If we are to live but one life then shouldn't that life be of our choosing? Should it not be our primary aim to live how we perceive our life should be lived? Should we not then allow others the same grace? Telling me my God doesn't exist in your matter-of-fact way is by nature apposed to the very 'teachings' you preach.

But alas, don't you Christians in turn say your God does exist in such a matter-of-fact way? Yes. But by your reasoning death is the end and today has no recourse on the future, by ours death is a step, one that can be good or can be bad. Is it not then most loving or most beautiful that we want you to have the opportunity that we also believe we have?

If you do not believe in our God, do not think you are doing us favors by trying to sway us. Most of us have seen both sides of the world and have chosen accordingly.

No one Christian alone is evil nor congregates to do evil. Would it not be fair to say the evil done has been done in the name of the church but not by the church. No Christian nor catholic for that matter could rape a young boy and conceive for their judgment to be lenient.

~

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

i like your thread title

i like your girlfriend

What does this have to do with the truth value of their beliefs?

I don't like your attitude

Nothing really. The way to eternal life has always been the narrow way. So its not surprising when so many Christians can't find the narrow way any more that nobody likes them. Even a lot of prominent Christian leaders don't teach the narrow way any more.

mahatma?

No, Don Corner of Evangelical Outreach. He takes on Calvin and several of the major figures in evangelical tv circles today by refuting the "Once Saved Always Saved" Doctrine.

Here's a sample of his doctrinal exegesis:
http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/sm.htm

Sorry that was to Quad_me's.

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time. – Mahatma Gandhi

Religion was a construct to use our weaknesses to divide us and encourage us to forget about our personal responsibility to G-d and our fellow man, who like us, were put here for a reason. Gandhi was aware of this and realized the futility of valuing possessions and institutions.

I believe that Christ's message was to teach and not follow, and Christianity seems like the opposite of that message. Learning the teachings of the Bible inside a million dollar church seems like a grand exercise in futility. Somewhere in the Bible it may say to give back 10% of your wages to your man, and along the way the word 'man' has devolved into 'church', which is a colossal failure, imo.

to compare the teachings of a man who advocated abandoning all material wealth and living a monk-like existence with the money-spinners who advertise on cable TV and build gigantic "churches" for their nicely tithing flock is pretty sick IMO.

Linked only by name and loose (false) association, nothing more.


H

.

I'm telling you now.... believe in me and I will cure you

Ironically, Christians are often accused of twisting Christ into what they want him to be to fit their own worldviews, but this is obviously what you've done here.

I could quote page after page of Jesus telling people to get rid of all other Gods but him, preaching that he is the one true path to salvation, telling people to stop sinning and turn to him alone....

Have you ever given even a cursory read to the New Testament? Because everything you seem to attribute to Christians but not to Christ comes straight out of the gospels.

Also before you go nuts on me, I'll give you a disclaimer since you're new. I'm not Christian. I'm not trying to convert you, I don't care if you believe in Christ or not.

I agree with you 100% quads. It is interesting to see how, genrally speaking, the "church" has infact moved away from the most important teaching according to Jesus: The most important commandment. "A lawyer asked him a question, testing him: 'Teacher, which is the most important commandment?' And he said to him,... 'Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these'" (Mark 12:28-31). Yet this is forgotten because, well, its easier to look at someone and say "look how sinful that person is" then to say, "I love you no matter what you say or do", that takes real guts.

i really like that passage from Mark. however i think jesus was misquoted - didn't he say to love everyone unless they are gay or a believer of a different religion or a believer of no religion, etc?

he didnt?

oh - well then... why do so many christians judge others and feel that anyone who isn't a christian is "wrong" ? ? ? ? ?

If we discount all the so-called churches that guilt-trip and entice their way into millions of dollars, we're left with a bunch of small-to-medium sized churches that do not resemble the megachurches.

Please don't be so quick to generalize. Many of these so-called Christians represent the larger body of Christians just as much as the 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes in 2001 represent Muslims and Stalin's regime represent atheists.

Christians are still human, and still make mistakes. They're not perfect beings just because they follow Jesus. And then of course there are those who call themselves Christians but do not follow Jesus.

The fact that people call themselves Christians does not automatically make them Christians (Merriam-Webster: one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ). (Of course, Christians can be either Democrats or Republicans, so I'm not making any form of correlation in the following example.) If Bob calls himself a Democrat, but voted for Republican policies and candidates every time, either out of a mistaken understanding of what a Democrat was or for any other odd reason, we would still consider him to be a Republican, regardless of what he calls himself.

tl;dr is bolded

Oh please. First, when Jesus says no one can judge but Him, he's talking about eternal salvation, not, "Oh damn girl, those shoes make your butt look fat!" If a Christian says someone is wrong about something, they're not breaking Jesus' commandment. If they say, "I know that person is going to hell" then, they probably are.

Second, you're completely cherry picking this passage and ignoring every other damn thing Jesus said. He also said:

"I came not to bring peace, but a sword."

"No one comes to the Father except through me."

"Go, and sin no more." [In context: The story of the prostitute he forgives and tells the person with no sin to throw the first stone. After he forgives her, he tells her to stop sinning.]

“What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

Oh look, a whole list of things Jesus is condemning.

The list goes on. Jesus is judging people constantly.

lol Jeebus ..really?..

haha "if a christian says someone is wrong they probably are"

RIIIIIIIIGHT!

you are the epitome of what is wrong with religious people.

OP I'm starting to understand why Christians are so disliked by atheists but at the same time I don't think atheists understand the nature of Christians very well.

They dislike the Christians for not acting like Christians then they dislike the Christians who do act like Christians for being too repressive.

But faith is not just a set of beliefs you adopt. Faith is an attitude. Its suppose to have life you're suppose to walk it. Some walk it better than others. Some know doctrine better than others. Some have better hearts than others. And all Christians are some complex individualized mix of all three.

In general atheists are weak in Christian doctrine. They always know the hard literalist outer shell and never the warm inner substance. So if they don't know the inner substance they can't accurately understand it.

So who cares if someone who doesn't know what a Christian is supposed to be doesn't like them? I mean we should care. We should care to educate them. Because their reaction shows they really don't understand the spirit behind the doctrine at all. Christianity is usually an appearance versus reality type truth. People are trained by the world to judge things but worldly rules don't apply to Christians. We live by a different code. Its just some people don't make the transition over very well to the new code. Application and Implementation is always slower than the directions on the paper.

So I think you're just another uneducated person who's been deceived by the appearance versus reality game that the world plays on everyone.

Three lines of text and there's not enough facepalm jpgs on the internet to express how absurdly wrong you are.

I said:



What's the topic of this paragraph?

Oh, right - it's "breaking Jesus' commandment (about judging people). Apply even a tiny bit of reading comprehension and it's pretty obvious I'm speaking about a person breaking Jesus' commandment. (Should I say it again to make even clearer?)

If a person says "I know that person is going to hell" they are breaking Jesus commandment against judging others. If they say "damn, those jeans make her butt look fat" that has nothing to do with Jesus' command against judging others.

Also, I am not religious in any way, shape, or form.

So pretty much if you've ever read anything else I've ever posted on this board, bothered to utilize even a tiny bit of reading comprehension, or, I'm guessing, even let my post pass through your brain for two seconds before hitting the reply button, then your post makes absolutely no damn sense.

Thanks for trying though, I guess.

reading comprehension is a moot point when the book in question is fiction.

also pretty sure that the point of christianity isn't for every single christian to be able to determine who is going to hell. only your god is to determine who is going to heaven or hell.

again, a moot point to me considering i do not believe in your god, your heaven or your hell. since you do believe in these things, it looks like you have some stuff to work out.

ps: the fact that you would consider "facepalming" me and that you are attempting to "put me in my place" is an indictment on a judgmental christian. fyi.

This has got to be a level. Read my last post.

1. I am aware the Christians aren't supposed to determine who is going to hell. This is exactly what I previously posted.

2. Your reading comprehension has nothing to do with anything fictional, it has to do with your ability to comprehend what I've already posted.

3. I do not believe in God or heaven or hell. This is exactly what I previously posted.

4. (p.s.) the fact that you take an atheist stating that Jesus' commandment is to not judge who is and isn't going to hell, as evidence of judgmental Christians is....lol.

Seriously dude, learn to read. Here's exactly what happened.

I posted in a simple and direct fashion.
You completely misunderstood.
I posted a rebuttal basically calling you an idiot for not bothering to comprehend what you were reading, then made my original post even simpler.
You completely misunderstood again, and here we are.

If you're trolling, well played sir. If you're not, well, I'd tell you to shut off your computer, but even if you can understand the directions (which I doubt), I sincerely doubt your ability to find the "off" button on your computer anyway.

sorry - i didn't read your entire post ;-)

would've been a great level hehe