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Author Topic: Anti and Non-Religious People Questions
twinky
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quote:
...or they didn't know it and still would only reach believers.
...while condescending to others. Again, this is something they should have considered.

There was plenty of engineering student traffic to and through the religious colleges, for a number of reasons (off-campus housing, some residences, elective courses), but certainly not everybody -- or even most students, I imagine.

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KarlEd
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I have no problem with you response, twinky. I thought it was kind of funny, actually.

I think active non-believers are perceived to be an extreme minority by many religious people. I think the general populace is viewed more as lapsed believers, or non-considerers of religion, and that is probably the intended audience for the poster. I doubt very seriously the person who designed it thought they were evangelizing active non-believers.

I have no problem with evangelism itself, though I do have some problems with some methods. Posters, even those with vaguely condescending tones*, seem to be among the more innocuous and least offending methods of getting one's message out.

*and I do think the tone was only vaguely condescending. I think that despite the historical context of the quote, taken alone it can also be read as a rejoicing in good news. Like if I came up to you, looking all depressed, and said "Cheer up, dude, don't you know it's Christmas!" (assuming of course it was). I think it is overly presumptuous to assume that the person who selected that quote was aware of the historical context, so to me it's at least 50/50 that it was intended in the "rejoicing" tone.

Also, many first generation Asians are Christian. In Korea (at least in the areas I visited) Christianity was very visible and active, and pretty popular among the classes of people most likely to immigrate. Also, there are many Korean language Christian churches in the mid-Atlantic states. I doubt they are largely attended by 2nd or 3rd generation Americans. This is all just to say that while I understand your point, it might not be quite as strong in reality as you think it is. (Of course, I could be wrong.)

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Theca
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quote:
Originally posted by KarlEd:
Also, many first generation Asians are Christian. In Korea (at least in the areas I visited) Christianity was very visible and active, and pretty popular among the classes of people most likely to immigrate. Also, there are many Korean language Christian churches in the mid-Atlantic states.

I was just thinking, when I was in medschool the percentage of Asians seemed quite high. Amazingly, most of the Asian students I knew were either actively evangelizing others OR were being hounded by their evangelizing Asian friends. It was a fascinating phenomenon.
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twinky
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quote:
Originally posted by KarlEd:
"Cheer up, dude, don't you know it's Christmas!"

Just as an aside, I think I would also find that somewhat annoying. I mean, I'll be glum when I damn well please! [Razz]

Added:

quote:
Originally posted by Theca:
quote:
Originally posted by KarlEd:
Also, many first generation Asians are Christian. In Korea (at least in the areas I visited) Christianity was very visible and active, and pretty popular among the classes of people most likely to immigrate. Also, there are many Korean language Christian churches in the mid-Atlantic states.

I was just thinking, when I was in medschool the percentage of Asians seemed quite high. Amazingly, most of the Asian students I knew were either actively evangelizing others OR were being hounded by their evangelizing Asian friends. It was a fascinating phenomenon.
That's interesting. I didn't see any of that at Waterloo -- maybe the Christian Asians all go to America! [Wink]
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katharina
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I think the wording was a poor choice.

I do think the flyers belonged where they did, and I doubt you were the intended audience. The incident seems like one of the things that happen when you put different kinds of people altogether. All in all, it's fairly innocuous.

---

As a side note, I knew many, many Christian Asian engineers in Ann Arbor. They were the primary audience for the missionaries.

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Irregardless
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quote:
Originally posted by KarlEd:
I think active non-believers are perceived to be an extreme minority by many religious people. I think the general populace is viewed more as lapsed believers, or non-considerers of religion, and that is probably the intended audience for the poster. I doubt very seriously the person who designed it thought they were evangelizing active non-believers.

Well said.
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Bob the Lawyer
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Holy crap! Jesus is the Lord? Where was I? Why wasn't I informed?

*sniff*

The Waterloo Christian Chemists totally let me down.

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dkw
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Apparently so did your reading teachers.

The quote was from Isaiah -- no mention of Jesus. [Razz]

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KarlEd
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Well at least not by name, anyway.

(i.e. some people believe that the "Lord" of the old testament was indeed Jesus Christ.)

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Bob the Lawyer
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Blast!
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twinky
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quote:
Originally posted by Bob the Lawyer:
Where was I?

As I recall, you were living with me at the time. [Razz]

Added:

quote:
I think the general populace is viewed more as lapsed believers, or non-considerers of religion, and that is probably the intended audience for the poster.
Karl, how likely do you think this intended audience would be to recognize the quote?
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Bob the Lawyer
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Hmm...

Maybe if I'd actually gone to class that term I'd have seen more posters [Wink]

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KarlEd
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quote:
As I recall, you were living with me at the time.

And you didn't pass on the message? Well the damnation of his eternal soul is on your hands now, bub!
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twinky
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[Evil]
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KarlEd
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quote:
Karl, how likely do you think this intended audience would be to recognize the quote?
As "something from the Bible" I'd say pretty likely. As specifically from Isaiah? Probably unlikely. As the chastisement to lapsed believers that it is? Probably not at all, since I also only gave even odds that the person who created the poster recognized it as such.
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Tresopax
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quote:
Tres, I'm not sure why you're lumping religious beliefs in with all of those other things, since it's quite separate from them. Do you see people going door-to-door with a set of Kant's most famous writings in my backpack and attempting to convince everyone that he had it right?
No, not Kant, but I've had people try to convince me of various other things in some pretty passionate ways. For instance, from high school through today, people have been fond of telling me not to drink and drive - even offering me free stuff, buying radio ads, putting up fliers, and even bringing in special guest speakers back when I was in school. Yes, I can observe and draw my own conclusions about drinking and driving without their "help" - but that doesn't mean their help is a bad thing.
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twinky
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I've been mulling over your original post, but haven't been able to turn my vague thoughts into something concrete. I know that I didn't like it back when I believed in god, either, so it isn't just my bias as an atheist (i.e. a distaste for the spreading of what I perceive to be falsehoods). I've disliked evangelism in the general case to some degree for as long as I've known what it was, both in the abstract (discussions on evangelism with a friend who was a Christian fundamentalist) and the concrete (missionaries at the door).

As a kid, though, I remember that the missionaries would often upset my mother. That probably biased me against them.

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kmbboots
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Believe it or not, I find "in your face" evangelism pretty irritating (at best) myself.
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KarlEd
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"Believe it or not"? I'd actually be surprised if you were in favor of it, Kate. [Dont Know]

I don't like "in your face" anything. In some people's eyes I was not a very good missionary because I would "let people off the hook" pretty easily. I always wanted to find people who were looking for something in their lives, and I thought I had that to provide. If people weren't interested, I didn't press it. Several of my fellow missionaries were more like the vacuum cleaner salesman who jams his foot in the door. Regardless, the more evangelism was like sales, the less I liked it. The more it was like an invitation to something wonderful, the better it made me feel.

So I don't begrudge evangelists for their evangelism. I do begrudge many of them for their methods, though.

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kmbboots
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Karl, I am relieved and glad that the fact that I am more than willing to talk about faith (at some length!) and that I spend a lot of time mentoring "how to be Catholic" classes does not come across as approving of "in-your-face" evangelism.

My guess is that the missionary work you did had a better effect than the "salesman" approach. People rarely react well to pushiness and will often be put off enough that they will decide they don't need a new vaccuum cleaner - even if they had been in the market for one.

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katharina
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People react to all different kinds of evangelism.

I don't know. I'm not a fan of the pushy kind, but I've seen it reach some people when the evangelist was sincere. It would be nice to think that it doesn't or that the people reached have a shallow conversion, but it's not the case. It does work - if it didn't, people would stop.

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kmbboots
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Could just be that I (along with most of the people I know) am just naturally contrary. When pushed to do anything, I tend to dig my heels in.
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KarlEd
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quote:
Originally posted by katharina:
People react to all different kinds of evangelism.

I don't know. I'm not a fan of the pushy kind, but I've seen it reach some people when the evangelist was sincere. It would be nice to think that it doesn't or that the people reached have a shallow conversion, but it's not the case.

Not always the case, perhaps. Wards with 800 members of record and 80 average attendance tell me it's very often the case in several areas of Brazil.

quote:
It does work - if it didn't, people would stop.
It all depends on what you mean by "work". (See above.)
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Glenn Arnold
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KarlEd:
quote:
So is your problem just with the quote? Or the whole idea of evangelism itself? Your comments lead me to believe the latter. If so, that's fine.
I don't have a problem with the WHOLE idea of evangelism, but there are parts of it that really put me off.

What bothers me is the inequity of political correctness. Society as a whole understands that there are certain things that you shouldn't say about someone's religion, but since religious thought is the norm, very few people bother to consider whther their statements about atheists might be insulting. After all, we're just wrong.

What really bothers me is when (usually fundamentalist Christians) claim that "Christians are the last minority that you can insult and get away with it," or some such. We've been through this argument here on Hatrack with respect to the phrase "there are no atheists in Foxholes" that is so prevalent in the military, but more recently Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric have used it in news broadcasts.

I won't repeat the error by claiming that atheists are the last minority that you can insult and get away with it, but I think there's something sigificant in the fact that so many people don't even realize that such a statement is insulting.

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The Pixiest
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Glenn: I have a friend. a very GOOD friend. Who uses that phrase all the time.

And he KNOWS he's talking to atheist bisexual.

On the other hand, there IS some truth to it. One CAN get away with being rude to christians and it's not right. Any more than it's right for them to get away with being rude to atheists and them-there queers.

It would be nice, if one day, we could all be polite to eachother.

Pix

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Glenn Arnold
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Funny thing: Isn't that what Christianity is supposed to be all about? "Do unto others" and all that?
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Orincoro
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"It does work - if it didn't, people would stop."

What about Heroin? It works, I guess people shouldn't try to stop*


*This has nothing to do with my views on religion which I will not discuss, however the immense stupidity of that logic struck me, and I had to act to save my sanity. I thus exit the thread.

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katharina
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It was not an immense stupidity. Because you don't understand what is going on is no reason to be so rude. That's very ungentlemanly - don't do it.
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