Annual Pastor’s Conference… Black People Not Allowed

Wonder if they start their pray meetings with the Horst-Wessel-Song and have a straight arm salute.

Well, they do end it with a “cross lighting ceremony”.

“We don’t have the facilities to accommodate other people.” Because non-white Christians need different facilities than white Christians…?

And don’t they realise they are following a non-white Jew? So if there was a ‘second coming’ during this conference, Jebus wouldn’t be allowed in?
Cool…

I’ve got to say this:  While I’m not a Christian of any stripe anymore, I’m so thankful that my Pentecostal parents would’ve beaten me within an inch of my life if I’d shown any racist tendencies.  All Christians are not this way–or anything close to it.

Notruescotsman

Then Jesus actually rises from the dead as a middle eastern fellow and says, “Nope.”

So where do you draw the line? When are you a good christian or just a person with minimal mental health issues and fortunate enough to be raised in a healthy environment? Is a humane naturalist a christian without a belief in god or an afterlife?

“Brace yourself for the onslaught of Christians explaining why these Christians aren’t really Christians.”

or we could just link to the wise person who posted this:

“Here’s the truth: People can be good or bad no matter what their religious views are.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/02/christian-billboard-suggests-stalins-atrocities-were-due-to-his-atheism/

What, no lynching on the agenda?  (Did anyone else flash back to the Klan meeting scene in “O Brother Where Art Thou”?)

“Brace yourself for the onslaught of Christians explaining why these Christians aren’t really Christians.” 
LOL.

Try as you will to cast these racists as a true reflection of the  Christian faith but they are not.  Just because they call themselves Christians does not mean that they are following the orthodox Christian faith. Stalin was an atheist so does that mean that  he represented the thoughts of all who call themselves atheists? Of course not.  But of course painting all Christians with such a broad brush fits so much better with your narrative so I get it. These guys are racists and nothing more. As a Christian I abhor what their racists beliefs and find no support for them in my faith.

Sometimes news leaves me at a loss.
We need to skim off all this dross.
You know things aren’t right
if you just want whites
and then plan on burning a cross.

 I agree with the statement, “People can be good or bad no matter what their religious views are.” Although I’m not a Christian anymore, I graduated from a Christian college that fully embraced racial equality. Anecdotal, yes, but I don’t think racism is part and parcel of the faith.

With this group, we’re tempted to judge all believers by the actions of the lunatic fringe. It reminds me of what Pat Robertson did on the 700 Club with Gay Pride Parades.

I don´t think Hemant meant to say that this is the “true reflection of the  Christian faith”.
He is just saying that these guys, who consider themselves as christians, are using their faith to legitimate their racism. That´s one of the bad sides of religions, they can be used to justify anything you want, in spite of commom sense or moral values telling you it´s wrong.
Of course not all christians would agree with this group, but it´s the christian faith (and faith in general) freedom to believe in anything and do anything in order to follow these beliefs that allows things like this to happen.
It doesn´t matter that orthodox christian faith wouldn´t allow this, the simple existence of any faith already allows these deviations to occur. If they were jewish/evangelicals/muslim/hinduists/whatever racists, it wouldn´t be any better.

It’s unfortunate they believe their religion supports their views; they do what they do and preach what they preach IN THE NAME of Christianity.

The same can not be said of atheism. PRATT.

”
I’m so thankful that my Pentecostal parents would’ve beaten me within an inch of my life if I’d shown any racist tendencies.”

What, were your parents not skilled enough to sit down and talk to you about it?

Or do you think physical violence is the best way to teach?

That mass delusion does not necessarily lead to sociopathy is small recompense.

I had to check my calendar. For a second I thought it was 1952.

The grammar’s fine.  And what’s with all the negative replies?  I’m not defending Christianity.  I repudiate it.  And speaking of No True Scotsman, that’s exactly the mistake I’m talking about.  Too often I see it turned around such that conservative believers are assumed to be racist, one and all.  It’s not true.

 ????  Wow!

Oh religion, is there nothing you can’t justify?

If there is, history has not yet demonstrated what it is.

If you claim to have “sincerely held religious beliefs” you can be exempt from just about any law these days

Keep in mind that the Apostle Paul wrote to a slave owner and didn’t bother to ask or demand that the slave be freed.

I don’t think it’s nitpicking to point out how immoral it is for someone to say that they’re glad their parents would have physically abused them almost to the point of death if they had believed hatefully things as a child. That’s just crazy, and a major slap in the face to your parents if you were just being hyperbolic. DiscountIng racism while simultaneously condoning child abuse is pretty bizarre, and deserves to be called out.

Because it’s impossible that Mike could have been serious about his happiness at being beaten physically, right?

We’re not ignoring the “broader picture”, whatever that might be. Some Christians aren’t racist asshats. Great, good for them. But why haven’t a good number of them (or any at all) come forward and denounced this type of behavior, which can indeed be justified religiously?

That’s just weird. It was clearly hyperbole, and what Mike says regarding his parents and their parenting style is between him and them. Ferchrissakes.

Molehill Mountain.

 Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that given where and when he was supposed to have been born, Jesus was even more likely to have been what we’d call “black”.

No, it’s not impossible, but was it probable and therefore justified harsh scrutiny? NO.

Recognizing hyperbole in everyday, colloquial speech and writing is not an uncommon skill. Also, not blowing things out of proportion.

 It only takes a smidge of reading comprehension and familiarity with the language to see that it is extremely unlikely that mikespeir was being literal.

Nice job trying to hold him accountable for his parents (allegedly) not criticizing religiously-supported racism. Very Biblical of you.

I wasn’t trying to hold him accountable for anything. Reading comprehension, indeed.

It wasn’t you, it was Jude:

“What, were your parents not skilled enough to sit down and talk to you about it?

Or do you think physical violence is the best way to teach?”

Either Jude has trouble with colloquial language in English, or he’s being a deliberately obtuse asshole. I’m willing to put my money on the former rather than the latter, though.

I think I just might throw up…this is disgusting. Are we sure it’s from this year/recent past, and not like the 50’s? Maybe? Please?

Ahhh, the arrival of the “But they’re not REALChristian(tm)s!” apologist.

There’s something like 42,000 different denominations of christianity out there, all claiming to have the “One True Word”, all claiming the other 41,999 sects are preaching “False Dogma”.

Just ask a Southern Baptist if a Catholic is a christian.

If there was universal agreement on what it takes to be a “RealChristian(tm)”, then there would be only ONE denomination, yes?

Oh, and -1 for “Stalin was an Atheist”. Hitler was a Christian, so your point is?

I can’t see this as an indictment of Christianity. Yes, these folks are Christians, but their essential identity is Klan. 

Clearly. I love how you say that with such conviction.
Take a look over at the “Jesus Take The Wheel Day” post, specifically at a comment made by one C Peterson, who basically said that the entire family should be in the car when the driver lets go of the wheel. Including the children. Another commenter agreed with him/her.

Am I supposed to believe that it’s “clearly” hyperbole? Because the second commenter seems upset that the rest of us aren’t “tolerant” of the opinion that the children deserve the suffer along with the parents who may believe with the Jesus Take The Wheel Day nonsense.

Please don’t lecture us on how “clearly” one post is hyperbole while another isn’t. There is no clear and easy way to tell.

“Brace yourself for the onslaught of Christians explaining why these Christians aren’t really Christians.”
Good news everybody! I just realized there no Christians! Every Christian falls into some other Christian’s definition of  “not a real Christian”. So So I guess we can start converting all of those churches into buildings that are actually useful…

Which is precisely why I blame all Christians for the faults of the few.

If they really believed in what they claim to believe, they would not be allowing this kind of nonsense to happen at all, let alone to happen in the name of their religion. There is no shortage of churches out there championing bigotry and hatred — THOSE churches, at least, got the memo about practices, even if they ignored the one about mission statement, to use business jargon. But the “nice” “liberal” churches never, EVER actually ACT on their faith. Where are all the letters to the editor, campaigns to boycott companies which do bad things, and picketing campaigns? Oh, they exist — and they’re run by the nonreligious. No, “liberal” Christians wouldn’t want to start acting on their beliefs; that — as George Carlin once put it — sounds like something Jesus might do.

“Stalin was an atheist so does that mean that  he represented the thoughts of all who call themselves atheists?”

Straw man.

I know this seems difficult for religious people to understand, but atheism is not equivalent to a religion.  There is no set of codes, dogmas, rituals, scriptures, saints, etc.; the only commonality is the lack of a belief in god(s).  Just as Stalin having a mustache does not validate a comparison to other mustachioed people, his lack of belief in a supreme being (or presumably unicorns, leprechauns, fairies, etc.) does not beg comparison with those who also lack those beliefs. 

I’m not sure there are too many people here trying to say that these people represent all Christians.  Of course they don’t.  If anything, I’m sure they represent a very slim minority of Christians.

I think the point that is being made here is that religion can give you ANY justification for ANYTHING.  Don’t like blacks?  Your religion can make that OK!  Don’t like gays, Jews, women?  Your religion has rationalizations for you!  Want to break laws and shun good people for no good reason?  Just say “It’s my religion”!

It only goes to show that ALL religions are inventions, created by people who want to claim “higher authority” to do things that are normally frowned upon, or even illegal.

I think he was just trying to show that they’d have come down on him hard for being racist. 

I’ll just note this isn’t obviously a Christian thing per se. I mean, obviously there’s a correlation in the states between religiosity and racism and there’s some post-facto theology there. But make these people atheists tomorrow and give them a reason to meet and most likely it will be an all-white meeting. 
… Not of course that a Millite liberal has much against all white meetings. I wouldn’t go to one and they are a risk that ought to be monitored. But I dont see that meetings for whites are much more worrying than meetings for Christians or meetings for theists or meetings for men, all of which are clearly legitimate.

Freedom of religion exists in this country, as of yet. Freedom of speech (the First Amendment) protects not nicey-nice speech, but speech others might find objectionable. The Jews think that THEY are ‘God’s Chosen People’, and many in the U.S. support that. Blacks have Liberation Theology, ala Rev. Wright; that’s ok. As long as these folks are not hurting others, it is their right as citizens of this country to believe as they wish.  I’m tired of people trying to shut down others’ points of view.

I don’t see anyone trying to sue them. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from criticism

”
douchecanoes”  
Somehow so appropriate for those who have no discernable sense of proportion or humor.  I lke it.

Go back a hundred years or more and you’d find that the majority of Christians and the sects they identified with were racist. Whatever splinter of Christianity you follow now, its antecedents were a lot more racist back in the day.

So much for that absolute morality thing you guys have going for you.

 People can find anything to justify their views.  Atheists have used their lack of a belief in God to kill millions of people, disparage people, discriminate against others, etc.  The fact that these people use their warped view of Christianity to support their views only says something about them, it doesn’t say anything about Christianity.

 Not anymore of a strawman than Hemants point here.  The fact that these people attempt to use Christianity to justify there views says something about them, not Christianity. 

They were not prevented from publishing their material, therefore their freedom of speech was not violated. Comprehend? Not only that, they are being given a much larger audience than they otherwise might have reached. That’s kind of the opposite of shutting them up.
Portraying them as bigots or criticising their particular take on being Good Christians is not taking away their right to believe or to talk about it as they wish.What I would hope to shut down is any chance that they might think they could get away with putting their prejudices into action. They start burning those crosses on someone else’s lawn and they’ve crossed the line.Do you really privilege religion that much that it should not be subjected to criticism? If that means we are rude militant atheists in your eyes, so be it.

Notice how they didn’t bring up, in their poor excuse for an explanation, the possibility that blacks can be christians too. To them, it seems, all blacks are muslims. 

You’ve never come across references to the ‘children of Ham’?

Some Christians in America opposed the slave trade and/or slavery. It started pretty much with the Quakers in 1697 when they officially declared their opposition to the importation of slaves.

Before that, the Church of England, which was the official church of England and all her colonies and other churches besides, justified slavery as a way to bring Christianity to Africans. They even benefitted directly “through the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel missionary organisations, which had plantations in Barbados; while the Bishop of Exeter was a personal slave owner”.

Indeed it was Evangelicals who spearheaded abolition, starting in the mid 1700s. They were opposed by other church leaders, especially in the southern States. The CoE called them ‘Nonconformists’ and ‘Dissenters’ and they were marginalised because of it.

The Quakers and Evangelicals were the seeds that grew to become the abolitionist movement. Those who joined them were mostly Christian, but so were those, initially a majority, that opposed them. Christianity after all, was the default condition.

Here is one reference for you: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/history/slavery_1.shtml It’s the source of my quote above.

Try Googling for “christian justification for slavery”. I’m sure you know how, if you want to.

My point is that slavery was long justified with specific passages in the Bible. It was also argued that it was a useful way to convert the black ‘savages’ and save their souls.

When we go as far back as the Renaissance, painters sponsored by the Church made their God and their Saints and Apostles into Caucasians for what could only be racist reasons.

You can’t “use” the absence of a belief to justify something. These people committed atrocities because of beliefs they had: beliefs that they were justified in their actions because they had power or because it served some greater purpose, etc. It had nothing to do with their atheism, which isn’t a position at all. Even if you say, “Oh, well, they justified these atrocities by saying that they had no higher power to hold them responsible,” that presupposes a belief in the necessity of some final arbiter as a deterrent. So stop making this claim as though it was equivalent to people who have actually committed atrocities in the name of God – it’s not.

P.S. It really isn’t necessary to talk about these things to make statements about Christianity; reading the Bible is enough.

I’ve heard of these people before — to my recollection they’re basically imitation-KKK.

 “Atheists have used their lack of a belief in God to kill millions of
people, disparage people, discriminate against others, etc. ”

You are right, people can find anything to justify their views, as you just did about atheism. Furthermore, that fact that so many atheists are former Christians DOES say something about Christianity. You just choose to rationalize it away as “never having truly understood.” Yep….  thousands of denominations within Christianity, thankfully Rwlawoffice chose the right one. No way you are wrong.

 Don’t you know? He is this guy>>

Not surprised at all, really. “Christian Identity” is nothing more than a prettied-up KKK.

Oh, BULLSHIT.

Christianity == HATRED AND MURDER.

Unless your sincerely held religious belief involves that Devil Weed, MARIHUANA!

No, seriously, Rastafarians can’t practice their faith.

True, but their faith is in direct contravention of the law. I’m not saying that I agree with the law but that is the case. I’m not sure that these asshats have broken any laws.

Of course, if they’re getting tax relief….

*smack*. Nice.

 Millions of more people have been killed trying to advance a secular state than any of those that have been killed in a warped view of Christianity.

 The quote you cited states that the abolitionist movement was started by Christians and Christians made up their ranks. Have you heard of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society, Charles Finney, William llyod Garrison, Arthur Weld among others- very vocal evangelists and Christian organizations that were the driving force behind passing laws abolishing slavery.  There were many more.  True there were some like these idiots who tried to use Christianity to support slavery but they were in the minority and it was the work of other Christians, including Abraham Lincoln that ultimately forced the end of slavery.  If there are atheists who were active in the abolitionist movement I am not aware of them, but if you know them I would be open to learn.

Nope. Atheism is the lack of believe in any god, not just your idea of what a god should be.
Disbelieve in unicorns will also not lead to actions or justification of actions.
Just like disbelieve in Satan will not lead to do good things.

Based on the assertion of religion shouldn’t Christianity’s scorecard show zero killed? Secularism kills more than Christianity, is that really the winning argument?  

As a side, Stalin and Hitler were both beaten by their fathers who eventually abandoned them. Both were raised by religious mothers who wanted their sons to become priests. Both actually pursued the path to priesthood, Hitler to a Benedictine monastery, Stalin to Orthodox theological school and the seminary.

Odd how the both share the same foundational similarities yet you conclude secularism was the cause.

“True there were some like these idiots who tried to use Christianity to support slavery but they were in the minority”

Minority? As if these “idiots” represented a smal handful and not an entire region…. like “the south”. 

 Neither can Native Americans with religious ceremonies calling for the use of peyote.  Or for the use of feathers from an eagle – there was an article in the paper recently about how many years it took to get the permit to hunt one so that they could use the feathers.   

Went looking for it, and found a slightly different article on teh same topic – apparently, the federal government keeps a “repository” of feathers and other bald eagle parts, which tribes are supposed to check out for ceremonies.   As the last sentence asks, “How would a non-Indian feel if they had to get their Bible from a repository?”Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/14/wyoming-native-american-tribe-gets-rare-permit-to-kill-bald-eagles/#ixzz1zlEhT5Mr

I wonder what they’d do if a Catholic showed up

I suspect they’d say that Catholics aren’t “Christians”, as they define the term. 

The same William Lain Craig who defends genocide as moral? That’s who look up to?

 Unfortunately you are correct.  There have been those in the past that have used Christianity to justify killings. However, that really doesn’t answer the issue about the millions that have been killed in an attempt to set up a secular society.

As for Hitler and Stalin originally being raised in a Christian household and then abandoning their faith, doesn’t that say more about those that have abandoned Christianity than it does about the faith itself? Had they kept their faith, would they have engaged in the acts they did? In fact it was their attempts to set up a secular state and stomp out Christianity that led to their actions. By the way, I was not referring to Hitler. I was referring to Stalin.

 Not at all.  And despite your repeat of Dawkins view on Craig and why he won’t debate him, that really is a strawmen to the argument on the definition of atheism.

Nope. Atheism is the lack of belief in any god. Have your own definition if you must, I´m not falling for it.
And ‘not going to church’ is not an action.
Also, apperantly, there are lots of people in churches that do not believe in any god, even priests.

Funny, you might think one would believe the atheists on how to define atheism.

Hitler didn’t abandon his faith. He just stopped trying to be a priest.

 Christianity is the belief that god will reward you for slandering atheists and murdering gay people. 

If you can make shit up, so can I!

Now if you can name an athesit or an athesit group that was equally invovled, I would like to learn that.

An atheist group involved in supporting freedom for slaves?  Back when coming out as an atheist would get you on the hate list of just about everybody and the kill list of all sorts of groups?  Back when the statement “but the *atheists* support abolition” would have convinced an awful lot of people that abolition was immoral and wrong? 

Yeah, you’re right, the fact that I can’t name any atheist groups would publicly advocated abolition proves we’re just not as good as you Christians….  [/sarcams]

Rwlawoffice said:

Atheisn is the positive assertion that there is no God.

Great, now I have to go tell my Hindu friends that they are actually atheists..

“that really doesn’t answer the issue about the millions that have been killed in an attempt to set up a secular society”

And how does secularism answer the question?

“Had they kept their faith, would they have engaged in the acts they did?”

What does the magic 8-ball say on the subject, it’s guess is as good as yours. While we are at it, what if neither were beaten or abandoned? What if their mothers pushed them to be artists instead of priests?

Be sure you tell the right ones.  Some Hindus believe in a God and some don’t.

http://www.thinkatheist.com/notes/Hinduism

Pedro, your post supports my point.  You have looked at the evidence for God and you have rejected it.  As such you have taken a position- the evidence is not good enough for me to belief.  Thus you have taken a positive position that there is no God. 

what you ask for would require things like personal correspondence from atheists that were privately exchanged between themselves and other atheist abolitionists. i don’t know of even an academic project to collect such, let alone a collection someone could just go look at. God’s Gentle People ™ are so fond of building monuments and libraries and other things lauding the actions of their heroes, but not all groups or people are. sometimes, being an atheist in public is dangerous, just as dangerous as being an out gay man showing affection can be. you really can’t blame modern atheists for lack of evidence that in all likelihood, was burned upon reading by the recipients. 

What happens here all the time is I will point out the good Christians do and atheists will respond with yes but other Christians do bad. It is an attempt to paint all Christians with a bad brush.

No, it’s a dismissal of your attempt to paint Christianity itself with a good brush.  Here’s the thing:  You claim brownie points for Christianity (and Christians) on the grounds that some of them fought against slavery.  But you don’t get those without balancing anti-points for the fact that those Christians were arguing with other Christians who defended slavery using the same Bible.

And yes, some Christians have done wonderful things.  You claim that they did these things because they are Christians.  To me, that misses 2 points.  1) some of them are just genuinely good people, who would have done those really good things even if they weren’t Christian.  2) The others?  If they’re NOT doing these things because they are good people, why are they doing them?  Because the church tells them to?  Okay.  You say the church itself and all members of the church get brownie points for that.  I’ll grant that.  But only if you’re also willing to give anti-points to the church and to all members for all the BAD things that church members do, and continue to do, when the church knows about these things and doesn’t stop them.  I’ve seen too many denominations hide issues of child abuse by clergy or other people in authority – sometimes sexual abuse, sometimes other kinds of abuse.  I’ve seen too many people harmed because their church tells them to pray rather than seek medical care.  I’ve seen too many people in poverty because their church urges them to give everything to the church, combined with a message that birth control is bad and they should trust God to control their fertility.  I’ve seen too many lies spread by churches regarding the beneficial effects of birth control and condom usage.  

You “readily acknowledge” that “parts of Christian history” aren’t so good – but you seem to put all that in the past.  You want me to acknowledge that some Christians are good people doing good things (which I do), but what I do NOT do is accept that this means that Christianity itself is the reason they do those good things.  I think that *people* are better than you think, and that *the christian church* is worse than you think.

 Planning is like praying, the action of inaction.

OK, I’ll correct you. 😉

I think that’s very unlikely to be true. Ancient Egyptians painted depictions of different races that survive today. They depicted the people to the south (Nubians) as jet black with wooly or “nappy” hair; themselves as bronze or brown, clean-shaven with straight hair; and the people to the north (the “bible lands”) as bearded with curly or wavy hair and a light yellowy-beige skin color – probably an approximation to an “olive” complexion.

These depictions are stylized to an extent (for example Egyptian women are usually shown as having a lighter skin color than Egyptian men), but it seems very likely that the Israelites were, in fact, quite light-skinned.

Wrong on both accounts.

Brace yourself for arguments of how choosing fringe groups to represent the whole is friendly or reasonable.

I cannot get over the cross lighting…what in the actual fuck?!

You are an idiot. Black people were the first people to walk the planet and all races came from them!
The ‘White man’ only dominated through lies, theft and murder to get where he is today