Untitled (The Battle Against Christianity or This is me rambling/hashing out frustration.)

(The reason why this post was originally untitled is because at the beginning of writing it, I didn't quite know what to say about the following matter.)

Christians are discriminated against/looked down upon.

Yes, I said it. I took off the PC gag and said boldly what others, even some Christians themselves, are reluctant/afraid to say. And I'll say it again.

Christians are looked down upon in society.

Now, the popular (conceived) consensus is that Christians have it made, that the United States continues to run blatantly on Christian values, and that the majority of Americans are Christian and therefore cannot possible discriminate against its own kind. These things in theory are true. The founding fathers did set up a government which had roots in the Christian faith (life, liberty, happiness and all that jazz). According to self-reporting stats, most Americans do identify with some form of Christianity, whether Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical or Methodist.

But lately there has been a distinct shift to the religion of humanism, as I like to call it. [I believe humanism is definitely a religion. And I contrast it sharply with Atheism, which shuns and the idea of God--and a good number of atheists also shun those who believe in God(s).] This shift does bother me on a spiritual level. It does in fact pain me to see people who were once in fear and awe of God, those who once claimed to know the Lord, turn their backs on Him and adopt this new humanist perspective and ultimately put their faith in the once place they shouldn't, the one place God tells them not to-- in man. However, the new religious adherents, humanists, I can understand. These people do not despise the idea of God (the idea of humanism and other traditional religious forms is indeed compatible), they only wish that humans would "step up to the plate." I often wish the same.

I being up the point about Humanism and Humanists to be in direct contrast to Atheism and Atheists, as it has been conceived and as it is lived out in American society. So often Christianity and Atheism are seen at two ends of the spectrum. This is not accidental; Christianity is often seen as "the Big Bad" in modern society, the one religion which oppresses all the others. I disagree. Every religion, with perhaps the exception of Bahi, makes some sort of truth claim, whether it be that their one monotheism is the Truth, or that the earth is the body and soul of the Brahman or primordial man.

Why then is Christianity's truth claim, in particular, treated so harshly?

I cannot answer that question for sure, but my best guess is this: society's conception that Christianity permeates every aspect of our lives, from the religious to the secular, has made us run in the opposite direction of Christianity.

For those who are Christian, this should come as no surprise: we have been biblically warned that our lives will be neither easy nor accepted. But for those who are not, my questions are these: Why treat us like lepers? Are we not human too? Do we not also care for the fate of the physical world, in addition to the spiritual?

There is a place in this world, for both the religious and non-religious alike. While the Christian faith makes its truth claims about one's spiritual soul, it makes other claims too, namely ones about the dignity of persons. Are some of these not the same dignities for which humanists, Atheists, Jews and other religions also fight?

* The following is a response to a blog post I read about one persons "drift towards godlessness" (more aptly called secular humanism!) because of the fallacy of the church and the realization that God is not needed.

I realize that some people, especially those who regard themselves as "post-Christian," the Church (with a capital "C" - meaning the body of Christian believers as a whole) has been a constant source of pain. I am sorry for that-- truly. But it is unfair to maximize that pain onto others' experiences. Your drift towards godlessness is your own, shaped by your own experiences. Don't apply those experiences to the whole of Christianity. And it is unfair to destroy Christianity for one's own ends, to use the failings of the institution to justify to your "Post-Christian" self your reason for becoming, something different. Your negative experiences are the result of people failing you, not Christ. And if the sentence above rings hollow for some, then you do have a problem with Christianity--as religion in and of itself-- and that's fine. But please don't take it out on Christians themselves. Don't discriminate against us as a group. Do not "look on the church with disgust" and don't "pity" us, because we don't pity you.

In my opinion, you deserve as much respect and dignity as any other human being, things that you seem very often, not to afford specifically to Christians.