Starboy

Good for you Stormy. If you don't mind another question. How many Christians within the US population would it take that answered yes to both questions to make life difficult for those that were not Christians? 5%, 10%, 50%?

Starboy

Stormy

You must understand that all people who claim the title of Christian do not act in a manner as Jesus instructed.

It is not possible for a Christian to make life difficult for anyone if they are living Christ's message of Love.

Maybe you do not have to defeat the Christian.

Maybe instead you can ask them to live their religion to its fullest!

Starboy

Stormy, I am not out to defeat the law abiding Christian. However if the Christian will not be a proper citizen then I am out to defeat them as I would any group that ignores the law of the land and the constitution.

As to your first comment, from where I sit you are no different than any other Christian, since your Christianity is also self proclaimed. Until god can put an identifiable visible mark that only it can make on those it acknowledges to be proper Christians your claims of Christianhood are no better than anyone elses.

To your second point, as long as the Christian is not willing to keep it to themselves and live and let live, they will at the very least be annoying to those that are aware of their message but want none of it.

Stormy, the management of this site encourages you to visit and post here and I support them in their hosipitality. Do yourself a favor and disregard everything you have ever been taught about atheists, have an open mind and educate yourself. You will learn more by asking questions then by spouting Christian propaganda. Believe me, we have all heard it many times before. It wasn't convincing then and there is no reason for you to expect that it will be convincing now.

Starboy

Bree

Gee, I love oversimplification.

Your existance does not threaten. Your belief in God does not threaten. Problems arise when theists start infringing upon the beliefs of others by insisting it's their "right" to do so because God is in their corner. I have friends who are Christians - they most certainly do not threaten my life or my happiness. However, when they start ragging on me in the name of Jesus (i.e. "the Bible says that women are not allowed to drink alcohol in the presence of men" or "I'm really glad, in a backwards way, that you don't go to church, because Paul said only men belong in church") - well, that's when things get weird.

Rhea

Maybe you should acknowledge that this is YOUR JOB, not ours. Eh?

For a couple of reasons.
1. Are you really asking US to determine what Christianity ought to be and demand people live up to it? Doesn't that seem INSANE?
2. It doesn't make much difference to me if I label all the Christinas right or if I understand their religion right. Seems like YOU'RE the one with a vested interest in making Christianity work right.

Until I start to see Christians take each other to task and actually agree on what Christianity is, I'm not going to appoint myself to this job.

eh?

(edited to add: ) I never have been able to figure out why Christians spend even a moment "bringing the Gospel" to non-CHristians when there are millions of people calling themselves Christians who are apparently not and they are giving you a bad name and undermining your evangelism. So it seems like a no brainer for Christians to police themselves first. And come to agreement on what makes one a christian. And only then to bring this cohesive message - that is shown to work - out to the heathens.

Meanwhile, I am shaking my head again at your suggestion that we stop trying to defeat christianity and its negative impact on us and instead focus on defining christianity better for the people who claim to be defined by it.

Amazing.

mike_decock

Not all people who claim the title of Christian act in a manner you believe Jesus instructed. The "Christ-Like" manner of behavior is as differently interpreted as the manner of behavior of those who claim the title of Christian.

-Mike...

Mageth

From GeoTheo:

It's funny how fast Christianity becomes a scourge of the Earth after people profess atheism. All the good they saw in it all those years just kind of seems to evaporate over night.

From Stormy:

I am a Christian.

How is it that I threaten your life and happiness?

First, Stormy, I'm not addressing this to you as a Christian but to Christianity as a belief system.

The beliefs of Christianity require one to love, worship and serve a God that, according to most believers, will send, condemn, allow, permit, or just not prevent (however you choose to believe it; the results are the same) the majority of humanity to an eternity of suffering in Hell.

I know that some Christians have done away with this particularly distasteful aspect of their belief system, but that's what Christianity has mostly taught from the beginning. And that's what the majority of Christians believe today.

To reduce that to a real-world scenario involving me, Christianity is the belief system that requires my parents, my wife, most of my siblings, and most of the rest of my rather large family to love, worship and serve a God that will require or allow me, my sister, and one or two of my cousins to go to Hell to suffer for the sin of non-belief. And the belief system also teaches that they (the believers) will spend a blissful eternity in Heaven worshipping and loving this God while knowing my sister and I are spending an eternity in Hell. Think about how it makes me and my sister feel knowing that our own parents and siblings believe this.

So don't talk about Christianity being the scourge of the earth; it's the scourge of families, that's what's important to me. Don't talk about how this not threatening my life and happiness. My life and happiness are deeply affected by Chrisitian beliefs. Don't even talk to me about the "good" that's been seen in Christianity, when its core belief is so depraved and despicable. That's the best way to describe a belief system that requires a mother and father to love, worship and serve a God they believe allows or requires such a fate for their own children.