Contradictions in "rational" thought

[The Omnissiunt One]

No you can't do that because the first also depends on the belief there is a God also. Besides we've already had two people recognize the contradiction and say one is wrong. (Which means they still don't get it)

The first depends merely on a belief in a creator, who could be a deist, impersonal god. What atheists then argue is that, given a deist god, it is very unlikely that such a being would also care for us. It's a weak argument, but not contradictory to the other one.

It's clearly implied by a thousand atheist comments about how stupid and arrogant Christians are.

These are just ad hominem attacks. The two supposedly contradictory statements are just saying: a) based on his depiction in the Bible, God is intolerant b) given that God allegedly saves Christians, he saves many people who are stupid or arrogant (whether I agree with this or not, I'm not sure, but it's irrelevant), while presumably damning many decent Hindus, Muslims, Jews, non-believers, etc.

No, the contradiction holds up because the denominations and disagreements prove some Christians do indeed think for themselves. I see what you are arguing, that if they could think for themselves, they would automatically reject any holy book. But then you get into whether Bacon, Newton and Locke could think for themselves, which would be rather foolish and anything you say would sound merely subjective.

No, they don't think for themselves. Most just accept the teachings of the denomination in which they are brought up, so they don't think for themselves. Now, of course Bacon, Newton and Locke thought for themselves. Many religious believers do too, except where it comes to matters of religion.