neo-x wrote:Rick, K, Mrs K, Phil.
Thank you for your posts. I watched the videos and I see your POV. I am already aware that there are instances where Christians are being dragged into courts and I am against that. I don't want any Christian to be persecuted at all.
Thanks Neo-X, for meeting halfway and acknowledging such cases for what they are.
neo-x wrote:My original point was, is it ok to make laws or disobey them based on your conscience alone? To me it is a slippery slope. It can be totally arbitrary. While in this instance I agree with you, sure, but I think there is a very valid case that can also be made for a Nazi and a Jew, or a Muslim and a Christian or whatever you want to fit in here. Refusing to do or sell a thing based on their conscience is really a matter at the end about how you think. It doesn't matter what the thing you are refusing is. It can be a cake or the message on it, it can be food. Only in this instance, its the message on the cake. I understand that those people agreed to sell them other stuff and that they were not denying them that, I get it.
I think we all would agree with that point, as Mrs K articulated:
Mrs K wrote:No, it is not OK for a Muslim to refuse you a job, a cake, a promotion, because you are a Christian.
It is also not OK for a Christian to refuse a Muslim a job, a cake, a promotion because he is a Muslim.
It is not OK for a Christian to refuse a homosexual a job, a cake, a promotion because he is gay.
Now we might perhaps disagree over how one should be punished for such discrimination, I argued in such instances while I do not believe legal action is appropriate in such cases that such people are wrong and should certainly be ashamed of their actions. I'm hesitant to enact laws against such, in case they lead down the slippery slope on the other side, which I see as a clamping down upon people's freedom and free speech (there's somewhat of a balancing act I suppose, and I greatly virtue freedom of expression).
Nonetheless, such actions are clearly wrong to me and unChristian, as I pointed out in
one of my very many posts in this thread:
K wrote:Indeed, Christ himself very clearly points out that we should help the Samaritan. We're all created in God's image. This forms the basis of each human life possessing intrinsic value and being afforded basic human rights to live life without physical threat from someone else.
Neo-X wrote:You guys said, Mrs.K said, that this is where you draw the line. But I am asking on what grounds?
Very valid point, and sure, to just say one should be free to obey their conscience is a very broad statement. One that I clearly saw needed qualification, as many generalisations do.
In response to Dan's paramedic example, I spent a bit of time in one of my posts (the same one wherein my Samaritan comment can be found) articulating some lines and finer details.
Here is what I said that I feel adds additional boundaries and qualifications:
K wrote:1) We believe that people should be free to act according to their beliefs.
However, evidently, we discriminate and it is important to the welfare of a functioning society that we do so! We discriminate against murderers, we discriminate against thieves, we discriminate against rapists, we discriminate against pedophiles, we discriminate against bombings, violence, corruption and so on and so forth.
Why?
Because, such people take away the freedom of others, or a foundational human right to live safely.
Now, I would further discriminate against a paramedic not helping someone else because a) they've agreed as part of their job to help people regardless, that's why they're paid. They should be taken to court for firstly breaking their oath and promised responsibility if they purposefully promise to fulfill their duty and don't do so.
Furthermore, I believe a good case can be made that to not provide assistance to someone else who could die, especially when there is no risk to your own life, is actually condoning their death and as such indirect murder. Murder harms another person without reason, who has an equal right to live. We have a certain responsibility to others, to ensure they are safe. Such can be seen in the social nature of our human species, which is founded upon God Himself who desires us to love one another. Therefore we are morally obliged to not stand by and watch someone die, but to help them as much as we can. So then, it is clear cut to me that if Person A doesn't help Person B to live without good reason, then Person A ought to be prosecuted.
Indeed, Christ himself very clearly points out that we should help the Samaritan. We're all created in God's image. This forms the basis of each human life possessing intrinsic value and being afforded basic human rights to live life without physical threat from someone else.
So then:
2) We believe that not all discrimination is bad.
The difference between us, is in defining the type of discrimination that ought to be punished.
We are all aware of the rhyme we grew up with as children, but somewhere got lost (perhaps generation Y, I don't know): "Sticks and stone might break my bones, but words will never hurt me." And "sticks and stones" is generally where I draw the line. Someone should not have action taken against them for their beliefs, especially over a passive action like not choosing to act or participate (an exception being allowing someone to die for no good reason which I have reasoned is in fact murder). [Note: this doesn't mean I think someone is bad in cases like Mrs K presents above, where discrimination is evidently happening against people of a certain type or persuasion, I'd be all for socially shaming such people]
To be particularly clear, I draw the line here: If your life isn't in physical jeopardy, plus no one is trying to take away your freedom to believe and act (bounded by you not trying to physically hurt anyone else, or take away their freedom to believe and act), then that is healthy. Furthermore, it is good for people, personal growth and society to be confronted with opposing ideas.
It does get more complicated than that when discussing finer details, but such is a good general rule -- you should not have your freedom taken away, or be penalised, for acting in accordance with your belief when another isn't being harmed. They might be offended, because well, we all don't see eye to eye, and differences of opinion, on matters of truth, such are offensive and divisive by nature. Call those who disagree with you not nice, a zealot or what-have-you, but such isn't reason to punish them by taking away their freedom to believe and act according to their beliefs, religious or otherwise.
Continuing onto what you experience real life in your own country:
Neo-X wrote:Let me give you a real-world example. A few years back, me and my family were helping people in an area which had been flooded. There were Christian and Muslims in the affected population. A Muslim charity had arrived with food, they were the first ones there with food and they had arrived two days earlier than us. So going through the homes, I found a Christian home where there were three children, fainted on the ground. They were dehydrated and had had no food for days. I can't explain to you the anger, frustration, helplessness I felt when I found out the Muslim charity had given food to the houses on each side but denied this home any aid because it was a Christian home.
You are seeing this issue with one side , to protect the Christian against doing something against his conscience. But let me tell you, people use this argument around for all things they do, good or evil and feel justified. The Muslim charity people just shrugged when I asked around, their answer was: we felt that our own brothers and sisters needed food first, not your people. By that they meant 3 Christian children on the brink of death, not given aid, medical supplies, food, or water.
It is sad that people would distinguish and protect their own first. We would do it with our own immediate families, such is human nature to some extent. Christ would have us treat all his children equally (and I believe Muslims and Atheists are still just as much God's children as Christians, though such may not be a "Child of God" in another Scriptural sense).
Let me say, I was pleasant surprised in my researching Pakistan Christian persecution, to come across a group of Muslims who actually helped rebuild a Christian church that was destroyed. Like what the? I'm not sure I could lend a hand to building a mosque, because I see such as supporting something quite anti-Christ.
Yet then, suppose that Christians had destroyed a mosque, then I'd see a "wrong debt" of sorts that needs to somehow be made right. So then, I can see myself helping Muslims to rebuild their mosque in order to demonstrate I love them, and was saddened that other "Christians" had oppressed them in such a manner.
So then, we might say that such is relative to the circumstance and case dependent. Generally I'd have no hand in helping Muslims build their mosques, nonetheless, special circumstances could arise where I feel it's the least I could as a sign of love and respect, and by the same token, loathing for a wrong committed by others who apparently represent Christ.
Neo-X wrote:I had no answer for that. I COULD NOT MAKE THEM DO SOMETHING AGAINST THEIR CONSCIENCE, could I? they felt justified, doing what they did.
caps is for emphasis, I'm not shouting or anything like that.
Right, and this is why I demarcated some further "lines" in response to D220 regard his paramedic example. I'm really just advocating
as a very general rule that someone shouldn't be made to do something that goes against their conscience. Evidently, a KKK member might feel it in their conscience to actively string up a black person, like it's their duty. Such is obviously abhorable.
Now, even the instance that you experienced, if all support was fully given out to Muslims, such that everything they had was given... then provided they didn't purposefully withhold leftover life saving supplies from Christians, then I don't believe they should be punished. Though, given the cases of children near death, surely something could have been done? Such seems clearly wrong, inhumane, even indirect murder.
I find such discrimination abhorrent and I'd not expect it from Christian organisations such as Compassion or World Vision. They should be very ashamed, even shamed, perhaps legally punished if those children were purposefully ignored when they could have been helped in some way -- although it's nonetheless their goods to give however sadly they choose to give them, basic human decency should be rendered to all who are human for all are made in God's image.
Neo-X wrote:So that is the inconsistency in the logic you guys are now opened to. And that is what I think is the problem. If any of you think I am wrong on this, please let me know. maybe I am seeing this wrong, may be you are. But this was my concern and I have explained it to you.
I wouldn't say there's a logical inconsistency, but rather simply an incomplete picture being presented in such a high-level generalised statement. In fact, it is logically fallacious to take a "generalised statement" and try to apply it to any "special case" that one can think up. To do such is to commit a type of informal composition fallacy, applying what is perhaps true on the whole to individual parts where greater specificity is required.
Nonetheless, I agree that the rule doesn't always apply, and did offer additional commentary above in response to Dan's paramedic example. Still further, much more could be said, and this is where legislative experts are necessary to define the boundaries and close the loop holes, right?
But, thankfully, at least yourself and RickD, Phil, Mrs K and myself, all see that Christians in the cases Mrs K presented are being discriminated against. Something that Daniel just wasn't understanding, couldn't comprehend. Perhaps, some other statement I made, coming at the issue with him from a polar opposite end, lead to some entrenching and toes being dug into the ground. Maybe I could have presented my side better, remained more sensitive...?
Neo-X wrote:And K, I hope that you will not throw the "you always play this card" thing here. I didn't see that coming before but let me tell you why, it is because to you it may seem like an emotional appeal, it really is a reality for me. Things are different here. I hope you understand that I do not mention this to gain any emotional support. The fact that I am a minorty on this board on several importnat issues should show alone that I have no problem standing up for what I think is right, even without support from others.
What I wrote are facts from another part of the world. They are real to me and so I think they do affect how I see things, similarly how you see yours.
Persecution is different to level and extent in different locations around the world. By comparison, in the West, we do have it quite good. "By comparison" though, is never a good way of justifying what is alright. That is, comparing something much less serious and bad with more dire and horrible situations, doesn't make the lesser form not bad. I'm glad you acknowledge such, and for my own part I'd never say Western Christians issues are on par with Pakistan or Middle Eastern ones.
What I was getting at with my "you always play this card" comment, no insult intended, was feeling like you were trying to diminish Western forms of persecution as just being a stupid overreaction and nothing to be concerned. I think it is undeniable that the degree of persecution is much less than say Pakistan where churches are burnt and Christians forced to relocate, are shunned or even killed.
Wherever I hear stories of Christians (and people) being violently persecuted, raped, killed, I feel my heart bleeding and wish I could just pick up, leave and go help. I pray one day God will provide the opportunity, once my responsibilities to family have been fulfilled.
Edit: updated as I somehow read past the "3 Christian children on the brink of death."
