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Why do people hate Christians so? Why do so many not see that hatred, or somehow excuse it?

I think it was Nietzsche who said that we always end up hating those whom we betrayed. Everything beautiful in Europe was created because of and due to Christianity. Religion, however, urges you to rise about your animalistic self. That's hard. Throwing that burden off your shoulders brings relief. And Enlightenment has shown an additional "justification" for replacing goodness with knowledge. Chirstianity (and Judaism, too, but it's never been a significant social force) is in decline for over two centuries. Now that secularists are in a majority, Christians have become an annoyance: they remind the socialist secularists that there is a distinction between good and evil.

Just as one hates a witness of one's indisretion, Europe --- and increasingly America as well --- hates Christians as witnesses of its indiscretion. And what greater indiscretion can you find than abandoning G-d altogether?

G-d help us to keep this country close to its Christian roots and Judeo-Christian values. Keep faith, my friend, for your own sake and for the rest of us. You may be surprised to hear this from this Jew, but I do think that if anything saves this country and the entire Western world from destruction it is Christianity in America. Unfortunately, here too so many Christians --- and even more of my fellow co-religionists --- have abandoned core values for Leftism of one form or another.

Keep faith and know that you are not alone. But do not expect the leftists to wake up any time soon.

Thanks! You keep the faith, too!

I think somehow those who mock the Judeo-Christian tradition (and indeed, America itself) are comparing the history to some ideal that does not exist. Religion has been used to justify great injustice and harm. The US has not been, and is not, perfect. Yet some people on the left want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It kind of reminds me of an adolescent rebelling against his parents, but still seeking protection under their roof.

I think people living in this time and place (myself included) have NO REAL CONCEPTION of what life in most other countries is like, or how the world would be without an America that is strong, morally as well as economically and militarily. I at least have an idea that things would be much worse. (Imagine being a woman in the Middle East, or a gay person in many Asian countries. And I'd rather be a Muslim living in Israel than a Jew OR a Muslim living in just about any other middle eastern country.) I at least know that I take a lot for granted.

This "misguided idealism" is the most charitable explanation I can come up with.

I think I understand Schrader now.

It's "enlightened" to make "a humanist story about the struggle to find God in which Christ is used as a metaphor", but unenlightened and downright "disturbing" to come into the theatre with a powerful "belief system" (other than a secular humanist belief system, one presumes).

Passion Ping!

I remember seeing the sign somewhere... maybe here...

God is dead. - Nietzche

Nietzche is dead. - God!

I've always liked that.

I loved Schrader's comment:

"They are two totally different movies."

Got that right!