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>How about if I use words from Christ himself? There's no solid evidence these quotes are accurate (plus, they're translated if he ever existed and made any su

>How about if I use words from Christ himself? There's no solid evidence these quotes are accurate (plus, they're translated if he ever existed and made any such speeches). The entire belief is based on faith. >Anything trying to explicitly enforce "Christianity" with political power is out of line with Christ's teaching. This has always been true That's your opinion, based on your interpretation. Other Christians in the US have a different opinion. >A lot of the people I see on TV pounding on about God and Christianity don't show any evidence that they know anything at all about Jesus; I don't have any reason to believe them to be Christians. That again is your opinion, based on your interpretation of a quote written down by some religious person centuries after the deity that supposedly uttered it was on Earth. Other Christians have a different opinion. As a non-Christian, it's not up to me to decide whose beliefs are "correct". And the people you disagree with aren't some vanishingly small, fringe minority; they're a significant part of the US voting public. I appreciate that your beliefs are different, and personally I like your beliefs more than theirs, but you're not going to convince me that yours are more correct; as far as I'm concerned, neither one has any basis in reality. Yours certainly sound nicer, but Christianity has well over a millennium of history of being tied to state power, so the other side has a lot of precedent. >Others are real Christians -- people trying to follow Jesus and take his teachings seriously -- who are simply deluded. Again, "real Christians" in your opinion. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who self-identifies honestly as a "Christian" is one, regardless of how incongruent their actions and opinions seem to be with some of the teachings of some of the denominations of that religion. Anyway, I do appreciate you doing this analysis of the different factions, and I do agree with your breakdown of them. >Consider the "gay wedding cake" case As much as I hate many of the SCOTUS decisions in the last 8 years or so, I actually agree with this one, or at least its outcome, though I think the justices all missed the real issue. If the gay couple had wanted to buy an off-the-shelf (non-custom) cake, the baker should have been required to sell it to them. However, (as I understand the case) they wanted a custom cake, so basically they wanted to commission artwork. I think that should be subject to 1A protection; no one should be legally required to create artwork for something they disagree with.

gwd 2y ago
> As far as I'm concerned, anyone who self-identifies honestly as a "Christian" is one, regardless of how incongruent their actions and opinions seem to be with some of the teachings of some of the denominations of that religion. I understand where you're coming from, but this is just an unworkable definition. It reminds me of a snapshot of a social media post I saw which read, "I'm a vegan who eats meat. Yes, we exist." "People trying to follow Jesus and take his teachings seriously" certainly isn't a perfect definition, but it's a lot more useful than "anyone who self-identifies as a Christian".
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  There's a huge difference here: you would have a very, very difficult time finding anyone who identifies as a vegan and also eats meat knowingly and willingly. However, Christians who don't fit your definition of "true Christian" are a large part of the US voting population, so much that the "No True Scotsman" fallacy seems to apply here. Even worse, if we look at Christians over the last two millennia, especially during the middle ages, the vast majority of them don't appear to be "true Christians" according to your definition.

gwd 2y ago

> As far as I'm concerned, anyone who self-identifies honestly as a "Christian" is one, regardless of how incongruent their actions and opinions seem to be with some of the teachings of some of the denominations of that religion. I understand where you're coming from, but this is just an unworkable definition. It reminds me of a snapshot of a social media post I saw which read, "I'm a vegan who eats meat. Yes, we exist." "People trying to follow Jesus and take his teachings seriously" certainly isn't a perfect definition, but it's a lot more useful than "anyone who self-identifies as a Christian".

shiroiushi 2y ago
There's a huge difference here: you would have a very, very difficult time finding anyone who identifies as a vegan and also eats meat knowingly and willingly. However, Christians who don't fit your definition of "true Christian" are a large part of the US voting population, so much that the "No True Scotsman" fallacy seems to apply here. Even worse, if we look at Christians over the last two millennia, especially during the middle ages, the vast majority of them don't appear to be "true Christians" according to your definition.