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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Frumple]

... today, the TV preacher said two things I didn't know!

One, over half a billion christians have been martyred since 0 CE. Apparently the worldwide christian murder rate has managed to average around 250k a year since the founding of the initial cults. No citations were given, of course, and the numbers were explicitly said to be possibly erroneous, but the preacherperson assured the people they were talking to that those numbers were "well studied", and some other platitudes. They apparently had graphs! They brought graphs to a sermon. TV sermon, but... still.

Some cursory googling did... not seem to really identify whose ass the guy was pulling that from. Would anyone happen to be able to explain that claim?

Two, christians in america will have their things stolen from them and will be beaten and murdered en masse within our lifetime. Not entirely sure what basis the critter had for saying it, because good gods did I not listen long past that point (and had other things to do regardless, but anyway), but... yeah. For those of you actively churching, is this a common message for y'all or is it just the south-east chunk of the US?

[Telgin]

I'm from the south east and that is a common mindset here, at least in the rural parts.  To the preacher I'm routinely subjected to against my will, removal of Christian prayers and Bibles from things like schools and government buildings are a clear sign that Christianity will soon be outlawed nationwide and he'll be sent to jail for preaching it.  I'm not sure if he's intentionally misunderstanding separation of church and state to inspire outrage or genuinely believes the things he says.

He also thinks that the pope is going to soon start spreading Islam because he's buddy-buddy with Obama who is a Muslim, who will instate Islamic law nationwide soon.  That's the main reason he thinks Christians are going to start being murdered in the streets if they don't give up their beliefs and swear allegiance to Islam and Allah.  I think.

If it's like that elsewhere in the country I don't know.  I imagine that a lot of Christians across the nation believe that Christianity is being suppressed by the government, but I'd be surprised if many outside of these backwater south east towns believe that Obama and the pope are conspiring to replace Christianity with Islam and murder Christians everywhere.  That's way more crazy conservative rhetoric than anything specifically religion related.

[penguinofhonor]

The Pope is a Muslim now? I love it!

[TempAcc]

Regarding the spread of christianity, several factors contributed greatly to it.

1-Regardless of wether one is a christian or not, its pretty hard to deny that the apostles were pretty damn badass and were specifically instructed by Jesus on how to spread his ideals after he went away. The one I mentioned earlier, Paul of Tarsus (originally named Saul) didn't even meet Jesus in person during his whole life, and was actualy a really scary pharisee inquisitor and roman citizen who had special permission from the synagogues in jerusalem to hunt down the "disciples of the nazarene" (IE how the early christians were known). After stoning a very important christian preacher and then being sent to Damascus with specific documents and orders that would allow him to imprison each and every christian he found, due to what he himself described as a miracle, he changed his ways, became a christian and then basically started going around the most important parts of the world preaching about Jesus. He was so damn badass and succesful that he managed to convert many different pagan tribes and form congregations in the most important cities of the Roman empire, while basically travelling on foot most of the time. Other important apostles, such as Peter himself, travelled around and converted many people, among them pharisees, too.

2-A fair bit of caravaneers of the time ended up becoming christian due to having travelled with an apostle and/or doing trade between cities that would later become christian (such as Antioch, a very important city at the time).

3-Like mentioned above, the people of some key centers of trade in the Roman Empire ended up converting to the new christian faith. Even after being systematically persecuted by local synagogues, the heads of the temple in Jerusalem and the Roman Empire, they persevered, which eventualy culminated in the conversion Emprah Constantinus, which may have converted because, at a certain point, he started viewing the citizens of the empire as mostly christians.

[smirk]

If it's like that elsewhere in the country I don't know.

It's not necessarily region-specific. Upper Midwest here; my neighbor showed me a piece of junk mail they got the other week:

On the envelope, in big red letters: "IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT OBAMA AND THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS ARE FUNDING CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE!"
In smaller, italicized red letters: "Christian slaughterhouses are harvesting the blood of martyrs to sell to Jihadists. Open immediately!"

I wish I was joking. I also wish I had thought to take a picture. Point being, crazy religion gets everywhere. Especially with televangelists and radio shows that have nationwide popularity.

[Telgin]

Oh, I don't doubt it.  What's scary is that so many people are not only willing but eager to accept ideas like that without proof.  I think it plays to some kind of natural paranoia that some people are predisposed to, or they want to be outraged at something.

The Pope is a Muslim now? I love it!

Yep.  I'm baffled too.  The funniest part is that before this he was talking about how liberal the current pope is.  I couldn't help but be amused at the thought of a pope who is too liberal spreading radical Islam.

I think he just has some kind of irrational hatred for Catholicism though, since his wife was an ex-Catholic from Italy turned Protestant when she met him.  I would be interested in learning more about why she decided to switch to Protestantism over Catholicism, but I just really don't want to get near that bucket of worms.

[i2amroy]

One, over half a billion christians have been martyred since 0 CE. Apparently the worldwide christian murder rate has managed to average around 250k a year since the founding of the initial cults. No citations were given, of course, and the numbers were explicitly said to be possibly erroneous, but the preacherperson assured the people they were talking to that those numbers were "well studied", and some other platitudes. They apparently had graphs! They brought graphs to a sermon. TV sermon, but... still.

Some cursory googling did... not seem to really identify whose ass the guy was pulling that from. Would anyone happen to be able to explain that claim?

I think he might be erroneously conflating "people who were murdered and were Christians" with "people who were murdered because they were Christians" (which would make them martyrs). The first could very likely be true, the second one somewhat less so. Generally by the time population numbers got large enough to start to provide significant counts against the total count society had become more tolerant (or Christianity more mainstream) so people were much less likely to be killed because they were Christian. I mean, maybe if you included every Christian who died because of the crusades, and included all of the inter-Christian different denominational persecution you might come somewhat close to that number, but it would still be a bit of a longshot by my back of the envelope calculations. For comparison about 2/3rds of a billion is (very) roughly equal to the entire population of Europe throughout the entire middle ages (all 500 years of them), so the fact that populations were so much smaller back then puts a huge damper on reaching that number.

[TheBiggerFish]

There are crazies everywhere...

[origamiscienceguy]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted, but I have no idea how they thought Obama and the pope were muslims.

[Putnam]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted

because finally people are complaining about being stomped on by christians, yeah

[origamiscienceguy]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted

because finally people are complaining about being stomped on by christians, yeah

what?

[Frumple]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted, but I have no idea how they thought Obama and the pope were muslims.

Last I checked most of that sort's entire basis for considering Obama a muslim is because of his middle name, if you're actually curious. Pretty much the whole of it, without any other supporting evidence. Though Telg didn't say the pope was muslim, mind you, just that he is buddy buddy with Obama and would aid th'pres in spreading islam and murdering christians.

That, at least, isn't much of a stretch to see a protestant say. I've heard the pope called the anti-christ more than once, heh (Mind you, I've heard a whole host of stuff called the AC at this point, sometimes contradictory things in the same sentence, but that's neither here nor there :V). There's still a fair amount of hate for catholicism in the US, at the very least, if not nearly as pronounced as it has been at times.

[Putnam]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted

because finally people are complaining about being stomped on by christians, yeah

what?

"Wah we can't force children to practice our religion in public schools, we're so persecuted"

"Wah people people complain when we make movies about how awful atheists are, we're so persecuted"

[origamiscienceguy]

I can see how they would think christianity is being persecuted

because finally people are complaining about being stomped on by christians, yeah

what?

"Wah we can't force children to practice our religion in public schools, we're so persecuted"

"Wah people people complain when we make movies about how awful atheists are, we're so persecuted"

You really jump to conclusions, don't you?

No. That's not it at all. If you want an example of what I mean, try posting "I'm a christian" on a relevant youtube comment section and see what kind of reaction you get. It doesn't bother me personally, but I can see why other people might see persecution there.

[Putnam]

Oh no, youtube comments!

Holy hell christians have no idea what persecution is nowadays.

Every goddamn religion with any presence in western society is going to be yelled at on the internet. Christians suddenly aren't getting special treatment and now it's persecution.