I appreciate every draft. Thank you. You have clearly considered this, have given it a lot of thought, and have attempted to broach an honest answer. "I don't know" is useful. Could I draw your attention to a quote? "I wish you didn't understate 'mild or catastrophic' so much" "Catastrophic" is not a term of understatement. While our modern language leans towards hyperbole, catastrophe is still understood to be akin to the worst possible outcome. "Mild" means mild; I was expressing a range of outcomes. Religious extremism injecting the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance is, de facto, milder than the catastrophe of the Muslim ban. These are relative expressions, however: compared to pogroms, a Muslim ban is mild. So. I use the word "catastrophe" but, in your opinion, "catastrophe" is a term of understatement. An "American Taliban" would indeed be a catastrophe. What do you really know about the Taliban, though? They're followers of Wahhabism. They think reading anything but the Koran is a sin. They believe educating women is a sin. Amy Coney Barrett, whose politics and values do not align with my own, has a JD from Notre Dame. She has therefore read more than the Koran, and has been educated. The phrase "American Taliban" is evocative, but it is also hyperbole. Much like you accusing J5 of issuing an apologia when he was simply pointing out that at the time, ACB had yet to rule on anything as a Supreme Court justice. An observation? These conversations go sideways because you have internalized the hyperbole and view anyone who attempts to move past it as an enemy. You are clearly demonstrating concern. Many of us are concerned. However, we aren't framing it in terms of your hyperbole... so even if we're framing it in terms of our own hyperbole we can't be on the right side with you. Here's an example: "Political Christianity is actively attempting to suborn and undermine the democratic processes of the United States and numerous other nations to force non-Christians to live according to their laws and beliefs." This is not accurate. Political Christianity is actively attempting to force non-Christians to live according to their laws and beliefs, agreed. Problematic, agreed. Something to be stopped, agreed. Something to be concerned over, agreed. But the battle is being fought within the democratic system through democratic means. ACB was appointed according to the legal procedure in place in the United States of America. Norms were violated to do so, intentions were disregarded and it was a craven power grab, but no democratic processes were "suborned" or "undermined." I can hear you objecting from here as I type those words but the problem is not that the jesusfreaks are cheating, the problem is that the system lets them do what they're doing. We're on the same side of this. 99% of the time. You just prioritize allegiance to your hyperbole over minor quibbles. Which makes it very hard to have these discussions with you. We can say "I mostly agree" and your answer is "you are a horrible sheeple because you aren't signing 100% onto my interpretation." If anything? I think the basis of these disputes is that we go "Dumb, also Christian" while you refuse to humor anything milder than "Christian therefore Dumb" but much prefer "Christian therefore literally Hitler." Which is really sad because we support you, we support many of your points, we agree with some of your points but unless we scream to the heavens that every believer of Jesus is a mass murderer waiting to happen we get scorn. We see the problems, man. We agree they're bad. You wanna try finding the points where we agree and start from there? You might discover that there's actually a lot of support for your viewpoints if you offer them, rather than demand fealty to them.
The dialog doesn't advance. Christians spread plague. They are seeking legal protections to do so before the Supreme Court. My fellows who work in Healthcare suffer because of a religion that they don't practice. My fellow disabled people die because of a religion that they don't practice. And both sides are the same. Manslaughter on one hand, mean names on the other.
What dialogue are we talkin' about, buddy? Because as I said before, you seem to ... need something from these discussions but you don't seem to be presenting them in a way where you get anything but shut out. I hope you can see that this is a genuine attempt to shape this conversation into a dialog that does advance but that requires participation on both sides.
Christians - 'We seek the ability and legal protections to freely spread plague and commit manslaughter, endangering the sick, the poor, the elderly, the very young, and everyone who works in healthcare. AND, if so much as a peep of complaint is raised to the structural violence we seek to perpetrate that the reaches LITERALLY into the Supreme Court, the leadership of both houses of Congress and the white house, we will raise accusations of anti-religious bigotry. Me - 'Please wash your hands, wear a mask and practice social distancing to the best of your ability to do so. Please value the lives and wellbeing of others or at least act as if you do. You - 'If you just ignored the christians they will go away.'
No, dude. Not even. Nobody here is at "if you just ignored the christians they will go away." You clearly have a passion for preventing the greatest harms perpetrated in the name of religion. I think everyone here can get behind that. Things run aground when you say religion only exists to perpetrate great harm. 'cuz then we point out that no, that assertion is not supported by evidence, we recognize great harm and condemn it is it possible for you to have a discussion about even, oh, the degree of harm? 'cuz you mostly seem to work yourself up. And that's not good for you. You're a walking F7U12 cartoon. I'm just trying to point out that there are humans around you who would love to have this conversation IF you can find a way to avoid "jesus therefore apocalypse"-style rhetoric.