"IF" there was a God....

[Mister Agenda]

I didn't hear a negative about Jesus himself. I'll be the first to agree that the Catholic religion has, and will probably always have problems. But, what organization doesn't? That's not an excuse! Unfortunately, Catholics and Christian religion draws many troubled people. But the double edged sword is that we are also trying to help them as followers of Christ! Believe me, I wish Jesus could send a blessing of healing and peace to these people. I pray and hope that He will.

Hey, a man speaking against the estabishment cut down in his prime by haters and government flunkies...what's not to like in that story?

Actual Christianity might have wound up having more in common with Jainism than Islam if it hadn't been turned into Paulianity. If not for Paul, maybe Christians would still take the most original moral teaching of the Gospels, turning the other cheek, seriously.

But not having much of a problem with Jesus has nothing to do with whether he was divine.

Look at it this way. If you said you worshiped Angra Mainyu, we might say 'Why are you worshiping Anra Mainyu? There's no good evidence that he's real, and even if he were real, he's evil!' If you said you worshiped the good god Spenta Mainyu, we'd just say 'Why are you worshiping Spenta Mainyu? There's no good evidence that he's real.'

Any irritation we may have with Christians or Christianity doesn't bear on our probability evaluation of a proposed supernatural being. Any more than it has a bearing on your probability evaluation of Zorastrian divine beings being real. If more Christians tried to live up to the best moral teachings of Jesus (Quakers seem to make a sincere effort, as a rule), we wouldn't consider the supernatural claims of Christians more likely to be true. We'd just get along with them better...and they'd get along with us better.

That said, kinder Christians would create fewer atheists, because failing in morality is sometimes the first crack in the edifice that starts a Christian on questioning their faith. It's not that the 'you had a bad experience with Christians scenario' is NEVER the case...it's just that even when it is, the deconversion story only starts there. If it ends with the person becoming a rationalist, it's too late to get them back by fixing the booboo. If it ends with them being some kind of New Age thing, they might still be a viable target for that method of reconversion.