I rejoice to be an atheist.

[fr0d0]

Well it's unfair as I can't argue that one with you as an admin. It wasn't a petty insult at all. It was a joke, a lighthearted comment. You seem to be taking unwarrented offence at my posts

You can argue with me all you want, I'm for free speech, I don't ban people for saying their opinions. What we will not tolerate is people being unnecessarily rude, and whilst you might have meant it as a jest, I am not the only one who has taken offence to your attitude. Telling someone to "shut it" is rude, and there is no reason why you would even need to say it. It doesn't bring anything into the conversation, so next time leave it out and get on with your point.

I think that's overly pedantic. But I respect your request. Others have been more rude to me. I guess they must've been warned and I was unaware. Apologies.

BTW thanks for your comment demonaura - point taken

If they were followers of Jesus, absolutely. Why not?

Let's just go over this again. You said that the definition of a Christian was a follower of Jesus, I am fine with that definition and I actually agree with you.

However you later said this:

"Less than half of the British people believe in a God, yet about 72% told the 2001 census that they were Christian"

"and 66% of the population have no actual connection to any religion or church" Brilliant!

Smileys were attached to signify you found this hilarious. I assume you found it hilarious that people were saying they didn't believe in God and yet said they were Christian. However you yourself said that to be a Christian you didn't need to believe in God, only follow Christ.

So you are saying anyone who follows the teachings of Christ is a Christian (and you even go as far to say as they don't need to believe in God), yet you laugh at the fact that people who say they do not believe in God and are Christians. The two statements are completely contradictory.

Christ = God in any definition I've seen. The two are the same thing. It's a huge surprise to me that you're not aware of that.

I know it very well, and my comments stand. What do you have a problem with?

The fact that you mentioned "pretend Christians" and people who weren't really Christians, which is a classic example of the no true scotsman. People generally use it when a person leaves the Christian faith, saying "They were never a true Christian, true Christian's never leave".

A 'true Christian' follows Christ - It's an aim and not a destination... therefore, any person can change their mind at any point and decide not to be a Christian.

Likewise, any current follower of Christ, can (and definitely does) do anti christ stuff all the time, because, like I said, to want to be like Christ is an aim that you can aspire to, and isn't some magic spell that makes you suddenly perfect.

Back to the point... most British people that consider themselves Christian, who don't actually follow Christ, are not actually Christians at all, by definition, and it's quite a tight definition I think.
It would be like an out & out welshman, never ever having had anything remotely to do with scotland or scotsmen in his life, saying that he was a scotsman. We know it isn't true.