So basically I have been reading and posting in some of the forums on this site, and I have noticed something.
It seems that Christianity is targeted more than any other religion.
i.e. Google "anti religion" and see what the most often referenced religion is.
It's a double standard.

So, my question is, Why?
If you don't agree, why don't you agree?

I imagine at least one of you is reading this wanting to post all kinds of offensive garbage, so please try to keep it clean.
This discussion will NOT be a religious debate.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 30 2011, 3:03 pm by K_A.

Because the vast majority of the English-speakers are, of all religions, most acquainted with Christianity. This is an English-language board, and when you use google, you see results in the English language.

Might wanna practice some critical thinkin'.

It's not that simple. When people make racist comments about muslims in America people almost alway get "slapped on the wrist" so to speak.

... Because that's racism...

"Muslims are terrorists! Don't let them have rights!"
"I can't believe you! Why would you say that!"
Familiarity is definetly a large factor, but it isn't the only one.

Edit:
Also I wouldn't say that a lot of people in America are any more familiar with Christianity than they are with Muslims, seeing as they associate it with witch burning, the crusades, and priests who molest children.

Muslims are not collectively terrorists, and as such, should not be collectively denied rights. I don't get your point.

No, Muslims aren't solely Arabs. I've also noticed that people around the world target Christianity before any other religion, even though it was muslims who did 9/11, Muslims who have done most of the terrorist bombing, and Muslims that have the most anti-Western religion I know of.

And yeah, I know most muslims don't do terrorist bombings, but people have a habit of ignoring that kind of thing when it's Christianity (CHRISTIANS KILLED AND TORTURED THOUSANDS IN THE MIDDLE AGES CHRISTIANS HOLD BACK SCIENCE CHRISTIANS THIS AND THAT) but you don't really see the same with islam. Christianity shouldn't be collectively targeted for the atrocities committed by the few, who call themselves Christians. Yet they are, and if you do the same with muslims you get told off. (I'm using muslims as the main example of a religion that you would think people would backlash against). Don't get me wrong, I think neither Christians nor Muslims should be put in a box defined by the actions of a few, but Christianity is and Islam isn't.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 29 2011, 9:25 pm by Jack.

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From my personal experience Christianity is the religion that I have the most knowledge of, and the most prevalent in relation to me. There are just more Christians pushing back than anything else in America. But it isn't like we poke fun at Christianity exclusively, if you'd care to venture over to youtube, there was "draw Muhammad" day and more recently, "burn a Koran" day. And if you watch speeches of Richard Dawkins, he assaults all religions equally.

What's interesting to note is the prevalance of a religion by number:


It is shown that Christianity and Islam represent over 50% of the population, so it is no wonder they get flak for it. At the same time:


In America alone Christians represent 80% of the population. That would be your answer sir.

Wasn't the burn-a-Quran thing done by an extremist 'Christian', and wasn't there immense media backlash against it?

And you're fooling yourself if you think 80% of americans are genuine Christians who even go to church regularly. According to http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#attend only 21% or americans go to church every Sunday.

I would argue that that second pie chart is not accurate. It places unaffiliated secular at 6% and atheist at 2%
Of course most real christians agree that there is a large portion of Americans that are "fake christians," people who have never touched a Bible in their life and still carry the name.
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Darnit Jack you beat me to it lol

Unless you can read russian, german, french, chinese (all the various types), japanese, portugese and arabic (the major world languages), then you have a very biased sample. Eg, you are only sampling English-speaking criticism of religion and, unsurprisingly, finding that most of it is about Christianity.

Cent is 100% right on this, it's pretty obvious why it appears to you that Christianity is being targeted more than any other - because it's the most prominent religion in english-speaking countries (also, there are many cooky sects of it, like Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Scientists, mormons etc).

Emm yes, but 80% identify themselves as Christian, often nondenominational. That is to say, they believe in a personal God and most of what the bible represents.

Anyways, 16% is still a larger number than any other group by a magnitude of 2.5.

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Atheists, or those who identify themselves as atheists, do only only represent 2% of the population. We're just pretty vocal.

I work in a food court at the moment. There are people there from Thailand, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, and Iran/Iraq/the Middle East. I've talked to them about what people think of Christians in their countries, and the answers were all pretty much that people don't like Christians (India), there are no christians (middle east, because they kill them when they find them), there are very few christians (thailand and malaysia). The Thai and Malay seemed most accepting out of that group of countries. China I've heard enough reports of how antiChristian the government is, although that's changed a bit more recently. North korea kills christians. The bits of the world that aren't western and aren't covered by that group of countries above are mostly african (maybe russia if you count that as a non-Western country, but it seems pretty western to me), and south american. Africa's a mixed bag, as you have countries like Ghana which are majority Christian and very pro-Christian, Muslim countries which generally kill Christians or suppress them in other ways, internal tribes who kill EVERYONE foreign, and south africa which is a western country, with the same anti-Christian lean.

Overall the world is pretty anti-Christian.

What's truly sad is how misinformed the other 3/4 of "christianity" manages to be.
In reality, Christianity would be even less prevalent than Non-religious in the world.

Also what exactly is the difference between non-religious and atheist?
Seems sorta like different denominations of the same thing to me.

Christianity is the world's largest religion. The majority of the world is not anti-Christian.

China and North Korea suppress all religious groups to promote the power of the state. Being a Muslim or Jew or what have you in those states is not conducive to your health.

To suggest that all of the Middle East "kills Christians when they find them" reveals that you do not keep up with world affairs or even look in an atlas from time to time.

What is unique to Christianity is this persecution complex it seems to carry around - overall Christianity is far better off in terms of treatment than other religions.

Obviously I'm going to be offended when someone makes a derrogatory statement, but it goes further than that.
It's this attitude that makes people think it perfectly ok to do whatever you want.

Is it ok to persecute anyone at all?
Yet when it comes to Christianity it becomes ok.

I didn't say that it was OK to persecute Christians, I said that Christians face less persecution than other religious groups. Do you think there'd be such a public controversy if somebody wanted to build a new church in downtown Manhattan? (Yes I know that the proposed building isn't a mosque, but it's being treated as one by the general public.)

I don't think it's so much that people are OK with persecuting Christianity as much as it is Christians (in the United States in particular) seem to be offended more easily.

For example, the issue of school prayer is often held up as an example of persecution, when it is really attempting to preserve the separation between church and state. Christianity has enjoyed special privileges in the US in the past due to the nature of its founding, and it is when the law shifts to have a more equal stance that I see a lot of these claims of "persecution."

Interesting point.
It's funny because, the destroying of the twin towers wasn't an act against christianity at all, it was an attack against American Capitalism. Yet it's mainly Christians that were upset about it.

News story
This church in Hawaii was protested in 2009 because it was built were people were buried. It was even a "multipurpose center"
Did you read about that in the news?

No, I did not read about that in the news.
It's not a discriminatory act though - the difference in this case being that the protesters would be opposed to any construction project on that land. Their opposition is not rooted in the fact that it's a Christian building.

Cent and Sac told it straight up. You think it's just a coincidence that the only 2 outspoken Christians on this site are the only ones who think the targeting is an unfair double standard?