Are there any Christians left in Sweden? There certainly are in the U.S. so it's more important in that context, I would think. (I must say, you have an extraordinary familiarity with the details of American life, for a Swede, so perhaps you've at least lived here for a time?)
However, if you've lived here you obviously didn't spend much time in church and/or with religious people, or pay attention to the declarations of groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Right to Life groups.
lol Fair question I suppose--I do invoke the good ol US of A often. I'm a dual Swedish/American citizen (through my mom). :grin: She was born in West Norway but raised as a good Norwegian Lutheran (heavy on tradition and family values) in the
still conservative Bay Ridge, Brooklyn during the era of the Norwegians, Italians and Irish--who as you know, tend to have more than a passing fancy for Christianity. My mom is one of the most religious people I know and perfectly illustrates how religion could and should be the conduit for compassion, tolerance and open-mindedness, contrary to common belief and practice. We agree on a lot but still have our passionate quibbles, of course. lol
I primarily grew up in Sweden (yes, the least religious country in the West) but spent a lot of time in the US as a kid, adolescent and adult as well (did my undergrad and postgrad studies in NJ/NY)--throughout my life, my mom kept in contact with the Bay Ridge community even as it became less and less Norwegian, Italian and Irish and far more Puerto-Rican and Muslim Arab. Now, Bay Ridge is the epicenter of Brooklyn's Arab community. The predominantly Norwegian Lutheran Church my mom used to go to is now primarily comprised of Puerto-Ricans and Latinos. And best of all, there is even an Arab Lutheran church in the area. lol Brooklyn's immense racial, ethnic and religious diversity inspired me to eventually become a Brooklynite, though off and on, all over the place, and currently, part-time.
I've been to Lutheran churches, Catholic churches, Mosques and Synagogues and befriended many of their constituents, both deeply religious and secular. And guess what? I've heard similar messages from all of them--some of it good, some of it not so good. Admittedly, I'm biased--the Abrahamic religions are not my favorite, but that also allows me to be impartially critical of all of them. And I try my best to be
equally critical,
while still acknowledging that they individually present different concerns and problems. And I don't think a lot of people do that, which doesn't strike me as fair. Islam as a whole does have some glaringly problematic elements, but so does Christianity--not only are there fundamentalist Christian terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan who hate minorities, gays, are against women's rights (abortion, for example) but what about the Christian "terrorist" climate change deniers? How many future lives are risked because of their ignorance and backwards myopia? Of course, Americans and much of the West are going to have a Pro-Christian bias, but let's call it what it is: A BIAS. Put Christians and Christianity under the microscope and they fall apart like every other Abrahamic religion.
No one needs to make such requests of Christians because Christians take it upon themselves to condemn it in the strongest terms from the pulpits on Sundays, and not just through the declarations of organizing bodies, not that they really need to, because it's just unthinkable for the vast, vast majority of Christians to even contemplate such a thing. I'd like to see the imans of mosques do the same.
There is no meaningful comparison between these two situations, between what is taught from the pulpits of Christian churches, and what is taught in mosques (although they are getting more clever and not being so open recently) and in Muslim religious schools even in the west.
Respectfully, I think that this is an example of your bias towards Christianity.
1.) First of all, there is a difference between subscribing to (or claiming to subscribe to) extremist views and acting on them. Even
if all of the 3,000,000 Muslims in America, for example, believed that infidels should be destroyed, an insignificantly small number of them have acted on that information, in the form of terrorist acts. Belief≠Action. Should people be criticized or penalized for what they think and believe or what they do?
2.) The Evangelical Protestants, in particular, painfully discredit your stance on Christians and their behavior Vs. Islam.
“The good news is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here, are a bunch of, just, disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar, okay? And then I’m sure it’s also gonna be used to push an agenda against so-called “hate speech.” So Bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality — that it’s vile, that it’s disgusting, that they’re reprobates — you know, we’re gonna be blamed. Like, “It’s all extremism! It’s not just the Muslims, it’s the Christians!” I’m sure that that’s coming. I’m sure that people are gonna start attacking, you know, Bible-believing Christians now, because of what this guy did.I’m not sad about it, I’m not gonna cry about it. Because these 50 people in a gay bar that got shot up, they were gonna die of AIDS, and syphilis, and whatever else. They were all gonna die early, anyway, because homosexuals have a 20-year shorter life-span than normal people, anyway.”
— Steven Anderson, preacher at Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, AZ in response to the slaughter in Orlando. Yes, Christians and their leaders are pillars of human virtue. [[sarcasm overload]] In Pew Polls, Muslims actually fare better in overall tolerance and moderation compared to the Christian Evangelicals, which doesn't surprise me because Evangelicals are the fundamentalists of Christianity but the real threats they bring to democracy, peace and order tend to go neglected in the face of Islamic fundamentalism, which is also
quite dangerous, insidiously and/or blatantly, so. Worse, Evangelicals most certainly have a powerful, influential voice and presence within American politics--their extremism and insanity have been normalized and mainstreamed! One of them just recently came very close to being the Republican nominee for President! But no, that doesn't get the focus it deserves. Instead, Islam is still considered to be the leading threat to Western democracy--oh no, it certainly has competition. Moreover, someone like Trump may not be an Evangelical, but he is certainly Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Erdogan adjacent.
Now, the moronic millennials think they're entitled to not only free education, and free health care, which I understand, but to free housing, free food etc. I used to call these kinds of people Gucci Socialists. They didn't want to give up their Gucci shoes, they wanted everyone to have them. It never occurred to them that if everyone had them they would lose a lot of their value.
I don't know when Millennial bashing became so popular. lol But I know that it's usually unfair and uncalled for. Baby boomers, especially conservative ones, seem hellbent on subscribing characteristics and motives to us that I rarely ever see myself, as a millennial. We are neither unduly entitled nor naive (every generation has this, anyway)--we are the
most educated (and mired in debt), to the point of being overqualified for the lackluster, overworked, poor paying opportunities out there for us (when we can find them, because there is an egregious shortage of jobs); we're technologically savvy and advanced, far more than previous generations, but we still have to work much harder with more skill and less stability.
That's not fair. Is it wrong to feel that way? All we want is equality--an EQUAL shot, an EQUAL chance to succeed at life. We want what the baby boomer generation had--the baby boomers who shafted us and didn't pass on those same opportunities. We do believe that we deserve more, more than what we have now, and
considering what we do!
More, for us me simply means
equal to what your generation enjoyed.
