Relative Newcomer

Separation of church and state. I care if "a bunch of disillusioned people who hold some mythological figure as their savior" change the laws of the land. You should be concerned as well because the myth that becomes law may not be the brand of christianity that you profess to.

Religion, imo, impeeds progress. How many billions of dollars have been spent building and maintaining churches? How many billions of dollars have been tithed? If this money went into the education systems, if it went into the economies of the world, and so on and so forth instead of the pockets of churches and their leaders, we'd all be better off.

Magus55

And what makes you think thats acceptable by Christianity standards? I fully agree that the Pope living like a king and misusing all the money given to the Vatican is completely unChristian. Jesus never supported deceiving people out of their money so the Pope can live like a king. And churches should not be enormous multi million dollar structures. In the first century, people worshipped in their homes.

Your complaints have nothing to do with actual Christianity, other than the people involved claiming to be Christian. People misusing money has nothing to do with religion, anymore than any other organization. The Pope is just like a fraud in some other business. He represents a cult, not the teachings of Jesus. If you have problem with it, go take it up with the Vatican, and don't generalize about all of Christianity being that way. I'm sure there are tons of rich atheists who don't give money to education or the poor, and they just hoard more and more of it. So don't single Christianity out, when atheists are no better.

"Let he who is sinless cast the first stone".

emotional

Three letters to answer this question:

W

T

C



Because their beliefs are harmful to other people. I'm talking about fundamentalists only, of course. The type you see on RaptureReady and BaptistBoards.

It's not the Christians that need to be saved, it's the free world that needs to be saved from Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. Think WTC again.

Hopeful Monsters

magus55 ...

that's kind of the point - Christians don't confine it to the home, which is where so much aggravation starts, bringing us to the core of the OP's topic.

Instead, superstitious belief in the supernatural encoils the State, everyday life, the broadcast media, State and non-State education, political philosophy - you can add other examples yourself - can't you.

King Rat

Okay, here comes the stone:

The christianity we have now is exactly as you describe in the above quote, it is 'actual' christianity. Whether it is the catholic brand or not. If you are saying that some christian utopian ideal has yet to be met, I certainly agree. The problems plaguing the catholic church are not confined to the just the catholic church. To imply otherwise would be less than honest.

factfinder

Quote:
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Can you please explain to me how taoism has had such a huge following over the past 2500 years?

Can you please explain to me how islam has had such a huge following over the past 1600 years?

Can you please explain to me how judaism has had such a huge following over the past 2000+ (sorry, I don't know exactly how far back the religion goes) years?

What about hinduism? What about buddhism?

Ad populum, my friend, is a popular but fallacious argument for Christianity. And with that, I bid you adieu.
__________________________________________________ _

Me: Well, I'm no religious expert but I suppose that their survival resides in a need for spirituality as it conforms to cultural ideals.
As a sidenote, Islam acknowledges the historicity of Jesus and, moreover, acknowledges him as a great prophet. So, ironically, this builds a case for the historicity of Jesus.

Ad populum - That's cute....I'm guessing that means the popular appeal of Christianity. You are quite right, I should not have suggested that popular opinion ever proves the 'legitimacy' of anything (I'm sure that most Germans thought the Holocaust seemed like a good idea at the time). This part is only a piece of the argument for apologetics. It was not my intention to dogmatically say that was the only proof.
__________________________________________________ __

Back to the topic: what motivates the atheist to 'rescue' the Christian from their ridiculous belief?

braces_for_impact

And once again we see Magus55 trying desperately to seperate his religion from those evil Catholics he seems to revile so much. This is a constant source of entertainment for me, how many protestant religions do this. Face it, your religion (like just about every other sect of Christianity) is a direct result of the catholic church, and even many of your major doctrines were invented by Catholics.

No true Scottsman falacy.

Godless Sodomite

It certainly does. If xianity weren't vile in addition to being false, it wouldn't be anything worth paying the slightest attention to. But we have a dumbo in the White House whose allegiance to his imaginary friend is the only thing keeping him from a lifetime membership to the Betty Ford Clinic. And did you hear? We're all sinners; he said so himself this past Wednesday. I most definitely am not a sinner, since the very concept is incoherent, superstitious nonsense. And because his worldview is so completely detached from reality, he thinks he has the right to impose his dogma on me and my relationships. If that's not worth a hardy "Fuck you Dubya and the Jesus you rode in on!" I don't know what is.

Then there's the fucking pope and his new seven-language document reiterating just what an ignorant hateful man he and his cronies are in case anyone's forgotten. If the various Jesus cults would just leave me the fuck alone, we needn't have any conversation on the issue.

But until that day, it's vitally important that people be told the truth about KKKristianity: it's opportunist authoritarianism that preys on weak minds and has no bearing on reality.

-Jerry

Selsaral

Did you check out the political forum? Lots of heavy-handed wrangling over politics. Ever gone to harmony-central.com forums and seen the hilarious arguments about metallica, fender vs gibson etc? I think it's simply human nature to discuss and argue about things. If shouting matches break out over which brand of guitars is better, you're surely going to get a lot of people arguing heatedly about religion, which has a significantly greater impact on people's lives.

Asha'man

I originally came here to defend myself. I knew Christianity was full of it, but wanted to see what other arguments were used to demonstrate it. I needed to learn where this absurd fairy tale started, and how so many people came to follow it.

I stayed here because we have a slice of truth that most of the world has missed. I hate lies, I hate ignorance, I hate superstition. Religion is nothing but lies, ignorance, and superstition, so I fight it. It's a moral obligation.

At the practical level, I fight it to defend myself. There are too many people tying to impose their stupidity on others, especially by manipulating the laws of the land. If I can expose that supidity, perhaps I can block it's effects.