To think Christianity is becoming the biggest religious threat?

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With all that is going on in the world I am seeing Christianity becoming more of a problem.

it shocked me to see British people chanting “Christ is king” at the TR rally last week. That’s not really our culture.

then you have the Charlie Kirk/US issues- I am seeing so many people quoting the bible now, using it to justify their reasoning rather than actual facts and statistics.

”the bible tells us” or “the bible says” . The talk of “god-given” rights. Especially in the US where the pledge of allegiance and the constitution seem to be inextricably mixed up with a Christian god.

I am catholic. But I also believe the bible was written by men, not god, it is fallible. It is more of a collection of stories to convey a good way of living, a code of ethics if you will. But it is also extremely dated and of it’s time, and most of it isn’t applicable to modern life. To me religion is more about a community, a group of people with common ground than god is great we’ll all go to heaven stuff. But I’m probably catholicking wrong 😂. I also believe that most belief systems are pretty similar, and Islam, Christianity, Judaism etc are all probably praying to the same deity. Just slightly different rules.

separation of church and state. But increasingly Christianity is being dragged into politics as some sort of justification as to why that side is right. They have god on their side narratives

so am I right in thinking this increasing use of Christianity could end up more of a threat than any other religion?

All the evangelical religions are dangerous and sinister.

Not all religions are evangelical of course although any belief system which stringently requires behaviours on the lines of being male or female or arbitrary rules about eating, sleeping, drinking, what work to do on what days, is also somewhat problematic, although most societies have rules and boundaries which are useful, some of those have been born out of religion back in the day and some of those are just practical.

I think Christianity itself is fine, as are Islam and other religions, but there is a rise in people using their religion in a way that I don’t recognise, and which could well be a threat, especially to women.

I know what you mean about people talking about it in that aggressive, American way.

And it does seem to be being used to justify misogyny and control over women more than in recent years.

Perhaps it’s more that some people are going back to using religion for control after a brief pause, as this was also the case in years gone by, albeit the delivery is different.

I am technically Catholic too, but also interpret it more like you do. I’d be quite attracted to the C of E in a vague sense if it wasn’t for the monarch being the head of it, which I also can’t get my head round.

I think I see religious and spirituality as very personal and not a “group think” exercise. I suspect it may be me who’s the outlier there!!😂

There’s a character in Terry Pratchett who talks about some people’s approach to religion being “just being nice, and a way of
keeping in touch with the neighbours”

It’s meant as a criticism, but I rather liken that approach!

What’s particularly interesting about that survey is that many more women than men would prefer the date to be lowered! Interesting from a feminist perspective!

Awful isn't it.

proving the point that religion is always the problem.

I’m also gobsmacked to hear that!

No. Extremists / radical Islam is the biggest threat. No doubt about that whatsoever.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOF7OBgjb4n/?igsh=MWdmcHp2NWVjMmRicw==

I'm a Christian and attend church regularly. TR, I highly doubt goes to church and certainly isn't living Christian values. In every religion there are a few wronguns who then make everyone else think we are cults/ kiddy fiddlers etc etc

You do realise that the only reason today’s version of Christianity made it is it was co-opted by Constantine to win battles don’t you? You must have been into numerous churches which IHS in them. But its fundamental basis is spiritual.

But no, Islam is by far the biggest religious threat. It promotes Jihad, it has far more religious extremism. The whole religion was made up with the sole purpose of taking land specifically to gain access to the Mediterranean- it has an in built conquering function. Perhaps most notably its annexation of Jerusalem being a religious site. Purely incorporated into the story to piss on it to mark its territory. All this crap about convert or die. In time it should go through its own Reformation

Please don’t confuse two things. Christianity began as a spiritual resistance movement, Islam began as a warring conquering machine.

I think we could see a huge revival of Christianity in the UK and across the rest of Europe. And the reason is simple – birth rates. Africa has the highest birth rate in the world, and the African population is going to double. Europeans, on the other hand, have a very low birth rate. In my experience, Africans tend to be far more religious than Europeans. A couple of new churches have sprung up in my local area, and both are full of Africans.

Also, religious people tend to have lots of kids – they see it as a duty to God. There is an African couple near me who regularly go to Church and who have six children. Obviously they will instill their religious beliefs in those children and also the idea that they too should have lots of kids. Atheists usually have fewer kids (that is true of Africans as well, of course.)

I used to love futurology books (non-fiction works that try to predict the future). I remember one author predicting a European civil war in the 22nd-century between different immigrant groups. He argued that mass immigration from Africa and the Middle East will transform Europe. By the 2100s you will have a stand off between two religious groups over the future of Europe – on the one hand, the descendants of Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle-East, and on the other, the descendants of Christian immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. They will fight it out over whether Europe will be an Islamic or Christian continent. The old secular/atheistic Europe will be gone. We just assume that religion withers away as science advances. It doesn't.

Sure - my point is that you are conceptualising sin as specifically a wrongdoing in a religious sense.

The Tudors burnt people for heresy and I know which of those seems more morally repugnant to me.

If you lie or are violent all the time then you haven’t got much of a claim to the moral high ground, whether you define it as sin or not. Sikhism and Buddhism are also pretty clear on this.

I am not Catholic but I quite like the idea of a ‘sin’ as a morally poor choice - choose to drink so heavily you don’t remember walloping your missis every time your football team lose - choosing sin. Religious terms are often a handy shorthand for whether a lifestyle option is productive and socially contributive or not.

Given the establishment were complicit in the initial discrimination against catholics and then continued to either directly commit atrocities against nationalists (e.g. Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy massacre, internment without trial etc) or conspire with loyalists to commit atrocities (Miami showband massacre, lack of vetting of UDR members etc), it was more about maintaining the status quo for them.

You're right about the general population using a belief it was about religion as "an out" though. The general population of Britain ascribed the cause of TheTroubles to religion mainly due to ignorance and lack of interest. It was a lazy way of dismissing something "happening over there" as not being relevant to their lives. Of course, that changed when the IRA brought their campaign to Britain. It still didn't result in any major understanding of the issues but just exacerbated anti-Irish feelings and behaviour in Britain.

I'm an atheist but don't see a belief in God as an issue. I think the problems arise from people interpreting the frequently ambiguous and contradictory teachings of religious texts to further their own interests.
I could just as easily interpret the bible and teachings of Christ to support my own views, that are in strong opposition to those of those using them to support right wing views.
It tends to boil down to which political faction has the biggest platform with which to convince that the Bible supports them. Currently that tends to be the right in the US. However there will be other Christians interpreting the bible in very different ways. They're just not as loud and powerful.

Clearly YABU and Islamism is a far bigger threat.

I think it’s highly unlikely that right-wing fundamentalist Christianity will ever gain enough traction here to be a serious problem, but I agree with pp that its growth in the US has been pretty amazing. I recommend the book Jesus and John Wayne, about the relationship between the Republican Party and Christian fundamentalism, to anyone who’s interested. I follow US fundie culture, and what’s really striking from a British perspective is how deeply soaked in Christianity ‘normal’ American culture is. By our standards, a lot of the completely run of the mill people would seem very religious.

I think people ARE resentful that British culture is so often seen as problematic while other cultures - sometimes much more obviously problematic - are celebrated, on the Left in particular. Obviously TR and the like are preying on this and bastardising it, but it’s there. Christianity isn’t the problem, but it’s being co-opted as an expression of fear, resentment and cultural assertion, and I think we should pay attention.

I suspect your view is shared by most Protestants and Catholics, probably Orthodox too going by the few I've met. We won't be told how to do Christianity by the Fundies. They might have more success evangelising the Tommy protestors. But I'm a Doubting Thomas on that score.

And yes - God is King over the whole world - there will be many who won’t like it but that doesn’t change reality…

“Reality” 😆😆

Sin is a concept made up by men, to control fellow men and women.

Personal belief in a god can be perfectly ok, it's when those with that belief feel they have a right to judge or control others according to that belief.

And people without that belief never think they have a right to control or judge others? Have you just joined MN? You should go read some of the threads...

What's your actual point?
Of course there are many ways people attempt to control others, but that doesn't negate that religious belief being one of the main ones!

Christianity isn't the threat - it's how people use it to support their own power and brand of authorities, just like any other faith or other institutional group do.

I don't think more groups are significantly using the Bible or Christianity this way, I do think the internet is amplifying it.

Yeah I don’t see it happening here, Christianity here is nothing like in america or africa even. Good luck trying to ban abortion here.

Christianity here is nothing like in america or africa even. Good luck trying to ban abortion here.

Abortion is still illegal in England, Wales, and Scotland with an exemption that two doctors agree that the baby would pose a greater risk to physical or mental health of the mother than termination. There was significant pushback this year in trying to entirely decriminalise it, it is still not decriminalised.

It only became legal at all in Northern Ireland very recently, with a lot of discussion on-going about the postcode lottery to access.

There are parts of the US where abortion is more legal than it is in the UK. Let's not pretend there aren't issues on our own doorstep.

And yes - God is King over the whole world - there will be many who won’t like it but that doesn’t change reality…

The Bible doesn't agree with that. There are multiple parts of the Bible where the God of Israel faces other Gods, not always successfully. One of my favourites is in 2nd Kings when the God of Israel was defeated by the God of Moab Chemosh on Moab's territory because their king sacrificed a man on their city walls causing Chemosh's great divine wrath to go against Israel - and the Hebrew is very specific that it is divine wrath, the phrasing is only used in a few places for the God of Israel and this is the one time it's used for another God. The text is as clear as it can be that another God exists and had more authority in its own territory when called by that God's people. This is a common belief in many belief systems, it was very common in the area where that took place.

This is potentially supported at least as an event, if not the divine part, by an extabiblical sources of the Mesha Stele which discusses how Israel had oppressed Moab and Moab fought back.

Early Judaism and Christianity wasn't monotheistic, it was more monolatry, and some branches of both still continue that. The early churches has a wide range beliefs, and just because one group called the other heresy doesn't make it so - it just means where one group had more power and authority and at times that lead to violence and destruction of work of the other to uphold it when they could. The same holds true today - every denomination has internal diversity and has changed over time and place, any of them putting forth a creed or calling heresy doesn't make make it reality, it's just an attempt at power and authority over things which they may or may not have power to do so. We're almost at the annual tradition where the Vatican will call Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerta heretical and she will still be around and her statues in the home of many devoted Catholics - that's how faith systems work - they're internally diverse, change in time and place constantly, and are embedded into cultural systems, no creed or a talk with a priest will ever change that.

indeed, if it didn’t it couldn’t, but as it does it can 😀

This, this this! It takes some special kind of stupidity to not see this.

Intriguing, so there is no right and wrong - all is acceptable and whatever anyone does is okay - murder, abuse, coercion, theft… all fine?

so if someone comes into your house and takes all your possessions, or steals your car that’s okay? After all there is no right or wrong, no sin…

I do feel as well the current limits are a lot to do with enabling an inefficient abortion service and delays and they account for that, as for some reason women often have to wait too long after deciding they need an abortion. Perhaps there is a discussion to be had from that perspective as I assume if the services were easier to access and quicker then more abortions would be done earlier without any need to change the legal limit. As it is a tiny fraction of abortions are later ones anyway but in many cases women have to wait when they would do it earlier if only they could get an appt etc