Derivations on a Theme - In the Eye of the Beholder

What sort of idea, statement, cartoon, opinion or belief is offensive? There are no hard and fast rules. What may be deemed offensive by one person may not be deemed offensive by another.

Over at Fallen From Grace, Bruce posted a video that a Christian commenter felt was offensive because it mocks the Christian faith. (To those of us who are non-Christian, we found it quite hilarious.) What I want to focus in on is a comment left by Appalachian Agnostic.

It may seem unkind to poke fun at a belief, but look at what Christianity does. It tells us that we must either share that belief or be tortured forever after we die. How kind it that?

Of course, to most Christians, their belief in hell for non-believers isn't meant to be offensive -- it's God's truth! It is just the way things are.

What most Christians can't (or won't) wrap their minds around is that people who don't share their belief system do not accept the notion of their God and that this is the way things are. We think reality is far different. The vast majority of us don't believe in hell and many of us don't believe in any kind of afterlife at all.

So, it can be quite offensive to have people constantly haranguing or threatening you with an [after]life sentence of eternal misery because you don't accept their truth as your truth. It even is more maddening when the hellfire believers want to order society around the tenets of their belief system, particularly when a significant number of their fellow citizens don't share their "doom and gloom" convictions.