If you don't play the game then you shouldn't make the rules

Does Mr. Brugger have a position on male masturbation, blow jobs?

The Christian Persecution Narrative Rings Hollow

This June, I was invited on a friend’s podcast to answer a question I’ve been asked over and over again in the Trump era. Are Christians really persecuted in the United States of America? Millions of my fellow evangelicals believe we are, or they believe we’re one election away from a crackdown. This sense of dread and despair helps tie conservative Christians, people who center their lives on the church and the institutions of the church, to Donald Trump — the man they believe will fight to keep faith alive.

As I told my friend, the short answer is no, not by any meaningful historical definition of persecution. American Christians enjoy an immense amount of liberty and power.

When you’re inside evangelicalism, Christian media is full of stories of Christians under threat — of universities discriminating against Christian student groups, of a Catholic foster care agency denied city contracts because of its stance on marriage or of churches that faced discriminatory treatment during Covid, when secular gatherings were often privileged over religious worship.

Combine those stories with the personal tales of Christians who faced death threats, intimidation and online harassment for their views, and it’s easy to tell a story of American backsliding — a nation that once respected or even revered Christianity now persecutes Christians.

But when you’re pushed outside evangelicalism, the world starts to look very different. You see conservative Christians attacking the fundamental freedoms of their opponents. Red-state legislatures pass laws restricting the free speech of progressives and L.G.B.T.Q. Americans. Christian school board members attempt to restrict access to books in the name of their own moral norms. Other conservatives want to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, to bring legal recognition of same-sex marriages to an end.

Combine those stories with personal tales of progressives and other dissenters experiencing threats from and intimidation by conservative Christians, and you begin to see why the Christian persecution narrative rings hollow. And if conservative Christians are angry at progressive Americans for believing they are hateful hypocrites, then they have only themselves to blame.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/opini...faith.html

Scientists?

Otangelo is not a scientist but a troll.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...rgery.html

^I think the term professional researchers use for this sort of request is 'beating a dead horse.'

Boru

(August 26, 2024 at 1:02 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Scientists?  

Otangelo is not a scientist but a troll.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...rgery.html

Surely "could be authentic" is semantically the same as "could not be authentic"?   

So firstly they can only test how old it is surely, beyond that what might they test? The best they could hope for is that a new test dates closer to 2000 years ago than the middle ages, which was if memory serves the last result, would this fact alone be sufficient to believe in supernatural magic and deities? I have to say personally I would remain dubious. you'd only have a remarkably unlikely mystery you couldn't explain. They definitely shouldn't test it, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain, it seems to me.

(August 26, 2024 at 6:12 am)Sheldon Wrote:

(August 26, 2024 at 1:02 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Scientists?  

Otangelo is not a scientist but a troll.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...rgery.html

Surely "could be authentic" is semantically the same as "could not be authentic"?   

So firstly they can only test how old it is surely, beyond that what might they test? The best they could hope for is that a new test dates closer to 2000 years ago than the middle ages, which was if memory serves the last result, would this fact alone be sufficient to believe in supernatural magic and deities? I have to say personally I would remain dubious. you'd only have a remarkably unlikely mystery you couldn't explain. They definitely shouldn't test it, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain, it seems to me.

Even the people want the Shroud re-tested will, when cornered, admit that the original results aren’t at all likely to be off by more than about 50 years. The notion that they could be off by 12-13 centuries is just wrong.

Boru

If I am not mistaken, what some claim is that the original results are wrong because the researchers took the sample out of a part that was added in the middle ages.

Seems to me like researchers have to be quite inept not to notice something like this.

(August 26, 2024 at 7:18 pm)Modern Atheism Wrote: If I am not mistaken, what some claim is that the original results are wrong because the researchers took the sample out of a part that was added in the middle ages.

Seems to me like researchers have to be quite inept not to notice something like this.

If your talking about the shroud I think the church decides where (and how much of) a sample can be taken. I could be wrong.

To be honest, I think the whole thing could use a good cleaning.

(August 26, 2024 at 7:18 pm)Modern Atheism Wrote: If I am not mistaken, what some claim is that the original results are wrong because the researchers took the sample out of a part that was added in the middle ages.

Seems to me like researchers have to be quite inept not to notice something like this.

Wishful thinking is an incredibly powerful force.

One sees it everywhere.