Lets compile a list of everything wrong with christ-insanity

[discipulus]

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You judge a tree by the fruit it bears Deidre. You judge a Christian by the fruit they bear.

If someone says they love God and hates their brother then they are a liar, for how can they say they love God whom they have not seen and yet hate their brother who they do see.

Deidre, you have been judging Christianity by looking at the lives of people who live contrary to its teachings. You should not do this. It seems to me you are desperately trying to stockpile reasons why you should not believe.

Rather, what you should do is judge Christianity by looking at the lives of those who do seek to imitate Christ and love their neighbor as they love themselves.

You seem to be under the impression that Christianity is a tremendous evil in the world but I challenge you to a debate to defend that view.

Why judge a worldview by its abuse?

Why not judge it by looking at the fruit produced by them that seek to follow its precepts?

Oh, I do discern people's character by both things...all of their actions. I'm no better than the next person, but I try to live my life in doing well by and for others. That said, I do believe and know good people who think that their good deeds are only accomplished through their faith beliefs. I've asked one of my Christian friends recently...so if you stopped believing in Jesus as your Savior, you would cease to do good things?

*deer in headlights look* Then...'No, dee, I don't think THAT.'

So, why assume that people aren't inherently good? Why assume they are inherently bad, and in need of a Leader? A Messiah? And that without that Messiah, they'd live lives of chaos and destruction?

That's more of what I'm saying. That's why what you're driving at discipulus, is really little more than a house of cards.

Have you not looked at the news recently? Have you not picked up a newspaper?

Have you not observed little children on a playground? How they need not be taught how to be selfish and little bullies? How they have to be taught continuously what it is to share and be kind?

People are not inherently good, but are inherently selfish, self-centered, and egotistical. The behavior of little children demonstrates this. Not to mention the millions of evils committed in the world everyday by adults against adults and against children.

Would you like me to send you some videos of people having their heads cut off while being video-tapped because they had told police of certain activities of drug dealers, or videos of men stabbing and shooting their ex-wives because of hatred, jealousy and bitterness?

I have been in the military Deidre, I have seen how people treat one another, from the east to the west have I traveled, and I can promise you that everywhere I have gone, the story is the same. The evil that men are capable of, if you were to witness it first hand, would cause you to to be forever rid of the naive idea that men are inherently good.

You are living in utter denial if you sit there and think people are "inherently good".

That is about the farthest thing from the truth that I know of.

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You justify your own hatred and mockery and bitterness in the same manner that those who you mock justify theirs.

Look at you, ascribing emotions to me! That's adorable!

Hatred? Bitterness? Nah, man. I don't really have the mental energy to spare in my day to day to spin up emotions that virulent. Dislike? Sure! Mockery? Why not! But maybe next time you could ask me the way I feel, rather than just assuming you know.

Not that I think you were assuming anything. No, I think you're following a script, here; you're preaching, not thinking. It's like assuming, just over the entirety of... everything.

If they earn contempt by doing what they do then by the same token you earn contempt yourself for you do the very same things they do.

Except you don't really know what I do, do you?

I would submit to you that sitting here and deconstructing arguments is much kinder than, as the example we're using, interrupting people in their grieving at a funeral, wouldn't you? No matter the level of sass, I'm trying to present an argument and possibly change minds, and unlike picketers, I'm not having to sacrifice anyone else's feelings to do so.

I know you're on the binary equivocation train, where there's only two modes and no shades of gray, but could you at least attempt to see some contextual nuance, if you can take a break from your didactic rigidity?

I can only go by what you present to me. If you are not really a bitter and angry person then you have done a great job of acting like one.