Pulled this from FB where it is *absolutely* needed, but a good reminder for all my believer friends here.
... and I could add quite a few more that could be stricken out beyond what's in the picture, too.
@jonyoder Do you not realize that this is an insulting meme?
They only way a person could be identified as a Christian simply by them expressing love would be if only Christians could express love and non-Christians could not. That's not true and it's an insult to all non-Christians to imply otherwise.
@diverging I believe you're misunderstanding the phrase. It says nothing about anyone else, just that people will know believers by the ways and degree to which they love--something so uncharacteristic to regular human interaction that there is no other explanation.
Loving others like you love yourself is easy to say and super hard to do to the point that saying Christians as a group don't love very well is like saying the sun is kinda warm.
@jonyoder Saying that a group can be identified by a trait means that those not in that group can not have that trait.
I have found that religious groups can't be distinguished by their acts of kindness. People in every religious group show other people every sort of love conceivable.
Many Christians believe it, though, and I have heard stories of people trying to compliment someone that did some kindness by saying "you're such a good Christian", only for the response to be "I'm an atheist".
@diverging Your logic is flawed because it is not a zero sum game. That's like saying that I'm completely incapable of hitting a target with a bow and arrow just because I'm not an Olympic class archer.
More often than not, I've found that many Christians don't really understand non believers because they have little exposure to people outside their own culture. That might be what happened in the incident you mentioned.
@jonyoder An unskilled archer might hit the target, but also might not.
A person guessing someone's religion based on their treatment of others might guess right, but also might not. They can't know they are Christian.
It was not one incident of an atheist being call a "good Christian", but multiple. Seems to happen mostly in the southern US. They just assume that if you do something nice you must be Christian.
And I figured no insult was intended.
@diverging In any event, no insult was intended or desired. Just a genuine effort to prompt fellow believers to consider leaving behind the toxic behavior I see so many displaying. We need fewer barriers between people, not more, and certainly not legislating the Bible and using Bible-based reasoning to justify it