In the "turnabout is fair play" category:

[Strong Atheist]

Stakes High for Christians in India’s Elections
Beleaguered minority has much to lose, gain in polls.

Edited to add:

Religious minorities, Dayal said, were hoping for a strong showing by a secular party, “possibly the Congress Party,” supported by regional groups of a secular character.

:rofl:


http://www.religionnewsblog.com/23441/india-christians

[Occam Bandage]

1. Yes, it's very funny when people are murdered as a result of religious hatred.

Discrimination and ethnoreligious violence are some hilarious stuff, all right.

[Why Syzygy]

2. Atheist morals?

All persons have equal value?

[Strong Atheist]

3. I find it amusing that, when in the minority, religious groups that are in the majority

elsewhere suddenly want a secular government...

[Occam Bandage]

4. They're victims of an ongoing campaign of terrorism and violence.

India has a pretty brutal history of treatment of local religious minorities, whether they're Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or Christian. I guess I don't see the humor in campaigns of terrorism against innocents, nor do I see anything amusing about a repressed and victimized minority hoping for a government less likely to turn a blind eye to their plight.

[Silent3]

5. It's admittedly dark humor, but are you blind to the irony...

...that's being pointed out?

Let me spell it out for you:

Religious group, when in the majority: Thinks religious government (as long as it's their religion) is a grand idea.

Same religious group, when it finds itself in the minority: Suddenly thinks that secular government that doesn't favor any religion or religious viewpoint is a better idea.

[Why Syzygy]

6. Certainly not all, or even most, Christians think religious government is a grand idea. nt

[Silent3]

8. It doesn't have to be a current US majority for irony to exist.

There's a scarily large minority of Christians who think the Bible should supersede the Constitution (to me 20-25% is scary for such an insanely radical notion, and I think the real statistics are around there). And while it's not pushing things so far as theocracy, a majority of Americans are quite comfortable with small religious encroachments on separation of church and state, like routine use of bibles in court rooms, "In God We Trust" on our money, "Under God" in the pledge, etc. Most Americans say they wouldn't vote for an atheist or a Muslim (I don't think Jews fair too well in such polls either).

There's certainly not much passionate drive for secularism in government among US Christians.

Do you care to have a debate to establish particular percentages of support and/or intensities of desire for theocratic government before irony can officially be declared? :eyes:

[Occam Bandage]

7. The "irony" only exists if you think all Christians are the same thing,

whether they're a Catholic from Mumbai or an evangelical from Mobile. Indian Christians don't push for more religion in government. Some, but certainly not all, American Christians do. I would think, "yes, that is kind of amusing" if there were certain people switching back and forth on the issues from year to year, but that's not the case. This is nothing more or less than run-of-the-mill tyranny of unchecked and aggressive cultural majority groups, with the coincidence that the victims in this case happen to believe in a similar religion to completely unrelated groups of people who have exercised similar aggression elsewhere in the world. That's not really funny, any more than American slavery is funny because completely unrelated black people in Zimbabwe have recently supported anti-white land-ownership reforms.

I mean, I cannot imagine the mindset that would cause someone to read about innocent people being beaten (often to the point of death), their homes being burned, and their churches being destroyed, and to then laugh in satisfaction.

"Ha, ha," we say, "they think that it's a bad idea to give lots of power to religious organizations, as their lives and communities are being destroyed through campaigns of religious terror. But don't they know that people halfway around the world who happen to believe in closely aligned religions disagree with them? How hypocritical of them to wish to protect themselves from violence they have not started, caused, or contributed to!"

"Turnabout is fair play" my ass.

[Silent3]

9. See my reply to WS for most of what I'd say to you here.

As for the rest... deity of your choice, lighten up. I'm hardly laughing up a storm over suffering or any such ridiculous overstated claim. "Turnabout is fair play" isn't even my words. And as for seeing irony in the story, that's all based on the basic gist, not delving into the full, ugly details.

In case you haven't ever noticed, a great deal of humor, in fact pretty much every thing apart from puns and intellectual plays on notions of incongruity, is based on discomfort, embarrassment, humiliation, pain, suffering, and death. And I wasn't even calling this laugh-out-loud funny, just saying that there's a bit of wry, dark-humor irony here.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Your reply to WS is reasonable, except that

it doesn't really argue against anything that I'm saying. Even if every single Christian in America were to believe that we should abolish the Constitution, establish a feudal state, and let local churches have full lawmaking power, it still would not make the situation in India ironic. The only link between the people in the OP and the theocrats in America is that they happen to believe in similar religions. One ain't the other, and in my eyes, the fact that some fat, dumpy white dudes in America would like to see abortion banned doesn't really make it hilarious that some poor folk in India are living in fear of having their houses burned down, or losing a loved one to mob violence.

It's sad, perhaps, that American Christians propose a "culture war" while their "brothers in Christ" are dying in a conflict of a sort that would extend naturally from the intolerance and hatred they propose. There is a discongruity there, and one in which some might find some amount of humor. But I think the blind bombast of the Christian Taliban is not what caused the OP to roll about in mirth. Rather, the OP was claiming the actions of the Indian Christians are the source of the humor. Laughing at the former would perhaps require one to blind one's self to human suffering, but that's part and parcel of humor. However, laughing at the latter is to take joy in human suffering; the laughter is directed at nothing but the desperate hope of an oppressed minority that the government would provide some relief from their terror. I cannot think of a non-sociopathic explanation for how humor is found in the fact that someone lives in fear of violence, no matter how much you dislike their religion.

You say you aren't laughing, taking joy, smugly stating that "turnabout is fair play," etc. That may much may well be true. However, the OP is, and it is and has been towards the OP that I direct my ire.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. And most Indian Christians are NOT fundamentalists

They are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox (with very ancient roots), as well as Anglicans, Lutherans, and other mainstream Protestants. I doubt that many of them even know about American fundamentalism, much less have any connection with it or any interest in ruling India.

The Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists play that kind of politicized role in India, and they're far more vicious than anything our fundamentalists have come up with. (I've never heard of Jerry Falwell's followers rampaging into neighborhoods dominated by other religions, burning down the houses, and slaughtering the inhabitants. Yet the kinds of violence depicted in the early part of Slumdog Millionaire has happened again and again, mostly Hindus and Muslims going after each other and occasionally after Christians or Sikhs or other minority religions.)

I have no problem with atheists unless they make ignorantly bigoted statements like the OP.

[JerseygirlCT]

12. Thank you. I'm not finding it humorous, either. nt

[Dorian Gray]

10. I'm religious

and in the majority, and I'm quite happy with a secular government. Many Christians are here in the USA.

[Strong Atheist]

11. That is good:

:yourock: :hug:

That has not always been the case in this and other countries, nor is it always the case now. It also has nothing to do with Christians, as many religious groups that gain majorities throughout the world and throughout history many times seem to want to put many of their ideas into government, with varying degrees of ... imposing on those not of their faith, such as in this story...

[Dorian Gray]

14. Most countries

that have a majority Christian population are not theocracies.

I mean, I guess some do have National Religions (the UK, Norway, Denmark, Sweeden), but they are secular societies, and none of them force conversion or baptism in the state religion.

I don't get the argument that Christians would want a theocracy. It's a total disconnect from the reality of nations around the world that are predominantly Christian.

Other than Vatican City, of course.

[Strong Atheist]

15. Minorities tend to see things differently than those in the majority.

If you were to ask most caucasians about the state of race and racism in the United States, they would say that things have improved vastly in the last 30 - 40 years, and that racism is mostly gone. They believe that.

Ask most African Americans and they KNOW that racism is alive and that we have far to go.

Ask most straight people about gay rights, and they will say that everything is ok, there are few or no problems.

Ask GLBT about rights and how safe it is in the United States to be out of the closet and you will get a completely different story.

It is the same with religious minorities in any country. The majority sees no or few problems and honestly believes that, the minority knows about the inequalities, discrimination, and danger. In the above story, it is talking about Christians, but I would bet anything that atheists, and wiccans, and other minorities there have similar problems...