I posted in ATA about the Christian bashing yesterday

[madison2000]

and the only response has been regulars from the Lounge ridiculing me in their posts and in copycat posts. The level of hostility towards Christians that is permitted to be expressed here really disappoints me, but apparently that's the established culture.

A sex thread or a Texas bashing thread will be locked or deleted on short notice, but when Christians are ridiculed by other posters nobody bats an eye.

[RevCheesehead]

1. I've done that before..

Skinner is aware of the problem, and the mods are having quite a discussion about it, apparently.

Here's some good news:

On a thread where someone disrupted ("I'm sick of religion being discussed on this board - take it to the Religion forum"), a moderator simply added his/her own post, saying "thank you for your story - it is most certainly welcome here."

I thought that was a wonderfully positive way of dealing with conflict, or potential conflict.

[realisticphish]

2. as an overweight white christian

i've had to let a lot of stuff roll off my back. but the lounge gets downright painful to be in at times. a lot of people that i liked in the lounge have turned out to be the kind of people who tell us to take back christianity from the fundies minutes before saying that we're all idiot brainwashed sheep who belive in an invisible cloud being.

[JohnKleeb]

3. Thats called damned if you, damned if you dont

Good to see ya btw.

[realisticphish]

7. thanks

:hi:
i've been on a kind of sabbatical... some aspects of DU were starting to get to me, so i took spring break as a "no DU time"

[JohnKleeb]

8. Easter weekend really tore my heart out

What some people say really gets to me. I dont like being called mentally ill I guess or stupid. They tell us to go take back our faith while calling religion stupid and wrong at the same time, well youre sooooooooo helpful, god this is the kind of shit that makes me lose my temper.

[realisticphish]

10. same here

luckily (i guess) i spent easter (6am central time - 11pm eastern time) riding a bus home from minneapolis. i didnt see any of the easter stuff on du, thank god.

every time i see a post demanding that we "take back our religion" i reply, and ask them what they have done to help us do so. usually, they say something to the effect of "well, its not my religion, its your problem." well, then, i guess i'll tell the GLBT community to fuck off and take care of themselves :eyes:

[RevCheesehead]

23. LOL! You sure got that one right!

Of course, you realize you'll be called hypocritical and uncaring, then will be lumped in with Fred Phelps and James Dobson.

[JohnKleeb]

25. Yeah its my fault that

that the Falwell and the baptists love to use all that money on themselves, even though I am Catholic. Really, it pisses me off. Sooooooo very much.,

[madison2000]

4. I feel like I am doing that an awful lot of the time and it just

isn't worth it. I can be just as irreverent and fun as the next person but I try very hard not to do it at someone else's expense. I once made a copycat post that offended a person, and I apologized and reworded the post. So far I've had an apology from one person and several personal attacks from others. I am sick of having to "deal with it". Its not worth it.

In the lounge there are plenty of deliberate attempts to provoke Christians or simply to be outrageous. At the same time there are many people who consider the mention of a religious topic to be offensive. You just can't win in this situation. Defend yourself and you're a whiner, go on the attack and you get deleted, and meanwhile the hostile and hateful stuff continues. I guess I shouldn't expect more from the lounge- its not where the people who come here for serious discussion are going to hang out.

People certainly have a lot of baggage and inaccurate beliefs about religion.

Apparently the mission we've been given is to reclaim Christianity from the fundies while the rest of the liberals sit back and ridicule us.

[Kat45]

5. Yes, isn't it tiring?

That thread I started in the lounge on Saturday night is now up over 300 posts! I've been spending way too much time trying to reply to as many people as I can. I got to bed too late the last two nights because I was replying on the thread. At first, people had somewhat respectful replies, now it's just bash, bash, bash. I finally just addressed a post to everyone because I don't have the time or energy to reply to the last half dozen bashes individually. I keep telling them that I don't care if they disagree, please just do it respectfully or civilly. And they keep yelling that I have problems, that I can't handle anyone who disagrees with me, yada, yada, yada. :shrug: :crazy:

[JohnKleeb]

6. What you did was bold

I am not offended easily, I can watch and laugh at religious satire but what I can't stand is the double standard people have, if someone at Free Republic said what they say about Christians only in the freepers case about Islam, then they would surely denounce it but Christianity is a bigger target for them. You know what offends me is that some of them think that the world would be a better place if ruled by athiests, I am not saying that athiests are bad, but they act like athiests would never be intolerant to no one, which is totally trash since the athiest soviets hated the Ukrainians because they were observant Orthodox Christians.

[Kat45]

9. Thanks.

I know what you mean. I bet some of those bashers would be shocked to hear that I absolutely love the movies "Dogma" and "Life of Brian." They may have poked fun at aspects of Christianity, but it was not in a hateful way at all. I actually think "Dogma" was quite reverent to God.

[realisticphish]

11. i love dogma

it really is reverant. it really only attacks literalism, if anything. i have a sense of humor, as long as the material is actually funny, and not just saying how stupid religion is

[JohnKleeb]

12. I remember after first seeing that movie

This was when I leaned athiest or didnt know what the fuck I was, I remember me and a guy i went to camp with talking about how Rufus really was the thirteenth apostle. I can joke about stuff like that easily.

[madison2000]

13. I've tried to chime in on yours and some of the others

Rev Cheesehead has been doing some heavy lifting too!
But ultimately, a lot of people aren't interested in what we have to say. They are sure that we are wrong, that we are thin-skinned and offensive, that we are the ones with the problem. I'm not even a tiny bit convinced of that. And I've never seen any of the Christians get nasty or inappropriate with someone, even if they are that way with us.

This is the bigotry of the left. Thank God its not all of them.

[realisticphish]

14. right

i have NEVER EVER seen a non-troll insult an atheist on this board (well, outside of the religion forum flame wars). in ANY way. it seems to me that we have been extremely respectful of their choices, yet we are the ones who oppress them

[JohnKleeb]

16. I would never do something like that because it goes against

my philosophy of respect people for who they are. We oppress them I guess just by being here, I Dont know, but I get very upset that they consider my belief in a superior being somehow a threat to em or that a prayer is some terrible thing, I am sorry but when someone who I care about is down, I am gonna pray, its my nature.

[realisticphish]

17. yeah

i dont walk around saying that atheists are stupid. hell, i see the logic of it, and i understand why they believe what they do. but logic just doesnt change who i am. i am what i am, they cant change me, and i cant change them. i dont evangelize to them, why do they evangelize to me?

[JohnKleeb]

18. I dont know

Worse of all is when they act like we are against science, ha yeah thats why I admire John Scopes for what he did in Dayton, Tennnesse and one of my biggest heroes is an athiest, Clarence Darrow. Yeah they do sound like evanglicals when they talk to us. I dont believe in converting either, I am like believe what you want to just dont shove it in my face. Now they I guess get offended by prayer, I cant see why.

[realisticphish]

19. maybe

its jealousy :D

[JohnKleeb]

20. Nah

I think some people had really bad religious experiences as kids, I guess I did too with those assholes I mentioned in Rev's thread in the lounge, since they made Christianity to me what I hated, of course I was being a superficial asshole and didnt bother looking at my mom's folks who are just about the most tolerant people I know especially my grandma.

[realisticphish]

21. yeah

i am lucky in that my parents were religious, but didn't try to force their politics on me (though it ended up being that way). plus, my church is pretty easy-going, and not political at all, so i found my own way

[JohnKleeb]

22. Thing about me is my parents arent that religious

Though my dad has gotten more spirtual since going to AA. My grandparents I guess and godmother are the main reason why I became more religious plus I saw the good things people were willing to do in the name of god like what Mother Teresa did. It saddens me when Ive seen her attacked here.

[regnaD kciN]

29. Actually, Darrow was an agnostic, not an athiest...

At one point in his career, he was invited to address an Athiest Society, and his "address" basically told them they were as bad as Christians -- one side was saying there definitely was a God, and the other side was saying there definitely wasn't, and neither of them could prove it one way or another.

[Kat45]

15. And I thank you for it.

I was so relieved when you folks got involved in the thread. It was getting tough fending them off by myself. :-)

[UrbScotty]

24. All I'm going to say is...

Thank goodness for "Alert" and "Hide Thread."

[RevCheesehead]

26. The Lounge has gotten nastier in the last several months.

Quite frankly, I don't like going there anymore. It wasn't that way last summer when I joined DU. The vanity posts are just that: "look at me!! Please!!" It's like being around Madonna: photograph my breasts! I need your attention!

I swear, if I see one more "Waaa! Fucking Waaa!" I'm going to rip someone's head off.

I used to recommend DU to my friends. I don't do that anymore. Why? Because most of my friends are Christians, and I don't want them to be turned off of Democrats because of the immature way that some dems at DU behave. I want them voting for Democratic candidates. And the hard truth of the matter is that they're less likely to do so because of the anti-religion sentiment here.

And that's the God's honest truth.

[madison2000]

27. I have just reached the point where I feel that way

The lounge can be fun, but it gets really nasty. There are a few regular well-known posters (who have probably been there forever) who don't seem to post anywhere else and they act like they own the place. Its very clique-ish.

The other day Will Pitt posted something with subject "Jesus H Christ on a Trailer Hitch". My gut reaction was, oh not him too. But the picture was funny and I had a context to put it in. Didn't offend me because I read his "truthout" column and have read enough of his posts to out it in context. Later on he got involved in arguing in defense of Christians on a couple of posts, and its good to have him on our side.

But when other people do the same thing I don't know where they are coming from. Most people are relative strangers. Just an avatar and a few bits of information... so the things that might be funny to people who know them just don't come across that way because there is no frame of reference at all. And people aren't very careful with each other.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

28. Thanks all for this thread.

It's encouraging to see it here, but discouraging it can
only happen in a separate and protected forum. I know there
are bigots of every stripe wherever you go, but what's most
disheartening is that the rules against religion-bashing are
simply not being enforced. I'm too old and too intent on peace
in my life and heart to argue about belief and faith, and DU
lately, especially before and during Easter, just wore/wears me down
and leaves me with a miserable feeling I don't want or need. The
offenders either want to offend or don't have the capacity to
understand how they are offending and alienating with their
cruel comments. You would hope a heart or two is
being awakened in all this, and maybe that is all one can hope
for, but even that I wonder about at times. It's just not a
good feeling to know that many people here have such bitter
contempt for my basic beliefs, that they cannot see the difference
between a very progressive independent Christian like myself
and the fundies, and that it is apparently OK to express their
contempt here despite specific rules against it.