Reply #8: Nope. People who point out specific Christians who are vile [View All]

[dmallind]

also force presumably non-vile Christians to confront the fact that Christian is not a synonym for good and kind and decent regardless of what the dictionaries list as a common usage of the term. This makes a lot of them uncomfortable as it chips away at one of the rationalizations for any logical person to believe in unsupported and extraordinary folk-tales - that this somehow instills or reinforces a moral compass in the believer.

Their only defense is of course the no true Scotsman fallacy, which crops up in almost every actively debated thread on clerical and organized Christian leader crime.

Why it is so hard to say "well jeez 83% of the population is Christian so it's probably going to include pretty damn close to 83% of the slimeballs and loathesome predators isn't it - and in fact maybe more if you factor in that unscrupulous Christians can easily secure a position of implied trust and authority over kids because of all the organized activities churches and other Christian groups set up - what's the big deal?" I have no idea.

The ONLY reason for defensiveness is that of, perhaps even subconsciously, buying into the Christian=good canard. If an atheist were found doing something like this - and doubtless some have been and will be in the future - I would have no cause for defensiveness at all, as it would only speak ill of atheism if significantly more than 7% or so of such cases had atheist perpetrators.