Quote:
Originally Posted by EnderD_503
While I agree that "religious freedom" doesn't include promoting hatred against others, I still don't see the point of discussing with them about whether or not they're being "good christians." The Bible is so full of contradictions its extremely easy to make an argument one way or another...as it should be, considering it was a text written by numerous men over 1500 years ago, that's taken influence from numerous other religions. There are plenty of biblical passages that promote hatred...but, to me, that's not the issue. I'm not going to condemn all christians because of it, but at the same time, I think its just pointless to argue with them.
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i'm part of a church community (that is progressive) and from within the christian community i see a huge movement towards doing this (confronting hateful christians by pointing out the problems with their theology) only because of the need that some folks see to actually practice what jesus preached. and within the ecumenical movement, it can be a starting point of dialogue - okay, we may not agree on everything politically but we agree that jesus preached this one thing, so let's start the conversation from there.
from without the christian community, it usually ends up being a self-congratulatory way of pointing out other people's hypocrisy. i mean, i see why people do it, and i do think it's important to stand up against bigotry. but i don't understand the constructive value of it, because it's rarely phrased in a way that will actually make people stop and think or consider changing their minds. it's also usually done with a heaping side of self-righteousness...which...you know...i've been guilty of that myself. but i don't necessarily think that self-righteously judging someone, even someone who is saying terrible things, will really change anything.