The Immorality of God - The Canaanites

[Esquilax]

As a side note, does any atheist here ever go into a Christian bookstore and buy a decent book in order to understand what Christians actually believe?

Which book? Which god?

Actually, don't answer that, it doesn't matter. You're asking us to play a game I know in advance it's impossible for us to win, and impossible for you to lose. Like so many other believers- not all, but a startling majority from what I've seen- you've conflated your specific interpretations of your religion for the religion in its entirety. But you're not alone in that, and you're also not the first theist to waltz in here and loftily assert that, because we aren't already a full bottle in what you believe and why you believe it, we're inadequately equipped to deal with christian theism as a whole. We clearly don't understand a thing, because what we're saying about christianity doesn't map totally over whatever apologetics you've sponged up from elsewhere and think presents some towering theological edifice we cannot surmount.

We don't know what you believe, therefore we don't know christianity. But did you think you were the only one doing that?

Maybe it's just really hard to see from the inside. Maybe you're so deep in your own beliefs that you can't even imagine there being an outside of them, let alone different denominations, so let me let you in on a little secret here, let me tell you what it's like to be a non-believer and have to deal with you people: we had a Catholic here a while ago that I had to have this exact same conversation with, because he talked like you do. We hadn't read the books about what he believed, which I'm sure differed from your beliefs in a few respects, and so we obviously didn't know christianity. But we have Protestants here saying the exact same thing, yet again, saying we don't get christianity because we aren't intimately familiar with their beliefs. Both of them assert that the totality of the things they believe represents all that "true christianity" is and ever could be, and they are but two people in a throng of christians who take any disagreement with the religion to be the result of ignorance, where the person making it isn't speaking specifically about the things each individual christian within that crowd believes.

Obviously they can't all be right: the Protestants and Catholics saying these things to us believe in mutually exclusive practices and doctrines. Even within denominations there are beliefs like that, leading to ever more splintered, fractured, specific beliefs being held up, with no thought at all to actually justifying this, as "true christianity." And every last one of you clamors to dismiss what we atheists have to say, because we aren't speaking directly to you and what you believe when we talk.

But how could we? How could we possibly know what license you've given yourself to spin or dismiss the bible in your own special way ahead of time? How can we discuss these issues with you, if there's so many of you willing to demand exclusive rights over christianity, without even seeming to notice the thousands of other denominations attempting to knock down that same door? Especially when none of you seem interested at all in actually showing that, you all just want to assume without evidence that what you believe is what all christians believe, even when it's demonstrably not.

How are we, sitting on the outside, unwilling to just heedlessly privilege the things you believe because you believe them, supposed to handle this? You put the burden on us to make your case for you, shove books into our hands as though you've somehow got the right to give us homework before you'll deign to have a discussion with us, completely unaware of all your peers doing the same: oh, you don't know christianity unless you've read William Lane Craig. Oh, Lee Strobel truly understands the gospel! How can you have made an informed decision egarding Christ without having read Lewis Carrol?!

... And so on. It's not a game an atheist can ever win because it's designed from the ground up to make atheists lose. That's what you want, really. That's what you're all striking out for here: you don't need to argue your case, you're fine with just invalidating ours. In the silence that follows, your beliefs must win by default, right? Don't play this game with us. Don't just presume your beliefs to be the only beliefs contained within christianity, and don't just sit there making vague accusations as to strawmen in place of actually involving yourself in the discussion. Realize how the deck is being stacked against us here, stop ignoring the thousands of other denominations with their own books and an equally high opinion of their beliefs, and stop trying this bullshit game with us!