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Except that the "approval" part is only half of it.
In the real world, proclaiming that nonbelievers go to Hell is hostile to nonbelievers. Yes, they want other believers to approve of the hostility, but describing that as wanting to garner approval leaves out the important part.
Is it hostile? Non-believers don’t believe in hell. If they believed in hell then they would be believers. If a non-believer reads it then they would just see themselves going to fake belief place.
The sentiment is hostile. You don't need to believe Hell exists in order to understand that someone louldy proclaiming that you're going to go there probably doesn't like you very much.
You misunderstand the (guessing evangelical) Christian mindset. They think by telling you that you’re going to hell you will realize this and change your mind, accept Jesus, and go to heaven. Telling people they are going to hell is to cross streams a mitzvah.
Well, technically this may be true (and that's the cover), but c'mon, most of us know that "I'll pray for you" is kind of like "Bless your heart" (sounds nice, but it's Southern for "Fuck you"). Loudly and publicly proclaiming that non-Christians are going to go to hell is usually not done out of sincere concern for their eternal well-being. (Fred Phelps doesn't actually believe that screaming "God hates fags!" will save the souls of the people he's screaming at, even if he claims that's his goal.)
The problem is that this really is a core belief of many Christians, so conversely, demanding that they just never talk about it or else they are being "hostile" is basically demanding they shut up because their beliefs offend you.
Usually there is a sort of understood public peace treaty where we all know Christians think the rest of us are going to hell, but they should refrain from preaching that where it's unwelcome. However, some Christians really do feel called upon to preach where they are unwelcome, so Lizzie Marbach was kind of like the street preacher annoying everyone by standing on the corner and shouting things that are supposed to stay in church.
My understanding of WBC theology is not particularly in depth, but I don’t think they believe that changing hearts is possible- God has already enlightened the very, very few elect, and some crazy people with terrible signs is merely His implement to bring the- again, vanishingly small- number of the saved to be more pleasing to God.
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I grew up around evangelicals. I can tell you they are in earnest. They believe non Christians are going to hell and if they can just somehow reach them, then they can save the mortal soul.
Oh, I'm sure many of them are earnest about wanting to save people. But there's a difference between opening a conversation with someone and just preaching at them in public. Granted, probably some people really are deluded enough to think shouting "Jesus saves!" on the street will actually save someone, but for the most part (especially when they're doing it on social media) I think it's virtue signaling for the consumption of other believers, not a sincere attempt to reach the unsaved.
I'm reminded of Jack Chick tracts, which are always premised on the idea that non-Christians, even in the U.S., have never heard of Jesus and know literally nothing about Christianity.
But you have to understand the mindset of evangelicals. You never know how saying X at the right time might reach Y person.
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If I tell someone shooting heroin that it's killing them and they need to stop, they can decide that actually I just hate them, and if they insist on doing so I certainly can't stop them. At a scale of the entire society, they're going to find no shortage of people who actually do hate heroin-shooters to conflate me with. That doesn't make their logic any less garbage.
Your insistence that Christians trying to warn non-believers away from Hell amounts to hatred and hostility seems nonsensical. Christians positing the existence of Hell neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket, any more than your claiming our God and Heaven does not exist. To the extent that Christianity has been used to implement oppressive authoritarian norms in the past, so has literally every other ideology that has ever existed; where Christianity stands out is the number of states where it has played a significant role in allowing actual liberty, something secular humanism has a considerably worse record on.
You're free to despise Christians if that's your thing. Not liking people is legal. You're likewise free to coordinate meanness against them for believing things you disapprove of, since no system of law or custom will ever prevent such behavior. Just be clear-headed about the likely consequences of forcing several dozen million people to choose between peaceful coexistence or their faith.
There are certainly circumstances where someone telling people this would be mainly motivated by contempt of heroin users, and where it would be correct to infer hostility. Furthermore, society has norms of religious tolerance that it does not have around heroin tolerance, and by proclaiming that your outgroup is going to suffer, you are violating norms that you are not for heroin users.
I'm pretty sure you're quoting Jefferson out of context here.
Also, notice that actually saying "I hate you and you should die" neither breaks your leg nor picks your pocket. By your reasoning not only is loudly talking about your outgroup's suffering not hostile, literal direct hatred isn't hostile either.
Do you think the first amendment should be abolished?
No, it is possible to think something is bad without wanting it prohibited.
So you think the first amendment is bad? But you don't think it should be abolished? Why not? It's the primary obstacle in the way of stopping anyone from expressing hostility, which appears to be what you want.
It's bad in this particular case; it's good in enough other cases that we should keep it despite that. Also, I don't trust the government to decide what to ban, so it's better that we allow people to say evil things than to have the government get rid of its enemies by saying they are speaking evil.
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There is no norm that believing in hell is an attack on your outgroup. Religious tolerance emerged from people who universally believed that their opposites were going to suffer, because the core insight is that my beliefs about the afterlife don't make much difference to you in this life. Likewise, it would be idiotic for me to claim that your insistence that my God doesn't exist harms me. If you are worried about suffering in the afterlife, you are free to do something about that. If you are not, you don't have to. That's the deal, and you don't get to alter it.
I'm pretty sure I'm applying a solid principle to a more general context where it nonetheless applies.
If you hate me and want me to die, that has direct implications in this life, and while it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, it has a strong correlation to both happening shortly.
"Loudly talking about your outgroup's suffering" is an interesting way to phrase it. It covers both "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but through me", and "GOD HATES FAGS". I readily concede that people can use the concept of hell to communicate hatred. That doesn't make the concept of Hell itself hateful, and the distinction is both necessary and useful if you want to maintain a pluralistic society. Any moral or ethical claim at all can be labeled hatred under your framework, and then used to exclude the disfavored from the public square. This is a bad thing to do for a lot of reasons, but doing it for a very large portion of society who already have a lot of bones to pick with the increasingly unstable social compact is just burning social cohesion for the fun of it. We Christians put up with all sorts of social bullshit already. Maybe you Atheists can try putting up with some bullshit as well.
Believing that your outgroup is going to Hell is not the same as loudly proclaiming in public that your outgroup is going to Hell, just like loudly proclaiming "your children are ugly and your toupee sucks".
This is also true for other types of hostility. If you yell in public that I'm going to Hell, that has a strong correlation to doing bad things to me.
"As well"? What? You're talking as if people who are not Christian have never put up with bullshit related to religious beliefs and this is the first time. This is absurd. You are not engaged in some sort of glorious table-turning where Christians "put up with bullshit" from everyone else and suddenly you get a chance to do it back.
Christians believe that everyone who doesn't accept salvation from Jesus is going to go to hell. We believe that we are required by Jesus to try to warn those people away from hell, and convince them to accept salvation. Keeping quiet about it is not something we are permitted to do; keeping our Christianity secret is not an option.
You are claiming that the way we express our core beliefs are insulting to everyone who isn't a Christian, and use the example of telling someone their children are ugly and their toupee sucks. Is there a way to express the core beliefs of Christianity that is not insulting? I readily concede that people can fake concern to express condescension and hatred, and that some people absolutely use Christian ideas for this purpose. In your view, is the problem that the people are abusing the ideas, or that the ideas are themselves abusive?
Again, I point to the heroin addict example, or to fat positivity activists. It is trivial to demonstrate that people harm themselves, and defend their self-harm by phrasing all criticism of that self-harm as hatred from bigots. I concede that you can, if you choose, declare that Christianity itself is hateful and evil, that the concepts of sin and salvation are at their core objectionable no matter how they are expressed. Is that your claim?
I readily agree that one person screaming at another person that they're going to Hell has some correlation with doing bad things to them, though I would argue that such a correlation would be significantly weaker than screaming "I hate you and want you to die", much less "I hate you and you should be killed". I defy you to show me a stronger connection between "There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone" and bad things happening to people than between, say, "Christianity is antisocial" and bad things happening to people.
Of course, you never actually said "Christianity is antisocial", but it seems to me it's rather less of a stretch than your translation of the original tweet "There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone" into the maximally-inflammatory "you are going to hell". You conflate a metaphysical claim about the souls of all humanity with threatening language between individuals. This seems absurd to me, but perhaps you actually believe that Christianity's record of oppression is bad enough to justify it. If so, you should probably make the argument specifically.
We Christians had it hammered into our heads that we didn't own the public square and anyone could say what they liked without consequences. Now you're arguing that people should be shouted down when they say unpleasant things. There is no shortage of things people say that I find unpleasant. If I tolerate them, so can you. If you can't tolerate them, why should I?
No. You are talking as though you have a monopoly on getting offended. To the extent that I can avoid offending you, I'd like to do so. If you have decided that the only way to avoid offending you is to keep my beliefs to myself, then I'm afraid I'm not willing to do that, and you're going to have to come to terms with being offended. I think you can put up with being offended, because I certainly do on an hourly basis. If you can't, if you think offensiveness is something worth pushing back on, well, get in line.
You are mixing up "convincing people", "not keeping quiet", and "keeping secret". In the modern world, you aren't keeping secret; it's common knowledge that Christianity says that nonbelievers go to Hell. And "not keeping quiet" isn't the same as convincing people. Nobody outside the lizardman constant gets convinced to be a Christian by being told that they are going to Hell. Saying that people go to Hell in public doesn't "convince people to accept salvation", and can't be justified on the basis that you are required to do that.
No, you had it hammered into your heads that you didn't own the public square and anyone could say what they liked without going to jail for it. Maybe even that you shouldn't be fired from your job for it (I disagree with the left here.) But if by "consequences" you mean people getting offended, no, you don't get immunity from consequences, and nobody ever said that you do. The toupee example may be useful here. I won't get arrested if I walk into the public square and say that your toupee sucks. But you can still think I'm being rude and tell all your friends what a jerk I am.
I don't go around saying "all Christians believe lies" or anything similar outside of contexts like specifically discussing Christianity. You don't put up with offense from me that is similar to the offense you want me to put up from you.
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Generally speaking, I am sympathetic to what you are saying, though obviously I think your beliefs are wrong. But being unable to completely shake my "go along get along" mistake theorist past, I am generally pretty chill about Christians preaching, even in public venues where I'd rather they didn't, unless they are literally getting in my face and screaming, Fred Phelps style.
That said, I will point out that theoretically, there is no limiting principle in what you are saying, and given that you have spoken eloquently at length about how the breaks are disengaged, the safety rails are gone, and we're cruising downhill, well. If Christians no longer believe in any kind of detente, any sort of agreement "not to be annoying about it," pretty soon you arrive at what I'd call the extreme outcome, taken to its logical conclusion: if you believe I am facing eternal damnation and torture, what wouldn't you be justified in doing to save me from that?
(The Catholic Inquisition had an answer to that. It wasn't a great time.)
Small anecdote time. I was once on a forum for people suffering from a severe health condition. (I'm fine now, thanks.) We generally were okay with the occasional Christian urging us to pray, "get right with God," etc. Sure, whatever, dude. Appreciate the thought.
Until there was one who was very, very serious about it, haranguing the list daily about the fate in store for us if we didn't get right with Jesus. Every polite request to tone it down, maybe stick to sharing the Word with people who expressed interest, preferably in private, was met with - dare I say - an acceleration of his behavior. He explained, as you just did, that as a Christian he was required to preach to us, that he did not have the option to be quiet about it, and that he would be acting against his faith not to shove it in our faces at every opportunity. (Okay, he didn't put it like that, obviously, but that's what he meant.)
Needless to say, this didn't go down well. It had the effect of destroying what had once been a fairly supportive community. People left both because they thought he'd been bullied for sharing his faith, and because there were a lot of people who felt he'd been bullying them, people who really wanted support for their situation and really didn't want to be preached at (some of whom came from very negative religious experiences).
Obviously, most Christians aren't like that guy. And I don't know that there is really a point to this story, since I don't expect you to start preaching to the Motte, except that, well, I remember that guy. And I think about him every time a Christian explains very earnestly that he is just trying to save our souls.
All that being said, I don't think a lady talking about Jesus on Twitter is any kind of a threat and I wouldn't want to see her fired or "cancelled" unless she's going all WBC about it.
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Who says they don’t like you? That person would likely help you get baptized in a second.
That's help combined with condescension. Condescension is a type of hostility.
This just seems like Christian hating to me.
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Yes, and? Obviously people often hold beliefs they know would be rude to state publicly, which leads to these sorts of fracases where someone does state it in a public venue.
"Christian expresses a fundamental tenet of most Christian denominations, non-Christians get offended" is a nothing story except for the personalities involved.
And there's a reason why influential people being rude gets in the news.
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