>When you are fed to lions, and burned alive, because you won't sacrifice one pinch of incense to the emperor...THEN, you can claim persecution. Christians have dealt with this.<
"Christians" have dealt with this. While I have personally had people offer to burn me at the stake (thank goddess for illegally carried weapons), had many parts of my chain of command in the Nav decide it was fun to push religion on the pagan, and have been at jobs where I had to hide my faith or risk firing (while the Christians were allowed to flaunt). And have personally witnessed many more such occurances.
>The fact that some people of religion x have had a harder time than some people of religion y does not mean religion y isn't facing persecution. Or if you like, we could call it harassment. Regardless, even if Christians are persecuting/harassing pagans, that doesn't mean Christians can't be persecuted/harassed themselves. So that line of argument is a non-starter.<
"Persecution" and "harassment" are two different things. Goes back to the whole "words have meaning" thing.
While harassment can be considered a form of mild persecution, most people think of more... severe things when they hear the word "persecution".
>Maybe some people here should consider that, just because they don't hear about Christians being persecuted, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And while I don't believe everything I hear, there is no shortage of stories about Christians' religious freedom being curtailed.<
Which, WAY too often for my taste, mean "Christians aren't being allowed to have everything their way". I'll grant there are exceptions, but the majority?
>It usually involves a public school, and an administration that doesn't understand the laws under which they are supposed to operate. Public schools are supposed to allow religious clubs to operate within their schools, or on their property, in the same way they allow other clubs. Students are supposed to be allowed to pray before meals, or read religious materials, just like they are allowed to talk to their friends at lunch, or read other books. Not all schools understand this, or choose to do the right thing.<
Ok... I've heard of some of this. That isn't "persecution", that's "School admin is made up of frelling morons". Since when is THIS a newsflash?
>I, personally, know a girl that was told she could not bring her Bible to school. Obviously, her parents could have fought that and won, but the school did it anyway. I know an atheist who persuaded his school to ban a Christian club, then made them reverse their decision when he decided he wanted to be a Christian himself.<
Cool! And do you know people who have had to defend themselves from beatings, because they won't praise Jesus?
How about people wearing a crucifix, because they've seen the school they work at fire people for not being Christian (public school, mind you)?
How many times have you seen a Christian cemetery denied permits to operate, simply because it's Christian?
And really, fistful, you (personally) should be the last person on this board to try calling for religious tolerance...
>No, it's not lions or fire. But it is something that should bother anyone who believes in freedom of religion. It little becomes us to insist that only our people face opposition, and you have to go through what we went through, or we don't care about your problems. <
Ahhh... see, I DO care about their problems. And I'll fight for your right to believe in the carpenter, while I VERY rarely see a Christian willing to do more than give lip service to my being allowed to believe in my goddess.
And I certainly am not seeing anyone other than Christians trying to codify their religious beliefs into law, which brings us right back around to the question of gay marriage.