[On statistics about victims of religion-related hate crimes]
Funny how they mentioned the info about attacks against Muslims and Jews, but left out the data on attacks on Christians. Silence is deafening....
50 comments
"TaliaKirana",
would you have not been so lazy, and would you have read the actual study, then you would have seen that they CLEARLY showed the numbers for "anti-christian" , "anti-muslim", "anti-jewish" and "anti-other-religion" hate crimes. There was NO data left out.
And you would have seen that the number of anti-christian hate crimes is the lowest among these four: (numbers are summed up incidents 2000-2009)
- Anti-christian hate crimes: 1124
When taking into account that muslims and jews are a minority (both groups have around 6 million members each in the US), and that christians are the absolute majority, this should make one think.
So much for "poor, persecuted christians"...
Like anyone here in the U.S. has been physically attacked just for being Christian. Outside of their own minds, that is. But my guess is that any real hate crimes on Christians were perpetrated by other Christians because they weren't the right kind of Christian. You don't see roving bands of atheists searching out Christians to beat up.
Oh, are you worried that heathens don't care about you and your kind?
Just go cry in the corner with your Cat O' Nine Tails.
@1267541 Anon2:
Perhaps, just perhaps, that is because in the United States of America, THERE ARE NO ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS!
After all, whenever a church is burnt down or something, that's in the news.
I'm tired of these western fundies believing that they are being persecuted. Let them go to Egypt, where at the start of this year, a Coptic church was bombed and nothing will probably be done about it. Or maybe they'd like to take a trip to Afghanistan were people have been put to death for professing that faith. There's also all kinds of Hindu extremists that launch attacks on India's Christian community. Or maybe they'd be happier in China where if you have a church you have to register it with the government.
In short unless you are being deprived of life, limb, property, or freedom because of your faith don't sit here and complain about being persecuted. And if you really want to do something about Christian Persecution learn more about what it is in the first place.
Let's mention the attacks on Oklahoma City, on Dr Tiller, the verbal attacks on Christians funerals, etc.
Actually, from what I read the study tracks hate against Christians as well.
Anyway, you have to factor out things that aren't persecuting Christians, but have, at times, been falsely interpreted as such. Things like:
Gay rights
Take these items out and you have the little bit left that is truly Christian persecution in America. It must be eliminated, yes, but it's not as big as some make it out to be.
Part of the problem with the fundamentalist Christian mentality is that their infallible and directly inspired holy book tells them that they are persecuted and will be persecuted until the end of time.
Funny how it always boils down to that with these people. "Facts" and what they see with their own lying eyes become part of a diabolical scheme to steal their soul.
It wouldn't be quite as disturbing if these people weren't so numerous and so damn influential... it's a downright shame they refuse to let this country live in the real world. They wind up seizing upon the most tenuous lines of reasoning and circumstances to prove what their holy book tells them MUST be true, making them even more reactionary than they might otherwise be.
Every issue becomes a slope which will inevitably slide to the deepest parts of hell on earth for their people. One imagines that the cognitive dissonance involved in maintaining such an outlook is largely responsible for their innate violent tension...
Way to lie for Jesus. As others have pointed out, the data on hate crimes against Christians was included. In fact, the very title of the study is "Religious Bias Crimes against Muslim, Jewish and Christian Victims: American Trends from 2000-2009."
But I guess it's more fun to feel persecuted.
She didn't even need to read the whole study, all she had to do was look at the title.
"Religious Bias Crimes against Muslim, Jewish and CHRISTIAN Victims: American Trends from 2000-2009, based on statistics reported by the FBI."
It's right there.
@CohibaMan, I like your analysis. Food for thought.
As for Talia here, she's just another lying fundie.
The statistics are about attacks in the USA. What attacks on Christians ever happen the USA? Where you can't swing a cat without hitting a Christian and where there are churches on every corner? (By the way, the cat thing is what we call a metaphor, not an attack)
Talia obviously didn't read the study, and neither, apparently, did many of the others. For example, one person said "they could be counting anything from an outright physical attack to someone saying allah is a false god." Well, no. It said they counted hate crimes as defined in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program; i.e., "a criminal offense committed against a person or property which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin; also known as Hate Crime." Saying Allah is a false god is not a criminal offense. It appears most of the hate crimes were property vandalism.
Well, those guys are already in jail, so... it's kind of pointless to report on them. It's like if you reported every car accident, the news would be full of car accidents, so they don't bother.
Really, you should just shut the fuck up.
Talk about cherry picking. Here is the link I will be using from the FBI, it details the hate crimes of 2009 (2010's report isn't out yet):
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/index.html
As you can see if you go to Table 1, it mentions anti-Catholic (51 incidents), and anti-Protestant (38 incidences.) Of course it dwarfs in magnitude to anti-Jewish (931 incidences) and anti-Islamic (107 incidences.)
I found this in 2 seconds of Google searching, it isn't that hard.
The funny thing is, the study seems to be trying to counter an Islamist argument that Muslims are victims and are being attacked in the US. They point out that Jews are still far more likely to be the objects of hate crimes. It also seems to be warning that fanatic Islamist terrorists might use that "victim" argument (that they're under attack and that their religion is being slandered) as a justification for a response under Sharia law, a la Salmon Rushdie.
If you pay attention, other news groups (especially FOX) DO report on Christians being persecuted.
What you don't get, Kirana, is the fact that Christians in the Middle East are the only ones really being persecuted. NOT in the U.S.
EDIT: Just read the article. She just ignored the word Christian in the article. So, yes. The public is indeed aware there are attacks against Christians based on faith. But still not enough to be "persecuted".
@Orion: "I was surprised that Jewish hate crimes are the most common in the USA"
Because they count property crimes, they include all the spray-painting of swastikas on Jewish temples and cemeteries committed by idiot teenagers, which I suspect are the majority of the anti-Jewish stats. Not to downplay the seriousness of this kind of vicious antisemitism and the parental bigotry that fosters it, if they counted only violent crimes, I suspect the stats would be different, and much lower, for all the religions studied.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
To post a comment, you'll need to Sign in or Register . Making an account also allows you to claim credit for submitting quotes, and to vote on quotes and comments. You don't even need to give us your email address.
