As a preliminary caveat, I think it’s only prudent to say that confrontations—especially with irrational people—have a non-trivial potential for escalating into violence, and we need to understand that and be careful to avoid it. Knowing when to shut up and let the store/security staff take over can be key.
That said, it might be fun to ask, as a mental exercise, what would be a good question to ask a hate-preacher if they happened to storm in to your local Target and begin harassing innocent shoppers?
If I saw they were carrying a bible, my first question would likely be, “Would you please show me, in that Bible, where it says that bathrooms have to be segregated by gender?” There is no such verse of course, so it would help to start things off on the right foot by confronting them with the fact that they’re ranting about something that isn’t even Biblical.
My second question would be, “Does God have an opposite sex? In other words, are there any female gods?” You can’t be attracted to the opposite sex if there’s no such thing as the opposite sex, so it might help to establish that God doesn’t even have the option of being heterosexual. In Christianity, there are three male divine persons, so God could potentially be homosexual, or maybe asexual, but without any female of his own species, he cannot, by nature, be hetero.
The third question, then, would be “Are we all made in God’s image, or is God made in our image?” We, obviously, do have more than one gender, and many of us have very strong sexual urges and lusts. If God is merely an imaginary character modeled after our own instincts and desires, then it would make sense that he would be as obsessed with the sexual behavior of mortals as we are, but if he’s actually a real, non-heterosexual, non-reproducing spiritual being, then there’s no reason for him to have such irrational and unhealthy obsessions. Certainly not to the point of wanting to hurt people who are minding their own business and doing no harm to anybody.
I think by that point it would be hard to predict where the conversation would go, assuming it could even get that far, but it’s fun to speculate about. And who knows, it might even come in useful some day.
What would you ask?
What would you ask?
“Haven’t you got anything better to do?”
I would ask if they learned that sex isn’t always binary and brain development of gender identity doesn’t always match the sex.
You are missing out on a fun exegesis to lay on them: The bible implicitly approves of transgender people by implying that God is bi-gender (or intersex).
Consider Genesis 1:27 —
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. (NIV)
Since both male and female are in the image of God, the image of God must comprise both male and female.
Thus, transgender people, comprising aspects of both male and female, are closer to the image of God than someone who is only of a single gender.
And don’t forget that Eve’s life began as a rib in a male body, which means she started out with an XY chromosome pair. So the mother of all living is a transgendered woman too.
A significant part of my religious experience was being in a Khristian Karate Kult. I am still in touch with a couple of people who are still deeply involved in it. The way they invest in training Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is motivated at least in part by their belief in their own persecution and the expectation of having to defend themselves against The World when the End Times arrive. I see that experience as being primarily about recruitment, conversion and reinforcement of faith than anything that any ordinary people might see as Karate for Kids. Achievement of belt ranks always included memorization of Scripture verses, every training session opened with prayer, often student led, and after classes there was bible study led by the instructor. Basically it’s a church masquerading as a Karate club. So bear in mind that if you are in a confrontation with a Christian there is a non-trivial probability that the person attacking you will have near-military level martial arts training.
Remarkable; how does that reconcile with loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek and so forth?
In passing, I wouldn’t worry too much unless they’re full-contact and serious about it*. Fighting is fighting, and martial arts are arts. The only way to get good at fighting is to actually fight, and sure — an artful fighter will win over a naive one.
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* i.e. there are regular hospital visits for participants.
The fact is that the whole martial arts thing is just a facade whether it’s Christian or not. If you follow Bullshido, you’ll realize that none of them are actually capable of defending themselves against real threats, but if they were their facade would threaten and turn away the majority of the people they recruit. KKK has to look clean and wholesome from the outside so that parents would let their kids join and not worry about bloody noses while oblivious to the heavy-handed religious indoctrination and blatant opportunism. What I’m saying is that if you get into an argument with one of these people they could definitely break your arm, gouge your eyes out, or sucker punch you, but anything like that is pure opportunism and cowardice like everything about Christianity. The Jesus is not looking tough and threatening, but it’s not turning the other cheek either, it’s sneaky and underhanded and whines about fairness whenever it loses.
You keep saying that God of yours is a loving, kind and forgiving one and there are these verses in your Bible about the main commandment being Loving thy neighbour and also not judging lest ye be judge yeah?
So. How d’ya think ya goin’ on that score bout now?
That’s “Judged” not “judge” natch.
Wish we could edit here.
Also something about motes and beams in various eyes. Oh & theirGod hanging around happily with prostitutes and tax-collectors and being kinda left-wing and arguing for the poor and outcasts and all too.
Or to paraphrase someone responding to an Islamist atrocity : “You ain’t no Christian bro!” *
I like the Judo-esque notion of turning their own supposed belief system back against them and using it to make them hopefully rethink.
* See : http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-ain-t-no-muslim-bruv