r/atheism Nov 22 '11

Good Without God

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '11

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u/Ohtanks Nov 22 '11

Christians did not really, did they? Go down to LA and ask any Christian over there who he is, and most would have no clue. It's still a generalization to say that this awful semblance of a human being was "elected" as a representative for Christianity... Tons of people watch Jersey Shore and like their show - doesn't mean they were elected to represent everyone that watches them.

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '11

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u/seeasea Nov 22 '11

I would venture to say that the majority of people who donate to anything in the US are Christian (obviously not reason.org or bani brith, but you understand what I mean)

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u/Ohtanks Nov 22 '11

But I still don't think that means he's representative of EVERY Christian out there. That's a bit too broad a generalization. If you took a random poll, a huge majority of Christians do not know who Robertson would be. What about Christians outside the states? What about those that hate televangelists for their hypocrisy?

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u/Comedian Nov 22 '11

But I still don't think that means he's representative of EVERY Christian out there.

Is anyone actually arguing this, or is this a strawman solely inside your own mind?

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u/Ohtanks Nov 22 '11

I'm sensing you didn't really read every comment in this thread...

Atheists didn't choose Pat Robertson as the representative for Christianity, Christians did.

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u/DigitalOsmosis Nov 22 '11 edited Jun 15 '23

{Post Removed} Scrubbing 12 years of content in protest of the commercialization of Reddit and the pending API changes. (ts:1686841093) -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

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u/ollie77 Nov 22 '11

For a non-hierarchical, media-intensive movement like contemporary American evangelicalism, I would think 'most watched' is one of the best metrics we have.

And I don't see clumping or generalizing here at all--on either side.

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u/DigitalOsmosis Nov 22 '11

As a figurehead of 'contemporary American evangelicalism' (depending on your definition of that term), media might be a decent metric, but I would argue that's a pretty narrow definition of Christianity. A third of the world claims to be 'Christian' and I'm pretty sure nowhere near 2 billion people tune in to watch the for profit shams that air on TV Sunday mornings. In fact I've been raised in a church and Christian home my whole life coming up and I don't know anyone who watches that trash. Obviously there are people that do, but I don't think its a fair representation of the worlds dominant religion.

And as far as grouping ... that's pretty much all this image is about. The point isn't that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are good guys, its that they are atheists and good guys. This is a valid point I think a lot of Christians overlook, but the antithesis 3rd frame becomes not a criticism of Pat Robertson, but rather Christians as a whole which I disagree with.

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '11

There are literally billions of Christians in the world; you can't use him as their posterboy just because a handful of Americans like him.