Here’s the thing, though - when even the most innocuous display of affection between 2 people of the same sex (more commonly 2 men, but that’s another discussion) is interpreted as “shoving our homosexuality in their faces”, it doesn’t leave a lot of options.
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No doubt you are correct. I would like to add two things though:
- I think they are defending what was. They are seeing their ascendancy fade and are fighting like hell to claw it back.
- There is absolutely no acknowledgement of the harm their world view has caused. For example, fighting against anti-bullying efforts when it is literally a matter of life or death.
@Boundegar’s original comment was, “For the record, intolerance to LGBTQetc is not Christian dogma. It’s not even doctrine.” In the context of your example, it’s like saying, “For the record, Siberian forced-labor prison-camps are not part of Soviet communist dogma. It’s not even doctrine.” Okay. Sure. There’s no mission statement that says, 'We do these things on purpose."
And yet, these things are done. On purpose. When you say, “I can’t think of a single member of my local church who is involved in right-wing politics or espouses hate,” my response is twofold – first, individuals are and should be free to follow whatever political beliefs they agree with. I’m very concerned about churches mandating political views, as we saw in the last election – “If you vote for Hillary, you’re going to Hell.” Sorry, I think that’s wrong. I’d also think it wrong if it were reversed – “If you vote for Trump, you’re going to Hell.” So wherever your fellow churchgoers fall in the political spectrum, that’s their personal business.
They also don’t espouse hate? That’s great! It sounds like you have a nice community. But there are plenty of churches who do espouse hate, about all kinds of subjects. That’s not Christian doctrine, but it’s becoming more and more associated with Christian behavior, and fairly or unfairly, Christians get judged for it. The doctrine is acceptance and tolerance, but the practice in real-time doesn’t tend to follow.
I never said or meant to imply that anyone is or is not Christian. My point is, mission statements don’t matter much if the actions and behaviors are something else.
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Conservatives would say that’s liberalism’s flaw, for example, having to make cakes for couples whose sexuality they’ve been taught is a mortal sin if they want to make cakes at all.
Therein lies the rub between wanting to be left alone and being obliged by society not to unfairly discriminate.
But you know, sometimes it’s the most vocal vanilla that really does have a secret hankering for salted caramel… Most vanilla is kind of like “meh, whatever. You do your thing. I’m a fan of vanilla.”. The REALLY outspoken vanilla always seems to be caught in less vanilla situations.
You know, the kind of hankering that can only be satisfied with a “wide stance” in an airport bathroom stall.
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That’s not “Christian”. My Episcopal church, which happens to be the parish cathedral has a married gay rector/dean .
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Any time you try to lump billions of people of various races and cultures together you’re bound to fall short.
I watched the first episode, and the laughter from the studio audience was either on cue with really questionable cue placement (they laughed at things that weren’t just not funny, they were kind of inappropriate to laugh at), or it was a laugh track inserted later, also with really bad placement. I like the idea of an entertaining science program for adults starring Bill Nye, but this show needs some work.
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Yeah, you pretty much nailed it.
Even if there was scientific proof that vanilla was the correct flavour it wouldn’t change that I like chocolate more.
So Vanillas feelings on the issue are correct , but he’s still a jerk.
I understand your point, but it seems to me that if (continuing your example) conservatives said “I fully support your right to marry, but I personally don’t want to bake your cake” it would be a lot less of an issue.
Cakes – and everything like it – are just proxy wars for the real issue. Seriously, if those kinds of conservative supported gay marriage in a real sense, gay couples (and the law) would probably give them a pass on support in a trivial sense.
Same with the bathroom wars: It’s trivial where a person pisses. It’s a proxy war (and it seems like a lot of folks on both the right and left don’t quite get that).
And most/all of the “real issues” for which these proxies arises and things in which conservatives don’t want to leave other people alone. [That’s probably something of an exaggeration, as the left does silly stuff too, but I think my point is clear.]
Edit: Just to elaborate, a real conservative would believe that the government shouldn’t be involved with deciding who is married and who is not, and would be offended that the tax code is written in such a way that the government does need to get involved.
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Again, that’s fair enough - but you are giving the impression that you prefer to judge all Christians by the ones espousing views you don’t like rather than ones you do? Am I not allowed to hold the opposite view? (That I don’t think that Christians who espouse hate should be considered Christians, as opposed to that being the default position.)
I would note that I very specifically didn’t say “Soviet communist dogma/doctrine”; you interpreted it as saying that, because I mentioned Siberia - I guess I probably shouldn’t have said Siberia as it clearly got in the way and led to the misinterpretation. My point was that to cite a horrible example of behaviour as being the baseline definition for everyone who claims that allegiance is only going to work if everyone agrees with that being the baseline, and we’re a very, very long way from that being the case, even in extreme cases (heck, we can’t even really agree about who can be called a “Nazi” other than, well, members of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s, and even that is sometimes not straight-forward.) I don’t judge communism as a political ideology on the basis of the failings of people who didn’t seem to be following communist principles, and, likewise, I won’t judge Christianity as a religious ideology on the basis of the failings of people who don’t seem to be following Christian teachings. (And yes, I realise that my view is biased given that, in the eyes of a lot of people, I am probably both a communist and a Christian and am therefore more likely to want to defend those positions from folk who wish to subvert them, for whatever reasons.)
My original point was that it was omission of the qualifying term “some” that was the problem. “Some” Christians espouse positions of hate. Yes, yes, they do. I don’t dispute that. I do dispute the implication that there is some inherent connection between being Christian and espousing hate, which is how your original post came across to me owing to the crucial lack of “some”.
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I never intended to imply that being Christian means you espouse hate. My post was a response to @Boundegar, who stated that intolerance to LGBT is not part of Christian dogma or doctrine. There are a lot of things that aren’t a part of Christian dogma or doctrine, and yet they still happen, all the time. I wish now that I had said Sunday school, bake sales, and saying “Merry Christmas” are not part of Christian dogma or doctrine, but still happen, because that would at least be a more positive example of my point.
So here’s my point: actions speak louder than words. Intolerance isn’t part of Christian dogma. How nice! And yet intolerance to LGBT is so widespread and so common in Christianity that, if I’m LGBT, the last place I’ll ever seek tolerance or understanding is in a Christian church. An individual Christian? Sure, maybe, if I’ve learned that I can trust that person to be tolerant on that issue. Because, as you’ve pointed out, some Christians are tolerant of LGBT issues.
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Again, I’m not really disagreeing with you (which is, of course, the worst sort of argument!)
Actions do indeed speak louder than words. That would be why some Churches are often in the forefront of campaigns about social justice, where others prefer to hide and snipe from the sidelines.
Churches often use the somewhat fuzzy definition of “sanctuary” as a weapon to help people, for instance. Maybe you don’t see this, because you aren’t looking and it doesn’t get much publicity because it’s not really news. Whereas perhaps you do see coverage of hypocritical church actions and maybe conclude that these are actually the representative actions which you will judge them all by?
But I guess the last year or so has taught us that the jerks really do rule the world. That it is much safer to assume that the bad actors are, in fact, truly representative of how people really behave and believe. And that those of us who think we can have a better world are deluding ourselves? 
I had the same thought, but what I decided was that, ultimately, the Mike Pences of the world were never going to watch the show anyway.
What good is it, then? Well, the Mike Pences of the world aren’t the only people who have issues with science. There’s plenty of people, some of whom I know personally, who are very concerned with climate change, and human sexuality, and birth control… but who are anti-vaccine, or think GMOs are some frankenfood bad for your health. For those people, they’d be cheering along to the show for most of the episodes… which makes it that much harder to ignore when the same arguments get applied to their own anti-science beliefs.
In other words, it’s preaching to the choir, but let’s not assume the choir is up to date on their bible study.
… Which, come to think of it, is a really weird metaphor to use for this particular show.
Honestly, I really hope you’re wrong in your assessment. Bandwagonging other people by shitting on others to get them to conform to your views? It sounds like something a cult would do or some social clique in a boarding school.
It’s hardly bandwagoning. It’s not “Everyone else is vaccinating, you should do it too!” That’s a bandwagon fallacy. It’s “If you insist science is right on global warming, human sexuality, and all these other things, surely science is also right about vaccines and GMOS?” That’s not a fallacy, it’s consistent application of logic.
I wouldn’t say the show is shitting on anyone either. It’s not pulling punches. That’s not a bad thing. It means it won’t reach some people. That’s okay. I’m not the target audience for most sermons myself. And those sermons would say, in no uncertain terms, God is real, and you should both believe in him, and worship him. That’s not shitting on me as an atheist. I disagree, and I’m unlikely to be swayed, but I don’t expect anyone to prance around their beliefs to accommodate me either. I think it’s okay to say that, for example, global warming is real, and state it firmly. Just because it’s not specifically tailored for people who have issue with that statement doesn’t mean it’s degrading them.
I’m talking about specifically the Ice Cream segment. I haven’t seen enough to see if that tactic applies elsewhere.
The bandwagoning assumption is based on your idea that “they’d be cheering along to the show for most of the episodes…”. And then when they get to that persons’ topic, they start to figure the must agree with the show, because they certainly aren’t like the other backwards people we were just laughing at in earlier segments.
Sooo - guess I better go watch it. I just sincerely hope that isn’t the tactic they are adopting. It will have to be after this weekend. I have a comic con to attend.
