Why should Christians be moral?

[JonDarbyXIII]

I've read through the thread and all the Christians have been consistent in their explanations, the atheist have been all over the board. The atheist have said different thing about the same subject, the Christians responses have been the same on each subject. Seems to me, I've actually noticed this for sometime now, that the atheist have their own specific beliefs about scripture and they are always the using the same things over and over. Why do you all do this, why are you not consistent in what you say about the same subject. You all have more different ideas about what's in the Bible than the Christians here, heck you're doing what you claim Christians do, interpretation of scriptures for what you want it to say. I know most of you are not interested in learning what the scriptures mean but, with the intelligence you guys profess and the rational thinking you claim one would naturally believe you all would have the same things to say about the same subjects.

This isn't inconsistency. Atheists have different ideas about which failures of Christianity are most pronounced, but showing multiple ways in which it fails does not negate the fact that it fails. If x is the case, Christianity fails. If y is the case, Christianity fails. If z is the case, Christianity fails.

[robvalue]

I interpret scriptures to be bullshit. As would anyone without an innate bias.

[Esquilax]

I've read through the thread and all the Christians have been consistent in their explanations, the atheist have been all over the board. The atheist have said different thing about the same subject, the Christians responses have been the same on each subject. Seems to me, I've actually noticed this for sometime now, that the atheist have their own specific beliefs about scripture and they are always the using the same things over and over. Why do you all do this, why are you not consistent in what you say about the same subject.

Because we're not a group, we're a collection of people who happened to come to the same conclusion about a single question, namely the existence of god. That's not an inconsistency, it's a simple reality of the fact that christians and atheists aren't even the same category of thing; your side is a group with a book establishing rules on a great many topics, so some degree of similarity should be expected. Atheists are only bound to come together on a single issue, with everything else coming as a result of our own considerations and circumstances. Asking why atheists don't come to the same conclusions on everything is the same as asking that question of people with brown hair; outside of the single thing they have in common, why would they come to the same conclusions?

You all have more different ideas about what's in the Bible than the Christians here, heck you're doing what you claim Christians do, interpretation of scriptures for what you want it to say.

No, mostly we're just reading the words on the page, in context and with an eye to history, without the incessant need to sugarcoat every word so that it comes off positively. The fact that we come to different conclusions on this issue merely shows the different perspectives that we're approaching it from; when you say we just "interpret the scriptures for what we want it to say," you're unjustly assuming that your specific interpretation of the bible is necessarily right, for which any differing interpretation is merely a matter of convenience.

That kind of special pleading is common for you, but that doesn't make it any less fallacious.

I know most of you are not interested in learning what the scriptures mean but, with the intelligence you guys profess and the rational thinking you claim one would naturally believe you all would have the same things to say about the same subjects.

GC

A rational thinking person understands the utility of a diverse range of opinions, and the danger of expecting everyone to march in lockstep on every issue.

[dyresand]

Christians have to sin for if they don't jesus died for nothing since Christians are being good.
Christians need to do bad things to ask for forgiveness. They need to do bad and repent so jesus
wouldn't have died for nothing.

[FatAndFaithless]

..what?

[dyresand]

..what?

you get it right. if a christian doesn't sin then jesus died for nothing.
he died for mans sin so if people start being halfway decent he really did die for nothing. - i don't believe in this but if it were true he would have died for nothing because people becoming more well moral.

[FatAndFaithless]

That..made my brain hurt...