Dangers in Evangelical Christian Dogma
Wednesday November 5, 2003
The beliefs and rhetoric of evangelical Christians has come to play an important role in American politics - not just when it comes to domestic issues but also international relations as well. While there is some value in hearing from all segments of American society, is there any way in which evangelical Christianity may be harmful? Some argue that there is indeed.
A letter to the editor in the News & Record in Greensboro, North Carolina, comments about the statements made by Lt. Gen. William Boykin:
What makes this all the more arrogant, pathetic and insulting to me as a Jew is that Boykin uses the example of Mahathir Mohamad's anti-Jewish dogma to rationalize his right to spew his "because we're a Christian nation" statement. This anti-any-other-religion Christian dogma is both insulting and frightful to any non-Christian. Is Boykin's statement any less anti-Jewish than Mohamad's? Is it any less against what we as a nation are supposed to stand for? Is it supposed to make any Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or non-religious person feel safe and proud of his country?
I fought as an Army officer in Vietnam. I did not fight to prove that our Christian nation or Christian religion or Christian God was better or stronger than any other "idol-worshipping" religion or country. One of the things I thought I fought for was to protect our country so that any person of any religion (or nonreligion) would be safe no matter what his or her beliefs or background.
Are the views of Boykin and those who think like him dangerous? It seems to me that they are. People like this don't have a great deal of respect for the right of others to believe differently - so certain are they of the rightness and righteousness of their own ideology that they can readily dismiss anyone else's claim to have something positive to contribute. That is indeed a danger.
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Comments
What!? You are stereotyping Christians as being something like “modern day crusaders”, out to kill everyone in the name of God. Christianity gives me hope for this world, it gives me reason for living, and if you are going to stereotype me then yours would be someone that has nothing worth living for, putting his faith solely on science, and is constantly afraid of death. And it just so happens that Christianity was the founding belief system this country was founded on whether you accept that or not. What do you expect? For every Christian in the world to lay down their faith and hope for what. Nothing? If you have nothing worth dieing for then you have nothing worth living for.
Feel free to point out where I say anything about all Christians in general.
Prove it.
Oh, maybe to face reality as it is instead of wasting time with superstition?
So, you don’t think that anything outside your Christianity is worth dying for? You wouldn’t risk dying to protect the nation, to protect your family, to protect freedom? That’s really sad.
While I do agree that Boykin’s comments are irrational and a bit extreme in reference to the entire nation, I do believe we must examine history as what it is. our country was founded on basic Protestant principles and certainly with the acknowledgement of God. For reference I point to our currency and the ever so familiar “In God we trust.” as well to our pledge of allegiance which due to post-modern complaints has been stripped of use, but still holds true to he line “One Nation, Under God.” The founder’s of this country obviously held some sort of protestant faith and built the moral standards of this country around that faith and values associated with it. To be angry with someone calling this a “Christian Nation” is to reject history. Just as how many middle eastern nations identify as Islamic nations (even with other religious philosophies within their populations) because they were founded upon, and their laws are based upon Islamic principals, it is not radical to call America a Christian Nation when you take into consideration that America was founded on Christian ideologies and the laws today still hold to a similar ethical standard.
As for your response stating that Christianity is a set of superstitions, I ask, what do you really live by? You believe that you just happened by some miraculous circumstance and that everything works the way it does by a basis of superstition and happenstance? The truth is evident even in nature and in the laws of physics. If what has been given to you has not influenced you I challenge you to examine Pascal’s wager. I’m sure with your resources you will have no trouble finding an at least decent discription of it. Just remember, if nothing else, I say none of this as a pastor (which I am certainly far from in my youth) but as a fellow observer of logc. True, while Christianity seems illogical, that’s what makes it a leap of faith, because it can’t merely be explained with logic.
Then cite them, please.
What does that mean?
All of that was created long after the nation was founded. Ergo, your only “evidence” is 100% wrong.
Being Protestants of various sorts doesn’t entail that they founded the nation on their personal religious principles.
Yet you can’t show that America is any more a “Christian Nation” than it is a “White Nation.”
Not superstitions.
No, belief is miracles is part of Christianity.
Prove it.
I have. It’s just about the worst, most logic-challenged apologetics argument available. Given the fact that much more sophisticated arguments there are available, finding someone trying to use it is almost certain proof that they have done no serious research or thinking on the subject. It’s an argument for the lazy. At best.
With your resources, you would have had no trouble finding out whether I had already written about it or not.
Maybe you should use logic, not just observe it?