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Sep. 13th, 2008 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hector_rashbaumYou know, I hate that when I see shit like Live Offensively's crappy inflammatory "Christian" shirts my initial reaction is "ugh more people giving Christianity a bad name".
Because what that default reaction does is assume any given person isn't smart enough to separate an extremist minority from the moderate majority. Because if people had the capacity to separate - or used that capacity - there would be no "giving a bad name". And while I know there are plenty of people like that, maybe a majority...wouldn't it be nice if my default reaction was more insulting to the extremists than anyone else?
But when I hear things like "the only good Christian is a dead Christian" - because there are extremists, you see, everyone is bad - I'm not sure I can be blamed for defaulting to "the extremists are bad, and the rest of the world is stupid".
Because what that default reaction does is assume any given person isn't smart enough to separate an extremist minority from the moderate majority. Because if people had the capacity to separate - or used that capacity - there would be no "giving a bad name". And while I know there are plenty of people like that, maybe a majority...wouldn't it be nice if my default reaction was more insulting to the extremists than anyone else?
But when I hear things like "the only good Christian is a dead Christian" - because there are extremists, you see, everyone is bad - I'm not sure I can be blamed for defaulting to "the extremists are bad, and the rest of the world is stupid".
