Sigh... People wonder why i have drawn the conclusion that MANY who practice the Christian faith suffer from a martyr/persecution complex and see everyone who is not a member of their club as an enemy, and every comment that isn't 100% in agreement with their position as an attack. I wasn't born with this perspective, and i didn't just wake up one morning and decide to adopt an attitude towards that group. I hold this position because the regular pattern of behavior i have observed from a subset of that group can lead to no other conclusion from an honest observer. To be clear, for the sake of the Christians who do not suffer from this issue, and as an attempt to difuse the inevitable charge that i am " attacking all Christians " from those who do, i will be clear that i am not implying that every Christian suffers from this issue… and i'll also note that it's easy to recognize them because they are more focused on doing good works than on desperately seeking a cross that they can whine about having to bear. But the other group remains.. and they are getting more than a bit tedious.
From time to time i see one of them post yet another copy of long-disproven urban legends. In every such case, the legend is EITHER the story of one of their members trouncing an atheist in a debate on theological issues… something which definitely happens only in their fantasies, OR it's a plea for fellow Christians to stand up against some situation where someone is trying to infringe on their right to practice their beliefs. It's these latter posts, coupled with all the times i see someone in real life or on this site who accuses someone (often, but not ONLY, me) of 'attacking ' them simply because someone states a different opinion, that have led me to this position..
In any environment where TRUTH matters, people do some research and discard information that makes their case but which they learn has been disproven. I suppose that being taught to accept ANYTHING, no matter how implausible, would lessen one's ability to consider verification of one's views as a necessary step for repeating something. That certainly seems to apply here, as the internet now allows anyone who cares to do so to determine if a story has been verified or falsified in a matter of minutes. Yet i've seen more than a few urban legends posted to this site as 'fact', and in every case, it's been posted by a Christian who i must conclude also exhibits this tendency.
Recently, i saw a post claiming that the ACLU is trying to stop prayer in the military. The longer version of the more recent variants of that hoax manage to insert a jab at the Obama administration as well, which makes sense since the political right knows they can count on the religious right to join them in their smear campaign against him. As i see it, there's plenty of legitimate areas to criticize Obama that one need not resort to falsehoods to do so, but then i have a requirement that my criticism be based on fact, not personal bias. This crowd allows no such restrictions.
The story is FALSE. So are similar stories. Here's a link that exposes this and some related subjects:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/religion/a/i_am_honored_to_do_this.htm
There are places in the world where Christians are being prosecuted for their faith. The US is NOT one of them. Insisting that the long overdue excising of Christian practices from government sponsored activities, as REQUIRED by the constitution but still not fully corrected, is NOT an attack on Christianity, it's simply an attempt to respect the religious freedom of citizens who are not Christians. IMO, the constant "we're being attacked"mantra is a slap in the face of the Christians who are the subjects of REAL persecution.
People who NEED to feel like they are being persecuted can move to a fundamentalist Moslem country in the middle east, and then they would learn what real persecution is. That also just MIGHT open their eyes to what happens in a country when the government merges with the dominant religion… but most likely they wouldn't get that connection.
