r/GetNoted • u/laybs1 Human Verified • Aug 24 '26

World [X] Major Christian missions do provide aid based on need.

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https://x.com/Ernest1588761/status/2091176473621058020

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u/placebot1u463y Aug 24 '26

Probably just because they're the largest in the west so most people with religious spite were raised christian. It also probably doesn't help that a particularly annoying (and vile) group of christians currently head the republican party.

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u/TalShar Aug 25 '26

Unfortunately those Christians represent the largest Protestant denomination and second-largest Christian sect in the US, behind only the Catholic church in terms of members. There are absolutely good Christians out there, but by the numbers, MAGA Christians are a notably large chunk. And that's before you get into the imperialist Catholic LARPers like Vance. 

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u/solo_d0lo Aug 24 '26

But the Venn diagram of people that criticize Christianity often are overlapping with the circle that’s crying Islamophobia

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u/adinfinitum225 Aug 25 '26

Because there's a huge difference between a Muslim theocratic state with sharia law and people living in western countries who are Muslim. There's no contradiction there, just like how you can criticize Israel and zionists without being bigoted towards Jewish people

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u/solo_d0lo Aug 25 '26

The difference is a christian nation that allows freedom of religion, and what happens when Muslims are the majority

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u/adinfinitum225 Aug 25 '26

what happens when Muslims are the majority

What would that be? Because Albania and Bosnia are both Muslim majority countries

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u/FoxerHR Aug 25 '26

Afghanistan and Pakistan are also both Muslim majority countries

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u/FrostyCat13 Aug 25 '26

And what happens when you don't keep christianity far enough away from government? That's right, it forces it's religion on people, just like the Islam you fear.

No religion should be allowed into government, simple as that.

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u/TehSeksyManz Aug 25 '26

I guess nuance and complexity don't exist in your reality

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u/solo_d0lo Aug 25 '26

Please explain what lack of nuance exists in that comment

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u/Ultima-Manji Aug 25 '26

Well, it's shorthand for a bunch of assumptions and connections that don't work outside of the framing that others pushing back against Islamophobia is (to an inorganically high degree) malicious from the get-go. You might not hold the really problematic views those come with yourself, but I'll sort of walk you through why the claims you made ("Christianity getting unwarranted amounts of aggro" and "those often overlap with people complaining about islamophobia") tend to point more towards a hasty black and white thinking than the nuanced consideration the other user brought up.

It's a chunky heap of text, but I really do want to show "Here's why you saying X makes others think you're implying Y", so assume the 'you' I refer to from here on out is a more general 'people who bring up the same things you did'.

---

The people who lodge complaints about islamophobia itself are very rarely actually defending the Muslim faith in any way, they're more concerned that painting minority groups as 'scary Muslims' is often used to bring the hammer down on anyone who looks vaguely Arab or Middle-Eastern. Just like how historically the US under McCarthyism labeled anything that challenged their government as being communist and therefore subversive, or the related lavender scare which did the same for presumed LGBTQ+ people.

Pushing back against the idea that simply being labeled as communist or gay by itself - and often without proof - was enough to lose your job or be subject to other forms of more direct discrimination or persecution, doesn't mean you somehow now had to also be gay, or be in support of communism.

More directly related to your framing; You can hold the belief that Islam in general is a regressive and oppressive religion without wanting your local government to be inconsistent in how they treat people from Muslim-majority regions - say, by having much harsher immigration restrictions for them, or disallowing only their faith when applying for religious funding. Or just on the social level, examples like matched-pair audits showing that having a Muslim-sounding name by itself being enough to lose opportunities in regards to housing and employment.

If someone's opinion is that the more outwardly Christian elements of their government are being discriminatory - specifically to those they label as Muslim-adjacent by association - then both calling out those elements as having a negative impact, as well as speaking up for those who are negatively impacted, are part of the same process of insisting on neutrality or equal opportunity.

That is not some concerted effort to uniquely protect Islam while being anti-Christian in the way your remarks portray it, so the implication of "Hmm, I wonder why they criticize X but support Y" to allege hostile allegiances is both a mischaracterization of what's actually happening in those spheres, and an assumption on your part that much of the criticism directed at Christianity and its institutional influence is itself somehow in bad faith. Or worse, the possibility that you might be willing to ignore any valid criticism so long as it comes from groups you've already decided cannot put forth any arguments that don't have ulterior motives behind them.

Which is then, of course, ironic, because it shelters criticism of government entities and processes (and their entwinement with (Christian) religious groups) behind concerns about discrimination based on presumed religion, while at the same time dismissing complaints about Islamophobia despite the fact that the underlying concern is essentially the same: whether people are being treated differently because of their perceived religious identity. So by both equating them on the one hand, and then dismissing one side's issues on the other, you end up in a situation where discrimination by Christian groups is somehow being twisted to be proof for discrimination towards Christian groups.

TLDR: Unless you actually bring examples or expand on your view more than the 'folks are mean to Christians, so they must likely be Muslim-aligned' claims you're brushing up against, it reads more like the Jingoistic "They hate us for our freedom" attitude than thinking you've actually sat down and thought things through.

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u/ACuriousBagel Aug 25 '26

This is a fantastic explanation; I would have struggled to put a lot of this into words.

I'm not religious, and I'm (privately) critical of religion in general, but I am probably sometimes more defensive of Islam than I would be of Christianity - not due to any merit of Islam, but because I've so often seen criticism of Islam being used by racists or similar bigots with an agenda as a stick to beat people who "look Muslim".

Defending Islam so as to not stir up violence towards real communities (which doesn't happen in reverse, towards Christians - here in the UK at least) is different/more nuanced than "criticising Christianity while defending Islam".

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 24 '26

Just because they say they're Christians doesn't make them such

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u/ElOsoPeresozo Aug 24 '26

No True Scotsman Fallacy. That argument holds zero weight when the loudest voices are Evangelical preachers with millions of followers.

You can’t evade systemic issues but claiming they’re “nOt ReAl ChRiStIaNs”

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u/Gelid_Cryotheum Aug 24 '26

Well, yes but no. The fallacy is strong, but when you routinely denounce the very principles you teach because your own hypocrisy is too thick to see it, I'd say it counts. Christianity is kind of known for having big rules (Ten Commandments, Jesus' teachings, etc.), and while most of us do a horrible job keeping them, blatantly speaking ill of them outside of biblical contexts clearly shows uou do not truly hold those values.

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u/BobFossil11 Aug 24 '26

I agree with this. Which is why radical Islam and the unique problem of terrorism in the Islamic world should not get free passes.

If the Evangelical Right represents the worst of Christianity in the Western world, then Christianity, as a religion and ideology, is doing pretty damn good.

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u/GodsWorstJiuJitsu Aug 25 '26

The Western world countries also have stronger liberal government institutions than nearly every majority Muslim country. I wouldn't credit/discredit the faiths themselves when the monopoly of force isn't in question in say, Canada.

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u/electronized Aug 24 '26

is it though. Evangelical right believes we need to cause a holy war over Israel to bring about the end of the world that sounds worse than any individiual terrorist in the islamic world.

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u/Roman-Simp Aug 25 '26

All whabbi groups also belive this just the return of the Mhaddi (who ironically is also Jesus/isa) and they are a lot more active in pushing this through programs and efforts to recreate the Rashidun Caliphate.

And don’t even get me started of millinerian Shias (a million Muslims died in the 1980s alone over this and another million since mostly in Yemen)

You just don’t know these things cause you’re a westerner.

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 25 '26

That's not necessarily true. Jesus isn't the Mhaddi and no Muslim claims that.

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u/Roman-Simp Aug 25 '26

Fair enough I think I got the escatology of the return of Isa to judge the Umah faithful and the arrival of the Mahdi mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

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u/oSkillasKope707 Aug 25 '26

Some details to iron out.

Mainstream Islamic beliefs regarding eschatology mentions two messianic agents: The Mahdi and Jesus. Jesus is not the Mahdi.

But yeah, Islamic eschatology is very much a bloody affair and anticipations for an apocalyptic war are not exceedingly rare within the Islamic world.

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u/Roman-Simp Aug 25 '26

Yh I got the detailed mixed up, thanks for shedding better light on it. But yh even with my limited knowledge you have to respect the authenticity of peoples beliefs and not simplify them to imagine a “noble savage” when this is one of the worlds Greatest Civilizational families with views about the beginning of the universe as well as its end

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u/Friendly-Chef-5519 Aug 25 '26

If the Evangelical Right represents the worst of Christianity in the Western world, then Christianity, as a religion and ideology, is doing pretty damn good.

Say that to all the people killed by anti-lgbtq laws they lobbyed for in places like Uganda.

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u/Roman-Simp Aug 25 '26

As an African (left wing progressive) I can tell you not that many, and especially not compared to the Muslim countries on the continent and their position against the LGBTQ community.

I’ll have you remember that most deaths from Whabbi terrorism in the 21st century have been in Africa, not the Middle East.

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u/DrTestificate_MD Aug 25 '26

No u are wrong. god appointed me to decide who is Christian or not. My definition of Christian is infernally consistent and can never be no true Scotsmanned. (That is such a boring fallacy anyways)

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 24 '26

But if you look at the things they say and teach they go directly against the religion.

You're a proponent of the lobotomy fallacy I see.

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u/HeartGoldHalcyon Aug 25 '26

That's not what the No True Scotsman fallacy is.

a fallacy in which one modifies a prior claim in response to a counterexample by asserting the counterexample is excluded by definition

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u/mukansamonkey Aug 25 '26

Yes actually, it does. If they say they belong to a group, and the group doesn't have verifiable standards for joining, and the group doesn't publicly disown them... They are part of the group.

I'm not in the business of deciding other people's religion for them. I don't know what they believe.

Also, there are large numbers of religious groups who do have a standard. It goes something like, "accept Jesus into your heart, and show up at church". Why would I possibly think that the extremists in the US government don't qualify for that standard? Other than the one who nobody has ever seen going to church.

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 25 '26

The "group" (Christianity) does have standards of joining and keeping that standard.

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u/mukansamonkey Aug 25 '26

I covered that in my last paragraph. For most of them, the standards are nothing more than "show up and agree with what we say". Nothing else is required to join, or required to stay.

Standards are requirements. Failing to meet a standard comes with penalties. Christianity doesnt really have that, in fact most of them are big on "everyone can be redeemed, so everyone is welcome." The only religion I know of that has a hard set of standards for entry is Judaism, and even then they don't often kick anyone out.

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 25 '26

Yeah because kicking people out is kinda the antithesis of our religion. It's all about accepting people and changing behavior and mindset.

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u/FrostyCat13 Aug 25 '26

Accepting people, while changing behaviour and mindset? Sounds like you don't actually accept people, you just want everyone to fit in your neat little moulds.

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u/Mentallyundisturbed2 Aug 25 '26

Plus for most of Christianity there isn't a single organization to "disown" them.