Christians are the majority culture in America, so it baffles me whenever I see them LARPing as being under attack.
My experience is that Christian values only support a very specific lifestyle and attempt to convert anything else. So when the 'anything else' folks raise their hands and say they want to live their own way, Christianity is under attack.
As someone who grew immersed up in American Christian culture (and I do think “American Christianity” should be considered meaningfully distinct from global Christianity, but I digress) I can confirm that this is pretty much what it is from the inside.
I can only speak to the culture I was raised in, and it may not be representative of broader American Christianity, but I feel like it’s fairly representative of those who view “being a Christian” as a big part of their identity or sense of self. My experience involved religious private schooling from 4th-12th grade, so there was very little exposure to outside views. On one hand this makes my experience non-representative, on the other hand I feel like it let me see what the undiluted worldview looks like from the inside with very little noise to distort the signal.
The culture I was raised In indoctrinated the following ideas as facts, plain and simple, without nuance and largely unquestioned:
1. America has only flourished with God’s blessing because the majority of founding fathers and American culture historically has been predominantly Christian, despite separation of Church and State. IE, American can (and in their view, should) be “A Christian Nation” via most people being Christian, without it necessarily being a state religion
2. The devil hates this and is constantly trying to tear down the Christian culture that exists today. So I’m a real sense, they genuinely view any inroads or progress by any non-Christian faction as an actual attack, since they attribute ANY view or set of values that denies or ignores the moral norms of modern American Christianity as ENEMY ACTION by the literal devil and/or demons.
3. This leads to a mindset of American Christians being in a walled city, defending against a siege of attackers from all sides, both secular and non-Christian religious in origin.
There’s also a large degree of “purity test” mentality about what one believes and how fervently and deeply one believes it, and how much they are willing to passively/independently deviate from and/or resist wider cultural norms because of it. “Love your neighbor as yourself” gets distorted into “Convince your neighbor of the error of their ways so they can join you on the Christian lifeboat and not go to hell”.
That's really interesting, and I'm glad you shared your perspective. I personally grew up Hindu and my parents immigrated to America when I was born. Most of my friends and family are minorities in one way or another, so I never had the experience of thinking my views were "right" by default given that I grew up in a foreign culture. I would learn Hindu culture at home and at my Sunday school and I would learn about Christian and Christian-influenced American culture the rest of the time and that was normal for me.
So it was really jarring to me to enter Bitcoin 4 years ago and suddenly be surrounded by people who only grew up with a singular Christian culture. But it was just a more extreme version of the rest of my experience so I kinda dealt with it. I had to learn about Bitcoin from the people talking about it, after all.
In my personal life, I'm surrounded by immigrants from all over the world, culturally half american and half something else. Many of my friends are in the queer community as well. So basically what prompted my post was a slowly built up feeling that bitcoiners I respect don't necessarily respect me or my communities in the same way.
Thanks for replying. I’m a bitcoiner and I want you to feel accepted and welcomed here.
One of my best friends was gay (sadly he passed due to heart disease) and another very close friend of mine is in a queerplatonic relationship with her roommate/best friend, who herself has a boyfriend, so I understand and accept that sort of thing. I’m a
a sci-fi enthusiast, and philosophically a trans-humanist. I’ve read enough science fiction where both gender and sex (and even body plan) are malleable through technology or engineered biology to normalize that sort of thing in my mind.
I like to think most egalitarian society is the one where everyone is a shapeshifter, so appearance means nothing and is totally malleable, the only thing that makes you “you” is your mind.
As someone who grew immersed up in American Christian culture (and I do think “American Christianity” should be considered meaningfully distinct from global Christianity, but I digress) I can confirm that this is pretty much what it is from the inside.
I can only speak to the culture I was raised in, and it may not be representative of broader American Christianity, but I feel like it’s fairly representative of those who view “being a Christian” as a big part of their identity or sense of self. My experience involved religious private schooling from 4th-12th grade, so there was very little exposure to outside views. On one hand this makes my experience non-representative, on the other hand I feel like it let me see what the undiluted worldview looks like from the inside with very little noise to distort the signal.
The culture I was raised In indoctrinated the following ideas as facts, plain and simple, without nuance and largely unquestioned:
1. America has only flourished with God’s blessing because the majority of founding fathers and American culture historically has been predominantly Christian, despite separation of Church and State. IE, American can (and in their view, should) be “A Christian Nation” via most people being Christian, without it necessarily being a state religion
2. The devil hates this and is constantly trying to tear down the Christian culture that exists today. So I’m a real sense, they genuinely view any inroads or progress by any non-Christian faction as an actual attack, since they attribute ANY view or set of values that denies or ignores the moral norms of modern American Christianity as ENEMY ACTION by the literal devil and/or demons.
3. This leads to a mindset of American Christians being in a walled city, defending against a siege of attackers from all sides, both secular and non-Christian religious in origin.
There’s also a large degree of “purity test” mentality about what one believes and how fervently and deeply one believes it, and how much they are willing to passively/independently deviate from and/or resist wider cultural norms because of it. “Love your neighbor as yourself” gets distorted into “Convince your neighbor of the error of their ways so they can join you on the Christian lifeboat and not go to hell”.
