An Important Note on Christian Proselytizing

It does,OTOH, follow that it's evil if you believe that *organized religion* is, on balance, evil.

edited 28th Oct '11 5:38:55 AM by SavageOrange

By now, I think many here know my views on such proselytizing. And I can certainly relate to you jasonwill on having parents that are......lacking.....and yet excel at being preachy.

So yes, I agree with you, Christian proselytizing is pious dickery under another name.

And no, I see nothing wrong with a child calling out their parents on their arrogant hypocrisy. The final conversation my father and I ever had was such a conversation. From what you say, it sounds like your Dad, like so many people, realized what a sham his life was and his Bible thumping is his way of reconciling his abject failure as a man and a father.

Now, my problems with you are as follows:

1) I get that you and your Dad might not have the best relationship, but starting a thread to mock him is distateful and disrespectful. You should be above that sort of thing.

2) I've pissed off some people on this very website saying this, but I'll repeat, your father is absolutely correct, he does have a First Amendment right to voice his views. It isn't....the best approach...and it is easy to abuse that right. But he has it nonetheless.

Holding Christian views will offend. It's a fact of life. We believe ours is the only true way. We believe homosexuality and sleeping with people you're not married to is wrong. We see abortion as murder. Your father, myself, and anybody else has the right to voice that. Hurt feelings is not the same thing as violated rights.

3) It is a popular habit on this site to mock Christians for their proselytizing. I get why, they make easy targets, and they can be a very overbearing bunch. I know this personally.

But Christians are not alone in being overbearing with their views.

In the whole conversation with your father, you could've simply said, "Dad, your approach will never get the results you claim your God wants. And personally, I'm not interested in your preaching." Instead, you got in a back-and-forth with him that equates to pretty much counter-proselytizing.

I say this because I had the same interractions with my own "holy and righteous" parents. Then I realized that I was allowing their own sermonizing to dictate my reactions. One day, when my mother tried her latest round of "God will judge you, you evil cretin", I simply said "My sins are between me and my creator. It's none of your business; and you really should be more worried about how he'll judge you."

No proselytizing, no arguing, no headache. Just truth.

edited 28th Oct '11 7:44:17 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

"My sins are between me and my creator. It's none of your business; and you really should be more worried about how he'll judge you."

Locking this up. It's pointless, it can't decide what the topic is, and it's whiffing back and forth between "slagging on something you don't like" and "Talking shit about Jason or Jason's father."

Please do not make bitching threads. Not even about people.