Near death experience of Howard Storm

[Mister Agenda]

Btw, here's a little bit of that hostility towards people of faith I was referring to:

Besides - even deluded morons deserve some fun once in a while. And christians are masters at dealing with guilt and such. They just go into a magic closet with a man in a dress, murmur some nursery rhymes/magic spells and they can go straight to heaven. So no harm done. 

If you think ridicule and mockery of Christian notions is hostility towards Christians themselves, you're going to be confused. Most Christians are fine, decent people. It doesn't mean that they don't hold silly beliefs. If we're wrong about a belief being silly, that's an opportunity for you to explain how it's rational. If you can't do that, you should expect people to find the belief silly and should not expect for them to pretend to not find it silly in order to spare your feelings.

It doesn't mean we don't love you. I consider it a favor if someone demolishes my most cherished beliefs. If they can't stand up to scrutiny, I should give them up. I'm not talking about losing an argument: the person who is the loudest, or even the smartest, isn't always correct. But if I find that my reasons for believing something are built on sand, I at least need to go back to the drawing board on their foundation.

I understand that people who consider faith to be a virtue don't see the value of having their irrational beliefs chipped away at, even don't really see the need for their beliefs to be rational. That makes it harder to grock that criticism of your beliefs can come from a good-natured motivation. Here, if I say something that won't stand up to reasonable criticism, I don't expect my friends to go easy on me just because we have history. If they know me, they know I'd rather retract an ill-considered statement than stand by it.