People are fine with being disrespectful to Christians

[Flymetothezoom]

At a church playgroup. The people who run it are very devout Christians. I am taken aback, by the number of parents, who thought it was appropriate to bring their kids to the church dressed for Halloween. Kids are dressed as witches, goblins, skeletons, creepy pumpkins etc..
The church holds a light party every year on Halloween and is very clear that they do not endorse Halloween.

Amen!

No, of course. Equality in the work place is far from having been achieved, and there are billion and more glass ceilings that need to be smashed. The fight is far from over and woman have to face so much shit daily. But ultimately, my point is that that for many, work place discrimination and inequality is unacceptable and yet in the same breath, many will accept and whole heartedly condone the discrimination and inequality that woman face in that said religious organisation, to their detriment. It’s maddening.

I don't think you grasp the difference between absolute and relative numbers. The word is proportion .

I'm not just talking about WW2, I'm talking about today, and the past several centuries.

There are 2,382,000,000 Christians in the world - 31% of the world's population, and about 14,000,000 million Jews 0.18% of the world population.

In the USA, Jews make up less than 2% of the population, but 60% of religious hate crimes are directed at them.

In the UK, Jews are 0.43% of the population, and the targets of 23% of hate crimes.

Do you understand yet?

Exactly. Yet the catholic church has millions of faithful women, I will never understand how they can be part of such an organisation, especially given how it has treated women, girls and babies. Disgusting.

On the surface not a lot but it is the first step on the road to intolerance.

There are several fundamentalist churches in the US that would happily burn us if they could.

I quite agree with you that everyone should use critical thinking about their world view. I went from agnostic to Christian in my 30s by doing that.

According to philosopher William Lane Craig, the problem of evil is not considered as such a challenge by philosophers nowadays. It’s not possible to show that God doesn’t have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the existence of suffering.

These are two interesting short videos on the subject.

Suffering and Evil: The Logical Problem

Suffering and Evil: The Probability Version

There’s also the question of whether anything can be objectively good or objectively evil, if there is no God. Without an independent standard of what is good and what is evil, such as that given by the Christian God in the Bible, doesn’t right and wrong come down to people’s opinions? So then, without the Christian God there can be no genuine problem of evil.

I can recommend William Lane Craig’s website, reasonablefaith.org. Also coldcasechristianity.com. That’s the website of a cold case homicide detective who also converted to Christianity as an adult after looking into the evidence.

It’s true that most Christians haven’t done a lot of research and critical thinking about their world view. But I think that probably applies to the holders of any world view.

@whumpthereitis As far as pornography goes, aside from being dubious of the claim that it is THE most patriarchal and misogynistic industry, it is a recent one (at least in current form), whereas religious abuses date back centuries, if not millennia. For the most part porn isn’t something that people use to dictate how people should live, and It also tends to be perceived as enjoyable, untethered from shame and threats of eternal damnation if one doesn’t partake
So recent misogyny is excusable but historic misogyny isn't ?
For the most part porn isn’t something that people use to dictate how people should live.

1. Religion doesn't 'dictate' anything. If you want to be part of a certain denomination then you sign up and follow the teachings. If you don't like the teachings then you don't sign up. Sometimes people sign up and find they don't like it so they leave.

If we join any secular club there are rules. You don't spit on the floor of the meeting room and you take your rubbish out etc. 2.Maybe porn does not 'dictate' how people live in the direct sense but as it can now be accessed by 13 y.o boys it will subtlety colour their view (at an early age) of sexual relations between the sexes and increase objectification of women. The people in pornography are often explicitly presented as objects, and porn videos are listed and labelled with the specific acts they perform or physical attributes they possess so the observer can “order” porn that fits their exact expectations. With so many people consuming pornography, is it any wonder that many are developing attitudes of sexual entitlement and objectification?

It also tends to be perceived as enjoyable,
really?
It concerns me that men (and some women) can get enjoyment from watching women being abused.

untethered from shame and threats of eternal damnation if one doesn’t partake
I wish I knew where all this BS about 'threats of eternal damnation' comes from, no Christian denomination I know does this.

To ArtixLynx. I just remembered that you said that most pagans have fairly reasoned responses when asked about why they are pagans. So when I said most people haven’t done a lot of research and critical thinking about their worldview, maybe that applies less to pagans.

Would be interested to see how that question was viewed outside this thread.

I reckon more women would rank social impact of porn as of higher concern than women in the clergy.

It certainly makes for far more threads on MN

I mean in terms of contemporary relevance rather than historical impact

@Skye99 - I was also agnostic once upon a time. Mainly through fear from a Christian childhood stopping me from completely admitting the whole thing was completely illogical and I just couldn’t reconcile it. Then I met my theologian DH who is firmly atheist and I have learned so much more. Actually to echo a PP, paganism seems the most logical to me thinking critically about it. I must admit I do find it interesting that your research lead you to the conclusion it did when mine did the complete opposite.

What started mine off was a quote in a school textbook “If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.” I don’t know why but it really struck me, although I admit I was never particularly a believer.

*@whumpthereitis

it’s religion that has had a far more significant impact, for an inordinately longer amount of time.

Have you considered the difference in the position of women in the past in Christian heritage and non-Christian heritage societies?

Non-Christian heritage
India - suttee (burning widows on funeral pyres). Temple prostitution for girls.

China - foot-binding and concubinage

Islamic countries - men can have four wives, women only one husband. The Qur’an says that women can beat their wives into submission. Often women have to cover up with hijabs or burqas, men don’t.

Christian heritage
None of the above.

At the current time, as a woman I’d rather live in one of the Western societies based on the Judeo-Christian world view than in any other type.

@Skye99 - Culture does not equal religion. Perhaps you need to research a little more about Christianity before cherry picking the bad parts of different cultures to compare it to.

Thanks. I’m not the only one. I can think of:

C S Lewis (academic, writer)

Frank Morison (journalist, writer. Looked into the evidence for the resurrection and ended up converting and writing Who Moved The Stone?)

Lee Strobel (top journalist, writer)

Holly Ordway (academic)

Alison Morgan (PhD student at the time, later writer)

David Wood (in prison at the time, later philosopher and YouTuber)

Guillaume Bignon (computer scientist, later philosopher)

Leah Libresco (systems analyst and writer)

It’s true, that if the triangles made a God, they would give him three sides, i e people tend to imagine God as like themselves or as they would like him to be. But that doesn’t rule out the existence of a real God. It’s like the existence of counterfeit banknotes doesn’t rule out the existence of genuine banknotes.

@Skye99 - paganism: equality and power sharing between men and women.

Religions have a powerful effect on the cultures based on them. I am comparing the effects of different religions on their cultures.

It’s true, that if the triangles made a God, they would give him three sides, i e people tend to imagine God as like themselves or as they would like him to be. But that doesn’t rule out the existence of a real God. It’s like the existence of counterfeit banknotes doesn’t rule out the existence of genuine banknotes.

Or to put it more succinctly: Man makes god in his own image.

And while that doesn't rule out the existence of a god, it doesn't rule it in either. It's still a matter of taking a leap of faith, whichever way that leap takes you. You can't prove there's a god, I can't prove there isn't.

So one flavour of paternalistic zealotry is superior to another, rather than all expressions of it being horseshit. As a woman I’d prefer to not have to choose between being hanged and being stoned.

incidentally, in early Slavic Pagan society, women could occupy the same niche as men, be it warrior, sorcerer, or worker. They enjoyed a degree of independence that was, for the most part, equal to that of men.

@potniatheron

.... in my experience and those are very new sects e.g. only dating from the Reformation,

Off topic I know, but was struck by you defining the Reformstion, which took place 500 or so years ago as "very new"!

No, that doesn’t rule it in.

I don’t agree that choosing a worldview is entirely a matter of taking a leap of faith. I think people can consider the available evidence as objectively as they can manage.

it’s true that absolute certainty is not available. As they say, nothing is certain but death and taxes! However, the probability of one worldview being true can be higher than the probability of the others being true.

I wish I knew where all this BS about 'threats of eternal damnation' comes from, no Christian denomination I know does this.

I have been told this so many, many times, and that I will burn in the fires of hell for all time. Had more than one social event spoiled by someone earnestly trying to convert me to Christianity because they liked me & didn't want to see me condemned to an eternity of agony.

And what made me, as a teenager, question the faith I'd been brought up in was going to a group with a friend who was thinking of joining them. I was told with absolute conviction that the Christian God is fair and just. And with the same total conviction that missionaries were necessary because anybody who didn't believe in (their version of) the Christian God would burn for all time even if they had never had the opportunity to even hear of his existence. How anybody could genuinely think these statements were not contradictory beggars belief!

The Catholic Church endorses and tolerates (either officially or by the acts of Catholcs) a lot of things which scripture is clearly against

That is your opinion as a Protestant which you are entitled to have, but please don't make out that it's fact

There's no need to "make out" it's a fact, Powderandpaint, since as regards the acts of some catholics that's precisely what it is - unless you're going to pretend you don't understand this or suggest that the determination of some leaders to enable downright evil is a strawman argument too

I'd say that they're outliers, that they're in no way tolerated by the greater body of the church and that every effort's made to get rid of them, except that's not how it's panned out at all

Which is mostly because it's mostly been made by hippies in the last 50 years though and only loosely based on something that's pretty poorly recorded?

@Skye99 How do you know that the religion has had an impact? Islam looks very different in Saudi Arabia than Malaysia. Catholicism very different in Brazil to the Philippines. FGM is practiced in both predominantly Islamic and Christian countries in Africa. Which religion is to blame?

Religion and culture are intermingled but to blame what we consider bad in some cultures on their religion is ignorant at best. There are many unsavoury parts of UK culture, women being property of fathers and husbands, married off for political aims, the wearing of corsets as a beauty standard disfiguring rib cage off the top of my head, the slave trade. Is Christianity to blame for these?