One in four Americans said they couldn't think of a single positive societal contribution made by Christians in recent years, according to a nationwide survey released Monday. -- The Denver Post
Can you? (You don't have to be an American to play along.)
Does it have to be just one made by an xtian, or one that could only be made by an xtian? IOW, charitable organizations can be atheistic in nature...
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the woman with two boys who stopped by a few Sundays ago and asked for a couple hundred dollars. After we gave it to her she promised to pay us back, and then after I left she stayed around a little while longer to talk with my wife. What did she have to say to my wife? She spent the rest of the time bitterly cutting down churches and Christians. She said she would never attend church because of how terrible they are, etc.
ReplyDeleteI suspect several of our neighbors would say the same thing, in spite of what my family (and our church) has done for them over the years.
So...what was the point of the article? And why does it matter what 1/4th of Americans think about Christians any way? Christians did so much positive good in Roman society, but were persecuted for it. Christians in southern Egypt are persecuted for developing a medical clinic which offers free aid and treatment to the very poor. I've so much to say about this, but it's not really worth my time.
i would assume it's either that Christians get a lot of bad press and not much good press or that people don't know any christians personally that they can refer to.
ReplyDeleteI would assume that a positive contribution could be made by any group, whether they're a charitable organization or not, whether they follow a specific belief system or sports team or mbti grouping or not, whether they're actually in America or not....
ReplyDelete(I don't know what privacy setting my Multiply posts go to when they end up in FB-land, but if you'd like to follow along with the conversation there, try this.)
ReplyDeleteI, too, wonder whether this might be more a sign that there are few problems in the world that are only being addressed by a single group or project that everyone recognizes as Christian... and honestly, if problems are addressed by more groups, or addressed by more religiously heterogenous groups, I don't know that it's a bad thing. :)
ReplyDeleteOne Christian is not going to make up for the "many"... they can no more lump all Christians together than all white or black people... and to do so is closed minded and racist... and yes I used the term racist because if it were Jews they were talking about it would be seen as such, so if you are going to lump one religion on a people as a whole see it as the same with others...
ReplyDeleteUh... only by people who don't understand the difference between "Jewish" and "Semitic." :)
ReplyDeleteas one of the resident pedants here in multiplyland I feel it is my duty to point out that the word "racist" cannot in any sense apply to a lumping together of all Christians, as Christians are not a race but a faith group.
ReplyDeletepeople can be close-minded about all sorts of groups, it's not always racism, there are people who lump all moslems together as though they're all terrorists and that isn't racism. same with what people say about Christians.
is there a term for it? faithism?
ReplyDeletelol... faithism sounds good :)
ReplyDeleteseriously I'm not aware of a general term for being/speaking/acting anti a particular religious grouping. you can be anti-islamic or anti-christian or whatever, but I don't think there's a general word for it.
Being strongly for a specific religion would be dogmatism, right?
ReplyDeleteAnother thought... what fraction of Americans could think of a recent positive contribution by:
ReplyDeleteMuslims?
Jews?
Buddhists?
Pagans?
Whites?
Blacks?
Latinos?
Democrats?
Republicans?
Anyone they don't know personally?
Wouldn't it be "religious intolerance"?
ReplyDeleteinteresting. (well, it is to me - I guess I should get out more.) I don't think "religious intolerance" is quite the same thing, it would cover stuff like, say, someone thinking a particular religion is evil and/or that people shouldn't be allowed to practise a certain religion; but not stuff like someone saying all Christians are evil or all Buddhists are stupid or all Moslems are terrorists - tarring a whole load of people with the same brush just because of their religious affiliation.
ReplyDeletebut that's not an -ism! how come everything else gets an -ism word except this?
ReplyDeleteand why is it then when you say something like "chocolateism" that sounds more like people who are pro-chocolate than against it? but when you say racism, that means something negative?
lol... meg, not everyone gets an ism, some get the phobia ending instead :)
ReplyDeleteso you're saying that religious intolerance is anti religion whereas faith-ism would be more against the person who has faith? one is more general, one is more specific?
ReplyDeleteyes, that's it exactly!
ReplyDeleteso maybe not faithism but faithgroupism?
Oh, your and your pro-isms! :)
ReplyDeleteYou need to have "ism" to denote it's an ideology or mind set, then use the proper prefix to denote approval or rejection.
"Pro-theism" or "religiousism" (or even "faithism") would be pro-religious view since there's nothing to indicate it's opposed to religion or faith.
"Anti-theism" sounds like a proper term for describing the view that religion causes harm, or more harm than good.
"Religious intolerance", in thinking about it, is really more about using religion as an excuse for hatred of anything outside of that religion's circle; i.e., someone saying "an atheist can never be a morally sound person" is definitely religious intolerance.
anti-faithism would make more sense than anti-theism, though. anti-theism implies both a negative connotation against those who are theists as well as against theos/god. but anti-faithism would imply a specific negative connotation against people of faith.
ReplyDeleteso then why is it racism and not antiracism?
rats. i was only trying to quote the middle ¶'s there.
ReplyDeleteRacism is based on the idea of basing judgments on race: it's not against the idea of race, it's just that it uses race as a means of basing decisions.
ReplyDelete"Anti-theism" is not the same as "anti-theist" since theism and theist are not synonymous: a theist (one who believes in gods) has theism (the belief in gods) but is not herself that belief. Someone who is anti-theist is against the believer, not the belief. :D
whether it's anti-theism or anti-faithism or whatever, it's still going to sound like it's about being against the faith itself and not against the believer. (and it also sounds like being anti faith on the whole, rather than being anti a particular faith.)
ReplyDeleteantifaithgroupism would come closer to what we're talking about.
antifaithgroupmentalism
ReplyDeleteantifaithgroupatist
antifaithgroupology
i wonder if we don't have a word for it because if you're in the "right" faith group, then by definition everyone else is "wrong" and therefore you don't need any other word than that. as the world becomes more heterogenous (and as we're increasingly more aware of the rest of the world in general), we'll probably need to develop a word for it.
Now you're just being a syllabilist.
ReplyDeleteSo, hinting at my earlier post...
ReplyDeleteWhat religious groups can you think of any recent positive contributions by?
Jedi you are, hmmmm? Strange sentence structure use you, very.
ReplyDeletelots of christian groups.
ReplyDeletejewish groups seem to donate quite a bit to education and the arts. i can't think of any jewish charity groups, though i'm sure there are several out there.
i don't know any muslim groups. i hear about some in the news, but i don't really pay any attention to them.
don't know of any hindu groups.
the local buddhist group occasionally gets speakers in and people pay to hear them. that's all that i know of that they do around here.
the mormons seem to mostly only help themselves. does that count?
don't know of any jehovah's witnesses groups. i just see them going door to door. they're generally very nice folk. they're not pushy like the traveling mormons i've met.
the local zombie group seems to be organizing a lot more social functions, but i don't know that they'd consider themselves to be a religious group, even if they do crawl their way around town with religious fervor.
Okay, so you're thinking of small groups within a religion. That's cool, but... what about "Christians" as a whole? "Jews" as a whole? "Buddhists" as a whole? And so on.
ReplyDeletei would say that those groups that i know of are the examples within the larger group. i don't think you can say every _______ is making a positive contribution. i certainly know many people who call themselves christians who do not only christianity, but also the world, more harm than good in their day-to-day interactions with people.
ReplyDeletecan you think of a group that you can say, across the board, they're making a positive contribution?
Nope.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why I think it's no big deal that 1/4 of Americans can't think of recent positive contributions by Christians.
The answer to "What has _______ done for you lately?" is going to be "not a whole lot" for most possible completions of the sentence. :)
After reading the article and giving a lot of thought to the subject, I have concluded that the Denver Post obviously likes to publish filler material. Notice in the title alone the emphasis on the negative. Why not say "3 out of 4 CAN...?" Sneaky bastards.
ReplyDeleteMost polls are crap anyway, especially when spin doctors get a hold of them. Call it antipollism. I'm antipollist. Well, not totally anti. I'm mostly antipollist. Mostlyantipollistism.
I think Samaritan's Purse has done a lot of good, particularly for the poor and destitute. I know that I never gave money to anyone before I became a Christian (but, in fairness, I became a Christian before I started my professional career).
ReplyDelete