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I understand the whole Tolerance concept..I think it is fair that we should treat people fairly and not ttack them because of their religious beliefs (or lachthereof)...So why is it that Christianity is becoming (if it isnt fully)the most discriminated against religion in the US? (if not the world).

I mean seriously..Children and Teachers are told they are not allowed to pray in schools if they are christian...yet some of those same schools have seperate places set aside for children and facultyof other religions to go to pray (IE Muslims...Jews. etc..) You may say that doesnt happen, but my wife's high school was that way.

I have seen schools where they will tell one child they cannot wear a cross necklace because it it somehow "offensive" yet the kid on the other end of the hall can wear their religious headwear without any words spoken to them about it.

A christian says "I believe Abortion is wrong" and they are narrow minded.

A christian says "Homosexuality is a sin" and they are hateful

A christian tries to share the gospel with somebody and they are pushing their beliefs onto someone...yet if an athiest says "God doesnt Exist" and makes a complete mockery of the christan faith, a christian is expected to be okay with that and walk away like everything is fine.

Somebody explain how any of that is fair.

I am not trying to say christians are all nice and perfect..there are some real whackjobs out there who claim to be christians and the less said about those people, the better..but I mean seriously...I am a christian..Training to become a pastor/elder. And whenever I see things where people are attacked by others for any reason, it troubles me..Tolerance is meant to bring us together..yet so many people abuse "Tolerance" and use it as a way to try to attack christians...It is really quite sad.

Heh...you forget - we practice and teach a religion that loves people no matter what they've done, and have a God that forgives everything; all He demands is that we acknowledge His lordship. This is antithetical to man's sin nature, so OF COURSE he's going to try to stomp it out. One notable difference between Christianity and every other religion out there is that we have a God who desires ultimately to be personally involved in each and every person's life; that means that they can't do whatever they like 3nodding

Not sure if that even relates... eek

*goes off to drink more caffeine to try to make himself make more sense*

I remembered what I was trying to say...must be the caffeine working 3nodding

Errr, anyway, what I was trying to think of at the time, was that the Bible even says that Satan is the Prince of this world. Obviously, he's going to manipulate things to be against Christianity. If you assume that these other religions (and even so-called atheist groups) are inspired by Satan (can't type; I keep calling him Stan) then it kinda makes sense that they'd give each other precedence (yes? no? seems like the wrong word).

I apologize if I'm not making much sense; I'm sick right now, and I don't feel like my entire intellect is quite...there...

It is also written in the Bible, that these things shall happen near the time when Jesus will come again. It is also true that Christians are not perfect, because we are also sinners, but as Jesus was also judged by unright people, let us let these people, who do not know what they are doing, judge us, for we will still be judged by the true judge who knows all truth and good, God, hence we should not be bothered by what other people say about our religion. What is important is that we do not get back at them with rude words, but instead, we should pray for them, and live our lives just as God would have want us to. The things you mentioned are truly not fair, but when these people do that, and when atheists say that God doesn't exist, these people do not know that they are actually trying to fullfil the things that are about to happen before the 2nd coming.

While I appreciate your strength of feeling, I can't see how Christianity is the most discriminated-against religion in the US. Nearly all your politicians are Christians, your president is a Christian, you have thousands of churches across your country. It's the majority religion. You have more religious freedoms than any other group - look at all the protesting those Wiccan groups had to do in order to get their religious symbol on a gravestone. Ten years it took them.

For future reference, you are certainly allowed to pray in school, but not in a way that disrupts the class. You can pray in your head, you can pray at lunch, you can pray any time that you're not interrupting the lesson. Your rights as religious people aren't infringed upon. School is simply a secular environment, and no religion is given more weight than any other. If someone is preventing you from praying in school (and I can't really see how that is possible, given that no one can see into your mind to tell if you're praying) then you can complain about it.

I don't think a Christian should be required to simply walk away if an atheist is being a jerk. But, a Christian should be aware of the religious beliefs of others, and that they have been exposed to Christianity for much of their life. So while it's nice to share your religious views, and how your religion has touched you, it's not wise to do so without invitation. People will feel that their own beliefs are not being respected. I know that that isn't your intention when you speak about your god, that you just want to share something that's important to you. Nevertheless it's very disconcerting when someone starts talking about their religion out of the blue in such a way that you feel they want you to be a Christian also. I'm not saying stop entirely, because I'm sure that it helps you connect with other Christians and there are some people who really appreciate the message, but be aware that there are people who find this sort of thing very irritating and will respond accordingly. You're not to know that they're comfortable with their religious choices, of course, but do try to approach this sort of thing respectfully, or people will interpret it as an attack and jump on the defensive.

But if someone is making an issue of it, by all means call them a bigot and educate them. I've seen a lot of people talking about Jesus Zombie day, which is stupid, as zombies are the reanimated dead and Jesus actually returned to life. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding both of Jesus's resurrection and the nature of zombies.

Last, remember to love thy neighbour, though he strike against you... or something... Agape and all that. Attempt to understand the motivation behind their actions (it's rarely a dislike of Christianity and more often an attempt to please everyone, which is difficult to do). If something bothers you, stand up and mention it, but do so calmly so that people don't get the wrong idea and start calling you a fundie or something. Calm and intelligent discourse is the order of the day. ^_^ Inter-faith relations is important.

I just want to go on the record as saying this topic has been nit picked at more than any other post I have ever made on any other forum. the point of the post was simple; I was pointing out hypocricy that takes place and how wrong it is. I used christianity as a good example and quite honestly, nothing I said was wrong. I made careful observations based on actual life accounts.

One thing I am going to nit pick on here is the whole "No prayer is fine on your own" thing. NO IT ISNT ANYMORE. Students IN SOME SCHOOLS (Note I didnt say all) are NOT allowed to pray at all and if they are caught praying, they are punished. That DOES happen. just ask Kiwidinok and she will confirm as it happened to her.

Anyways...wether you agree with certain aspects of my post I really dont care..however nit picking like what has been done here really doesnt do any good for anybody. If I said something happened or is happening, it is because I've witnessed it first hand.

discrimination is wrong regardless of who does it to who....but anybody who claims they support TOLERANCE and then bashes somebody else for what they do or do not believe is a complete hypocrite. THAT is the whole point of this.

Okay, here is the situation: A large group of kids in my highschool were muslim. At a certain point in the day they all got up out of class and went down to the courtyard and began praying outloud. It echoed throughout the school. We ALL had to hear it. Yet, Christians, if they want to pray, have to pray "in their heads" as you say. We were told not to wear even a small cross because it was offensive to the athiest students. We were told we couldn't gather at the flagpole to pray together because even if we weren't speaking out loud everyone knew what we were doing and it was offensive to some people. However, Jews were allowed to wear their Kippa, muslims their headdress, satanists their stars or whatever you call them....but a christian, who has no religiously required dess code, was to be tolerant of the other belief systems and told they should do everything in their power to not wear anything, talk about anything, do ANYTHING that could offend somebody with another belief.
If that's not discrimination, I don't know what is. It's not like that everywhere, I know....but it is extremely difficult to be Christian in this country. Believe that or don't. It makes no difference to me but until you're a Christian walking the streets of America where people literally SCREAM their "You have to accept people the way they are no matter what they believe" crap at you.....even when you haven't ever said or done anything to warrant the attack, all because they heard you pray...they saw your cross, they see your Bible....
Yea, I had to go to the Dean's office some 15 times in ONE school year for bringing my Bible to school to read during lunch, yet my jewish friends brought their books and that was fine. At Christmas, we were told that the word Merry Christmas was not allowed in our halls, punishable by two days detention....We had to say Happy Holidays--not that I was bothered by saying Happy Holidays because I understand that not everyone celebrates the same holiday as me, but the stigma was there because it has the word "Christ" in it. We have religious freedom in this country, so the law says, but in practie it falls short.
I fought it tooth and nail the entire time I was there, and even after I left the school. Nothing can be rported to officials because it is not in the guidbooks at the school, andyou can't prove it's happening because the detention slips read different reasons other than "offensive faith practices" so for legal standard they are on the up and up, but when you know specifcally you haven't done ANYTHING other than practice your faith and yet you have detention for "talking back and being disruptive to the learning experience" you know the truth.