• GooberEar@lemmy.wtf
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    1 day ago

    I have a family member who told me last year that they believe Christians are the most persecuted group in the USA, even more so than gay people.

    In truth it was very challenging to stay calm in the face of someone saying something so blatantly biased and false. Packaged as an opinion, of course, but presented as the truth.

    I asked questions and challenged some of the statements being made, but I know for a fact that the only thing I accomplished is that she’s unlikely to make that particular statement in front of me again. No minds were changed that day. It’s just sad.

    As someone who actually IS persecuted in this country for things I cannot change about myself, I really don’t get why someone would want to live under the delusion that they are being persecuted when they otherwise aren’t. It’s not fun and there’s no benefit to being persecuted.

    • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 hours ago

      No minds were changed that day. It’s just sad.

      No one’s mentioning this, and it is important: you have to remember that these are challenges you make in public.

      If she refrains from making statements in front of you, and you are in front of children, you’ve just spared them some of her bullshit. You might have taught them a bit about resisting claims like hers on their own, too.

      Winning people over directly is great, but it’s really hard to do, especially with today’s conservative.

    • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      My very christian mom used to always tell me that I’m gay and athiest because it’s popular, but that she believed I’m actually a closeted christian. In her opinion, I chose the way I am because christians are so persecuted in the US… Nevermind that I’m autistic, highly introverted, and have never cared about popularity or pop culture in general. I’ve been out to my parents for over a decade and she’s only recently started to come around on it because I have a fiance now, and she sees how happy he makes me. :)

      Christians are fucking wild with the BS they’re willing to believe, so long as their pastor can make them chuckle and tear up a little bit inside of a 40 min speech.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      And by that, they mean something like this? Xtians get all kinds of privileges and everyone else has to convert or be a second class citizen?

    • qantravon@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      They want to be David vs Goliath. Being the ones persecuted means that they can go on the offensive without feeling bad about it. It means whatever they do is justified as being a means of survival. It gives them an excuse.

      • Overconfidentiality@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        Exactly, the Bible is written for the underdog. Constantly referencing persecution for the faith, which is non-existent in the USA, so they try to redefine what they see as micro aggressions as full on persecution. They simply want to be angry, righteous anger for Christ.

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          7 hours ago

          Well at least with the old testament they kinda were the underdogs, the ancient Hebrews kept getting invaded and occupied. Going back to when they were still just another breed of Canaanite during the bronze age all the way to the fucking Romans, hell given the context that many Palestinians are in fact the Hebrews who never left its still going on.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          They view their Belief System (BS) being put on the same plane as other mythologies, new or ancient, as somehow being “persecuted”, since they are so used to having unwarranted privileges.

          They’ve seen that unwarranted privilege being chipped away, ever so slowly, as xtianity dies off in number of adherents in the United States (dwindling down to 60-some percent, now) - trending toward what more normal advanced countries of the West are like, and they fucking hate it. They want everyone and every part of the culture to have them up on a pedestal again, even if it means violence, and a lot of it, because “Jesus”.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I have a family member who told me last year that they believe Christians are the most persecuted group in the USA, even more so than gay people.

      I asked questions and challenged some of the statements being made

      I imagine some of those questions included:

      1. How many christians in the USA were killed in the last 20 years only because they were christian?
      2. When was the last time a gathering of christians in a public library doing things unrelated to being christian forced to cease and desist?
      3. Is it common in society for a young adult living with parents to profess their love for christ and be thrown out of their homes and essentially abandoned by the family?
      4. Is there a history in this country to regularly arrest and prosecute christians for gathering or holding ceremonies like communion?

      edit: A couple more additions.

      1. Has marriage between two christians been illegal for nearly the entirety of the existence of the USA?

      2. Are there camps that some misguided parents send their children to to be “deprogrammed” from being christian?

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      In truth it was very challenging to stay calm in the face of someone saying something so blatantly biased and false.

      Collectively, we really need to quit doing that. Failing to call out hateful bullshit because of some weird adherence to ‘civility’ is part of what got us to this point in the first place.

    • IzzyScissor@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It’s because their religion claims that whoever has the worst life on Earth will have the best life in Heaven, so they’re constantly seeking out ways to reaffirm that they have it “so hard”.

      They associate the negativity of others towards them with godliness.