Christian Persecution vs Persecuted Christians

[Umbran]

Nobody is forcing them to drop out of high school and join gangs. They have a free education, but cultural influences cause schooling to be far lower on the ladder of importance than it should be.

You seem to ignore many other factors in this statement. Many of the schools these kids go to are underfunded, making learning there difficult for the best of students, much less the mediocre ones. Moreover, many of them are in questionable economic positions - they may have the choice of staying in school, or trying to do something so their family has food, clothing, and a roof over their heads.

Maybe not "forced," but, "coerced," might be appropriate.

And remember, we are talking about *KIDS*. Not adults with large amounts of insight built up over years. The choices are being made by 12 to 15 year olds.

 

[Kramodlog]

No matter which word you choose, it doesn't apply to me.

Even gravity?

And I'm not in any way responsible for that.

I'd say the word "cause" would be more appropriate to discribe your role when it comes to the revised history I made up. As in: what you wrote is at the origin of what I wrote.

 

[Maxperson]

Even gravity?

You don't do yourself any favors acting that way.

I'd say the word "cause" would be more appropriate to discribe your role when it comes to the revised history I made up. As in: what you wrote is at the origin of what I wrote.

I didn't cause it, either.

 

[Kramodlog]

You don't do yourself any favors acting that way.

I didn't know I was supposed to be self-serving.

I didn't cause it, either.

Sure you did. You wrote something and what you said caused me to write something. At least it is one of the things that caused my writing.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not accountable or responsible for fixing the problems of the past simply because of the position I am in.

Not in a legal sense, no, you are not. In a moral sense?

Fixing the underlying issues of what people call white privilege is something I should want to do because I'm a decent human being, but it's a choice, not a responsibility.

Again, in a legal sense, no. Either way, you do have a choice - but you'll be judged by it.

We don't hold the billionaires responsible for fixing all the poor people simply because they have money.

Is that because everyone realizes we shouldn't do so, or because those billionaires dump lots of money into the political process to protect them?

In other nations (most of Europe, for example), those who produce wealth are asked to do a lot more for the poor - typically by taxation, and by not having such a wild disparity in top and bottom pay scales in the first place. And it works out okay for them.

And, in history, well, tell Marie Antoinette that we don't hold the rich responsible - though admittedly that was more the rich being held accountable, rather than responsible.

 

[Umbran]

By all means, let's continue to focus on race instead of the underlying causes for the disparity.

With respect, real people do have real racial biases. This is measurable.

It isn't the only reason, but it is a reason. And we are unlikely to gain much ground if we ignore valid causes of the observed effects.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Statistics are data.

Oh, dear me, no. You've just committed the sin of reification. Statistics are just a model, and are not the data. The data have no mean, your model of the data has a mean. That may seem trivial, but it's critical to understanding that you fool yourself if you ever believe that statistics have any real truth. They don't, they're just a model of the real world that occasionally are useful. Cue the old saw about all models are false, but some are useful.

Data makes no conclusions, though conclusions can be drawn from them with study.

If you draw conclusions from statistics, you are lying to yourself. You may be accidentally correct, but that's it. Statistics has nothing to do with causation. To draw correct conclusions you need to go look at causation, and you cannot do that with statistics. Stats can be useful to point you in the direction of some possibly causations, or to see if your hypothesized causation holds water, but that's the extent of their use. We, as in the Western world, seem to hold stats in much higher regard than they should be held -- just another imperfect tool in the box that shouldn't substitute for thinking.

It looks like you are talking about a combination of accountability and responsibility. It really helps to separate them.

We don't really need to consider accountability unless we are aiming to institute punitive measures against those who need to be held accountable. The situation was begun by people long dead. Nobody alive today is accountable for those actions. We are each, at worst, accountable for only our own acts that perpetuate the system.

Folks today, however, could be considered responsible for fixing the problems. They are, *because of the problems*, in a better position to solve those problems.

Which is to say, the most constructive way forward is to forgive the past (not forget, just forgive today for what they cannot change). Expect, however, that people should open their eyes, and work to make the world a better place going forward. Hold them to a standard for the future, not the past.

While I know we disagree in many fundamental ways, I actually am largely in agreement with the words above (if not the path you used to reach them).

 

[Ovinomancer]

With respect, real people do have real racial biases. This is measurable.

I agree that people have racial biases, but how is it measurable? I mean, if it were really measurable, how do I go find out what my racial bias score is?

 

[Kramodlog]

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I agree that people have racial biases, but how is it measurable? I mean, if it were really measurable, how do I go find out what my racial bias score is?

Here you go.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/