(January 1, 2017 at 1:51 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(December 31, 2016 at 3:26 pm)Macoleco Wrote: Stop it? When has religion/the Church ever stopped attacking its enemies? Lol.

CL is also not being fair to us failing to take into account that not even we agree as atheists and have gone after each other here too. 

Some gun owners and Trump atheists here, and they all know how I feel about both. 

But yea, kinda unfair for a religious person to tell us not to attack them when we are surrounded by theists who attack us.

If I was in a christian forum and a new atheist had just joined, and he was respectful, and yet some of the Christians were being a little rude, I would absolutely comment on it.

(January 1, 2017 at 4:41 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 12:38 pm)Astonished Wrote: My question to the OP, with all due respect and sincerity is, are you seriously ignorant of the realities of what you're asking?

Forcing children to sit through long, boring, sometimes horrifying church sessions.

Telling children they're wicked, dirty, evil, etc.

Hearing them tell you 'You can't change my mind'. The arrogance!

Teaching them that love is conditional. Way to warp their mentality for life.

Managing to be seemingly deluded about how awful people can treat others in the name of their faith. Sickening ignorance.



Seriously, read a book like God is Not Great. Hitchens is much more eloquent than most.

Just wanna point out that this has not been my experience at all, growing up in the faith. Im sorry for/to anyone who has had horrible experiences in the faith as a child. But it is important to point out that there are many who's experiences has been very positive, and it isnt right to group us all into the worst possible scenario. I plan on raising my future children up in the faith as I was, if im lucky enough to have any. and I dont plan on anything that is on that list.

That's spiffy for you. The point is, when you base life around a book that's akin to rolling the dice to make the decision rather than basing it on a rational consideration of the facts, you're bound to get people like the aforementioned who do such things. While it obviously isn't going to fix every problem, people dropping their faith and getting real will make it impossible for them to get away with this stuff anymore by saying 'it's my belief'. Forcing everyone to have rational justifications for their actions is the only way to make progress, which is why science, not religion, is responsible for every significant positive advancement EVER.

You saying you plan to raise your future children in the faith is such a minefield. While it sounds all fine and dandy to you, to a non-believer you shouldn't be surprised that it sounds like you're planning on lying to them, giving them no choice whatsoever in what they are taught to believe, at a minimum. That's why it's impossible to be comfortable even with this seemingly benign form of irrationality.

A lot of what I'm hearing in these last few replies is not altogether different from saying, "Oh, well, yeah, we all smoke but it's not like ALL of us get cancer or some other debilitating consequence of it." Or like treating the symptoms of some chronic disease instead of curing the disease itself. None of that reveals an understanding of the actual problem or the actual way to solve it.

(January 1, 2017 at 4:49 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:41 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Just wanna point out that this has not been my experience at all, growing up in the faith. Im sorry for/to anyone who has had horrible experiences in the faith as a child. But it is important to point out that there are many who's experiences has been very positive, and it isnt right to group us all into the worst possible scenario. I plan on raising my future children up in the faith as I was, if im lucky enough to have any. and I dont plan on anything that is on that list.

Same.

Yet your request was for "negative experiences you guys have had with Christians". Are you surprised that that's what people are posting?

(January 1, 2017 at 4:50 pm)Astonished Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:41 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Just wanna point out that this has not been my experience at all, growing up in the faith. Im sorry for/to anyone who has had horrible experiences in the faith as a child. But it is important to point out that there are many who's experiences has been very positive, and it isnt right to group us all into the worst possible scenario. I plan on raising my future children up in the faith as I was, if im lucky enough to have any. and I dont plan on anything that is on that list.

That's spiffy for you. The point is, when you base life around a book that's akin to rolling the dice to make the decision rather than basing it on a rational consideration of the facts, you're bound to get people like the aforementioned who do such things. While it obviously isn't going to fix every problem, people dropping their faith and getting real will make it impossible for them to get away with this stuff anymore by saying 'it's my belief'. Forcing everyone to have rational justifications for their actions is the only way to make progress, which is why science, not religion, is responsible for every significant positive advancement EVER.

You saying you plan to raise your future children in the faith is such a minefield. While it sounds all fine and dandy to you, to a non-believer you shouldn't be surprised that it sounds like you're planning on lying to them, giving them no choice whatsoever in what they are taught to believe, at a minimum. That's why it's impossible to be comfortable even with this seemingly benign form of irrationality.

Hm cool.

(January 1, 2017 at 4:54 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:49 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: Same.

Yet your request was for "negative experiences you guys have had with Christians". Are you surprised that that's what people are posting?

Yes, Atheists see them selves as sceptics, with the ability to dissociate themselves away from a belief in order to adequately question it. I would think for the purposes of this conversation it would be easy for a sceptic, and logical human it would be easy to stay on topic. As for what I perceive about atheists. Well I'll keep those to my self as they are not the purpose of the book, nor the conversation.

(January 1, 2017 at 5:00 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:54 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Yet your request was for "negative experiences you guys have had with Christians". Are you surprised that that's what people are posting?

Yes, Atheists see them selves as sceptics, with the ability to dissociate themselves away from a belief in order to adequately question it. As for what I percieve about atheists. Well I'll keep those to my self as they are not the purpose of the book, nor the conversation.

Oh, don't be shy, this I've got to hear. I mean, who am I to judge if someone was duped by something intended to impress illiterate stone-age peasants?

(January 1, 2017 at 4:54 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:49 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: Same.

Yet your request was for "negative experiences you guys have had with Christians". Are you surprised that that's what people are posting?

The person didnt post it as his personal experience though. He posted it as though thats the overwhelming norm or somethkng. All the OP was doing was agreeing with me that his experience didnt involved any of what was described and neither does he plan on raising his children that way.

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 9:12 am)pocaracas Wrote: Yay!!
I'm "normal"!!!!



Why the Bible?
Why not some other book? What's special about the Bible?

And why do you think what you think about the Bible?


Chronologically, you got convinced by your parents that the christian belief has some truth to it.
Crap that happened to you then reinforced that belief...

The Facts are that all you've witnessed was just people. People doing the crazy things that people do. Maybe you got "lucky" and managed to peek into some of the crazier things, but all I see in your story is people. YOU claim there's a "holy spirit" working in you, but I see people and your own belief-induced sense of righteousness.
It was probably people like you that kick-started many of the worst "christian actions"...


Being your friend means nothing.
On the other hand, I told you he may have just suffered some seizure - which, given the company and, I guess, the underlying mental state, could have gotten interpreted as a divine intervention of some sort and he then endeavored to correct that past "angry" behavior.
Don't ever underestimate the power of suggestion.

Well I studied the Bible, Looked at the answers it gave.

You studied an old text that talks about a lot of things. Some agree with present-day morality, some don't and should be read within the context of the time when it was written.
I often have this doubt, why, if there ever only was a single god, why did mankind come to believe in different gods? Why did mankind come to accept "teachings" from prophets and oracles of those other gods? So much so that it had to be encoded in that bible that people should not go for other gods! Truly amazing!

Also, when you say "Bible", maybe you should specify that you are mostly referring to the New Testament, huh?
The Bible starts at Genesis and goes through some messed up stuff.
The NT is a bit at the end, right?

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: All my parents did was teach me what the Bible said, Then I made the choice to come to Christ my self.

Right, right...
Your high-school level psychology is failing you.
Here's something that may, if you let it, teach you something: Michael Shermer's "The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies---How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths"

In essence, can you really say that you made that choice of "coming to Christ" by yourself? Were you not primed to believe it, like most people are, who are brought up by religious parents?
Monkey see, monkey do!

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: Then the events of my life supported my beliefs and well here I am today.

Of course they did.
Remarkably, supernatural events seem to only happen to people who are already believers.
Or maybe it's that all those supernatural events are just faulty interpretations of natural events, huh?
In my view, as long as the natural cannot be ruled out, the supernatural must take a backseat and be attributed a very very very very low probability of being the true description of events.

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: I don't give any credence to the indoctrination argument because kids are indoctrinated to everything math, science, scepticism, philosophy. Etc.

It's not the same thing.
Math, science and other things can be verified, follow a logical path, from sound (or as sound as we can make them) premises.
Belief in gods is nothing like this. It's just the psychological state of belief... with some strange mental events interpreted as actions of gods and/or demons, instead of being seen for what they are: mental states.

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: My parents knew that I had the come to the choice on my own, thats what the Bible teaches. Any Christian who says otherwise is a Hypocrite.

hehe... check this out:
https://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/ages.htm
I guess 85% of US christians are hypocrites, then... That's a sizable non-negligible portion of the population!

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: As for everything else, atheists have a way with explaining away our personal experiences.

No... it's just that, as I said above, as long as there's a possible natural explanation, that one takes precedence over any unnatural explanation.

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: In this instance I am a bigot because I put more faith in the Bible then someone in a lab coat with a piece of paper saying that he is smarter then everyone else. That's the crux of it.

I'm not sure you understand all the work that goes into having that "piece of paper". And it doesn't say that he's smarter than everyone else. It says that he's studied hard and understands a particular field better than the grand majority of humans.
Why do you put more faith into a text written long ago, instead of a text written by someone who has spent his life studying a particular aspect of Nature?
Granted, if that scientist is talking about something for which he has not studied, nor practiced, then you are more than welcome to criticize him! Heck, even within his field, you can try that... but will most likely fail or ridicule yourself.

What's so objectively special about the Bible?

(January 1, 2017 at 9:45 am)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: But we are off topic I want to know about your negative experiences with Christians.

Ah, yes... I tend to do that... sorry!

Negative experience?
Meh, married one... then, she became hyper-religious... Opus Dei member and all... now, I don't like the thought of living the rest of my hopefully still long life next to someone like that. The tale that isn't over yet...

(January 1, 2017 at 5:01 pm)Astonished Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 5:00 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote: Yes, Atheists see them selves as sceptics, with the ability to dissociate themselves away from a belief in order to adequately question it. As for what I percieve about atheists. Well I'll keep those to my self as they are not the purpose of the book, nor the conversation.

Oh, don't be shy, this I've got to hear. I mean, who am I to judge if someone was duped by something intended to impress illiterate stone-age peasants?

Notice I never claimed superiority over you? I'm not being shy, i'm saying on topic.

(January 1, 2017 at 5:00 pm)Dragonspride1995 Wrote:

(January 1, 2017 at 4:54 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Yet your request was for "negative experiences you guys have had with Christians". Are you surprised that that's what people are posting?

Yes, Atheists see them selves as sceptics, with the ability to dissociate themselves away from a belief in order to adequately question it. As for what I percieve about atheists. Well I'll keep those to my self as they are not the purpose of the book, nor the conversation.

Well, now the disingenuousness of your motive is exposed. Or are you seriously going to equivocate peoples' childhood experiences with the opinions of their adult selves?