As for my general experience with Christians at my schools (Private fundamental Christian, and then Private Lutheran):
(...)
2. No welfare for the needy. Um...no? Not in my experience, at least, though the Christians I was around were not extremely militant, at least. Nothing was said either favoring or condemning welfare for the needy.
Some Christians are good about offering aid to the needy, but it usually comes with strings attached and thus is not true charity. A smaller nucleus are genuinely charitable, and I do appreciate their efforts if not their perspective. But for the most part, my experiences and studies have led to the conclusion that most Christians don't care at all, and most of those who do use welfare as a hook to win converts.
The "welfare state" is essentially a modern contrivance. The idea of free libraries, free education, food stamps, disability payments, and other forms of welfare to the entire population (rather than the privileged class) is essentially new. This taxpayer-funded welfare system or "social charity," if you will, supplants the traditional charity system. It attracts huge opposition from many segments of society, especially the religious quarter. The premise typically goes "It should be my choice to spend my money to help others." Such a mindset is not charitable. Charity is wishing tushantin to feel better after nearly being killed in a motor vehicle wreck even though I find him a detestable person. Charity is giving a friend a breathing mask because there is mold in her house that's been sending her to the hospital, when that mask took essentially everything in my bank account at the time. And charity is paying my taxes with the full knowledge and support of the reality that the government will spend that money helping out not just decent people but
all people, including the religiously fundamentalist and the grossly sexist, because anyone who deserves to live deserves not to go hungry.
I just don't see that sentiment often enough, and certainly not from the Christian quarter. When you think about how pro-religion lobbyists have strangled our public education system so that
we do not teach children about one of the most important things they need to learn, that is an assault on our welfare system. It is an assault on the premise that people need to be educated in the ways of the world, so that they can become scientifically literate and thus be much likelier to succeed as individuals. It is an assault on reason, and it's very much more common than it ought to be from people who claim to be the most virtuous in the land. More often, their Christian clubs are just social vehicles to make them feel more important than they've earned.
I can see that perhaps the Lutherans might be less egregious in their offenses than the fundamentalists, but even so you lucked out if you didn't land in an environment that discourages the public welfare system.
3. No sex education for children. (Well, we had some sex-ed, but it was mostly about the dangers, of course.) Goal: If they don't know about it, they won't want it! Nothing could possibly go wrong! Honestly, it's a ridiculous taboo to try to keep people abstinent...it doesn't work. However, most Christians feel that if they told people how to have safe sex, then they'd take that initiative to go out and have it, and of course we can't have that! No sex before marriage! (ptooie!)
Exactly. (Lest you think all I ever do is disagree with people.)
Then:
4A. Ignorant youths commit sex crimes because their parents probably hated, neglected, or abused them, and they had nothing better than pornography to teach them about sexuality. Wait, is this Christian OPINION, or are you saying that this is actually what happens?
This is actually what happens. Not 100 percent of the time, but way more than 0 percent. When I went on my backpacking trip last year, one of the reasons I went all over the South was to test some of my prejudices and stereotypes about Southerners. Imagine my disappointment to learn that I had been mostly correct.
Here's how it works: Parents raise their children poorly--often with a measure of abuse added in. Sometimes the parents are well-meaning, but are just too ignorant to set a good example. Other times the parents are rotten individuals. (I include family arrangements involving single parents, stepparents, guardians, etc.) The children of these parents thus do not have access to good answers from the most important people in the world (from their point of view) from whom to get answers. Meanwhile, they are developing their sexuality. Then, due to religious interference in the system, the public schools--and most religious private ones--don't teach the children anything about sex education other than to abstain from it until marriage, and perhaps a few words about STDs and unwanted pregnancies. These children are
set up to fail.
I remember my sex-ed unit. It lasted a single class period, I think. All I remember is that the book described various sexual activities and listed them as "green light," "yellow light," or "red light." That was pretty much it.
A bully who used to give me trouble in eighth grade, had a kid by twelfth. Who wins in that?
5A. Death penalty. Uh...no, that was never condoned where I was from. Even if I was from Texas, almost everyone in authority (the students are another matter) disagreed with the death penalty.
I'll take you at your word, but your experience is exceptional. Christians are some of the most blunt death penalty supporters there are. In my never-ending quest to stay informed, I frequently come across their comments on news articles. They call for people to be put to death at the drop of a hat. It's not just Christians, of course, but usually Christians give themselves away through their language and cultural tropes. A hateful, hateful, fearful bunch of losers.
4B. Ignorant youths get themselves or their partners pregnant unintentionally because they didn't know any better. Yeah, that happens.
It happens less with positive, comprehensive sex education.
The way I see it, pornography is sort of a reference for interesting things that could be done, but it's not anything to base your sex life on.
I never even thought of pornography as a model for adolescents to develop their sexual identity. The NY Times article opened my eyes to that. It's a disgrace that any percentage of our nation's children is learning about sexuality from porn.
