Jerry Falwell, Jr. Is a Prominent Christian

[MineralMan]

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/359779-falwell-jr-stands-by-moore-i-believe-the-judge-is-telling-the

He thinks Judge Roy Moore is a good guy and supports him. Both of those things are true, as difficult as it might be to believe. I doubt if Falwell cares whether or not that awful man molested a 14-year-old girl when he was 32 years old.

There is no unanimity among Christians. Jerry Falwell, Jr. is the perfect example of Christianity not being an attribute one can use to identify good and evil people. That is why asking, "What is Christianity?" is a foolish question with no answer that has any real meaning.

Despite being an atheist since 1965, I know many people who profess Christianity. That's one point of information I have about those people. Only one. It's not a particularly informative point of information, though. It doesn't tell me anything about that person's ethical compass or points of view about much of anything.

If I want to know who a person is, really, I have to look far beyond that point of information, since it indicates nothing, really, about how I can expect that person to behave in any given situation. Nothing. I know people who profess Christianity who will eagerly cheat you in a business deal or who wish everyone who is not white and English-speaking to be dead. Those people are not my friends, but I know them. I know people who profess Christianity who are kind, gentle, and tolerant people I would trust with anything. Those people are my friends, and I know them, too.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. is not my friend. He has demonstrated his intolerance and lack of empathy too many times. He may claim to be a Christian and may preach what he thinks is a Christian message, but I do not trust him in any way. On the other hand, I know a woman who is the pastor of an ELCA Lutheran Church in the area. She's some sort of cousin of my wife. She is a lovely person and a good friend. We often discuss religious matters when we are in each other's company. I remain an atheist, and that's OK with her.

Christianity and Christian are just words. That is all they are. Those words are used in many different ways, and Christianity is professed by many different people. For each of them, that word apparently has a different meaning. I don't try to figure out what it means to people I know and encounter. It's not really a relevant point of information for me. Instead, I observe how people behave, and form my opinion of them on that basis. That they all call themselves Christians is beside the point, really. That information tells me nothing of any use to me.

[Docreed2003]

1. You will know them by their deeds...

Pretty sure that’s in the book somewhere!!

[Mariana]

7. Every one of them believes their deeds are good and righteous.

And every one of them can find support for their belief in the book.

[trotsky]

9. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in that book.

And a lot of it is jaw-droppingly disturbing - yet sanctioned (or even commanded) by god.

[Lint Head]

2. Falwell is a liar who should be shunned by society. He is

a fungus. When humans evolved his kind had to have evolved from the smelly, slimey fungusy part of the primordial soup.

[MineralMan]

3. Instead, he is a powerful Christian leader with great influence.

Go figure.

[Lint Head]

4. Fungus grows on dead trees. He is I influencing people who

love a bigot who justifies crotch grabbing and is a friend of the murderer Vladimir Putin.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. Where criticism is concerned, I draw a line between philosophical and practical Christianity.

There is Christianity as prescribed by the Bible and Christianity as it actually exists in practice. The stuff in the Bible is pretty easy to pin down. But Christians don't really follow the Bible all that closely (they think they do, but they don't), and while we're all the better for that, it makes the religion especially difficult to define in propositional terms.

To the chagrin of critics, that means there are a lot of decent Christians out there. To the chagrin of Christians, it means there's a fuck-ton of Christian assholes out there, too.

Me, I take the good with the bad. I don't define Christianity in such a way that includes or excludes people I like or don't like. With a demographic as big and diverse as it is, the broadest definition is probably the most appropriate.

[MineralMan]

6. The label is meaningless to me.

That's my conclusion. It just doesn't matter. I'll just continue to judge people on their words and actions, regardless of their religious professions.

[Voltaire2]

10. The stuff in the Bible is all over the place, deliberately

obscure on a regular basis, and the subject of thousands of years of conflicting interpretation.

[uriel1972]

11. As far as I can tell...

Call yourself Christian and you are one, unless there is evidence out there that you currently worship something else or don't worship at all. And it needs to be solid evidence.
Mind readers need not apply, you can't say because so and so is a rotten meanie they aren't a Christian. That wont cut it.

[blueinredohio]

8. Waiting for the shit to hit the fan against Falwell

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Apple didn't fall far from the tree.