Do you get verbally attacked for being Christian?

[mygreatauntgriselda]

Does anyone else feel peer pressure not to be Christian (or at least not to mention it for fear of ridicule) or get verbally attacked for being a Christian?

I often feel I might be ridiculed so keep a low profile about it at social events, unless I am with other Christians. If I do mention it in conversation, I often get a very aggressive response.

On Friday I was out with some friends I have known on average 20 years each. Conversation turned to the Gaza conflict. One friend then started "ranting" about how all wars are caused by religion (a gross over simplification IMHO - wars are complex and involve disutes over rights, territory, resources etc).

She then started "ranting" about how faith shools are the root of all evil and I found myself being verbally lynched by four women, who had all had a glass or two, about the fact that I am Catholic and our children attend a Catholic school.

These were very PC fiends who wouldn't dream of making blanket statements about people from other faiths but felt fine about being very insulting about Christians.

Has this happened to anyone else - how did you react? I argued my corner but am feeling that I do not want to see any of these "friends" again if they have so little respect for my views, beliefs or feelings.

What comments has the church been making on science lately?

Quite UQD. And I agree with onager's last sentiments too.

But re the OP, I think it was a bit unreasonable of her friends to launch into a rant and attack their friend becasue of what they percieved to be going on in Gaza.Just shows you can get ignorant athiest zealots too. They are all out of order.

(Have you missed the God Delusion, IB?)

i haven't seen a book by academic theologian rubbishing science lately UD. It isn't that Dawkins hs no degree in theology, it is that he creates a bit of a straw man argument - he picks the rabid creationist evangelicals, and then starts to knock them down, pretty easily, and then concludes he has knocked down christianity. He knows nothing of the early christian mystics, of the politics of Christ, etc.It is a bit of a one trick wonder parading as something else. And I say that as an agnostic.

The church comments on "science" all the time, if you don't define "science" as something narrow and separate from the universe but instead the study of all of it. Which is what it is. But seriously, there are too many examples to list, even if we get away from the obvious easy targets like evolution-denying creationists.

I don't think Dawkins does that at all - he just sees no point in over-complicating an essentially Occam's Razor argument about the improbability of God.

The church forgets that challenge is part of the scientocic process. 'What doesn't kill me makes me strionger.'

I went to see the Bishop of Durham talking about The God Delusion and was frankly very disappointed by his intellectual dishonesty. But he is not there to be intelectually hoinest. He is there to promote the church and defend it from challenges.

Some say Occam's Razor, some say reductionist.

Think I'm much of the same mind as ruty on this. Seriously, UQD, just one example? I'm struggling to picture the Archbishop of Canterbury sticking his oar in about string theory or the genome mapping.

I'd fly with occams razor! Literally!

(and I live under the flight path too)

I really can't think of an example when the church has rubbished science apart from creationists and catholic missionaries exorting people in Africa not to wear condoms, both of which are clearly crazy.

i mean at the heart of theology is the deep dark despair of Doubt - Dawkins doesn't get that at all, and he doesn't get a huge tradition of christian philosophy.

As for picking the easy targets that's natural enough. If you tell me there's a grizzly bear sitting on my head who likes to read Dickens I will start by pointing out the total lack of a bear and not by arguing his taste in reading matter.

If 'rabid creationist evangelicals' are such a bad advertisment for christianity then perhaps christians should deal with them and tell them how wrong they are.

Its called 'intellegent design' IB. Religion attempting to infringe on science and deny the existance of evolution.

And like I just said on another thread in which posters showed a drastic cynicism about science and basically any authority:

I fear we are all about to undergo our own cultural revolutuion. Hide your glasses!

MT creationism is not about Christianity. It is about lack of education and brain cells.

creationism is not about Christianity>>

Someone should tell god that.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Who was spouting Intelligent Design, monkeytrousers? Are you talking about the Bishop of Durham? It's not actually mainstream church doctrine is it?

MT you're not very well up on theology! Much of the bible is metaphor you know. Christ used parables to teach, and the Old Testament does the same.

sorry i mean onager.

Christians used to kill us atheists for doubting the exact truth of the bible you know. And many christians will tell you now that it is literally true. When I was younger (yes even in my lifetime) it was usual for christians to believe in the bible. In fact the bible was their proof of god's existence. Only relatively recently has christianity retreated into saying "it's metaphor" when people point out the inconsistencies.

Ask Kayharker (She is my favorite christian BECAUSE she won't compromise)

so whats your point there onager? It doesn't make me any less of a christian becuase you can't bash me ( metaphorically) with Genesis.

so your going to bash me becuase i dont believe that the people who wrote Genesis, didn't have the scientific knowledge or technical advances that we do today and so explained creation, simply.

seems to me a lose lose situation here.

Oh I agree that the people who wrote genesis didn't know enough to do a better job. But for a long time christians have claimed god wrote it and said that is why I should believe in what they say and do what they say.

If you and I traveled back in time just a little way they'd burn us both at the stake for our opinions. Yet christians tell me the continuous belief in christianity for 1000s of years is further proof of its accuracy. But it's actually not the same religion any more you see. It just kept the name and the tax exemptions.

I don't verbally attach Christians - well not often anyway. But I do get very heated about the fact that it is impossible to attend a State school in this country without being exposed to huge amounts of Christian propaganda. I think this is a complete outrage and should be stopped at once.

still not sure of your point. still think its a lose lose argument. If christians don't adapt and change - then they are - witch burners

if they do - they are inconsistant

There are some very intellegent people in the ID lobby