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by wat10000 54 days ago
That's not quite what I meant. I'm not asking why this network exists rather than the other one. My point is that when we read the phrase "Christian phone network," we all immediately know that it's going to be something that blocks homosexual content rather than something that donates to feed the hungry, just from those three words. The rhetorical question is, why is that what the word "Christian" means now?
2 comments

Because if it were a charity phone network,

1. It wouldn't be posted here or anywhere else, it wouldn't even be reported on.

2. It would just be called a charity phone network.

3. Generally you don't need to self-segregate unless the outer world is opposed to certain values you have. When something is a Christian alternative, it's an alternative against some societal trend (porn being common). If it isn't incompatible with society, it doesn't need to segregate, so wouldn't; it would just be a phone network that donates to charity and it would attract all kinds. So an X phone network is automatically about the parts of X that are not commonly shared values among society, not about any arbitrary value X holds.

It's the same answer. Polarization pressure causes us to hear the word "Christian" and think only of the controversial parts of Christianity. Notice how you yourself are focusing on their block of LGBT content, even though the source article makes it clear their primary focus is blocking pornography.

You could define the product according its proponents' values, rather than focusing on where they disagree with yours. Then it'd be less polarizing. But I suspect you'd argue that it's less informative to do that, perhaps even outright misleading.

So actually, every one of the four things they list (Jesus-centric, void of pornography, void of LGBT, void of trans) disagrees with my values. I’m not focusing on where they disagree, I’m just taking a shortcut in my writing.