Fake Gay Panic News Fools Christians

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/fake-gay-panic-news-fools-christians/

By Sarah Posner July 14, 2015

Christians are just too gullible. That’s the message from Ed Stetzer, writing at Christianity Today, about internet hoaxes masquerading as news that duped Christian readers who then shared them widely.

Believing these stories, Stetzer wrote, and sharing them via social networks, is just embarrassing.

Yet these “news stories” play into fears the religious right has been stoking for years, and with more intensity since the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges two and a half weeks ago. One piece of “news” that Stetzer said many Christians fell for was about a Vermont pastor who was jailed for refusing to marry a gay couple. The story came from a fake news site. Not like Jon Stewart fake news. Or even Onion fake news. Actual fake news.

“By the way,” Stetzer added, “if you are a pastor you should already know that no one can make you officiate anything. In fact, you can refuse to officiate an interracial marriage. You’d be an idiot and a racist, but you wouldn’t be arrested.”

more at link

[skepticscott]

1. Religion makes people stupid

Like very little else. It poisons everything it touches.

[rock]

2. It provides scripture for reason

So the result is as you say.

[bvf]

3. Thread winner, right out of the gate.

Couldn't ask for a truer, more succinct response.

[Angry Dragon]

4. nope

[trotsky]

5. The Armor of God

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/11/armor-of-god.html

Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.

It therefore has no reality check.

And it is therefore uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self-correction. It is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality... and extreme, grotesque immorality.

...

Any other ideology or philosophy or hypothesis about the world is eventually expected to pony up. It's expected to prove itself true and/or useful, or else correct itself, or else fall by the wayside. With religion, that is emphatically not the case. Because religion is a belief in the invisible and unknowable -- and it's therefore never expected to prove that it's right, or even show good evidence for why it's right -- its capacity to do harm can spin into the stratosphere.

[Angry Dragon]

6. they painted with a very wide brush

[trotsky]

7. Was anything said that was false? n/t

[Angry Dragon]

8. yes

[Act_of_Reparation]

9. Okie dokie, then.

[Angry Dragon]

17. Everything ---- the word

[skepticscott]

12. Oh, how did I know

that the accusation of broad-brushing would be quickly unsheathed? Can charges of bigotry and being a theophobe be far behind?

[Angry Dragon]

18. Strange how you say things and know nothing about me

[skepticscott]

19. I've seen how you post

Content-free. And I'm all too familiar with the mindset you're exhibiting. It's rampant in here, so if it wasn't you to trot out the "broad-brushing" accusation, it would have been someone else.

[Angry Dragon]

20. religion practiced correctly can help believers

organized religion will be the downfall of this country


religion is just a set of beliefs and may or may not contain a belief in a deity
and I am well aware that this definition is different than the excepted definition
it is time for a change

[skepticscott]

21. But of course, you will claim

that any way of practicing religion that harms people isn't "correct". A nice NTS argument, but hardly one to be taken seriously.

[Angry Dragon]

22. rug----- is that you??

Perhaps you would like to tell me what religion I hold and other facts

[Lordquinton]

10. Yep

[skepticscott]

11. And there we have it

The last word.

[foxface666]

13. wrong

there is little evidence to this assertion.

[skepticscott]

15. You mean other than the OP?

and this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/123044105

and this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218207197

etc., etc. I'd go on for quite a while, if I thought you had the time.

[uppityperson]

14. Fundamentalism makes people stupid, like very little else. It poisons everything it touches.

[skepticscott]

16. And is there a bigger, more oblivious

more stupid-inducing form of fundamentalism than religious fundamentalism?