Top Ten Signs that You're a Christian

[Yazata]

I have had direct experiences with both atheism and religion over the years. In my experience, religion tends to promote a more positive message for right or wrong. While atheism seems more on the offensive, promoting an anti-message. For example, the debate between creation and evolution has religion seeking inclusion, while atheist seeks exclusion. Religion offers choice while atheism wants to make that choice for you. It is ironical that reason wants to be dogmatic and religion allows free choice.

I disagree pretty vehemently with your example.

Creationism is demanding that it be included as part of the content of science. That might seem harmless enough and perhaps even a good, tolerant and inclusive thing to do. The problem is that creationism isn't science. It's thinly-veiled religious doctrine and its presence in science and science teaching would distort and subvert the nature of science. (Which of course is the goal.)

Imagine the mirror image situation: Suppose that scientists were agitating for laws that required that science and its attendent empirical naturalism be included in religious doctrine. Make sure that congregations leave church with the idea pounded in that doubt about the superatural is as much a part of the Christian tradition as Jesus. Can you imagine the screaming from the churches at that kind of suggestion?

Just as religious doctrine isn't science, science isn't religious doctrine. The requirement that science and the scientific attitude be taught in churches as an integral part of the religious tradition would be subversive of religious tradition, turning it into something that it's not and has never been. (Luckily, the Constitution forbids such a law here in the United States.)

It is about time for atheism to get beyond its own irrationality, which makes it come across as another religion. It is suppose to based on science and logic, which by definition, is not suppose to be about emotional appeal. To someone on the outside, this seems like smoke and mirrors, which is why one gets the impression of just another religion, with irrationality at its core, but with only a surface shell of reason.

Minimally speaking, atheism is just a lack of belief in theism. It doesn't really have an organization, method or doctrine. That means that it's difficult to speak about atheism in the same way that we speak about something like Roman Catholicism that has its own hierarchy, history, beliefs and elaborate traditions.

What we are faced with are individual atheists. Some atheists are seemingly always angry, hostile and abusive, but most aren't. Unfortunately, the aggressive ones are more apt to make themselves known to people that they disagree with.

The same phenomenon is visible in how Christianity impacts outsiders. Most Christians are relaxed and open-minded about their faith, but the ones that wave Bibles crazily in non-Christians' faces represent the most uncompromising, hard-core, militant believers. So the targets/victims sometimes come away with the idea that Christianity consists of nothing but rabid fundies. I suspect that Islam suffers from similar perceptual distortions, made worse by the fact that the anti-modern medievalist militancy seems more widespread, more pronounced and more violent in Islam than in other communities.

 

[birch]

Most Christians are relaxed and open-minded about their faith, but the ones that wave Bibles crazily in non-Christians' faces represent the most uncompromising, hard-core, militant believers

i disagree, unfortunately. it is the nature of fundamental religions to not be as tolerant. from my experience it is that most christians and christian sects including protestantism tend to not be tolerant, relaxed or open-minded. they sometimes pretend to be initially until you really get into it with them and you find out that's just an act. this doesn't include those who just identify as whatever their parents were on technicality but have no serious interest in religion anyways. i know what i'm talking about as i've been a member of many churches and across many different states as well as interacted with the lot of them and even different denominations tried by my family all through growing up. yes, there are some very open-minded christians but that has been more a rarity. today, christians aren't as pushy perhaps because they just don't get away with it so much as before.

there are philosophies and religions that do include christians if they want to join, however. sometimes this is usually do to lifestyle choice (homosexual christians, for instance) or some other reason that a christian would veer to a more open-minded or tolerant philosophy such as bahai, universalist etc.

 

[Zach Abear]

I hate how some Atheists give Atheism a bad name. I am Atheist because it makes sense. I also have just as many morals as Christians, if not more than most of them. I realize hypocrisy, and keep an open mind (yes even to Christians). I believe not only in coexistence of all religions, but synergy between them.

If there was a god, I believe he would accept anybody that was good willed. I don't like it when religious people bash atheists, but I devotedly HATE it when Atheists bash religious people. You talk about Christian hypocrisy while you are being hypocrites yourself. Please stop. :bawl:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I don't like it when religious people bash atheists, but I devotedly HATE it when Atheists bash religious people. You talk about Christian hypocrisy while you are being hypocrites yourself. Please stop.

For more than a thousand years, the Christians and Muslims have erupted into orgies of violence and genocide every two or three generations, in order to seize or reinforce their leadership position. Even the Jews have become aggressors, after centuries of being everyone else's punching bag.

In an age of nuclear weapons and an interconnected globe-spanning society, this rancor threatens to bring down civilization. Abrahamic religion is arguably the greatest evil that has ever arisen on this planet. Its core beliefs are so incompatible with tolerance, equality, science and all the other essential elements of civilization that all it can do to strengthen itself is destroy civilization and return to the Stone Age, when religion was easily evangelized to ignorant, selfish, competitive tribes.

Abrahamism reinforces our atavistic tribal instinct. Therefore, bashing the Abrahamic religions and the fundamentalist factions among them is essential to the survival of civilization.

Perhaps you're one of the brainwashed multitude who will say, "What about Communism? That was an atheist philosophy that killed millions." Communism was an offshoot of Christianity: Marx's motto, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" is an elaboration of a line from the Book of Acts. No self-respecting Hindu or Confucian would invent an economic system in which what a man takes from civilization need not correlate with what he gives back.

The monotheistic religions are deadly bullshit and the people who fall for the fundamentalist version of it are fools who are trying to destroy mankind's greatest achievement: civilization. They deserve no respect and they will get none from me.

 

[birch]

consider how many of those works and philosophers were influenced by the bible.

i just don't understand how you reason. the bible is filled with ideas that preceded it. it's not completely original. even the famous golden rule preceded the bible. like duh?

how can one honestly make such a statement like this. you make it seem as if it's the only or original source of ethics.

even remote tribes have developed natural sense of ethics. where do you think it comes from? do you think even the ones who wrote the bible just came up with it out of thin air (some of it they did) or it came from life experience too? of course the latter.

do you think a person has to be taught to be sad, angry or experience a sense of moral indignation when their family is killed or they are abused or hurt etc? or that it's unpleasant when someone is mean to you?

this is all basic stuff. get a grip. just because something is written down doesn't mean it's not human or life experience that others can't recognize or it's something that is entirely new.

 

[Zach Abear]

For more than a thousand years, the Christians and Muslims have erupted into orgies of violence and genocide every two or three generations, in order to seize or reinforce their leadership position. Even the Jews have become aggressors, after centuries of being everyone else's punching bag.

In an age of nuclear weapons and an interconnected globe-spanning society, this rancor threatens to bring down civilization. Abrahamic religion is arguably the greatest evil that has ever arisen on this planet. Its core beliefs are so incompatible with tolerance, equality, science and all the other essential elements of civilization that all it can do to strengthen itself is destroy civilization and return to the Stone Age, when religion was easily evangelized to ignorant, selfish, competitive tribes.

Abrahamism reinforces our atavistic tribal instinct. Therefore, bashing the Abrahamic religions and the fundamentalist factions among them is essential to the survival of civilization.

Perhaps you're one of the brainwashed multitude who will say, "What about Communism? That was an atheist philosophy that killed millions." Communism was an offshoot of Christianity: Marx's motto, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" is an elaboration of a line from the Book of Acts. No self-respecting Hindu or Confucian would invent an economic system in which what a man takes from civilization need not correlate with what he gives back.

The monotheistic religions are deadly bullshit and the people who fall for the fundamentalist version of it are fools who are trying to destroy mankind's greatest achievement: civilization. They deserve no respect and they will get none from me.

There is nothing wrong with bringing up evidence about the wrong doings of religions to discuss, but what I don't like is the hate written behind it. Just because someone follows a group that is guilty of so many things doesn't mean that they are guilty of it. Actually, the blind faithful have contributed a lot to society by instilling morality and good will.

Avoid posts that promote hatred among different religions, ethnic groups or nations.

Link: Rules

 

[NMSquirrel]

Why are you attacking and belittling me? Simply adding "Perhaps" before your insult doesn't change that fact that you said it.

Perhaps you're one of the brainwashed multitude

i did not read it as an insult,more of an opinion about ppl who say 'what about communism?'..
so i don't think it was a personal attack..:shrug:

Excuse my language, but why the hell are you a moderator if you insist on using diction with a hateful connotation. Can you follow your own rules?

too quick on the gripe..there are worse and he can do better..

 

[Zach Abear]

Meh, if I'm going to be here for awhile you'll have to learn to be careful around me. I am defensive, especially since communication is only 7% words. The rest is tone and body language.

Excuse me, the foundation of my argument on the 'insult' was weak.

However, I do believe you can use more respectful diction, Fraggle Rocker.

 

[gmilam]

However, I do believe you can use more respectful diction, Fraggle Rocker.

Why should he? Seriously! Most religious people think we're going to hell. How respectful is that?

 

[PsychoTropicPuppy]

Most? I thought all who believe in the Bible would think so. *shrugs*

 

[birch]

Why should he? Seriously! Most religious people think we're going to hell. How respectful is that?

exactly. they have heinous beliefs and opinions of non-christians and non-theists.

 

[Yazata]

What is it that atheists want?

If they just want to be ignorant jerks like so many religious fundies are, then that's easy enough to accomplish. It's not a very high bar to clear.

But if atheists want to do better than that, if they really want to be the thoughtful, educated and scientific people that they so often claim to be, then they are going to have to do better than that.

 

[PsychoTropicPuppy]

Strange, people talk about atheism as if it was some organisation...

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

There is nothing wrong with bringing up evidence about the wrong doings of religions to discuss, but what I don't like is the hate written behind it. Just because someone follows a group that is guilty of so many things doesn't mean that they are guilty of it.

I wholeheartedly agree and I carefully avoid categorizing people who identify themselves as Christians as evil until I get to know them better and can tell whether they are actual evil fundamentalists or merely typical Christians in Western society who reject the evil parts.

Actually, the blind faithful have contributed a lot to society by instilling morality and good will.

But on the balance they have done more harm than good. How much "morality and good" does it take to balance out the Crusades; the hundred years of Holy Wars that marked the beginning of the Reformation; the obliteration of the "heathen" Aztec and Inca civilizations; the Inquisition; the millennium of often-deadly antisemitism that virtually defined European Christendom; the Holocaust that was its culmination? This is what your "blind faithful have contributed to society."

I hate the Abrahamic religions, just as I hate any philosophy that works to destroy civilization, but I do my best not to hate their members without finding out just how tribal they are about it.

However, I do believe you can use more respectful diction, Fraggle Rocker.

Perhaps I was not clear enough: The Abrahamic religions are pure bullshit, and the sooner they disappear the sooner we can get around to solving the myriad problems they have caused. Monotheistic religion is a cancer on this poor planet and it needs to be healed. Unfortunately, since violence is not the way to heal it (we know that from our ancestors' experience), this may take thousands of years, and I hope civilization can survive that long.

Anyone who hews to a truly fundamentalist Stone Age version of Judaism, Christianity or Islam is an enemy of civilization and therefore he is my own enemy. He will not receive any respect from me, beyond the minimum that is required of me, as a good American, by the First Amendment to our Constitution.

All religions must be tolerated, no matter how horrible they are. Not because this is such a great idea, but because there is no better idea: doing anything else about them always ends up worse.

But I am under no obligation to tolerate them politely or in silence. Merely in peace.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Top 10 signs you're an on-fire-for-Jesus Born-Again Christian:
1--You have a beautiful glow.
2--You have peace and joy unspeakable.
3--You have power you can get from nowhere else.
4--You have everything your heart desires.
5--You get people churched/saved and you LOVE it!
6--You enjoy worshiping Jesus/God and do it all day.
7--You see/perform "miracles" and KNOW the Bible is the living Word of God.
8--You have a personal relationship with the coolest God of all.
9--The hole in your soul is filled with the most awesome love.
10--You get to spend eternity with Jesus/God in Heaven.

Remember Sandy.
I used to enjoy her posts.
She was great until she finally flipped.

 

[Pinwheel]

I miss sandy. She was basically banned for finding Jesus.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

No, she wasn't Pinwheel.
She was banned because she started posting incredibly racist comments about Mexicans.
I could hardly believe the content of some of them. Rabid hate.

That was a great gif though, wasn't it?
I'll have to look up commentcastle.com and see what else they have.
Here's one

No, sorry Sandy. You're banned.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Here's an even better one.

He he

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I miss sandy. She was basically banned for finding Jesus.

No. She was banned for racism and political trolling. Religious trolling will get a person banned in five seconds, but that wasn't what did her in.

The post quoted by the Captain would not count as trolling on this thread because it fits the whimsical, humorous style established in the O.P. I assume the same was true of the thread where it was posted.

 

[Lori_7]

I miss sandy. She was basically banned for finding Jesus.

sandy wouldn't know jesus if he sat on her face. hateful, bigoted, political, self-worshiping, you know what.

:grumble:

ps...i forgot greedy elitist capitalist pig.