What is a Real Christian?
- Thread starter Bowser
- Start date
So what are you saying? That people who can just as easily be labeled shouldn't be acknowledged as such? Mind you, there are a heck more derogatory terms for homosexuals than there are for homophobes. There are more derogatory terms for people of color than there are for racist. There is a plethora of words that we can use to label others, many of them very concise in meaning.
Exactly.
Since being a Christian is all about divine things and such, any comparisons or analogies to worldy phenomena is misplaced.
The term "real Christian" is a political term. It doesn't have an actually definable meaning in the sense of "a real Christian is someone who ...". It is at once a filler word, a signal word, and a power word.
Note that accusations of the No True Scotsman fallacy appear usually in reference to national, religious, and political identities. National, religious, and political identities are very difficult to define with precision, there often exist multiple or multi-tiered definitions of these identities, and there is a lot at stake in regard to them.
For example, a Scotsman could be someone living in Scotland; or someone who was born in Scotland but doesn't necessarily live there anymore; or someone who fits a particular image or stereotype about what it means to be a Scotsman; there may be more such images or stereotypes about what it means to be a Scotsman (e.g. among the English, there is a specific negative stereotype about Scotsmen, while Scots have a positive image of being a Scotsman).
Usually, in the cases of national, religious, and political identities and the disputes over them, what is happening is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, but equivocations that are not necessarily fallacious.
Ideally, in science, it is possible to define what is scientific and what isn't. Many other areas of human life cannot be handled with such precision.
No, for two reasons:
One: If nobody thinks you're a Christian, can you still rightfully call yourself a Christian?
Further, depending on the particular Christian denomination, it is not possible to unilaterally declare membership. For example, one cannot unilaterally declare oneself to be a Catholic; in order to be a Catholic, one needs to be accepted into the Catholic church via a formal procedure, or one isn't a Catholic.
(And leaving aside for a moment the problem of calling oneself a Christian if one doesn't have approval from Jesus himself.)
Two: It is epistemically untenable for a person to unilaterally declare oneself a member of a particular group. When a person tries to bear the whole burden of doxastic responsibility all on their own, without any support and acknowledgment from the group to which they nominally belong, this eventually takes a toll on their mental (and physical) wellbeing.
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The reason that those are more damning is because that in many cases they are actual lapses of character whereas those on the right tend to attempt to blame people for being poor, minorities, or non-Christian. You are trying to create an equivalency where there is none.
True. So why are you so often on the side against women?
Ivan Seeking
Registered Senior Member
I am going by what Jesus said. You know, like let he who is without sin cast the first stone. His message was clear. If you want to make Christianity about fear and hate that is your right in this country. But that doesn't make it based on Christian principles even if claiming to be Christian.
I was just quoting the bible and noting that most of the vocal right has no right to claim themselves as Christians. It is a pretty simple argument based on the most essential tenants of the teachings of Christ.
Republicans have tried to pass off the old testament as Christianity in order to justify their control issues and prejudices. But that is really more like Judaism or Islam. There are direct parallel between Republican pop "Christianity" and Jihadist "Islam".
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Exactly. The stereotypical "Republican" is supposedly hate-filled and un-"Christian" when they take a moral stand on things they care very strongly about. (Don't judge! Don't cast stones!)
Of course Democrats (and Sciforums participants) seem to spend much of their time hating those who are different, making moral judgements and condemning, except that in their case they imagine that they are the righteous ones for doing it. In their case, judging and casting stones is apparently perfectly fine, because those who are being stoned are just so... evil. Which of course is exactly what those stereotypical evil Republicans think as well.
I don't see a whole lot of difference between religious-right and loony-left militants. They are both exceedingly self-righteous moralizers who love judging other people and getting in their faces. I don't enjoy it when either side does it.
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Which appears to be a significant evolutionary advantage.
Please control your language and do not flame other members.
Stop right there, asshole. Hating someone because they are racist is not the same as merely hating someone because they are "different".
The problem with this acknowledgment is, the left, via PC education, have defined these terms in ways that exempt themselves, even if they do the same things. For example, quotas are racist laws since they do not decide anything based on content of character, but only on the color of one's skin. PC uses an emotional song and dance so this is not called racist.
Leftist Blacks have been taught to believe it is OK to blame all the whites for slavery. This is racist since it defines an entire race by a few bad examples. But it is not called racist by PC song and dance. A real non-racist would say some white people, who lived long ago owned slaves. The Republican party was formed around the issue of ending slavery. More than half the white people, led by Abraham Lincoln, who was the first Republican president, helped to end slavery. The Republican whites make it possible for all blacks to get out of slavery.
The other half of the Whites, who were called the Democrats, tried to divide the country and when slavery was officially made illegal, continued to pressure the freed black people, with racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws for another century.
It makes sense that the left will give not say," blame all the whites",is racist, since this misinformation acts as a smoke screen, scapegoating the white Republicans for the century of white Democrat racial terror, which they had not part of.
A real Christian, looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
Has anyone seen Dinesh D'Souza's New Movie 'Hillary's America'. It clarifies his history with facts.
Dinesh D-Sousa spend 8 month in jail for trumped up charges connected to campaign finance laws as payback for producing a movie that criticized Obama. Instead of running away, he made another movie since the truth needs to be told.
Quotas show a racial preference, but if they are in place to fight against the problems caused by systems in place that work against people in general, then they can be good and thus no racist in the sense that they systematically oppress a minority.
You seem mad that people might actually help minorities. That's racist.
No, it's correct to claim that white people were hugely advantaged by slavery and that the people responsible for that slavery were almost entirely white. White people in the USA continue to be advantaged by slavery and its propaganda.
Except that the attitudes that black people are sub-human persists to this day in many forms.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: people who bring up that part of history and end there are racists. Because the Republican party continued to exist after 1900 and it vigorously pursued a strategy of appealing to racists and racism. This is not something that is in dispute.
Really. Why so blatantly lie about Republican history?
AH, that's it. You fell for that con-man.
Yes, black people are the real criminals, not the people who actually get convicted of crimes.
And a real Hindu looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
And a real Muslim looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
And a real Jew looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
And a real Republican looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
And a real Democrat looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
And a real [insert term for any group] looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
In the end, everyone looks for the truth and not some PC convention used to deceive and scam.
Oh, the irony.
That's some bullshit right there. Political correctness is important.