moiii

I’m not one for long drawn out speeches, so I’ll be brief. Why bother discussing and trying to disprove the validity of the Bible and the inaccuracies of Christianity? In my opinion, if one is comfortable in his beliefs, he shouldn’t have to continually convince himself or others of what he believes, if he really believes.

Echo

Because I find it incredibly fascinating and very, very entertaining..in fact, it's some of the best cheap entertainment around, in my opinion.

It always puzzles me that people act surprised to find out that human beings actually have differences of opinion on what kinds of hobbies are fun. For the life of me, I can't figure out why my husband enjoys putting a little ball around the grass with a club, but I don't nag him about it. He enjoys it. I don't. That's life.

JerryM

I agree with that completely. But the Bible says that Jesus commissioned his disciples to go and actively spread the Gospel throughout the world. And evangelicals at least, take this as a solemn directive that non-believers should be converted. Not to pick on Christians, but Muslims too feel non-believers are infidels who should be opposed. It would be great if all religions had a live-and-let-live attitude, but too many do not. And this derives directly from their doctrines.

Draygomb

For me it's a War against age old lies that need to be corrected for a better future.

moiii

Jerry

I agree.

Orpheous99

We wouldn't bother if it were just that, but most theists want to force their superstitous and ignrance based beliefs on all by any means necessary.

Datheron

Well, after all, we are social animals. It would be a whole lot less fun if we all kept to ourselves, residing within our little spheres of subjective opinion, right? This is the line between being "somewhat politically correct" and "accomodating to everyone else so that you have no stance at all".

DarkBronzePlant

Because the fact that 80-or-so% of Americans believe in fairy tales is incredibly sad to me. I can either cry about it or get some laughs over it. I prefer the latter.

CX

I think you make some pretty broad assumptions here. First you assume that discussion of the bible from a critical perspective is a priori aimed at refuting or disproving something. Having spent considerable time studying the Xian New Testament (throughout the course of an overall interest in comparative religion) both as a believer and a non-believer (though considerably more in the latter category than the former) I think the entire notion of "disproving" the bible makes about as much sense as "disproving" Catcher in the Rye.

As to your comment about belief, the fact is human beings are social animals with a complex social structure that incorporates "in-groups" and "out-groups". We naturally want people to hold the same beliefs we do. Perhaps sometimes it is related to an insecurity on our parts, but very often it is either nothing more than an interest in stimulating debate or and effort to propound the truth to others. This is nowhere more true than in the Xian ethos. Surely you aren't saying that every Xian who evangelizes is insecure in his or her belief?

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: CowboyX ]</p>

britinusa

I'm not one for long drawn out answers, so I'll give you one example of what we're up against:
George Bush Sr. stated that atheists don't deserve to be U.S. citizens. That alone is enough incentive for atheists in this country to tear your religion to shreds.

[ February 20, 2002: Message edited by: britinusa ]</p>