Poll for non-Christians

[awitch]

Just a quick poll intended for the non-Christians who might still be lurking in the World Religions forum.

I'm curious if your attitudes toward Christianity as a religion and Christians in general have changed over the last 3 years. You can pick two options.

 

[Chesterton]

I'm curious why you picked the time period of the last 3 years. Is it just like "recent life history", or something else about the last 3 years?

 

[awitch]

I'm curious why you picked the time period of the last 3 years. Is it just like "recent life history", or something else about the last 3 years?

Yeah, pretty much. I figured it's long enough to consider a trend while still being fresh in memory.

 

[Dansiph]

Just a quick poll intended for the non-Christians who might still be lurking in the World Religions forum.

I'm curious if your attitudes toward Christianity as a religion and Christians in general have changed over the last 3 years. You can pick two options.

Just curious. How has your attitude towards Christianity and Christians changed?

 

[cloudyday2]

I voted the same on Christianity and more favorable on Christians.

The Christian members today seem more willing to dialogue with non-Christians in a friendly way. The unfriendly Christian members seem to be gone or at least less vocal.

There was more of an "us vs. them" attitude in the past, and that seems to be less.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I voted the same on Christianity and more favorable on Christians.

The Christian members today seem more willing to dialogue with non-Christians in a friendly way. The unfriendly Christian members seem to be gone or at least less vocal.

There was more of an "us vs. them" attitude in the past, and that seems to be less.

How recent was the hostile atmosphere?

I wasn't really active in this place till about a year and half ago. I didn't get serious about it, till Facebook seemed to go in decline after a years of trying that for some kind of Christian blogging and networking and found it somewhat disappointing for that (pretty much made for connecting with old friends and not so much finding new ones based on shared interests etc.). And I didn't really get serious about Facebook and Blogging there until my seperation/ divorce in very late 2015.

At different times, I looked at this place but tended to by pass it. I think, I was put off a bit because it looked to Balkanized with all its unique Faith boards. I was on a "Postmodern Christian" board for over 9 years that was very, very loosely/ minimally moderated and had a blast mixing it up with people from all kinds of different Faith and Philosophical backgrounds. It was almost like some kind of Hegelian Dialectic in action. Anyway I tended to stay away from this place because it looked too strict or compartmentalized, but eventually more boards have disappeared off the web leaving only a few Fundamentalist type ones and this place. And I eventually got to like it here, you just have to watch out for the unique rules for every board....

 

[awitch]

Just curious. How has your attitude towards Christianity and Christians changed?

My attitude toward the religion itself hasn't changed.
My attitude toward Christians in general has become less favorable, to put it politely.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

My attitude toward the religion itself hasn't changed.
My attitude toward Christians in general has become less favorable, to put it politely.

The problem is "Christian" is such a broad category. I can easily imagine why you haven't liked Christians. In my younger days, after going to Christian parochial schools etc. I did my best to get away from Christianity and Christians in my college days etc.

 

[awitch]

The problem is "Christian" is such a broad category. I can easily imagine why you haven't liked Christians. In my younger days, after going to Christian parochial schools etc. I did my best to get away from Christianity and Christians in my college days etc.

For the purposes of this thread, a Christian is someone who accepts Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. It's intentionally broad. I think non-Christians recognize the different denominations with a full spectrum of beliefs and political affiliations, but to us a "true Christian" is kind of irrelevant since it could be anyone.

 

[Dansiph]

My attitude toward the religion itself hasn't changed.
My attitude toward Christians in general has become less favorable, to put it politely.

Ok thanks, I was just wondering.

 

[cloudyday2]

How recent was the hostile atmosphere?

After thinking some more, I suspect that the key change was the creation of the apologetics sub-forum whenever that happened. The people who enjoy debating can have their fun in that sub-forum and leave this sub-forum more friendly.

But to be honest, I can't remember clearly what it was like 3 years ago and how it has changed if at all. Sometimes I need to think to remember what year and month it is currently, because it all seems the same after a while.

 

[dlamberth]

It's an interesting question for self reflection. Though many of my Spiritual hero's are Christian, I'm clearly effected by the Trump effect. The conviction that I'm about to share has only increased and become even more set in my heart the pass 3 years. What I see and have experienced is that standing over there to the side of the room is Jesus Christ. And standing way over there on the other side of the room are Christians...and it's only rarely that they cross paths.

 

[Zoness]

Less favorable on both the religion and the people. The people more so than the religion but at some point I have to weigh the religion in as well. I think the reasons are self-evident to my fellow non-Christians. *vague hand waving*

 

[cloudyday2]

I just realized that I misunderstood the question. I thought @awitch was asking about Christian members on CF rather than Christians in real life. I don't follow the news, so I have no opinion on that. The Christians I know in real life seem to be more private about their beliefs. For example, a few years ago it was not uncommon for people to say, "have a blessed day", but I don't hear that as much now.

 

[awitch]

I just realized that I misunderstood the question. I thought @awitch was asking about Christian members on CF rather than Christians in real life.

I'm referring to both actually; all Christians on line and in person.

 

[Rajni]

My attitude toward Christianity and Christians has stayed the same.


-

 

[MehGuy]

Besides the Trump worship, my attitude towards Christianity has stayed about the same. There are plenty of bad apples in the secular camp where I don't really feel much of a need to differentiate Christianity.

 

[durangodawood]

Hard to say.

Thats because anymore there's this thing called "Christianity" thats really just a loyalty enforcement mechanism for the Republican Party. It currently makes the loudest claims for itself as real Christianity.

Meanwhile, I do sense that there's this other sort of Christianity lingering, but so quietly that I'm not sure what it is anymore.

 

[awitch]

While it hasn't exactly been pushed that far down, I just wanted to give this thread a bump and remind everyone that you can vote once in each category (for Christianity and Christians) and you still change your votes until the 15th when the poll closes.

Plan to start a follow up thread with some questions based on the results at that time.

 

[Caliban]

Just a quick poll intended for the non-Christians who might still be lurking in the World Religions forum.

I'm curious if your attitudes toward Christianity as a religion and Christians in general have changed over the last 3 years. You can pick two options.

I missed the window for the poll, but I went from being a Christian to feeling strongly unfavorable toward faith and religion in the last three years.