Before gays, it was some other outsider.

Just another silly generalization, of course.

Nothing about Christianity makes people hateful. I think hateful people who also happen to be Christians find ways to justify their hatred with scripture (unfortunately, not too hard to do). I don’t imagine that they’d be any less hateful if they weren’t Christian, though. They’d just find different justifications.

I assume they mean closed minded or pushing their views on others.

I think there are plenty of Christians who are hateful in much the same way non-Christians are hateful.

I separate this kind of attitude from Christians who firmly believe what the Bible says. Because the content of the Bible is indeed hateful, towards women, towards unbelievers, towards homosexuals. But I’ve met many Christians who are perfectly nice people who nevertheless believe these things, not because they themselves are hateful but because they have a cultish devotion to the Bible. Many of these Christians clearly feel bad about “having to” condemn homosexuality and say that unbelievers deserve to be tortured forever.

A nuanced distinction, maybe, but I try to give people as much credit as I can.

@thorninmud I agree and disagree. The hateful message was there from the bible. I would understand more if christianity only had good things to say, but it doesn’t.

@DominicX The warnings of Hell are like your mother warning you not to touch things in the oven – it’s so you don’t get burned. Not terribly hateful, IMO.

@6rant6 The gun isn’t for killing, but for defense. The message isn’t “gonna shoot me some atheists etc.” but rather “gonna watch out for me and mine,” or even a defense of the law.

@Blackberry What hateful message is that? The thing with the gays? The Bible condemns homosexuality, but not homosexuals; to God, it’s just another sin.

@Seek_Kolinahr What’s so hateful about not wanting unborn kids to be killed? Because that’s their angle.

@CWOTUS Tolerance was never one of Jesus’ messages. Tolerance is ignoring a problem, whereas He was very much about fixing them.

Some bunches are hateful, but as pointed out above, that’s a people thing, not a Christianity thing. The Great Physician is for the sick, too.

It’s the fear of being killed for opposing them that illustrates hatefulness.

Killing abortion providers could become justifiable homocide if Christians get their way.

@Nullo, to name one prominent example, the Bible commands genocide (Deuteronomy 13:12, 20:16).

I’ve asked you about this in the past and you’ve said genocide is a morally valid way to deal with “problem cultures.”

I find the message pretty hateful, and while I don’t think you’re hateful in parroting it, I do think it’s sad.

I believe hateful in this context means the Bible as hate literature because of its non endorsement of sexuality outside of a heterosexual union.

The Bible is a book of guide, it’s not meant to be a step by step to life. That’s where alot of the problems come from, people see a passage in the bible, interpret it the way THEY feel is right, then blindly follow a blind rule. I’m not Homosexual, but I do feel like the Christians wrongly bash them for no actual basis. Homosexuality has been going on since the roman time period. But as you can read in all the stories, Christians back then didn’t bother to boycott some random person because they were homosexual. They did burn countless innocent people for being witches.

@Moegitto

People have been gay long before Rome.

And burning witches wastes good, expensive firewood that someone went to a lot of trouble to chop. Stabbing or hanging was much more common.

@Qingu Nooo, the Bible commands punishment for breaking the Law. Big difference.
@Seek_Kolinahr And some people will kill you for being white. Yes, they’re out there. Not many of ‘em, but they’re out there. The average abortion-clinic protester isn’t going to kill anybody, because that’s kinda verboten.
I can understand making a law reducing abortionist-shooting to justifiable homicide. Presently, it is justifiable to defend your life (and the lives of others) with lethal force; if we assume the unborn to be of equal human value – which we pro-lifers do – then by extension they would be afforded the same protection.

I’d like to throw in a proviso for those witch-burners: that bloodlust stemmed from fear of injury from the ‘witches.’ That sort of thing would happen in their pagan pasts, after all. Without the guidance of a good teacher (since bookmaking was a rare thing in the past, most people wouldn’t have ever read a Bible), they’d react as they always had. I’m sure that it became habit, after a while.

I assume they are being too general and no matter what I say will be a waste of my time and energy because they didn’t say some christians, some jews, some muslims some atheists some white people some, hispanics, some europeans, some middle eastern, some russians, some chinese, some south americans, some americans, some hetersexuals, some gays, some peta.
. No, no! . It’s alwasy’s just the christians. Not just some people in the world. Not even some of the christians. But apparently all of them. Everybody else is good. :p

The Canaanite women and infants did not break the Law.

That’s what makes genocide so appalling, imo. It’s collective punishment.

@Qingu Ah, but they did.

How did Canaanite women and infants who were killed en masse by the Bible-following Hebrews break the law, @Nullo?

@Qingu By worshiping other gods, engaging in un-Godly practices.

I don’t think Christians as a group are hateful, it is more the “brand” of Christianity they follow. For instance I notice that Catholics (as individuals) are a pretty laid back group. They drink and dance and don’t get too involved in others sexual preferences. Fundamentalist types like Southern Baptists and “bible believing” churches of no particular denomination feel that it is their duty to vociferously oppose anything that may be construed as sin. To them, almost everything including drinking, dancing, homosexuals, and not supporting the return of Jews to Israel is a sin. They are also against abortion but very much pro-capital punishment. They also want to make sure that the whole world ascribes to their version of Christianity because they are absolutely certain that everyone else (including children) are going to hell.

Actually the difference between the Christian fundamentalist, and Muslim fundamentalist seems to be the beard.

The infants were worshiping other gods? I didn’t realize infants could worship.

And you think genocide is a morally acceptable way to deal with people who worship other gods?

@Nullo That’s why I said I didn’t think it was hateful. What I do think, however, is that it depends on how it’s said. There’s a difference between telling someone they’re going to Hell if they don’t do such and such out of true concern versus delighting in saying they’re going to burn because they’re evil and sinful.

@Nullo

I’m not going to go toe-to-toe with you on Bible scholarship (which seems to be about the least enjoyable waste of time I could even imagine in the first place), but as much as Jesus was about “fixing problems”, if that much is true, he was still about “tolerating” those who sinned and caused problems. As I recall, he didn’t even throw the first stone at the adulterous woman, did he? I know a lot of so-called Christians who keep a stock of metaphorical stones for whenever they’re needed. But maybe they just never sin.

-Just because a person says they’re a Christian doesn’t make them one.
-Hate is hate, it doesn’t matter what you believe in.
Some people aren’t tolerant of being gay. Some people aren’t tolerant of others who don’t believe in the same thing they do.

^ As to your first point, yes, it does.

“Being Christian” isn’t like being in a union. You don’t have to pay dues.

What does make a christian a christian? The baptism? Saying they’re a christian, being raised one?

@Blackberry, for the purposes of semantic clarity, I like to understand the word “Christian” to mean “someone who believes that Jesus Christ died and came back to life as a salvific act.”

If someone who doesn’t believe in the resurrection wants to call himself or herself a Christian, I’m not going to argue with how they choose to define themselves; I just think semantic clarity is important.

@Seek_Kolinahr Anyone can say that they are anything. Just because you say it doesn’t make it so. As I’m sure you are aware, if you are a member of a church, most people do pay an offering. And yes, you are right, ”“Being Christian” isn’t like being in a union.”” (I never said that it was.)

You’re right. I could say “I’m a purple cactus”, and I would be dead wrong.

However, being a purple cactus bears physical, empirical evidence that can be observed by others.

“Being Christian” simply means “believing Jesus Christ the deified human died for our sins”. And if someone claims they hold this belief, I have no reason not to believe them.

Now, if you want to claim that “being Christian” means performing certain special acts and not performing others, then you’ll have to contend with the dozens of Christian denominations, all of which have their own criteria. You don’t get to kick someone out of the religion just because you don’t like them. Only Catholics get to do that, and it’s my understanding that you’ve gotta be pretty high in the hierarchy to have that kind of fun.

@Qingu That’s what I tend to think. And that doesn’t rule out the possibility of a Christian being a bad, hateful person. Some people seem to have the idea, however, that if a Christian is bad or hateful, that automatically disqualifies them from being a Christian and thus “all Christians are good people.”

@Seek_Kolinahr Whoa, who said anything about kicking “someone out of the religion just because you don’t like them.”? Also, I didn’t make any claims.

You did. “Just because a person says they’re a Christian doesn’t make them one.”

What gives you the authority to determine what someone else believes?

Really? You know I didn’t mean it like that.

Then how exactly did you mean it?

Not all people that say they are Christian are. Some people say they are and they are. It’s not for me to judge either way. I don’t have any authority to determine what a person really does believe in. I think that all goes without explaination.

I don’t consider myself Christian as such but I do believe in God/a higher power.

When I think a Christian as being hateful it is usually because they are judging another human for their way of life, accusing them of being sinful etc. This is often demonstrated in the way some Christians treat gay people. If someone feels the need to tell someone that they are going to hell because of their love for someone they are hateful.

“Not all people that say they are Christian are.”

I’m not sure what you mean. Are you under the impression there is an army of Chaotic Evil Atheists on a mission to make Christians look bad by doing hateful things then saying “I’m doing this for JAY-SUS!”

Why yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. Of course not silly. I’m simply saying what I’ve been saying, that just because you claim something doesn’t make it true. That’s it.

@Seek_Kolinahr Do you agree that some people claim moral authority so they can carry out evil acts with impunity? They never forward the intentions of their group, nor seem to live in accordance with the values, but still claim to be carrying out, “The will of God?”

* bangs head against wall *

What exactly would make someone who claims Christianity as their religion not a Christian?

Am I speaking Greek?

Keep banging your head against the wall, maybe then, you’ll get it.

@6rant6

I will agree that I have often thought that certain people (usually politicians) claim to be Christian, because they won’t gain a position in society if they don’t.

However, if they attend a Christian church, pay tithes to a Christian preacher, and carry around a Christian bible, well, it’s a duck.

did I say that wrong?

If you are claiming to represent a religion, then you represent them. I don’t care how pious you are or aren’t, claiming the status of religion gives you the status of the religion, because as of this point, we don’t have our deities carving their own names on our foreheads to make it completely clear.

Not to speak for @Ellis1919, but I think there are a lot of people who think to themselves that what they want to do is justified because they go to church, read the Bible, and hate “the gays.” I agree that they are part of the community of “Christians” in a sense, but can see how people, especially Christians might not think of those people as Christians.

@6rant6 You took the words right out of my mouth. That is exactly what I was going to say about @Ellis1919‘s comment.

And yet, those people fit in swimmingly at Westboro Baptist.

@Ellis1919

@Seek_Kolinahr is absolutely right. There’s no litmus test for Christians. If you say you are one (at least, if you say that with the least bit of sincerity, and not as a ploy to “get inside” to do investigative journalism or the like), then you are one.

Who else gets to say whether a person is “really” a Christian or not? I’m curious about what test you apply.

As I’ve said before ‘either you all are Christians or none of you are’, you can’t pick and choose and tell others they aren’t ‘real’.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Sounds pretty fair.

A huge part of the history of Christianity has involved people who call themselves “Christians” saying that other people who do the same are not actually Christians… and in some cases torturing and/or killing them over it.

If we go by “does X group of Christians believe Y is a Christian,” then add up the exclusions and almost nobody ends up being a Christian in the history of the world. I mean the people in this thread who are trying to say that homophobes aren’t real Christians are essentially saying that no Christians existed before the 1970’s.

Those Westboro folks must be the definition of hateful Christians. I am fascinated by those guys (not in admiring way you understand). Obviously we don’t hear about them much over here in England but I have seen a few TV programmes about them (Louis Theroux for example) and I can’t explain how they make me feel. It’s a mixture of anger and humour and disgust and fear. Angry that they are so disgustingly wrapped up in their beliefs that they genuinly think they are doing the right thing by pitching up at a soldiers funeral to protest that he deserved to die and, to make it even worse, they encourage their kids to be equally as disgusting. Humour at the fact that they don’t see how hypocritical their actions and message is. Watching them is serious car crash TV, even if I want to, I can’t tear my eyes away.

That they think they’re all a bunch of uneducated, violent, racist, misogynistic jerks who don’t want their kids to catch the gay.

Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the same vindictive, capricious and unjust god. The same god that supposedly gave us free will and then punished us for using it. The only difference I can see between a fundamentalist Christian and Fundamentalist Moslem is the beard.

I just assume they are ignorant.

What I am? Hmmm… Can I be an athiest by proxy *Because I like them better as people, but can I have a special loophole or contingency where I can still believe in God because I generally don’t care for the Christian kind?

Will that work?

and do I believe Christians are “Hateful” well… Like everyone else I suppose, when you piss them off, they tend to toss around hellfire and Brimstone rather than all that love peace and chicken grease that they are actually SUPPOSED to offer.

Mostly they just confuse the hell out of me and I want nothing to do with them. But an atheist, I can actually have a conversation with and the only prerequisite one needs is respect for their views. Imagine that… How simple.

@Qingu asked, “How did Canaanite women and infants who were killed en masse by the Bible-following Hebrews break the law, Nullo?”

@Nullo replied, “By worshiping other gods, engaging in un-Godly practices.”

So @Nullo, It sounds like you’re saying it’s against Christian law to be a religion other than Christian; and, further, that it’s moral and just and right to invade another country and kill everyone there for being the wrong religion.

Er, excuse me, but that’s pretty hateful, IMO.

Now, I know you’re actually a pretty decent and good fella because I’ve chatted with you privately a few times :-)

So maybe you’re just not quite expressing yourself clearly and I’m misunderstanding you.

If so, my apologies, and please explain further…

This is why I wish everyone would learn to use the word “some”. I would never say “Christians are hateful.” Some Christians are hateful, as are some atheists, some Jews, and some Muslims. Some people are hateful.

Hate is hate is hate.

@GabrielsLamb You might wanna look into the practice of Deism.

Religion has actually caused so much death over the years of it’s creation. Not just Christianity, but Christianity is one of the major religions so of course it seems like there a alot of hateful Christians. During all of my deployments when talking to the local nationals (Iraqs/Afghans) they actually have ALOT of respect for Christians and they think Jesus Christ was our Martyr. Yet here in America, the Christians denounce the muslim religion and burn their qurans and condemn them to hell. This is fact…

I am a Christian. A Baptist. I admit there are a lot of Christians, including Baptists, who are mean dicks. They ignore important parts of the message of Jesus, and pick and choose what suits them. It embarasses me, and I know it is counter-productive for spreading the Word.
Atheists can be obnoxious, too. Just sayin’.
Any Christian who judges people on their choices doesn’t follow the faith.
Any Christian who promotes killing abortion doctors, gays, Muslims, or anyone who breaks what they consider a religious tenent is not following the teachings of Jesus.
I try to be a good example, and I also admit to falling short. I am human.

I was left homeless because some Baptist people I thought were my friends wouldn’t let me stay over (on the couch) for 1 week. My family, half Catholic the other Seven-day Adventist, also refused to even see me for no reason. But by no means do I use that experience to say “I have proof that all Christians are hateful/double standard having people”. I met some pretty awesome religious types, and I have met some pretty annoying types too. My problem is not really with the Mary and Bob of a certain religion as it is with the Deacons, Ministers, Priests, Abbeys, and the rest of the “Mouths of God”

When I have said hateful regarding Christians it is usually a comment about the specific Christians who don’t want to give gay people equal rights, who do violent acts towards others, like burning down a mosque, or declaring America should only be a white Christian land. Christians associated with extreme behavior like setting fire to or directly threatening someone or a mosque is incredibly rare, a very small number, and I never think of them as representing Christians at large, but rather just extremist hateful crazy people. But, in the US an incredible, hard to ignore, amount of Christians are horrible towards gay people just by how they vote, let alone what they say. I completely agree there are some hateful people in almost all religions. There are religious Jews who also speak of marriage only being for a man or woman, but the number is so very small it is typically ignored, and does not influence any public policy. The vast majority of Jews support gay rights.

When I think of Christians who actively believe I need to be converted, or tell me I won’t make it into heaven I generally just think it is offensive or just part of their Christian tenets, I don’t think of it as hateful.

@Nullo So you get to decide which is Christian enough? How about who is Jewish enough? All the athiest Jews here on fluther, are they really not Jewish? Even the Theist Jews who don’t follow kosher laws, are they not Jewish? The Muslims who took down the towers, can we declare them not Muslim? Because most Muslims are peaceful? What is ironic is the very Christians you would probably say are the true Christians are the very ones many of us would say are hateful.

@filmfann @Judi I really like your answers, because as Christians you are willing to acknowledge that it is kind of difficult to ignore there are a number of Christian people who behave in a hateful way, while at the same time you both seem to understand that people who use hateful are only talking about those who are hateful, which neither of you are. I do agree with @augustlan that we, especially we who are not Christian, should be careful to say we are only speaking about some Christians when we generalize.

I’m scared to answer this honestly, but here goes….

I don’t think that most Christians are “hateful.” When I hear those two words in a sentence together, I always envision one of two things. Either the extreme end of Christianity, fundamentalists, people that are so far up Jesus’ ass that they appear to have missed the message. Or, people that are “Christian” out of habit. By that, I mean people who have never really considered anything else, not because they are passionate about what they believe, but just because they are too lazy or disinterested to consider what they actually believe. In most cases, I feel like this leads to people who throw religious references around when it is convenient, but they don’t actually practice or study their own religion. In fact, most of the people like this that I’ve met in my lifetime have never even read any of the Bible, let alone all of it. However, they love to whip out their religion when they want to judge someone or justify their own behavior.

Anyhow, I think that this and this are good examples of Christians being hateful.

@ANef_is_Enuf Wow. Were those on your facebook?

@JLeslie actually, no. I took them off of a Christian website this morning.

@ANef_is_Enuf Hahah! Those are some sick bastards.

A guy I know in the navy made some super uplifting post about Jesus. Then, some guy I don’t know commented “What a stupid ass post.” I was laughing for days after that. His family commented on there too. Hahaha!

I think it would be more accurate to be very general and say that ‘people are hateful’. Forget the sub-grouping. People are judgemental. People justify their point of view constantly and that usually means putting someone or some other group down, for their belief or comments. Comments that are poorly thought out are jumped on like carrion by vultures. We fluff ourselves up on the wind of moral, emotional, ethical and intellectual righteousness. It comes down to nothing more than being judgemental and intolerant. We base judgements and intolerance on our very slim and tenuous wire that supports and reflects our own experiences. We have no true ‘world view’. That would take far too many lifetimes to attain and we can only expect 80 or so years on this planet and in that time really come to understand nothing of it.
(hi everyone. I was gone a while… collecting myself. I’m back now.)

@ANef_is_Enuf A Christian website? I never would have guessed that. Unbelievable.

@ANef_is_Enuf Those remind me a lot of that satirical sign that says “Behead those who say Islam is violent”. It’s almost incomprehensible how someone cannot be aware of their blatant flagrant outrageous hypocrisy. It boggles the mind, it does…

I have much faith in @GabrielsLamb. They are at the point now I was before I finally admitted to myself that I was an atheist. The closet is unlocked, friend! Spring free!

@Seek_Kolinahr I realized I was an Atheist when someone told me God is the reason why I was doing good in school. That kinda defeated the purpose of doing good in school in the first place if “your” not the one doing anything. But I digress, some Christians are a bunch of hate mongers…

@CWOTUS I just thought that I would mention, that many christians have stood up against Westboro Baptist Church. Although the best stand against them actually was reverse psychology. They came to Seattle, to protect Mars Hill Church for letting “evil people” come to their services. Mars hill threw a welcome party, complete with coffee, and doughnuts and people willing to talk about Jesus with the WBC’s. What was meant to turn into a riot in Seattle, turned into absolutely nothing, because one church lived the message they taught.

@Kato that was a good solution to the problem but not as satisfying as turning them over to a Hell’s Angel’s security crew.

I think that’s the point, @Ron_C. “Good Christian solutions” =/= “satisfying blood-lust”. Good example of what should be done, @Kato.

@CWOTUS you, of course are correct but everytime I see those Westboro people I just want to smack them but won’t. I don’t want them to feel like martyrs.

You might enjoy this, @Ron_C.

@Ron_C Being a military member, I feel you completely with the whole Westboro situation. But the main problem is how the government voted to ALLOW them to do what they’re doing.

As much as it infuriates me what they do, I would not have freedom of speech lost because we want them silent. Every one need to have a voice, or else eventually no one will have a voice.

There’s no use in having a voice if no one has ears…

Granted, But that is also a choice, and your right to not listen.

@CWOTUS thank you, thank you, I laughed with the story and watched the funeral procession with tears in my eyes.
@Moegitto one of the reasons for the military is to protect the right of free speech, no matter how idiotic. You just can’t pick and choose. There is either free speech or there is not. You cannot discriminate.

Let’s add another hateful “Christian” who has also fascinated me as the Phelps have fascinated Leanne1986. The noisy Northern Irish cleric-politician Ian Paisley. Vehemently anti-Catholic, homophobic and runs his own church with a much wider following than Westboro. Paisley was given a honorary Doctorate by, wait for it, by the same college that trained Fred Phelps.