A journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday, police said.

Josh Kruger, 39, was shot seven times at about 1:30 a.m. and collapsed in the street after seeking help, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Police believe the door to his Point Breeze home was unlocked or the shooter knew how to get in, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. No arrests have been made and no weapons have been recovered, they said.

Authorities haven’t spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding the killing.

    • @[email protected]
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      1271 year ago

      Probably a “good Christian”, since the fundamentalist are militantly (in a literal sense) against any sort of tolerance, acknowledgement, or compassion being expressed towards people who don’t completely conform to their heteronormative worldview.

      • @Chr0nos1
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        51 year ago

        I stole this from another poster, but it does indicate that it was probably his ex boyfriend, or drug related, and not a “good Christian” as you imply.

        Here’s some excerpts from the local paper.

        Detectives believe Kruger’s death may have been the result of a domestic dispute or may have been drug-related, according to three law enforcement sources with knowledge of the case. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said police investigators recovered troubling text messages between Kruger and a former partner. Investigators also recovered methamphetamine inside Kruger’s bedroom, the sources said.

        In recent months, he’d written on social media about a variety of alarming incidents at his home.

        In April, he posted that an ex-partner had broken into his home. “The door was locked, so he had somehow obtained a copy of my keys,” he wrote. He had allowed the man, whom he’d known for years “before his troubles,” to stay at his house briefly after being released from jail. He said he was able to deescalate the situation and the man eventually left, and he changed his locks.

        In August, someone threw a rock through his home window, he said. Then, about two weeks ago, he wrote on Facebook that someone came to his house searching for their boyfriend — “a man I’ve never met once in my entire life.” The person called themselves “Lady Diabla, the She-Devil of the Streets” and threatened him, he wrote.

        https://www.inquirer.com/crime/josh-kruger-killed-point-breeze-shooting-philadelphia-journalist-20231002.html

        • @Dkcecil91
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          11 year ago

          Not all that strange, just go by a planned parenthood and check out the crazies accosting people outside of those.

        • @T00l_shed
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          161 year ago

          I mean it would par for the course.

      • @Nahvi
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        -1951 year ago

        Excuse me, but your bigotry is hanging out. Would you mind zipping up?

        • @almar_quigley
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          871 year ago

          Yes! That’s exactly what you should say to Christians when they start spouting off on their racist, homophobic, or otherwise prejudiced beliefs. You’re a great role model.

          • @Nahvi
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            -711 year ago

            I have done and will continue to call out racial and homophobic bigotry as quickly as I do religious bigotry.

            Unfortunately, as shameful as it is, one of those forms of prejudice is supported by most of the active population here.

            • @[email protected]
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              591 year ago

              What? You mean in America, the country ruled by Christians who impose Christianity on children in schools, where the majority religion is Christianity, where Christian organizations get preferential treatment by the government, where Christianity is the overwhelming majority religion of politicians, and where there is an active political movement to literally enforce state Christianity on the population, and where Christian moral doctrine is being widely used to restrict the bodily autonomy of women?? Ah yes so much Christian hate

              Unironically shut the fuck up

              • @Nahvi
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                -541 year ago

                Unironically shut the fuck up

                You have thoroughly convinced me!

                Where can I sign up for the daily hate speech against Christians? Oh, nevermind, I forgot I already have a Lemmy account.

                It is unfortunate that rather than learning how to fight against their methods, you have instead decided to emulate them.

                • prole
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                  311 year ago

                  “Hate speech against Christians”

                  Please point out the hate speech in the comment you replied to. Telling you to shut the fuck up isn’t hate speech, and everything else is literally a straightforward fact about Christianity in America. Zero hate speech.

                  Gotta play the persecution game though, am I right?

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -181 year ago

                    Those first two lines were intentionally sarcastic exaggeration. Was I supposed to include a /s for the cheap seats? It seemed pretty obvious from here.

                    They pretty well lost me when they told me to “shut the fuck up”. I certainly wasn’t going to waste my time on a clearly worded response to someone who likely wouldn’t read it anyways.

                    Not sure who you think is getting persecuted, I doubt many Christians would hang out in a place like this. Even those that push for the bodily autonomy of women would feel unwelcome with so many people openly hostile to their faiths.

                • @SuddenlyBlowGreen
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                  11 year ago

                  I’m curious what you consider hate speed or bigotry against christians.

                  If I dislike all christians that follow the bible/their gods commands and believe in their gods benevolence, would you say I’m a bigot?

                  • @Nahvi
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                    01 year ago

                    tl;dr Maybe. It mostly depends on your wording and actions. Christians are not one group or thing anymore than Europeans or LGBT people are. They are a collection of highly varied peoples that can’t even agree on the number of books in the bible or whether Jesus was man, god, or both.

                    If someone says or implies “all Christians” are this or that negative thing it moves closer to yes rather than maybe. If someone is accuses a person of being something for no other reason than a group they belong to, then the accuser is probably a bigot.

                    ,

                    ,

                    This wall of text is an eyesore, so I added bold to your words and Italics to other quotes to help with readability. My words have neither.

                    would you say I’m a bigot?

                    If you personally dislike them, but you don’t let it affect the way you treat them, I really wouldn’t care one way or another.

                    As far as I am concerned, fear and hatred of the unknown and different are as human and natural as love and lust. It is what people do with those emotions that matter.

                    If someone’s lust encourages them to date and eventually spend their life with someone they are attracted to that is a good expression. If someone’s lust encourages them to violet the privacy of or assault someone then that is a bad expression.

                    Fear of the unknown and different is similar. If it encourages someone to learn more about different peoples, foods, or animals, then it is a good expression. If it encourages them to disparage or commit acts of violence against them then that is a bad expression.

                    I’m curious what you consider hate speed or bigotry against christians.

                    a person who is intolerant or hateful toward people whose race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc., is different from the person’s own.

                    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bigot

                    hate speech, speech or expression that denigrates a person or persons on the basis of (alleged) membership in a social group identified by attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, and others.

                    https://www.britannica.com/topic/hate-speech

                    I see bigotry and hate speech as more words and actions than opinions. What does an opinion matter if it is not expressed through word or deed? Is someone really intolerant if they tolerate someone in all areas except their own mind?

                    Mostly it comes down to treating any group, Christians in this case, as if they are the same and are each responsible for the acts of all the others.

                    If I dislike all christians that follow the bible/their gods commands and believe in their gods benevolence,

                    Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodoxy don’t even agree on the number of books in the bible. If you haven’t run into the idea of the Apocrypha you may find it interesting.

                    Various numbers below (formatting edited for readability):

                    The canon of

                    the Protestant Bible totals 66 books—39 Old Testament (OT) and 27 New Testament (NT);

                    the Catholic Bible numbers 73 books (46 OT, 27 NT),

                    and Greek and Russian Orthodox, 79 (52 OT, 27 NT)

                    (Ethiopian Orthodox, 81—54 OT, 27 NT).

                    https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2022/04/why-are-protestant-catholic-and-orthodox-bibles-different/

                    Lest you think that it is only the old testament that is debated here is info about the New testament in Martin Luther’s Bible:

                    Though he included the Letter to the Hebrews, the letters of James and Jude and Revelation in his Bible translation, he put them into a separate grouping and questioned their legitimacy.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilegomena#Reformation

            • prole
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              351 year ago

              “Religious bigotry” LOL

              The only people who practice anything that could be called that are religious people themselves. Everyone else just wants to be left the fuck alone.

              • @Nahvi
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                -171 year ago

                Fair enough. I should have called it anti-religious bigotry.

                • prole
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                  211 year ago

                  Calling out your hateful ideology for what it is, is not bigotry. You seem to not understand that word either. Nothing I said was bigoted.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -51 year ago

                    You seem to not understand that word either. Nothing I said was bigoted.

                    What? I didn’t call anything you said bigotry. Just adjusted the term I used based on your previous statement.

                    Calling out your hateful ideology for what it is, is not bigotry.

                    I am not sure what this means unless you think I am religious. I am not.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    01 year ago

                    Expression of Religion is a choice. Belief in religion is often more fundamental to who a person is.

              • @Nahvi
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                -351 year ago

                It is unfortunate that you think so, there is a lot of wisdom in the various world religions.

                We may be beyond the need for religion, but I doubt even that.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -151 year ago

                    Nice quote, though I think it would be better applied to this whole post.

                    The few bits of wisdom here are so surrounded by shit that most people would need a hose and sieve to find them.

                • @[email protected]
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                  71 year ago

                  No there’s not.

                  You can be a wise, moral and ethical person without religion. It’s easy. Tons of people do that every single day.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    1 year ago

                    You can be a wise, moral and ethical person without religion

                    I fully agree.

                    Edit: That in no way discounts the idea that there is a lot of wisdom in religion. Even if some of it is outdated.

                    That is not really what I was referring to Edit: when I said I doubt we are beyond the need for religion. There is a (debated) theory that religion was important in moving from tribalism towards modern civilization. Specifically, the belief that a god or gods would punish your neighbor if he was doing evil behind your back may have been a necessary concept in our development. Even in modern times, the idea that our fellow citizens may be doing evil without recourse is a serious consideration. It may be adding to our current societal stresses.

                    Of course, that could be all horse shit, but I am leaned slightly towards that opinion at present.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    11 year ago

                    As an atheist (i do not believe in an intelligent creator, or othewise deity), the more time i invest in being moral and wise the more friends i make with pastors. Most people cannot tell from the surface that i am not religious, the more i ask myself if i am religious or not the more meaningless that question starts appearing.

                    I don’t identify with any particular religion, but it would be challenging to prove i’m not religious despite the fact that i do not believe in any god.

                • @SuddenlyBlowGreen
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                  1 year ago

                  It is unfortunate that you think so, there is a lot of wisdom in the various world religions.

                  What wisdom is in world religions that couldn’t be found elsewhere without all the murdery baggage?

            • @afraid_of_zombies
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              231 year ago

              There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry. Any adult who remains a Christian knows exactly what the religion with the highest kill count stands for. They decide to ignore that because they get the warm fuzzies once a week for an hour.

              Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.

              • @Nahvi
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                -71 year ago

                There is a difference between attacking someone who chooses a disgusting belief system and bigotry.

                Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.

                To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.

                Now go restore Roe v. Wade or you are useless to me.

                If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:

                Rev. Angela Williams, a Presbyterian pastor and the lead organizer of SACReD: Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity, told Healthline that faith leaders and religious groups that support abortion rights have been preparing for this moment for a long time.

                https://www.healthline.com/health-news/meet-the-religious-groups-fighting-to-save-abortion-access

                Members of the Episcopal Church (79%) and the United Church of Christ (72%) are especially likely to support legal abortion, while most members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the mainline Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (65%) also take this position.

                https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/

                • @afraid_of_zombies
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                  31 year ago

                  Bigotry is thinking, what I believe is right and everyone who believes differently is wrong.

                  No. That is just being human.

                  To point at all varieties of Christianity and say, “you are bad,” is being bigoted.

                  Ok? It isnt some weird charm argument winner. You can call me any nasty thing you want and that won’t raise from the dead a single Iraqi or stop a single 14 year old girl having to induce an at home abortion because her uncle raped her.

                  If you want someone useful here are some people that agree with you and will help you fight, assuming you can manage to not call their belief system disgusting to their faces:

                  Not good enough. I want to hear a Christian shaman to say that anyone who opposes their religion on the rest of us is no longer a Christian. Disown or own. I like hot beverages and cold ones but not lukewarm ones.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -11 year ago

                    No. That is just being human.

                    No. That is just being arrogant. You can be human and acknowledge that your stance is an opinion and that there are other just as valid opinions. Yours just fits you better.

                    You can call me any nasty thing you want

                    To the best of my memory, I haven’t called you anything. I was pointing out OC’s bigoted statement.

                    I want to hear a Christian shaman to say that anyone who opposes their religion on the rest of us is no longer a Christian.

                    Ever heard of a Schism? Virtually every denomination in America thinks the others aren’t doing it right. Half of them won’t acknowledge each other as real Christians.

                    In fact, there are major schisms forming right now over LGBT issues. Methodists have been constantly in the news regarding their LGBT schism for the last year or two.

                    https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-07-06/one-in-five-united-methodist-congregations-in-the-us-have-left-the-denomination-over-lgbtq-conflicts

                    Another article points out :

                    But the United Methodist Church is also the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in America to begin fracturing, just as Episcopal, Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations lost significant minorities of churches and members this century amid debates over sexuality and theology.

                    https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-10-10/united-methodists-are-breaking-up-in-a-slow-motion-schism

                • @[email protected]
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                  21 year ago

                  Episcopalians are less than 2% of the US population. Jewish people and LGBT people are a bigger voting bloc. Using one of the most liberal and one of the smallest Christian denominations as evidence for what Christianity in the US is like is intentionally misleading, when more than 10x as many Americans consider themselves Evangelicals (about 1/4th).

                  • @Nahvi
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                    01 year ago

                    as evidence for what Christianity in the US is like is intentionally misleading

                    If I was trying to claim that is that standard view, then it would be misleading. Since I was actually claiming that there are a wide variety of beliefs among Christians, some even aligning with your values, it is pretty spot on representation. Treating them all the same is prejudicial behavior.

                    A fair-minded person would give an individual a chance to act like an asshole before treating them like trash.

              • @Nahvi
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                -231 year ago

                There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.

                To borrow a line from /u/[email protected]

                https://lemmy.world/comment/3754441

                • @xanu
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                  111 year ago

                  The paradox is literally what’s happening with you in this thread, genius. the Christian church has been out of bounds for centuries, and now that people are finally responding appropriately, you kick and scream saying “not like that! you can only respond appropriately if you follow all the rules laid out by the people who oppress you! you need to tolerate our intolerance because our imaginary friend says we need to hate you to stop the end of the world”

                  There were “good” people who identify as Nazis. should we let that ideology thrive because a minority of its population put flowers on the graves their compatriots created?

                  I get that you just want to hold hands and sing kumbaya, but I have trouble holding the hands that are covered with the blood of my brothers, sisters, and allies.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -31 year ago

                    The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.

                    The vast majority of Christians have spent your entire life moving more towards the middle. Yet, all you see is the ground that hasn’t been covered yet. When you push them (not me) back and pretend that they should be judged by the actions of their ancestors instead of their own actions, you make it that much more challenging to have them stay in-bounds, or move back in if they have gone astray.

                    When you compare the Christian Religion that two-thirds of the US shares, to the secular Nazi Ideology, and claim they have blood on their hands, you push them towards radicalization.

                    When people that support your stance go out-of-bounds themselves, and aren’t called on it they make it that much harder to show the way back in-bounds to the opposition that have strayed.

            • @Drivebyhaiku
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              61 year ago

              If you keep advocating in this fashion you are going to start feeling very backed up against a wall very quickly. When people are routinely hurt by an institution the unambiguous defense of the people within institution as a whole claiming a similar victimhood plays on a part of human nature. What people want of you is to accept that the numbers of people claiming Christiandom to then go on to harm someone means that as someone who claims to be Christian that you should be the first voice to start criticizing your own.

              Instead because you cannot separate yourself from your Christian label or other people’s frustration and pain caused by other people who do so under the flag of being “Proud Christians” your advocacy appears shallow and self serving. You and all the good Christians you defend become literary “the good man who does nothing” If facing people in your audience who have experienced trauma at the hands of your group what they want to see is that you accept that people like you harmed them and that you are different than them by being able to recognize their pain and shelve your agenda and listen unambiguously. What they are asking is for you to show you care about them and are strong enough to weather and differentiate the criticism they aren’t directing at you.

              It’s a similar effect to how a lot of systemic issues around racism get held up on the feelings of the people in institutions about being implied to be racist. Oftentimes the issues never get dealt with because the conversation has to stop become all about the feelings of the person and how they aren’t a bad person. While they may not intend it that person’s feelings become the obstacle that throws up the roadblocks on people who are fighting desperately to have less roadblocks. Once this happens often enough people start to figure that that person’s feelings DO make them a bad person because regardless of their personal merits they are still in the way and having to sway every individual roadblock by taking them offside and coddling them telling them, it’s okay we know YOU aren’t a bad person becomes way too much. Thus people start getting more frustrated with the people who demand this treatment and take up their energy and they start getting more strident.

              When you place yourself in that spot it’s easy to see people’s frustration as hate but it is different. They want you to be better.

              • @Nahvi
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                11 year ago

                I appreciate the well-thought out and verbose response. Have an upvote!

                Now to the meat of it. I am not a Christian, I am someone who is tired of some bigots getting a pass and some bigots getting their whole instances defederated. Since there is clearly a disinterest in heavy-handed moderation to get rid of the one-sided bigotry then the best recourse is open discussion.

                I have no doubt that the people here who are heavily prejudiced against religion have their reasons, but that does not mean that their words are good or acceptable in an open forum. When people express their ideas in socially unacceptable ways they should be called out and down-voted, but currently they they are mostly receiving positive responses. This is wrong. It is a mark against the communities and instances they are posting those statements in.

                It does not matter why someone feels justified for spewing hate, they should be called-out or at least shunned. If you want to help someone work through their hate, that is great. I just want to stop being embarrassed by it. Despite being a great concept, I literally cannot recommend Lemmy to anyone because the top comment is so often some trash about how “all conservatives are fascists” or a gay activist died “it must be a Christian.”

                • @Drivebyhaiku
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                  21 year ago

                  Lemmy is kind of unapologetically leftist and there is a lot of dissatisfaction by a number of groups that all coelece around the use of religion or “traditional values” a euphemism for Christian, more specifically the Pauline chapters, norms that reject LGBTQIA identities and a flattening of the rights of women to be autonomous. When you look at the “bigotry” you’ll find “Christianity” does not always often mean the same thing when people use it from poster to poster. In many ways it closer to a shorthand for the Evengelical movements which are growing more like consolidated political parties. If someone claims to be Christian the belief in Christ itself is not always the cause for the vitriol (not saying the angry atheists do not prowl). Rather it is how they weild it against other communities.

                  Moderation is never truly neutral. To some extent all places are tailored to be safer to someone. Leftist spaces are often tailored to be more sympathetic with people to whom conservative values trend on the whole to be hostile towards. Importantanly however it is important to look at how that frustration is being utilized. On the whole people here’s main gripe is an overreach of control at the expense of safety and health of other people. The desired outcome is not a banishment from society but a ceasefire.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    11 year ago

                    Once again, thank you for the well-reasoned comment.

                    I have to say, much of this sounds very similar to something I might have said while trying to convince someone that there is some nuance to the Christian Right. The rest of if though is still worth thinking over some more for sure. Especially the bit about how this space is a bit tailored towards leftist view points. Maybe I am expecting too much in a place where people should be able to throw an off the cuff “goddam repubtards” without being called on it.

                    Still, I think some of the comments really do push that boundary; including OC’s immediate accusation of some generic Christian being the murder.

                • tygerprints
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                  11 year ago

                  It’s true that bigotry can work both ways, but you have to admit the right has given us a lot of reason to feel bigoted towards them, especially in light of incidents like this where progressive and smart people are being killed for being better humans than other humans. Christianity has one main tenet - love they neighbor as thyself. There is no other principle to Christianity, only this one. And yet right wingers seem to think they don’t have to obey it but can still call themselves “christians,” which is a complete lie and slap in the face to god and everyone on earth.

            • @[email protected]
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              61 year ago

              Just be sure you’ve taken a moment to understand who you’re speaking with and what you’re speaking with them about. Because in this case, any issue of bigotry has absolutely nothing to do with this drug related domestic dispute murder.

              Commenters here are arguing with each other over something that has nothing to do with this case. So, it’s not that you care about the victim, you care about virtue signaling.

              FWIW, the victim regularly attended an Episcopalian church. So, I’m not so sure he’d be cool with people using religion as a cudgel beneath his obituary.

              • @Nahvi
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                31 year ago

                this drug related domestic dispute murder.

                Is that what it is looking like now? The article was significantly sparse on details.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    21 year ago

                    Thank you for the link. The article from that comment was far superior.

                    I am sorry to hear that Josh lost his life like that. Seems like Philly lost a good guy.

                    Hopefully it wasn’t actually the domestic option. It is a hard thought to think that someone he helped out by letting them live there would come back to kill him.

                    Also, I am glad to hear that his friends are looking into rehoming his rescued cat friend.

            • @[email protected]
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              51 year ago

              Well hey maybe religious people should stop consistently hurting other humans and society in general because they think their imaginary friend would be down with it.

              • @Nahvi
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                -21 year ago

                It sounds an awful like you are saying, “Well yeah, we are bigots, but we are bigots because they deserve it!”

                Am I misunderstanding you?

                • @[email protected]
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                  21 year ago

                  Yes, you are misunderstanding me.

                  I’m saying that religion has a richly documented history of intolerance and repression, up to and including the present day. I am simultaneously saying that I am intolerant of intolerance.

                  I feel like you should read up on this if you’re still struggling to wrap your head around the nuance of what pretty much everyone else in this comment tree besides yourself is expressing.

                  • @Nahvi
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                    -11 year ago

                    Thank you for the clarification.

                    I have read that multiple times. I just think it is a shite theory.

                    I eventually need to put it in my own words, but /u/[email protected]’s post is pretty good for now: (emphasis added)

                    There’s no paradox in tolerance. Tolerance means you accept everyone existing within the societal contract - period. Doesn’t matter if they’re Republican, a racist, or anything else

                    Behavior out of bounds should be fought appropriately. If someone uses words to express racism, call them a disgusting asshole. If a bunch of neonazis organize for an act of violence, confront it with violence. Respond appropriately.

                    Conversely, if a racist can be around people of other races without acting racist, accept them in the group to reinforce their rehabilitation. If someone with braindead opinions bites their tongue and keeps it to themselves, tolerate them.

                    There’s no paradox - there’s acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. If anyone, displays only acceptable behavior, you tolerate them - full stop. If anyone goes out of bounds, you respond appropriately to correct the behavior - full stop.

                    The “paradox of tolerance” is people justifying attacking people. This myth does nothing but ensure there’s no way back for people who have drifted out of bounds - it’s a recipe for radicalizing people.

                    I’m genuinely convinced the “paradox of tolerance” is a psyops designed to fracture society by breeding extremists… If there’s no tolerance when they behave and no way back, what do you think is going to happen? Either their beliefs that they’re under attack get constantly reinforced and they get further pushed out of bounds, or we kill them all before they destroy our society

                    There has to be a way back, or the only way forward is ideological purges

                    https://lemmy.world/comment/3754441

        • @[email protected]
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          701 year ago

          Nope, my pointed disdain for backwards, illogical, regressive, exclusionary, predatory cults is showing. I don’t have a problem with religious people as long as they don’t force their shit onto others. Nationalist Christians are trying to force their bullshit theocracy onto the whole country, and that’s very fucking far from ok.

          For the record, I was raised catholic, and I noped the fuck out of that bullshit once I got old enough to ask incisive questions. Maybe you should too.

          • @Nahvi
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            -261 year ago

            It took going to a Bible College for me to break it down. That doesn’t mean that I have forgotten all of the good-hearted, well-meaning Christians that I met along the way. I haven’t forgotten all of the assholes either.

            Yes I know, there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify as Christians, just like there are plenty of busybody assholes that identify themselves as atheist, gay, straight, athlete or gamer. Some people just feel the need to tell others how to live their lives even when they don’t really understand them. It doesn’t mean that we should act like everyone in that group is the same.

            That sort of prejudicial reductionism is the real enemy. It is the thing reasonable, free-thinkers should be fighting against, not turning around for our own use.

            • @[email protected]
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              81 year ago

              Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people. But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act. Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring. What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.

              • @Nahvi
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                01 year ago

                Your point seems to be that people should not generalise an opinion on a large group of people.

                That is indeed my exact point.

                But you fail to ask the question of when passivism becomes guilty by failing to act.

                That is actually one of my main concerns with the direction lemmy is heading. At some point when the bias becomes extreme enough we need to start calling out those that are crossing the line. If it seems like I am not pointing enough at the extremes of the republican side, it is only because their voices are few and far-between on Lemmy. Typically when I find them, they are already buried in down-votes and comments. I usually a downvote to the pile, upvote a few other comments, and then move on.

                Germany was held accountable for the atrocities of the holocaust. They moved on. They educate in schools in an attempt to prevent this from reoccurring.

                In principle, I agree with this, but in practice it seems to be having questionable long-term results. The rise of the extreme right seems as prevalent there as it is in the US. Though some of that may just be overreporting because of the general interest in Germany when it comes to right-wing extremism.

                What is happening in the US with republicans can only persist if people support them, and polling suggests there is support there.

                I think this issue is a bit more complex than that. I think it has to do as much or more with people being forced to support the side they feel less negative towards even if they don’t really agree with that side. Here is an interesting if imperfect analogy I read relating to it:

                Since the main topic is apparently too hot of a take, I’ll take pineapple on a pizza for example (Perhaps I’m getting into even hotter waters). Free of external influence (i.e. memes), I think most people will eat it without much thought. Some might like it, some might not, and I doubt it’s all that controversial–likely less than anchovies. If you don’t like it, you just don’t have to eat it.

                But if one extreme said we must ban pineapples from all pizzas, and the other end of the extreme said we must put pineapple on all pizzas, we have a very different scenario. I myself enjoy Hawaiian pizza and find pineapples to be a fine topping. But I certainly don’t want to eat only pineapple pizzas all the time. So, I’d look at both extremes and side with no pineapples ever. That seems better of the two options. I can no longer be a centrist because the idea of having only pineapple pizza seems horrible. But I don’t really eat whole pizzas by myself, I eat it with others. And if others are such great lovers of pineapple pizza, I’d be influenced to side with the other extreme of always having pineapple due to peers.

                I want to highlight that both of these extremes are authoritarian. One forces you to eat pineapple. The other forces you to not eat pineapple. Neither are true libertarian choices. They are forced viewpoints one forces on the other. That’s what forces people to have such strong negative emotion towards it. No one wants to be forced into things. This is important and I’ll come back to this later.

                Excerpt from https://lemmy.world/comment/3742406 from /u/[email protected]

                • @[email protected]
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                  21 year ago

                  My point was not about authoritarian. It is about the lies that are being told to the masses to convince them that being turkeys for Christmas is actually good for them. The lies have gone from extreme into the ridiculous. I watched Trump tell a crowd that climate change is not true and that he can sort out the forest fires tomorrow. He wants to make use of the wasted overflow pipes in cities. Where do you start on that one? Trump has caused murders literally; people died in the insurrection. He is affirmed as being a rapist in judicial hearing. In the UK we call this out as being a nonce. There were republican candidates who said they would follow Trump if he was elected while in prison. Worse still, this is only a minor take on the whole story. Boebert committing sex acts in front of kids. The open gerrymandering in states across the US. The attacks on the judicial system and civil employees. The way they used public servant wages as blackmail instead of using democratic leeway.

                  How far down the rabbit hole do you have to go before thinking that there is something wrong here, and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?

                  • @Nahvi
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                    01 year ago

                    Apologies, my intention wasn’t to imply you meant Authoritarianism is the main problem, but rather that I thought polarization was. Guess that is what I get for using part of someone else’s comment instead of writing my own.

                    I see your point. Trump is a lying, liar, who lies. The problem is America has mostly shifted from voting for someone to voting against someone. Trump vs Clinton was an unpopularity contest that America lost, and maybe the world too.

                    There are undeniably die hard trump supporters out there, but many people that voted for him in the last two elections, and who will likely vote for him again, aren’t really supporters of his, they are more against Biden and Democrats.

                    Between their hatred for the Democrats and the fact that “we got him this time” was turned into a meme four years ago, there are a good portion of Republicans that have started to treat anything negative about Trump as another attack to be dismissed. Even when they see a video of his own words, it is dismissed as taken out of context, a misquote, a deep fake, whatever works for them. However anything seemingly positive is laid at his feet.

                    The biggest problem at this point is attack ads and court cases just further convince the die hard supporters that he really is trying to “drain the swamp” and all the attacks are the response of the swamp. The individual issues that ridiculously pile up for a neutral observer are all just proof of his righteousness in their minds.

                    Have you seen a version of this article where anti-trump conservatives had to stop running ads against Trump because they were helping him or doing nothing? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/anti-trump-super-pac-says-attack-ads-are-backfiring/ar-AA1hsIwq

                    Trump is definitely a problem, but he’s also a symptom of the larger problem of polarization. In the past, moderates were able to keep things in balance, but right now being a moderate is nearly a crime to both wings. Republicans tend to call them “RINOs” and Democrats tend to call them “basically Republicans”.

                    I think even if we eliminate Trump, someone will quickly follow in his steps, and I am not convinced that it will necessarily be a Republican. Too many power-hungry people from across the spectrum have now seen that America is ripe for the taking by a certain kind of charismatic figure.

                    The only way to slow this down in my mind is to begin building a bridge between the two sides. As a start we need to first and foremost stop forcing centrists to choose a side. Then we need to find a few things we still agree on, before moving on to more challenging issues. If we cannot even find a few issues we agree with the other side, then we at least need to find some issues where the extremes agree with the moderates and build from there. If we cannot even do that then it probably about time to figure out whether we are going for French style political purges or a Roman style first princeps.

                    If we are throwing out the rule of law anyways them I am voting for the Governator! I am mostly kidding.

                    and I have to use my position to prevent more of it?

                    I lost you here. What position? Prevent more of what?

                    Also, sorry if this turned out a bit on the rambling side, I should have waited until morning to write this.

        • prole
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          481 year ago

          Christians love to play the victim, when you literally run the country.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Tangentially, my go-to aphorism when some American Christian starts whinging about how “persecuted” they are:

            get off the cross, we need the wood.

            And to be clear: any Christian in the US claiming “persecution” should be viewed with the same seriousness as white, upper-middle class people claiming everyone racist against white property… because both of those claims are categorically bullshit. Nobody in the US wants to or cares about persecuting white people or Christians. We just want all the Nationalist Christians to get the fuck out of our politics and stop trying to push theocratically-derived laws on the rest of us, because just like we don’t want to live under a Sharia legal system, we similarly don’t want to live under a biblical (or Torah-derived, or any-other-religious-text-derived) law system.

            • @[email protected]
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              01 year ago

              Theocratic Christians are such a minority that the risk of this is nil. This is like conservatives fear-mongering about the US going Stalinist.

              The US has never had a biblical law system and never will. (Certainly not in the near future, although with infinite time anything is possible).

          • @Nahvi
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            11 year ago

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        • @[email protected]
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          81 year ago

          Bigots and manipulating sociopaths have a difficult time reconciling that they’re terrible people.

        • @Xeknos
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          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            They randomly accused people they have no evidence of for commiting a crime. So yeah, they are being a bigot.

          • @Nahvi
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            01 year ago

            Looks like they are both bigots from here.

    • @pete_the_cat
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      1 year ago

      It’s Philly, this is nothing new (Edit: since people love twisting words, I meant violence in general not the specific targeting of an activist journalist for Christ sake). I grew up in South Jersey (half way in between Philly and Atlantic City, NJ) and there’s always a headline on the nightly news about “X people were killed in a shootout today in West/South/North Philly today”, most people don’t see it though since Philly is overshadowed by NYC (anyone from Central Jersey and North gets NYC news). Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole for the most part.

      Edit: I live in NYC for 5 years, it of course has shitty areas all over too. Everyone is trying to act like major cities are perfect, crime free areas. Did people forget that the Italian and Irish mobs ran NYC and Philly for decades?!

      • @Potatos_are_not_friends
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        521 year ago

        Having a home invader break into your house and gun you down is not a common occurrence, even in philly. It was a targeted attack.

        • @pete_the_cat
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          21 year ago

          I didn’t say that was a common occurrence, I was saying violence and murder is common in Philly. It’s literally on the news almost every night.

          Of course this was a targeted attack.

        • @jimbo
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        • @ABCDE
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          -151 year ago

          That’s not what they said.

            • @ABCDE
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              21 year ago

              They said shootings, not your very specific example. You got a reason for your shitty attitude?

            • @pete_the_cat
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              21 year ago

              No, it’s more like people are twisting my words. I simply meant violence and murder is nothing new in Philly. If you read the rest of what I wrote I clearly state that. Whose the one with selective reading?

      • @[email protected]
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        361 year ago

        This wasn’t someone gunned down in a shootout. This was a homeless and LGBT rights activist who was brutally murdered in his home.

        Nothing about that is ordinary.

        • @jimbo
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          11 months ago

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      • prole
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        1 year ago

        If you were halfway between Philly and Atlantic City, you were too far away from Philly to pretend to be an expert. But keep using that weak anecdotal “evidence” to continue your ignorant views on urban areas.

        Saying “Everything but Center City has always been a shit hole” gives you away. You have no fucking clue. Probably been at least a decade since you’ve driven within 30 miles of the city.

        • @pete_the_cat
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          21 year ago

          So apparently the ABC nightly news is “anecdotal evidence”. My aunt lives in Philly, my brother’s works there frequently, I’m pretty aware of how Philly is.

          • prole
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            1 year ago

            It’s sensationalist, absolutely.

            edit: ok you’re right, the ABC Nightly News isn’t sensationalist. 🙄

            I also like how immediately after you claim it’s not anecdotal, you talk about how you know people who live there lol

      • @[email protected]
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        91 year ago

        I mean, shootings in bad parts of Philly and Camden aren’t new, but they’re gang-related. This sort of crime detailed in the article is not common, even in Philly. This guy was targeted. Someone he likely knew was in his home, because no one had to break in (I highly doubt he didn’t lock his door), and 7 shots is overkill. Journalists aren’t being targeted like this on the regular.

        Source: grew up 20 minutes outside of Philly in South Jersey