Why a sanctuary?

Smash "there" logic, :smilielol5:

 

Just to change the subject for a moment but I just wanted to say that it is easy to see what you're thinking about in you're sig picture.

 

That may be the case in Europe. I don't know. Here in the southern US, it is cool to be a christian conservative. Trendy, shallow people who want to run with the "in" crowd go to church every week. Nobody here talks a different line just to be cool.

 

Haha.


It's trendy here to be a VERY conservative Christian. I don't troll the Christian boards but came across this in the 'New Posts'. I think it's ridiculous to throw a bitch fit because someone has a 'Sanctuary'.

 

That's very different from where I grew up in London.... I've grown up with the general idea that it's cool to be anything but a Christian! And conservative Christian too... that's just seen as the definition of uncool. I guess that's the difference in culture in the UK. It's cool to have a quirky religion, cool to be pagan, cool to follow an Eastern religion like Buddhism but not to be a Christian.

Edit: and forgot to mention, in places like Gibraltar, it's cool to be Catholic but nothing much else. Any other type of Christianity and it's sorta... frowned upon. Same in most South/Southwest European Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy, Gibraltar etc. So not all Europe is the same really.

 

It varies from place to place in the US also.

 

Don't you hate it when attention whores try to act more spiritual than everybody else they know?

I guess most people outside the US don't know much about the Bible Belt, which runs from Oklahoma to the Atlantic Ocean, getting wider as you go east. Family, church, and sports are what people care about there, and anybody who thinks or acts differently is viewed with suspicion. The only Bible Belt city I can think of that doesn't conform to the pattern at all is Memphis, which is in the Mississippi River party culture.

Most of the larger towns are not quite as bad as the smaller ones, because transplants from other parts of the country usually move to the larger cities for the good jobs. Nashville is probably the most extreme fundamentalist christian city in the US, followed by Charlotte.

 

Actually we do hear somewhat about the Bible Belt in the US. Comedians here often like to take the piss out of it and the Bible-thumping evangelicals who reside there. I assumed it was all a little over-exaggerated though.
If it's like anything I've heard I wouldn't want to live there.

 

In the smaller towns, population 20,000 or less, it is probably worse than what you have heard. I was born in one of those places, but would not go back under any circumstances. I could tell you true stories that you wouldn't believe. Extremism can be a very ugly thing to watch.

 

I've heard of things like people being beaten up by mobs by being gay or black and putting explosives in abortion clinics. Sounds like a mad house! And very un-Christian. For interest, what really does happen in these places? I am fairly ignorant, forgive me, in this area. I've never set foot in a Bible Belt town in the US.

 

No, you're not: you're trying to start shit. There's a forum to debate Christianity, and self-righteous atheists can bash it all they want there. You and your little club also have the atheism/agnosticism forum. There's no excuse for coming in here and acting smug and superior toward people who aren't even arguing with you. That's just weak shit.

And I'm an agnostic, so you might actually have to use some of your 'logic and rationale' if you want to argue the point, rather than just calling me an ignorant Christian.

 

Violence of that kind is extremely rare these days. Some racial or homophobic violence takes place between high school kids, every now and then, on a small scale. Most of the time, applied pressure to adults is not of the obviously illegal variety. They are too smart for that. The town social leaders will usually smile and speak calmly to you, no matter what their intentions. Nothing in the South is ever what it appears to be. We like to smile at you while we're stabbing you in the back.

If you don't try really hard to fit in, you won't have any friends, you may not have a good job, and you may even have trouble renting a place to live. You won't have anything to do with your time except watch television and surf the web. There is just no reason to be there if you aren't one of those people with traditional views.

Let's say you are married to somebody of a different skin color or live with a gay partner, and you are looking for an apartment. They will simply tell you that there are no vacancies, or that they found a problem with your references or credit history. They will say it with a smile, and tell you (another lie) that they are very sorry.

Or you might be a devout Hindu, trying to get a promotion at work. Your christian boss will agree with his christian boss that you "lack the judgment and moral character to advance" and you will be passed over, or maybe even laid off. Or you may never even get a job offer from that company, because the boss thinks you won't fit in well with your coworkers. Nobody tells you the truth, so you get no chance to state your case. You don't know for sure what is going on.

In the churches, local social politics is completely wrapped up with the theology. Churches are the only social clubs in town, and you have to please the church leaders to get anywhere socially. That usually means you have to agree with them on things like racism, homophobia, extreme patriotism, and disapproval of all alcohol use. You have to jump through all their hoops with great enthusiasm and energy. After a few years of playing this game to perfection, they just might start to accept you.

After school, your kids may come home crying because the other kids won't play with them. The other kids were told by their parents not to play with your kids because they are "different" or they come from a "bad family". Those parents don't want their kids exposed to any kind of diversity.

To get rid of the town's abortion doctor, there is usually no need to build a bomb and risk going to prison. There are smarter ways to get rid of him. Being an OB-GYN, the regular doctors simply won't refer any patients to him. He will get to do abortions only, and there won't be enough of them to support a medical practice. His clinic will go out of business, and he will have to leave town. His family will also be treaded rudely.

Get the picture? These people play dirty, they play smart, and they play to win. They have no intention of giving you a fair chance to beat the system. You become one of them, or you move away. After you were gone, they will politely say to each other, "It was for the best. She didn't fit in here, bless her heart."

I'm not saying that there are no truly nice people in these little towns. I am saying that they are few in number, and they don't control anything.

In larger Southern towns you have some of the same evil, narrow-minded people around, but you don't have to care so much what they think. You have a lot more options, so they really have no power over your life. There are a lot of places to work, meet people, and spend your free time. That is true freedom.

 

Wow...just wow. That's unbelievable. That just gives Christians a bad name. No wonder people seem to hate Christians but believe me, we aren't all like that.
Actually what makes it worse is they call themselves Christian at all. That just strikes me as gross hypocrisy considering what they're doing, and I'd gladly remind them of what the Bible teaches!
I don't get it. What has gone wrong in the world that this happens?

 

This is not the first place on earth to incorporate bible teachings into their own local culture and mix it all together. History is full of examples, starting in Rome.

In this case, it was caused by too much isolation from the rest of the world, and even from the rest of America. Small societies with no infusion of fresh blood tend to stagnate and rot from the inside.

People fear what they don't understand. When you understand little about the outside world, it seems like a very scary place. You want absolute control over your own little corner.

That is why a Sanctuary forum is both good and bad. Everybody needs a safe corner sometimes. You just don't need to hide in there too much.

 

The sanctuary isn't for hiding. It is for Christians to discuss their beliefs on their own grounds to others Christians. Christians will ask each other different kinds of questions than a non-christian would ask. It is nice to have the freedom without having to justify our beliefs all the time for the reason that someone else mentioned [Think it was you, Notdeadyet =) ] (that we aren't always in the mood).

To bring it up, Christians are supposed to be open to criticism. The idea behind that is if the scriptures are true then talking it out will prove it to be true, so there is no need to close off or to hide.

 

My recollect of the reasons for establishing Sanctuary are different. It wasn't for the benefit of Christians, to protect them from criticism. It was to keep them from proselytizing on the general Christian site. Skip issued a set of rules prohibiting quoting Scripture, proselytizing, etc. These applied only to Christians--no counterparts on the Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Pagan sites, etc. Christians complained, and Sanctuary was established to provide a kind of ghetto where Christians could quote Scripture to each other to their hearts content while their opponents could continue to bash Christians on the general Christianity site without having to worry about being exposed to scripture or efforts to convert them..

 

What we really use this forum for is to plot world domination.

 

Sssh, maybe no one will notice.

 

Well I am a Catholic ...and I like a Jesuit's view on grace and predestination.

(BTW-the Jesuit thing is a reference to the fact that the Society of Jesus was started to defeat Protestantism)

 

The logic of christians, :smilielol5: