Whats even attractive about Christianity anyway that people want to stay in ignorance

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't see anything worthwhile in a person really wanting to believe that someone else will be damned by a god. I'm not sure why this should bring some sort of understanding or tolerance. I tend to dislike people who fantasize about my being tortured, more so if they feel that it is true, or beautiful, or logical. This zone sounds like the parameters of some douchebags sick inner snuff film.

[Mystic]

Well, I think a lot of it based on fear. If you're taught from a young age that it is a fact that not being a Christian means eternal suffering in the worst place imaginable, of course you're going to choose the boring sermons and ridiculous stories simply out of fear of that place.

That is a factor, but it wouldn't explain why other people of other faiths don't believe in it due to fear of punishment.

It seems rather it's more complicated then that. When we are indoctrinated, even if it's hinduism that doesn't threaten us with punishment for not believing, we are inclined to believe in that religion and believe our parents have the right religion. For some reason, we believe our parents must be right, and other religions are wrong.

Then we grow up, and the strong feeling that it is correct is not totally gone, but diminished, and we have a bias, out of love our identity, our parents, our religious community, to be right.

The bias is so strong, that reading our holy book or teachings, will seem all perfect, with perfect wisdom, logical, beautiful, and glorious. We will feel we are arriving at the sacred truth.

We will feel then guided by God. We feel we achieved a certain enlightenment.

Then we will take that experience as proof of the religion.

All the problems that are in the holy book or teachings, will not occur to us, and may never occur to us, and we may never come across them. Even if it occurs to us, we might brush the problem aside with a different flawed logic.

At any rate, this is not unique to any religion. So we shouldn't make it as if certain religious people are more illogical then others.

For whatever reason, we humans are not objective towards the truth. We have to face our bias constantly.

[picto90]

How could you know? How can you read the mind of a God you don't think exists?

How could you know? The basis for your theory is a book that you can only attest as real from the book itself saying it is. If I gave you a scrap of paper saying "God is evil. This note is the word of god.", you would say that it was ridiculous to believe that it was real simply on the basis that it says it is, yet that is exactly what you're calling evidence when you quote from the bible.

[Mystic]

I tend to dislike people who fantasize about my being tortured, more so if they feel that it is true, or beautiful, or logical.

They see it as justice and that there must be a cosmic justice. Not something pleasurable - but something that must be done. Maybe some sick people gaining a lot of hate of disbelievers will enjoy such description but that would be a minority surely.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure We don't get all geeked out on justice..not one bit.

[Mystic]

I just don't get why you want dehumanize religious people.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't, I dehumanize religious thought, because it dehumanizes people. Subtle but important distinction. Let me ask you this, once your faith in such a concept is gone, it becomes unthinkable, doesn't it?

The prosecution rests.

[Mystic]

Let me ask you this, once your faith in such a concept is gone, it becomes unthinkable, doesn't it?

To some, some others leave and come back. It depends. I found over 30 logical problems with Quran and I'm sure a lot of them cannot be solved( if any)...Some Atheists become Muslim. On another forum, a person became Atheist for two years but came back to Islam.

Many Atheists become Christians. Many become Muslim. It's not unthinkable to everyone.

As I said everyone is their own zone. We just have to realize that and still respect people despite their flawed thinking.

[The Grand Nudger]

I won't respect people for thinking such things. Period. It's the worst possible mark against their character.
(that's just my own opinion, and my own opinion is all that matters with regards to what I do or do not respect)

[Child of Stardust]

One thing that made me hold onto my faith (for a while) was the whole "personal relationship with Jesus" thing. To deny him was like betraying a close friend...someone who loved you so much he laid down his life for you. To even comprehend doubting him was the highest form of treachery. Also the idea of not living forever, and losing your helper and protector...you feel alone in a cold, heartless universe at first. (Which is BS of course, since you have other humans, and God never helped you out of many terrible circumstances to begin with. But to the religious mind one is "never alone"...your shepherd and comforter is always with you. That can be a nice fuzzy feeling when you're feeling hopeless, and coming to terms with the nonexistence of God can be a big leap to make for religious people who rely on this "crutch"). But interestingly, the cold heartless universe was one of the (many) reasons I ended up leaving the faith. I just couldn't believe in the existence of a good God anymore.

Really, it all depends on what brand of Christianity they were raised in. In the old fashioned, vengeful-God version of the religion...yeah, I don't really understand it either. But I was raised by Universalists, who believed that hell was a corruption of the Bible and that punishment after death would be non-eternal. This meant my vision of God was not as fear-based. That's not to say I don't have as any negative impressions of my religious upbringing - I have plenty. Harry Potter was Satanic (though granted, I wasn't missing much by not reading it ), evolution was a "lie", my father used his faith as an excuse to yell at us whenever he wanted and be a patriarchal tyrant because God gave him the "authority", and it seemed to encourage the overuse of corporal punishment. It influenced my upbringing in very negative ways, no question.

But it was counterbalanced my positive ones. There was the richness of my own spiritual experiences, which at the time I associated with Christianity and the Christian mythos (expanded on by my own imagination). There was the influence of my loving grandfather (my Mom's Dad), the man who ironically inspired my father to convert to Christianity. His faith inspired him to be kind, patient, considerate, and loving. He is one of my all-time heroes and someone whose example I intend to follow if I ever become a parent. Most Christians I was in contact with as a kid tended to be honest, accepting of people who seemed "odd" to others, down-to-earth in a kind of cozy way, and definitely very generous - usually much more generous than the atheists I knew. (My opinion of their "acceptance" faltered when I learned about what most of them thought of homosexuality, but still, most of them were closer to Ned Flanders than Jerry Falwell).

So contrary to a lot of other people's experiences, when I was a Christian the positive behavior I saw in many Christians helped keep the faith in a positive light. My Dad, too, (after he defeated his depression) became one of the most living and supportive parents I could wish for (though that happened at about the same time as the liberalization of his religious views...hmm...). Again, there was a lot that I found quite stifling, constraining, irrational, and unethical about my Christian upbringing. But there were certainly draws. So yes, I can see why people might want to stay in Christianity (at least certain forms of it). Problem is, it's just not true...