long winded fool

Do you use the word "christian" in the lip-service meaning? Is any guy who wants to belong to a club and so calls himself "christian" a christian? If so, then you would want to be a christian because you could be a part of a tightly knit club and go to church every sunday and meet other people just like you who are looking for friends and to engage in enjoyable social activities. And a little excercise of the imagination can be fun. Or you could play Dungeons and Dragons.

Or do you mean "christian" as someone who lives his life by the wisdom taught by Jesus the Christ? If so, you would want to be a christian because christians are happy, wise, and socially productive people.

Plognark

Not at all. The regular theists on this site, in my experiences, are easily ten times more consistent and well thought out in their beliefs than your garden variety echo-chamber christian oriented forum denizen, and often have valuable insights to offer that surpass normal knowledge of faith and what it takes to make it work.

_Naturalist_

Surely you don't need that much reasoning to have a religious faith? Wouldn't it be less of a faith in that case?

I'm not a theist, but I replied anyway... apparently.

Soul Invictus

This is too ironic.

Shake

NOOObody expects the Spanish Inquisition! :devil3:

Answerer

Thats easy. To give you hope in life and protection from Satan and his evil power.

Errr.....excluding from natural disasters and illnesses. :devil1: :devil1:

long winded fool

Isn't that magic? To be able to know that there is no reason to believe, and yet find your own truth in there anyway? Why can't you stand it? What is it about these people that must necessarily affect you in this way? What physical property do these people with an imaginary sense of purpose based on unexamined beliefs have or wield that they can cause you to get mad, or sad? It must be something physical if it can alter something in your mind, right? Isn't that what happens when we get upset? Something in our mind changes? Is there anything that these people have that they can use to turn you into something you don't want to be? Then why do you get mad, or sad? Do you care about the "why," or do you accept the feeling when it comes without any personal reflection and never doubt for a moment that it's really there, even though you can't explain how another person could control your emotions and mood in a non-physical way? Don't you accept as true something that has no inherent scientific truth? Do you resent it when someone calls these truths into question, even though you only react to them and never really think about it?

Magic is real, because we make it real. "Atheists" are no less guilty of it than "Christians." I know that I can change you without touching you. All I have to do is to say certain words in a certain order, and I can affect you in a negative or positive way. Isn't that magic? You think you don't believe in it, but you behave as though you do when another person alters your mood with nothing more than a hand gesture, or a few choice words. Why?

In order to take action against sorcery, you must first accept that it is real. Before judging those who for the sake of comfort believe unexamined things that upon examination are plainly false, make sure that you don't do the same. For the comfort that they base their beliefs around is plainly real, and isn't emotion all that really matters?

Classical

I see mentioned that faith is a sort of comfort mechanism. I just lost my cousin to cancer and my aunt (who has never been very religious) said she would have never made it without god. My aunt is basically a simple woman with a kind heart, so I wouldn't think of taking away her belief that her son is in heaven. However, I do find it frustrating that an adult can be so child like. Her making that comment struck me the same way as a little child giving me a dreamy-eyed look and telling me about what Santa brought them at christmas.

As it always happens to be the case, the problems come when christians are fanatics and use the bible as a weapon. This is an enormous problem in the the US - especially the south where it is the evangelical fanatics who are trying to take over everything. I'm frightened as a gay american and I've always been more or less a liberal republican. The republican party has been hijacked by the types of christians that would soon hang me from a tree as give me the right to marry my partener of ten years.

I think all christians, evangelicals and fundies alike need a reality check. This religion really is not helping better the world. What really is this faith? It seems to be nothing to me but a hoax - wishful thinking - escape into fantasy to avoid the unknown. Wouldn't we all be better off it faith was exposed for what it is? Wouldn't people be better off if they thought: "Do good, for it is good to do. Spurn bribe of heaven or threat of hell."?

Autonemesis

You cheeky bastard. If they could give you one good reason to believe, it wouldn't be faith anymore, now would it?

Autonemesis

What ethic is that? Kill the pure and innocent to pay for the sins of the guilty? Isn't that the "Jesus ethic" (aka the "Gospel") in a nutshell?