Why has this gotten worse

HugalHugal Shipmate
edited April 2019 in Hell
I thought long and hard if I should post this and where. I am posting it in Hell because I know it will end up a rant.
I am a very long term ship mate. I don’t work with a computer. Since I changed building at work a few years ago I have had even less access to a computer than before. Since I have had to mainly use my phone I found it tricky to post much on the ship. After the relaunch I have been able to post more. Since then I have noticed the anti Evangelical bias that has always been there subtlety on the ship has gotten a lot worse.
It is not only in the fact that there are more questions about Evangelicals it is in other ways that are hard to put your finger on. There seems to be an understanding that we are just plain wrong or even stupid.
This behaviour has no place on the ship. I am always up for debate people here know that, but there is a subliminal feeling that Evos are put up with not proper ship mates.
There rant over.
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Comments

  • Mark BettsMark Betts Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Hugal wrote: »
    I thought long and hard if I should post this and where. I am posting it in Hell because I know it will end up a rant.
    I am a very long term ship mate. I don’t work with a computer. Since I changed building at work a few years ago I have had even less access to a computer than before. Since I have had to mainly use my phone I found it tricky to post much on the ship. After the relaunch I have been able to post more. Since then I have noticed the anti Evangelical bias that has always been there subtlety on the ship has gotten a lot worse.
    It is not only in the fact that there are more questions about Evangelicals it is in other ways that are hard to put your finger on. There seems to be an understanding that we are just plain wrong or even stupid.
    This behaviour has no place on the ship. I am always up for debate people here know that, but there is a subliminal feeling that Evos are put up with not proper ship mates.
    There rant over.

    I'm not going to post in a "Hell-like manner" at this stage, because I think you only really want to discuss the matter. I'm a former Evangelical (now Eastern Orthodox) - I changed for my own reasons (not very dissimilar to other converts) but I haven't started "hating" evangelicals, since they bring with them the good parts of Evangelicalism.

    Having said that, there is an over-zealous representation of ultra-liberal intellectuals who dominate most of the topics - that's simply an observation which may have something to do with the fact that we all tend to become a little more liberal in some of our views as we get older.

    Anyway, with their overuse of accusations of "hate speech" and "bigotry" they seem to manage to silence everyone else, including those who would define themselves as "fairly liberal" but not so extreme as the ultra-liberals.

    Another problem is that few of us can really define "Evangelicalism," and many will associate it with climate-change denial, racism, homophobia, white supremacism and Donald Trump.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I dunno; the Schroedinger's Cat, Alan Cresswell, and quite a few other stalwarts of the Ship identify as Evangelical.

    I think there's a certain amount of laziness - of which I'm probably as guilty as anyone - of using "Evangelical" as shorthand for "The hard core of Con Evos with somewhat antediluvian views on certain Dead Horses".
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    There really aren't many posters talking about bigotry, maybe one or two vociferous ones, unless it's in response to bigotry - homophobia, for example.

    I think it's part of the nature of the Ship - it's a place where people can come when they are struggling with their local churches and talk through their issues. Currently in the CofE, with the numbers of evangelical clergy increasing and being placed at traditional churches, there are a number of Shippies unhappy at seeing their local traditions completely changed. Early on, there were evangelicals trying to find churches in a sea of traditionalism.
  • I'm in a char-evo worship band.

    And you can suck liberal balls, Betsy.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited April 2019
    And to anyone who actually genuinely wants to engage with the issues, here's some advice.

    Do better.

    It's simply not enough (and it never was) to quote a Bible verse and fold your arms as if that seals the argument. If evangelicalism so fucking wonderful, then you should probably use the 2000 years of theological exploration that will surely underpin your interpretations, rather than just whining on about how libs are so beastly to evos. There are things called books, and you should really be reading them.
  • Certainly, there are two extremes to Evangelicalism - one is ultra-liberal, the other ultra-conservative - but you don't belong to one end or the other of this wide spectrum, you are somewhere in the middle.
  • Is there a confusion here between evangelical and fundamentalist?

    I believe that those who would actively, via persuasion or through political alignment and the law, impose their beliefs and life choices on others are always, always, in the wrong.

    Now, there is a codicil to that. There's nothing wrong with advising someone jumping out of a plane that they've forgotten the parachute or that maybe some training beforehand might be an idea. There's a line between "how you live your life is none of my business" and "You might want to look out for that bus."

    The issue with conservatives--and fundamentalists are conservatives using religion as a prop to justify their conservatism--is they think they know how everyone should live and sometimes some of them go to considerable length, starting with ranting and insisting everyone (but them and their cohorts) are damned, and ending in murder, terrorism, and waging war. There's no difference between a ranting fundie and an ISIL terrorist other than means and opportunity.

    Liberals, by contrast, really don't think they know how everyone should live. A liberal will allow someone to live a conservative life. And because they know they don't know how everyone should live they believe everyone has the right to live according to their own beliefs and they will defend that right against any who would fight against it. Hence liberals are classically pro-choice when it comes to abortion. They don't approve of abortion. They don;t encourage it. They might never dream of having an abortion themselves. But they know that other people must have the freedom to choose.

    TL;DR

    Evangelical: have you tried this juice? It's great. I think you might like it.
    Fundie: Drink this juice or be damned. there is no other juice but my juice.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    I did not say I wanted to discuss the differences between Evos and others that is covered on other boards. I had not posted a lot on the ship and when I got the opportunity to post more I noticed a different attitude. One that seemed to be a bit more hostile than it was before less open. Now I may be miss reading things but it does seem to be like that.
  • When a label is applied to someone the assumptions about them soon follow. Labels belong in hell. The only one I want for myself is @The Rogue
  • Hugal wrote: »
    I did not say I wanted to discuss the differences between Evos and others that is covered on other boards. I had not posted a lot on the ship and when I got the opportunity to post more I noticed a different attitude. One that seemed to be a bit more hostile than it was before less open. Now I may be miss reading things but it does seem to be like that.

    One thing to consider is how Evangelicalism itself has changed. During Billy Graham's hey day, everyone knew what "evangelical" meant, but nowadays it could mean fundamentalist, "open" evangelical (liberal), Word-of-Faith, charismatic. There are far less conservative-evangelicals left, who are attacked on every side, even from other more liberal evangelicals.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I am quite a long term shipmate - coming up to fourteen years - and would self-define as evangelical. Formerly I would have chosen to identify as a conservative evangelical, but find that term has been loudly claimed by people whose views on (e.g.) women’s ministry, abortion etc. I do not share.

    I think the role of evangelicals in the rise of the religious right in the USA is a very significant factor in the changing climate there, and increasingly in the UK as well. It can be hard to realise that there are left wing evangelicals, and evangelicals who read scripture differently from the very vocal likes of Christian Voice, Christian Concern etc.

    With these and other groups proclaiming that you are only really an evangelical if you believe x about the roles of men and women, y about abortion, and z about how the Bible should be read, there is a correspondingly increasing tendency for those outside evangelicalism to assume that if you label yourself evangelical, then you believe x, y, and z, and the multiple ecclesial and theological shades of evangelical Christianity are overlooked.
  • Again, for the hard of hearing. If you think that evangelicalism is so -gosh-darned wonderful, it's up to you to make a cogent case for it over and above waving clobber texts around like some priapic street preacher (Hugal, you're excused - I've not see you do this).

    Evangelicalism has a serious intellectual deficit - in fact, I'd argue (along with a whole slew of other, evangelical, commentators) that evangelicals are in general scared of thinking, scared of examining their beliefs, scared of testing them against scripture and other interpretations of the same passages, in case the whole fragile edifice cracks like a climate-warmed ice-shelf. As such, they're out of practice in robustly defending their views in the market place of ideas, and appeals to authority wash there as well as they do here. When evangelicals (re)discover what apologetics are, perhaps they'll stop getting their butts whipped by liberals.
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Again, for the hard of hearing. If you think that evangelicalism is so -gosh-darned wonderful, it's up to you to make a cogent case for it over and above waving clobber texts around like some priapic street preacher (Hugal, you're excused - I've not see you do this).

    Evangelicalism has a serious intellectual deficit - in fact, I'd argue (along with a whole slew of other, evangelical, commentators) that evangelicals are in general scared of thinking, scared of examining their beliefs, scared of testing them against scripture and other interpretations of the same passages, in case the whole fragile edifice cracks like a climate-warmed ice-shelf. As such, they're out of practice in robustly defending their views in the market place of ideas, and appeals to authority wash there as well as they do here. When evangelicals (re)discover what apologetics are, perhaps they'll stop getting their butts whipped by liberals.

    In my experience liberals loathe apologetics and will shut the discussion down before they are even considered.
  • In my experience, you talk out of your arse. Yet here I am, trying to help...
  • Apologetics - reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
    "apologetics for the slave trade are quite out of order"

    So liberals hate arguments in favour of particular religious doctrines, like slavery or homophobia? To damn right we do. I tend to argue from Matthew 7:16
    By their fruits you will know them. Do you
    gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Mark Betts, unless someone has closed a thread, they haven't shut down discussion.
  • I was wondering what shutting a discussion down means. Could you show me how to do it?
  • Ruth wrote: »
    Mark Betts, unless someone has closed a thread, they haven't shut down discussion.

    I wasn't talking about the ship forum, I was talking about discussion in general.
  • I was wondering what shutting a discussion down means. Could you show me how to do it?

    You guys all have PhDs, so stop being disingenuous.
  • This is GCSE level stuff, so our crushing intellectual superiority isn't even in play.

    Yet.
  • Even if it's just one GCSE in Art?
  • Flaunt it, girlfriend.
  • Mark Betts wrote: »
    I was wondering what shutting a discussion down means. Could you show me how to do it?

    You guys all have PhDs, so stop being disingenuous.

    Well, can you cite a discussion that has been shut down? I mean with a link, I am genuinely curious about it.
  • I was quite good at art, actually.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Mark Betts wrote: »
    I was quite good at art, actually.

    I'll bet. Was this back in the days when they let you sit and draw if the real work was too hard?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Hugal wrote: »
    This behaviour has no place on the ship. I am always up for debate people here know that, but there is a subliminal feeling that Evos are put up with not proper ship mates.
    There rant over.

    I can count at least three Admins here who I think would identify as some sort of evangelical, including me.

    I've been on board for the best part of 20 years, and I've never seen discrimination against evangelicals - provided they know how to abide by the 10 Commandments (many don't, specifically they fail to distinguish between attacking the person and attacking the issue and fail to respect other posters) - and don't complain they are being persecuted all the time.

    Oh and I have no PhD.

  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    My guess is that the effect that Hugal is sensing is the general frustration with humans intentionally choosing to be horrible. Both in terms of political will that is barely-concealed xenophobia, and the many flavours of society-eroding anti-science. The only aspects about ilks of belief that are affected are exactly those that are brought to defend the horrible-ness.

    Believe whatever you want, as long as you're not horrible about it, then I doubt you'll feel much ire aimed at you.
  • It's also about the fact that evangelicals are taking over everything, everywhere - so many threads pointing to this, and an HTB plant in Lambeth Palace.

    Thus the rest of us are getting impatient and angry. To put it bluntly - suck it up, you seem to have taken over the world.
  • It's also about the fact that evangelicals are taking over everything, everywhere - so many threads pointing to this, and an HTB plant in Lambeth Palace.

    Thus the rest of us are getting impatient and angry. To put it bluntly - suck it up, you seem to have taken over the world.

    And yet , they appear to be so angry about it. Still.

    AFF
  • Hugal isn't alone in the assertion that the Ship is run by liberals who clap their hands over their ears and go, 'Lalalalalalala ... I'm not listening!' every time an evangelical appears.

    There's a Lurker who PMs me to that effect and who also accuses me of taking irrational swipes at evangelicals because I'm embarrassed about my antics in my evangelical charismatic yoof.

    I don't take kindly to amateur, armchair psychoanalysis, even though I've been guilty of it myself. Particularly because I've been guilty of it myself.

    If anything, I think my posts about evangelicalism are more balanced than they used to be, and, I hope, a lot shorter too. There was a time when I posted inordinately long posts about the whackier aspects of charismatic evangelicalism as I made a long and sometimes painful transition out of that scene.

    I'd like to think I don't do that any more. Or less so at any rate.

    I do think things are polarising, though, with some conservatives (whether evangelical or Catholic or Orthodox) becoming even more entrenched and conservative and some liberals becoming more entrenched in the opposite direction.

    I think that inevitably spills over onto the unswabbed decks of the Ship.

    I understand the frustration of evangelical posters. 'They're getting at me because they misunderstand ...'

    Some former evangelicals can be condescending and irritating. 'I used to think like you but then I grew out of it ...'

    On the whole, though, I think that most evangelicals who get some stick here tend to come either from the very conservative end or would get stick anyway irrespective of what tradition they represent because they are acting like an arse.



  • I too am a former Evangelical (of the conservative non-charismatic breed.) I know very well how such people, after they convert to something else, go on a sort of crusade, taking swipes at every opportunity.

    Oh, all right, "Guilty as charged," your honour.

    However, we all should realise that it's a temporary stage, and we have to grow out of it. I make no secret that much of my spirituality was formed through evangelicalism - it's still part of who I am and always will be.
  • Me too.

    When I was more evangelical than I am now, I don't remember getting any stick for it aboard Ship. The only stick I've had has been when I've overstepped the mark on the 10 Commandments.

    I do have some sympathy with Hugal. It can be difficult if you feel that yours is a minority voice. There are a couple of Swedenborgian posters here. Now that's a very niche and minority position. No-one seems to give them any stick for that.

    I'm not convinced that debating whether evangelicalism contains the seeds of incipient Arianism, for instance, counts as an anti-evangelical bias, it strikes me as a legitimate concern.

    That said, people who may have conservative views on Dead Horse issues can get very short shrift.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    That's because it often turns out that their views have more to do with prejudice than worked-out theology.
  • edited April 2019
    Some people I know, including in my own family, are vegetarian and they really want to tell me how to eat right, improve my health, save the planet, things like that. Most often they don't come out and say anything, but there's a je ne çais qua (I can't say what) about it where I detect something disapproving and a desire to tell me. I think I find evangelicals a bit like that: they want to share their good news and we all try not to say anything about the elephant in the room and the barrier between us.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited April 2019
    I’m sorry but my inner pedant has to point out that it’s ‘je ne sais quoi’ (= I don’t know what)
  • My inner pedant wants to ask why Hugal, as, I think, a British Shipmate, is using terms like 'gotten.'

    We aren't living in either the 17th century nor Seattle ... ;).

    He'll be saying, 'I got me a ...' next.

    Meanwhile, I think the Ship can appear intimidating both to newcomers and to those of a conservative or pietistic bent. That's not a 'fault' or a criticism, just part of the deal perhaps.

    I do wonder at times, though, whether there is something intrinsically 'awkward' and 'on edge' about being evangelical, as No Prophet suggests. I used to beat myself up with guilt if I didn't 'witness' to strangers on trains, buses or when hitch-hiking.

    Perhaps that's always the corollary of having a cause or strong stand-point.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    That's because it often turns out that their views have more to do with prejudice than worked-out theology.

    That's worked out prejudices backed up with some Bible verses applied without context to give them some extra weight.

    Free speech means being able to say what they like, without being challenged, because everyone else’s job is to listen. If they are called out or told they need more than a Bible verse as their audience doesn’t accept the Bible as the final authority, they often have nothing to say. They scream about “liberals” unable to cope with The Truth ™ and complain about “political correctness gone mad”.

    It’s not that the Ship is unfriendly to evangelicals – there are lots of members who self-identify as evangelicals, it’s that some elements are getting more and more shrill. And makes me want to self-identify as something completely different.
  • My inner pedant wants to ask why Hugal, as, I think, a British Shipmate, is using terms like 'gotten.'

    We aren't living in either the 17th century nor Seattle ... ;).

    Why are you constantly trying to start a pond war? Get the fuck over your linguistic inadequacies. It's like you have a short dick and have to take it out on people who speak or believe differently from you.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Because all stereotypes are true, when you're an asshole.
  • RooK wrote: »
    Because all stereotypes are true, when you're an asshole.

    I resent that remark.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    You and me both, buddy.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    As a nonconformist evangelical, what I find most annoying about far too many evangelicals is that they are far too conformist. There is a party line about inerrancy, so let's stick to it, not examine it. There is a party line about sexual preferences, so let's stick to it, not examine it.

    Nonconformism was born out of a willingness to look again at established traditional Christian thinking and question its correctness. Yes, question. Exercise your wits and your conscience.

    I get cheesed off when someone labels my thinking about human sexuality, or scriptural inspiration, or issues of social equity as 'liberal' simply because I'm not a parrot. I have always been prepared publicly to give reasons for my beliefs, subject them to the test. There is a dynamic in that. I've learned a lot here from folks who come from other colours of the Christian rainbow, also from folks in other faith communities and folks without faith.

    Christian apologetics is not about defending the no longer defensible, simply because there was once a time when the defence was mainstream. We either live and learn, or we stop learning and start dying inside.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    I did some time in Christian Community Theatre with some Americans. Some of it rubbed off. Hence gotten.
    RooK wrote: »
    My guess is that the effect that Hugal is sensing is the general frustration with humans intentionally choosing to be horrible. Both in terms of political will that is barely-concealed xenophobia, and the many flavours of society-eroding anti-science. The only aspects about ilks of belief that are affected are exactly those that are brought to defend the horrible-ness.

    Believe whatever you want, as long as you're not horrible about it, then I doubt you'll feel much ire aimed at you.

    You could be right Rook. Coming back to fully posting after a time of restricted posting one tends to notices the change,
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    I’m sorry but my inner pedant has to point out that it’s ‘je ne sais quoi’ (= I don’t know what)

    Yes, but I was allowing the possibility that he was writing French-Canadian.
  • ....
    The issue with conservatives--and fundamentalists are conservatives using religion as a prop to justify their conservatism--is they think they know how everyone should live and sometimes some of them go to considerable length, starting with ranting and insisting everyone (but them and their cohorts) are damned, and ending in murder, terrorism, and waging war. ....

    But they only wage war on certain issues. Hardly any North American fundagelipentehostiles advocate government programs to care for the poor, or visit prisoners, or heal the sick, for example. However, government programs that force women to have babies or try to make gay people straight are perfectly acceptable to them. They don't speak out against greedy big pharma or chemical producers or sweatshop companies responsible for thousands of injuries and deaths, but they'll openly conspire to murder medical professionals who do abortions and brag about it.

    At least liberals pick and choose because they want to reduce human misery. At least Catholics are consistently pro-life. These guys are the worst cafeteria Christians - their good news is "Hey, sinners, we'll punish you in life, God will punish you after death!"
  • Pedants, whether they are attempting to police Canadian French or American English, can all fuck off, and when they've fucked off there, can fuck off even further. Preferably out of reach of a keyboard.
  • Çedilla. It's like a pöwër ümläüt ønly çôôlеr. Beçause dångly.
  • Look, I did stop reading at Gamma's post because I am in another timezone and have to read alot and I'm tired too mmmkay?

    My response to the OP is:

    1. Hang on, what's an evangelical again? Another type of Proddy? They are such bloody splitters. No, really. What is an evangelical? I know the greek.

    2. When I have seen abuse on the ship, it's usually because someone is expressing a view that seems to either denigrate women or LGBTQI people. Also, when people do what Brother Jude did, which was prooftexting without examining the text.

    3. I don't tend to wander much from Purg or Hell, is this more on the other boards Hugal? Also, I don't like stacks on the mill, so I tend to leave a thread alone when the bile starts flowing. Feedback sandwiches people. I know I'm repeating myself, but they work.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Feedback sandwiches people.

    What does that mean?
This discussion has been closed.