To what extent is assuming that it's likely that a random American is a Christian imply that there's no consideration for people who aren't Christians?

Edit: By the way, are you willing to at least concede the fact that Christians are a large majority? You didn't address it directly, but it would be extremely helpful from an intellectual standpoint for you to demonstrate an honest admission of factual error.

Really... So you're okay with the religious practice of genital mutilation of females? Or women not being allowed to drive or leave their house without a male escort? How about death as punishment for leaving a religion? What about religions that practice the sacrificing animals (or even humans)? You either need to get out more or perhaps be more observant of what religions actually teach (especially, fundamentalists, or fringe religions).


Again, please read what I'm actually saying, instead of interpreting it to fit your agenda. I am perfectly tolerant of differences and don't hate anyone for their beliefs. I do think some beliefs are silly, but recognize their right to believe it. What I'm against is imposing those beliefs on others and/or assuming that everyone believes as they do.

I'm beginning to think this is just an inability on your part to understand a different point of view. I get your point and understand it completely. And I have repeated over and over that I have no problem accepting your right to believe whatever you want. But you are either failing, or flat out refusing to see the other side. It can be just as insulting or depressing for a non believer to hear, "God will watch over you", or "Your loved one is in heaven now".

I lost count of how many times people said this to me when my father died. And yes, I always nodded politely and thanked them for their sympathies. But it's insulting, because I know there is no god or heaven to go to. And to hear that over and over again while your grieving gets frustrating! If you want to pray for someone's soul, then by all means, knock yourself out. But first, maybe consider that the person you're trying to console might not share your beliefs. There are other ways to offer condolences and well wishes without invoking your god or your other ideological beliefs. That's all I'm saying. And those who invoke god on public forums strike me as the self aggrandizing bumper sticker Christians as you say. What other reason is there?

Yeah... your position is crystal clear:

Again, you're the math expert so I'll defer to you. What do you mean by large majority? While they still represent the largest group among groups, they are no longer a majority of the whole. In fact, they are far from it. This is why I keep insisting that it's only out of arrogance (or perhaps self absorption), that a Christian would assume that their audience is made up of mostly Christians when addressing a public forum of any kind.

I mean that I'm quoting the Gallup organization and that's how they describe the Christian majority.

Please cite something. I cited something. Why can't you?

Or perhaps I'm using data and you're pulling crap out of your rear. I'm sure one of those explanations is right, and possibly both.

Wow... Quoting out of context. I never put you on someone who would stoop to that.

Maybe you need to keep a dictionary handy. Here's a link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disdain

I took the liberty of having it open to the word disdain, but you'll need to look up future words on your own from now on.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tolerant

You really want to play this game?

But I'm glad to see that you're aware of the dictionary. Have you bothered to look up faith yet? Or are you holding to a singular definition of it and completely rejecting all other conceptions of faith that differ from your own?

Whoops! I'm wrong! I thought the number of people identifying as Christians in the US dipped below 50%, but it's not even close. Apparently, it's still well over 73%. Not sure where I got that.

Nevertheless, there's still well over a 20% chance that someone in your audience isn't a Christian.

Well, at least the facts are clear now.

I don't deny this is true. But then I go back to the question I asked before:

You accused me of hating. Disdain does not mean hatred.

And for the umpteenth time... I am tolerant of beliefs and the right to hold beliefs! My problem is with people imposing those beliefs publicly and/or assuming that everyone believes as they do.

Right. You just have an automatic "strong dislike" of certain people. That's not "prejudiced hostility or animosity" or "a very strong feeling of dislike" at all...

Right. Because your perspective here is crystal clear.

You are "willing to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own" with the exception of any time those "feelings, habits, or beliefs" happen to be expressed in any sort of public forum, in which case, you have *MORE* respect for those people.

Am I imposong my view on you? Sure there are some in any sub-pop that are extremists and unfortunatley make a bad impression for the countless others that are capable of rational discussion. This is true for religion, politics ... anything especially a polarizing topic.

Professing a belief is no different than professing an opinion. I've never said you must believe what I do. Do you honestly feel I have?

Please explain how Jenner professing his desires of acceptance is any different than, say Billy Graham, doing so.

I believe it is. I view faith as an intellectual cop out. If there's enough evidence to accept something as true, you don't need to call it faith.

And yes... The person who steadfastly believes that every word of the bible is true, and the person who only believes that the Christian god Yahwey exists are both wrong. But at least the fundamentalist isn't cherry picking to conform to new societal norms. I think there's something oddly more admirable in that than people who change their beliefs to conform with their way of life or those around them.

I didn't say you did. The OP was referring to people prattling on about god on a baseball forum as if everyone was a Christian.

You guys insist on shoving these words in my mouth and thoughts in my head. It's not the benign act of professing a belief. If you tell me, "Hey, I'm a Christian and believe in god", I'd say more power to ya. It's when you talk to me as if I should believe the same things that you do.

Lestat, I dont understand your position. I understand that you have a strong emotional reaction, but its not clear why.

You say that you dont like it when people "impose their beliefs " on you. Is this for all beliefs? Or just religion? If someone starts talking about politics, do you get offended? If someone starts talking about their football team, do you get offended? and so on?

Have you never expressed an opinion or belief? How is that different from a theist expressing an opinion or belief? How is that different from a theist imposing their belief on others?

Have you always been like this with regards to theists ?

Why do you think that your reaction to this is so strong?

Notice how this doesn't really address the definitions you presented. I'm trying to get you to confront facts and reality in the same way you were off by a large margin in your understanding of the facts and reality of the religious demographics of the US.

I've asked you before whether you've considered other conceptions of faith. You did not respond. So I'll ask you again. Have you considered other conceptions of faith than this particular definition that you're using?

Edit: Another question you haven't answered:

...

Your position is becoming increasingly confusing. You think you're being clear, but the reality is that you're presenting a garbled mess.

Your reaction is clearly emotional, and your inability to rationalize them is putting you all over the map.

Maybe this will better illustrate my meaning (or my idiosyncrasies)...

I am also bothered by people who use the word "mom" in conversation to non siblings who do not share their mother. I have friends who will say, "I have to stop at the store, because Mom told to try the new brand". This drives me up a wall, because your mother is not my mother. Sure, I know who you mean, but don't talk to me like it's my mom.

I have another friend who does this with his friends that I don't know. We'll be talking and he'll say, "Steve went to the Cav's game last night". Who's Steve? He's a guy I work with. Do I know him? No. Then why did you just assume I'd know who you were talking about?

Okay, so maybe I'm a nit. But I don't do that. When I talk about my mother, I say, "My mother". When I talk about a friend to someone who doesn't know the person, I'll say, "This guy at work", "Or this guy Steve at work". I don't just assume that things in my life transfer to everyone else.

By the same token, when you say, "I'm going to pray for you", or, "I'm going to pray to god that someone gets better", fine... But when you say, "God will heal her", or, "God is watching her now", you've crossed a line, because your god is not everyone's god. Your beliefs are not everyone else's beliefs.

Okay, I think me and my soapbox have wasted enough of everyone's time now. I just meant to point out something that I found inappropriate and in poor taste. If you don't agree, you're entitled to your opinion. But it will continue to disturb me.

Do you fall somewhere on the autistic scale? You're saying things that make it sound like you have particular struggles with social interactions.

Aaron, I've already made my summation post to this thread. I'm sorry if my position is confusing to you. It's very clear to me and so far, you have not pointed out (at least to where I understood) where I'm being inconsistent.

I made a mistake about Christians not representing a majority of the entire US population. I was misinformed and immediately admitted the error.

To address your last unanswered question regarding faith:

It's a nebulous word. The way I use faith, is to describe a belief that otherwise has no tangible evidence to support it. Sure, I recognize its validity in other contexts... I have faith that when a rock is dropped it will fall in the direction of earth, rather than the sky. But there is evidenced confirmation for this belief. So I'm not going to get into quibbling over semantics of meaning. For all practical purposes, "faith" mainly needs to be used only when there is no evidence to support a claim. Otherwise, you don't need to call it faith.

Zero on the autistic scale. And I have no struggles with social interactions. None whatsoever. These are inner things that bug me. Like nails on a chalkboard bothers others. In my experience, it's people who show little emotion or quirks (like many a mathematician?), who are the ones with social struggles.

You think it's clear, but it's not. You used the phrasing "automatic disdain" and pointed me to a dictionary. The dictionary reads the following for disdain:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disdain

Okay. So then I look up hatred:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hatred

Is your entire position coming down to the word "very"? I don't think that's a particularly clean line to draw. The secondary definition falls exactly into the category of hatred because your response is "automatic" and is indicative of various prejudices that you hold.

You think it's clear, but you've been absolutely muddy in your presentation, and it seems to be nothing more than emotional outbursts rather than some sort of reasoned position.

Okay, so that's how *YOU* use faith. If a person expresses a religious belief of some sort, like the quote you presented in your OP, what are you assuming about the speaker? You have said a lot about not making assumptions, but it seems that you are just as guilty of it as you think others are. You assume that they have no tangible evidence to support their beliefs but you know absolutely nothing about how they came to their beliefs.

This just makes you look obstinate and ignorant.

Well, in that case, you're actually just a total jerk. People act in perfectly normal ways, and you get pissed off at them. Your inability to contextualize information in a normal social setting is your problem, not everyone else's. Sorry. Normal human interactions don't really include these sorts of things.

If you were autistic, I could at least grant you some benefit of the doubt that you have a developmental disorder that prevents you from understanding certain things. But based on this, you really present yourself as just a horrible person to interact with.

Your experiences have some truth to it. If you've had any meaningful interactions with people with different levels of autism, you would see this pattern. (Though some autistic people have very large emotional outbursts. It depends on how exactly they process social information.) But these sentences only make you look like even more of an insensitive and intolerant jerk.

Your 2nd paragraph lumps me into a group that in your first sentence you said I wasn't a part of. I think you're creating a straw man argument for which you aren't truly desiring a debate, but rather to point a finger.

Not to get too sidetracked but calling autism a mental "deficiency" is a bit harsh especially since Aspergers falls on the spectrum and many Aspergers people are not deficient at all. Except maybe socially, as you pointed out. Maybe disorder would have been a better choice of words.

Sure. I can use the phrasing "developmental disorder" without losing and intended meaning.