If you read the history, there were just as many christer theologists and ministers arguing *for* slavery as there were against.
Their religion was not the cause of their support for slavery; self-interest was. On the other hand, many, many abolitionists became devoted to the cause of ending slavery because of a religious conviction that slavery was evil. A significant number of these, especially among the Quaker faith, exposed themselves to great personal risk in aiding slaves to escape.
Granted, but the entire christer establishment is behind the War On Some Drugs.
"Christer establishment"? Are you out of your mind? We're talking about a country where a big stink was raised just because someone found the word "god" on a spelling list, and a student was suspended for giving classmates candy canes with a short religious note attached. And I don't think you'll find any historical evidence that the churches led the drive to impose the WOSD; law enforcement agents in danger of losing their jobs or budgets after the repeal of prohibition had a lot to do with that "war".
"By definition persecutorial" is bullshit.How so? If there is only "one god" and "one way", then all others are wrong, and need to be stamped out.
You're getting hysterical here. "Need to be stamped out" does not follow from "only one way". There is only one correct answer to any given arithmetic problem, but that does not obligate accountants or mathematicians to go hunting down innumerate idiots who might insist that such matters are culturally relative. And I know of several Christian denominations whose doctrines explicitly prohibit forceful imposition of religion.
Christer proselytizing and missions are by definition persecution of others.
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya from _The Princess Bride_: "By definition" -- you keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means. You're so steeped in hyperbole that you can't even have a rational discussion.
According to my dictionary, proselytizing is, by definition, "to try to persuade someone to change their religious or political beliefs or their way of living to your own." Nary a word about persecution there, which is rarely effective in causing someone to adopt your *beliefs*
I was a fundamentalist for a good many years, member in good standing (probably still am, for that matter, AFAIK) of the Assembly of God church.
What makes you think fundamentalists are typical of Christianity as a whole? I suspect that your experience has given you a skewed perspective of Christianity.
One good thing that Christianity and other religions do is instill a sense of right and wrong in people and thereby promote adherence to basic standards of conduct.Baaahhhaaaahhhaaa ROFL
In other words, you can't formulate a cogent argument against this point. Ever heard of the Ten Commandments? Most of these deal with treating others well. I can't speak for how they do things in the A of G, but my own religious upbringing taught me to view it as a deeply shameful thing to lie, steal, strike a woman, etc. You simply couldn't do these things and still feel good about yourself. This kind of endogenous aversion to antisocial behavior is sorely lacking in post-Christian America.
As Christianity (and religion in general) has waned in America, no adequate replacement for this function has emerged. Perhaps as a result, American culture no longer values honor and honesty.
It never did. The ultra-religious christers who landed at Plymouth Rock had no compunction against robbing and murdering native americans,
This is a problem endemic to humanity: a failure to apply moral laws to those outside of the tribe. It is not exclusive to Christians. The Yanamato Indians, for example, view anyone outside of their tribe as non-human, no better than animals, and killing such bipedal beasts is no more immoral than stepping on a cockroach.
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I will conclude by saying that you retain all the trappings of a True Believer. The specific beliefs may have changed, but the extremism, closing of one's mind to all contrary evidence, the zealotry, the need to evangelize, and the need to demonize contrary beliefs are all still there.
