Christians 'martyred for beliefs every FIVE MINUTES by Islamic State and other terrorists'

Gays are also being persecuted over there.
Doesn't matter though they are gay arn't they?.
Anyone who disagrees with them are being persecuted doesn't matter who they are millions are living in fear but lets just save the Christians.....
NO SAVE THEM ALL!!.

originally posted by: boymonkey74

NO SAVE THEM ALL!!.

Interestingly, Syria at least was reasonably accepting of gay people as this article shows

I was introduced to this hamam by Sebastian, a young man famous in the area. He kept a shop near the Citadel that sold fine silver and carpets. No, no – he didn't want to sell me anything, only to discuss literature. And it was actually true, he wanted to talk about some of his favourite authors – Emily Dickinson, Tennyson, Blake, Walt Whitman, TS Eliot. In a corner of the shop was a shrine to Oscar Wilde, with a large picture of Oscar, some of his best witticisms, and a picture of Saint Sebastian transfixed with arrows, accompanied with a poem to Wilde of Sebastian's own composition.

Sebastian was openly and unashamedly gay in a country where the official penalty was several years' hard labour. His recklessness and dominant personality seemed to have created a sort of local sexual climate. When I walked with him through the souk it was obvious that the locals assumed I must be his latest conquest (in spite of the disparity of ages) and accepted it without comment or discomfort. He had friends and followers who were also openly gay. One old gentleman – a traditional theatrical queen – idolised him as a sort of gay Moses who would lead his people to sexual liberation.

www.independent.co.uk...

I featured part of that article in this thread about the religious harmony Syria once had. It is an absolute travesty that the ISIS maniacs have come through and brought so much havoc to anyone (including fellow Muslims btw) that does not fit within their narrow view of how the world should be.

A somewhat funny line of thinking, don't you think?
"Christians deserve persecution, because of the persecution they did!" (I've never heard anyone use this line of argument here)
"It wasn't christians who did all those horrible things before, it was catholics!" (even though it wasn't just catholics, protestants had a pretty huge chunk of atrocities too)
"Look at all the christians being persecuted today!" (except, according to your line of thinking, they're not christians, because they're catholics or theologically similar groups).

So...your arguments defeats itself? "Christians" according to your definition, are nowhere near the most oppressed, and aren't being martyred every five minutes.

originally posted by: TechUnique

originally posted by: jaws1975
Any loss of life is tragic, but I have to ask you shouldn't you be more concerned with non Christians being killed? In your view Christians are saved and will enter paradise upon death, everyone else will be going to hell. One of the main goals of Christians is to save those who have not accepted Christ. So shouldn't you be more concerned with all the people dying before being saved?

For instance: 10 White middle class non-Christian Americans being murdered would garner a much bigger emotional response than 10 Christian children who are not white.

What!!?!! What BS!?!?!?!?!
I've been against the Iraq war from before it started. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS NON-CHRISTIAN CIVILIANS were killed as a result of this as the whole world watched right wing Christians boast on TV's at their righteousness. Where was the outcry then? But Christians start getting killed by ISIS and all the sudden US Christians care. There was no outcry for non-Christian non-white deaths as they happened in the hundreds of thousands during the Bush era!!!! We rightly are shocked at 20 Christians getting beheaded, but how many of you so called Christians were shocked and horrified when hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed due to our going into Iraq!?!?!? Even NOW, WAY MORE CIVILIAN MUSLIMS ARE GETTING KILLED BY ISIS YET YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT THE CHRISTIANS! TIME TO CARE ABOUT EVERYBODY>

CHRISTIAN HYPOCRISY.....

The reason Christians are targeted is because, just like we can see videos of extremists from the ME, people in the ME could watch translated TV snippets of American extremist republican Christians boasting of Holy War, Crusades, and killing all Muslims as Christian mission, while they (Muslims in the ME) were bombed nightly by Western forces.

I mean, you're paranoid of Muslims just from the TV.

Imagine how paranoid a Muslim might be of Christians when they are actually getting bombed by them?

I'm just wondering just how many of these people, muslim, christian, jew, of all sects were living side by side as neighbors, their kids going to the same schools, before outside forces started playing their games for dominance?

So we now have this giant tragedy when a group of radicals, notice how these radicals tend to run around in american vehicles, going around killing everyone who refuses to see things their way, weather they're muslim, christian, or jew...

but, oh they are killing christians, so I imagine the next step is to go in there and start dropping bombs and killing everyone....to stop them from killing each other of course!!!!

pro-war/pro-life=hypocrites

Who would have ever guessed that putin and assad would be the only people in power to do something about it?

a reply to: dawnstar

When you live in a country of mainly Christians then you can expect them to take notice when it starts to happen to Christians.

The question is why do we not hear the muslems any louder than we do?

One can always expect for people to relate to likeness.

Kinda like how our racist in chief only singles out brownies when they are oppressed.

a reply to: deadeyedick

yes, and one can always expect the gov't to create a crisis that only a war will solve....

And interesting article:

Defectors: ISIS is killing Muslims, not protecting them
www.cnn.com...

One of the most persistent criticisms was the extent to which the group is fighting against other Sunni rebels. According to the defectors, toppling the Assad regime didn't seem to be a priority, and little was done to help the (Sunni) Muslims who were targeted by it.

Most of the group's attention, they said, was consumed by quarrels with other rebels and the leadership's obsession with "spies" and "traitors." This was not the kind of jihad they had come to Syria and Iraq to fight.

Another narrative dealt with the group's brutality. Many complained about atrocities and the killing of innocent civilians. They talked about the random killing of hostages, the systematic mistreatment of villagers and the execution of fighters by their own commanders.

None of the episodes they mentioned involved minorities, however. Brutality didn't seem to be a universal concern: it was seen through a sectarian lens, and caused outrage mostly when its victims were other Sunnis.

sounds to me that they aren't targeting christians and making martyrs out of them. sounds like they are killing, for the joy of killing, and don't really care who they kill....

a reply to: dawnstar

The only thing I will say about this topic is that I would never go to the Middle East or North Africa especially if I'm Christian, I'll give the OP that. I think they get some extra virgins or something if they kill a Christian

a reply to: Klassified

So 2.4 Billion Christians are all praying for the end times? probably one of the biggest generalizations I've heard on ATS. There's lots of different interpretation of Christianity.

2.4 BILLION Christians all thinking the same thing and interpreting the bible the same way, didn't know that

Christians get off on being persecuted. They love it. After all, their biggest hero was a martyr. Gives them a big "us versus them" thrill.

One of the favorite things I love to hear them say is: "Well, if we weren't right, why would people want to kill us?" To which I can only respond, "Because you're annoying jerks who like to tell people they're going to burn in Hell if they don't believe the same thing you do?"

a reply to: Blue Shift

Oh yea every single Christian loves to die so good riddance

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Christians get off on being persecuted. They love it. After all, their biggest hero was a martyr. Gives them a big "us versus them" thrill.

One of the favorite things I love to hear them say is: "Well, if we weren't right, why would people want to kill us?" To which I can only respond, "Because you're annoying jerks who like to tell people they're going to burn in Hell if they don't believe the same thing you do?"

That's a blanket statement laying over a huge pile of steaming conjecture. You should think first.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
Gays are also being persecuted over there.
Doesn't matter though they are gay arn't they?.
Anyone who disagrees with them are being persecuted doesn't matter who they are millions are living in fear but lets just save the Christians.....
NO SAVE THEM ALL!!.

Simply because the OP is referring to one specific subset of a topic does not mean you can deduce his opinion about anything else.

i.e. Just because I raise money for breast cancer doesn't mean I don't care about people with other forms.

a reply to: JDmOKI

You can't reason with zealots mate..

As for the OP, what is to be done? These types of conflict and persecution has spanned civilizations. Turning a blind eye isn't a great option, in my opinion, but I see this as a highly difficult problem to actually address.

The story focuses on Christians, but in truth, people of all stripes have been on the receiving end of such persecution for ages. In the modern era, it has taken on a softer facade in first world countries, but it still exists.

Maybe humans are simply incapable of getting along with those that think differently? Maybe we are simply too primitive to even attempt to figure out how to live alongside people without converting them to the groupthink flavor of the month?

I see blame being assigned by simplistic, basic culture/counter culture conflicts. The face of that may have changed, but the core behavior remains persistent.

In the end, I have difficulty believing that humanity really wants anything other than division and bigotry. It seems people would rather dwell in the futility of blaming every other group but their own instead of actively working towards cohesion and cooperation without groupthink conversion.

Can an atheist do God's work, in spite of their lack of belief? If so, perhaps conversion is not only unnecessary, but against God's will.

Is a Christian capable of being anything other than a monster? If so, then perhaps conversion is not only unnecessary, but will perpetuate the same type of groupthink conflict that is used to judge them.

Maybe humanity is better than this, but maybe we would rather dance on puppet strings rather than cut them and learn how to walk together.

Maybe we should either just embrace ourselves as a violent, war hungry species without schadenfreude or pretense. Or, we could learn how to walk on a whole new level of cohesion, together. I guess neither one is all that likely, given our history.

originally posted by: JDmOKI
a reply to: Blue Shift

Oh yea every single Christian loves to die so good riddance

There are some sick SOB's on this site that don't mind people being butchered as long as they are Christians.

originally posted by: infolurker

originally posted by: JDmOKI
a reply to: Blue Shift

Oh yea every single Christian loves to die so good riddance

There are some sick SOB's on this site that don't mind people being butchered as long as they are Christians.

Maybe people are tired of being told to PARTICULARLY care BECAUSE the people dying are Christians?

I mean, we keep seeing the same plea over and over. "Christians are dying!"

Imagine if there was a headline "500 dogs burned to death in tragic kennel fire", and some hysterical nonce came up to you and said "Oh my god, did you hear that 15 poodles died in a kennel fire?"

So the fact that Christian powers had invaded and/or occupied every Muslim state on Earth until after World War Two is not important. Nor the fact that far more Muslim are martyred for the their beliefs. Including those slaughtered by Christian militias in Africa. When it comes to being persecuted and martyred Christians have nothing on Muslims.

a reply to: AshOnMyTomatoes

Thats a dumb analogy and to say that Christians only care about Christians dying is equally dumb. Of course they care a little bit more.... ya know because they're Christian