~Jesus said the wheat and the tares grow up together and they look alike-there is no way to tell for sure who is a true christian-we can generally say those who hold to the essentials of the historic faith would be orthodox

btw 80 percent of this country claim to be christians-just because you claim to be one doesnt make it so but there are prob more christians in this country than in the rest of the world-the US could be worse…with all these damn christians you would think it would be awful based on your post?

Let us at least agree that “Christian” is a self-definition

~everything is a self definition we define ourselves the way we want to-there are still facts

As we’ve said before, we don’t believe in your god. It’s not as if we “know” he exists,

~how do we know anything? are you truly open minded like i said i am open minded to the possib of no God in fact i have a lot of sex and drugs and rockroll to gain from non God

Culture generally reflects this knowledge.

~depends on the culture -my sociology prof taught me that everything is relative

We are social animals, working best in cohesion with one another.

~wasnt the 20th century the bloodiest century in history?

These factors increase the chances that we will do the right thing for society and for ourselves in a given situation.

~why do we have locks on the door?

In simple terms, most people don’t have much incentive to hurt other people for short-term gain,
and thus do not have any wish to.

~where do you live? i want to move there-why does communism generally suck? because people do not treat other with equity see communist russia or cuba?

as far as more examples of hurting people-see Sudan or even the current housing crisis-greed-

Few things about Christianity are in any way moral.

~show me one thing Jesus did that was not moral?

Also, to suggest that to tell a lie once makes you a liar, to steal once makes you a thief, etc. is ridiculous. If one habitually did this,

~we all habitually lie-every one of us is a liar–we are worse than we paint ourselves-you know this-not everyone steals but we all do wrong -if we were to show a movie of everything we have done in our life we would throw up

Morality has a perfectly good naturalistic explanation, if you look at the evidence.

~show me incontrovertible proof

There’s no need for any gods to “make” us be moral;

~true but where do ethics come from-evolution cant tell me how to live my life -what i should do and shouldnt do-there is no authority only convention and pragmatics but really no absolute truth except time plus chance plus a lot of death made everything

faith is a direct opponent of true morality.

~?

William Lecky, one of Great Britain’s most noted historians and a dedicated opponent of organized Christianity, writes:

“It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of 18 centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice…. The simple record of these 3 shortyears of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.”

Your explanations just put us back into a dark age of absurd “god done it” explanations.

~we dont have explanations for many things like i said humility is key

tell me about the origin of the universe-where did the matter come from-it has always existed-sounds like God? or how life arose from non life-and i dont mean amino acids(oxygen free)?

Gadfly you raise the best objections against christianity-i appreciate your thoughts-sorry my responses are quick-we’ll see you on Mill- i suppose we cant convince each other but at least I respect your thoughts

I’ve heard this “But they’re not real Christians!” argument before. It’s kind of ridiculous, because it seems like every Christian has a different idea of what a real Christian is! Suffice to say, it’s difficult for us to keep track of who’s “real” and who’s “faking”, so we do have to lump you together at times. Then again, many of you also tend to assume that atheists and agnostics are all the same when really we aren’t. Let us at least agree that “Christian” is a self-definition and move on.

As we’ve said before, we don’t believe in your god. It’s not as if we “know” he exists, and that we’re denying him and dragging everyone to Hell with us. Rather we see no reason to believe, without proof, that there are any gods at all. It is not pride that keeps us from faith; rather, it’s a wish to know truth within the natural world, which contains no proof of anything supernatural.

Morality is not a contrivance of your god but something that we are born with (to an extent). Yes, some are born without it (i.e. sociopaths) but overall, it is not in our best interest as a species to harm one another. Culture generally reflects this knowledge. We are social animals, working best in cohesion with one another. Obviously most of us don’t go around killing and raping. That’s because it isn’t in our best interest to do so. Natural selection weeds out most harmful deviants from the gene pool.

Our culture and our emotions (which developed through evolution as well) also provide reinforcement. These factors increase the chances that we will do the right thing for society and for ourselves in a given situation. In simple terms, most people don’t have much incentive to hurt other people for short-term gain, and thus do not have any wish to. The examples you gave earlier are nonsensical, since being sentient we can see ahead and know how such things would affect us in the future (badly, and with no evolutionary benefit).

Few things about Christianity are in any way moral. Many of us simply cannot believe that any “loving” god could be so cruel as to force women into such starvation that they would eat their own babies (Deuteronomy 28:56-57). He also requires blood appeasement to satisfy his wrath at “sinners” and is, according to your Bible, responsible for the deaths of millions. At least concede that using a scapegoat (Christ) to absolve you is not moral in the least. Having someone die in your place changes nothing of what you’ve done. You’re taking the easy way out, and creating a supernatural justification for your “sins”. This is no god that I would ever willingly follow, and I am not alone in thinking so.

According to you, Hitler used evolution to justify his bloody work. But people historically have used their faith in gods/books/prophets to justify all manner of terrible things (Abraham comes to mind). This is not just in the distant past either, and it’s precisely why many of us eschew such baseless beliefs.

Also, to suggest that to tell a lie once makes you a liar, to steal once makes you a thief, etc. is ridiculous. If one habitually did this, I can see why the label would be apt. Of course, one could also say that to murder once makes you a murderer, but that’s something that’s a much higher crime. You see, unlike your god, humans have a sense of degree. How do we know it’s a higher crime? Because to murder once causes far more harm to people than lying/stealing once. And why do we generally refrain from doing these things? Because we don’t want to hurt people. And unlike people of faith, we have much less justification for doing harmful deeds. Not only do they do no one any good, but we do not like to do them.

All of my rambling boils down to this: give us proof. Morality has a perfectly good naturalistic explanation, if you look at the evidence. There’s no need for any gods to “make” us be moral; in fact, faith is a direct opponent of true morality. Your explanations just put us back into a dark age of absurd “god done it” explanations.

As for your counter arguments, I fail to see your point. You claim God is worth mocking despite the fact that he created you, and offers you salvation! All you need to do is repent and believe! Are you so proud that you don’t think you need to submit to an all powerful God? I’m sorry, that you’ve been threatened, but they where not real Christians, do not condemn the whole of faith, simply because a few individuals don’t understand Gods will.

Morality is given to you by God. By turning away from God and his truths you are lead to the lies of satan. Think about it, would you have people like Hitler if you didn’t have evolution? Again think about it, most of the evil done in the world was cause by atheist, people who didn’t want to be bound to laws and rules, so they made up their own. I know you’ll try and counter that your a good person, that you are morally acceptable, but let me ask you this, have you ever stolen something? Or even just told a lie? We all have, and as such no one can be good. It is only through God and his grace that you can be save from your crimes. To say you’re moral, but denie God is hypocrisy.

Please take care, and like I said I will be praying for you.

You’re not nearly as bad as “The TRUTH” up there, so I hope that pointing this out will actually make you think about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it next time you talk to people like us.

Why do you mock God so? Why must you antagonize the followers of Christ so? These people are simply trying to spread the message of Jesus Christ our savor, and all you can do is belittle them.

I mock “God” because it is worthy of mockery. I’m not beyond entertaining the idea that some intelligent being(s) may possibly have created the universe, but the god of the Bible is so clearly an ancient myth (and not a particularly good one even) that it’s hard for me to see how I ever believed in it.

You’re free to continue believing, but if you went through your entire life without really questioning what you’re believing in, I think that would be very sad. I hope that we can reach a lot of people who haven’t previously examined their beliefs closely, and I hope that we can help them to at least understand and accept us unbelievers even if they don’t manage to see through the lies of religions for themselves.

Anyway, I don’t see most of the preachers as “followers of Christ”, I see them as spreading fear, guilt, self-loathing, hate and generally just bad ideas and feelings. If they want to go out and heal the sick and feed the hungry, if they want to sell everything they have and give the money to the poor like Jesus says they should, you won’t see me trying to stop them. If they’re yelling abusive nonsense through loud speakers at everyone who walks by though, I’m not going to ignore it.

I feel sorry for all of you. You try to tear down the moral fiber that holds this world together, then I ask you what have you to replace it? Evolution? You do know what would happen then don’t you? There would be chaos in the streets people raping and killing one another all so they could be more ‘evolved’ then there brother. It’s sick, and depraved.

First of all, Christianity is not “the moral fiber that holds this world together”. Second, evolution is not a replacement for morality. It can help us explain where we get morality from, but we do not base our morality on the idea of evolution, we (like all people other than sociopaths) have, through our evolutionary history as social creatures, had the basic moral principles that we all share deeply ingrained in us.

Beyond that we as individuals, and collectively as a society, set up a more strict set of rules, and your religion goes even further in some ways (and not far enough in others). The idea that your religion is the basis of all of this though, rather than just your particular superset of beliefs about morality, is absurd.

If it were true, then rather than the percentage of atheists in prisons being dramatically lower than the percentage of atheists in our society as a whole, we actually would be out raping and killing like mad, just like your little fairy tale says we should be.

We are not like that though, and we will not be like that in the future, so you’d better start looking for your apocalypse elsewhere. If anyone’s going to bring it, it’s not us.

God bless you all! Chris.