Hello, i am a real Christian

[Thor]

the new Testament has a message of love and peace and the Gospels depict a believable story.

"A believable story"?

A virgin birth.

A star that points the way for people to find this magical babe.

A man who walks on water, heals people with a touch of his hand and feeds thousands with a basket of fish.

A man who rises up after being dead for three days and ascends bodily up to heaven after an angel pushes away the rock covering his tomb.

Yeah.... all this stuff sure is "believable"....

[Xyster]

But anyhow...What do you belieive and WHY? more importantly why do you think I should?????


and please no you got to have faith crap..... Remember no matter what you believe 70% or MORE of the worlds population will dissagree with you..

[True Christian]

I never said i had "better" education i just said i "may have". By that i mean that my school had good ratings and was considered to have a very good program. However if you read my post you can see that i did not boldly state that i had a better education than everyone else.

Also what proof do you have for the Dark Ages having anything to do with religion ? How can you say that without religion they wouldnt have happened ? It is too easy to state that.
In France, at the start of the Renaissance era, the King considered himself appointed by God, essentially blending Church and State together. But this period also saw the expansion of science, medicine and art.

Sure - I do not know these things for sure. However, it is a fact, that the catholic church played a major role in keeping down people from the roman empire until now, basically. It was at least USED by the Rulers. This is no proof of what I said, but I think it renders it highly likely.

Don't you also want to comment on your statement that telling people a lie is justified in the case of religion?

Actually to me its not a lie. Its my belief. So to me what happens is that people learn about the story and God and his message of peace for all humans, and identify themselves to it, and end up making the world better by following the teachings of the Son of God

[darkwolf176]

Alright, off course people will do good no matter their beliefs, but religious people are much more inclined to do so. And name ONE thing that religious people do in the name of religion that no one else would do in the name of otehr causes. Genocide ? Eastern Europe, Rwanda or Sri Lanka (ethnic genocides). Pedophilia ? the vast majority of pedophilia is done by parents. Wars ? many many wars have been done without religion being involved.

Genocide has been commited for religious reasons countless times, Pedophilia - Catholic Church, anyone?
Countless wars have been fought and still are in the name of religion.

[Minimalist]

the new Testament has a message of love and peace and the Gospels depict a believable story.

"A believable story"?

A virgin birth.

A star that points the way for people to find this magical babe.

A man who walks on water, heals people with a touch of his hand and feeds thousands with a basket of fish.

A man who rises up after being dead for three days and ascends bodily up to heaven after an angel pushes away the rock covering his tomb.

Yeah.... all this stuff sure is "believable"....

In the words of H. L. Mencken:

There is no possibility whatsoever of reconciling science and theology, at least in Christendom. Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn't. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense. I defy any genuine scientist to say that he believes in the Resurrection, or indeed in any other cardinal dogma of the Christian system.

[Darwinian]

I do not condemn non-believers or believers in other religions to an eternity in Hell, i just think they havnt had the luck i had, which is to see the beautiful message of the Christ.

I see atheists as people who are disillusioned view of religion and who do not know what or who to believe, so they just reject God altogether. I can understand easily how people can be disgusted by religion. Terrorism, discrimination, pedophilia. But all of those wrongs that religion has done...are not exclusive to religion, far from it. Most of the time, "religious" genocides have for goal to find a scapegoat to appease the population, nothing more.

What's more religion has undeniably done some good in the world. It has united nations, given people a set of moral values that are good for the well-being of society. For hundreds of years most of the education and medicine was practiced by the Church. Finally most organizations that help the poor sick or homeless are originally Christian.

I am not here to convert you all, just to remind you that religion is not as harmful as you seem to think.

Seem to have got in a bit late here.. That'll teach me for having a nap..

You had me all the way up to the part of your post that I quoted and then you started with those oh so familiar theistic presumptuous assertions.

Firstly, we do not have a disillusioned view of religion as you say, in fact I think most atheists have a pretty good view of what religion is about as we are not part of it and can see it from a beautifully detached perspective.

And why, because we are not like you, do you think that we don't know what to believe, that smacks of extreme arrogance to me. I know exactly what I want to believe and I happily go through life believing it.

And then there's that old chestnut that we 'reject God'. We do nothing of the sort. How can we reject that for which there is no evidence and that we simply don't accept exists. If we have indeed 'rejected God' as you state then I accuse you of rejecting Thor, Zeus, Odin, Apollo and the FSM.

And yes, we have seen this beautiful message of Christ but like all other messages in all other superstitious mythologies we choose to reject it because like all other messages there is no evidence that this character you call Christ (not Jesus) ever existed and it relies on the supernatural for its verisimilitude.

And what good has been done by religion in the world that would or could not have been done anyway by concerned, philanthropic and altruistic individuals? Compare that with a vile, horrendous and abhorrent acts done throughout the ages in the name of one tribes God or deity over another.

[True Christian]

the new Testament has a message of love and peace and the Gospels depict a believable story.

"A believable story"?

A virgin birth.

A star that points the way for people to find this magical babe.

A man who walks on water, heals people with a touch of his hand and feeds thousands with a basket of fish.

A man who rises up after being dead for three days and ascends bodily up to heaven after an angel pushes away the rock covering his tomb.

Yeah.... all this stuff sure is "believable"....

All of that is actually not that hard to believe, once you acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural, all-powerful being. Also, the Gospels, written in various places at various times by various people, accord on an amazing number of things: even though there are contradictions, most of what the Gospels say is unanimous.

---

Alright, off course people will do good no matter their beliefs, but religious people are much more inclined to do so. And name ONE thing that religious people do in the name of religion that no one else would do in the name of otehr causes. Genocide ? Eastern Europe, Rwanda or Sri Lanka (ethnic genocides). Pedophilia ? the vast majority of pedophilia is done by parents. Wars ? many many wars have been done without religion being involved.

Genocide has been commited for religious reasons countless times, Pedophilia - Catholic Church, anyone?
Countless wars have been fought and still are in the name of religion.

Thats exactly what i said. There is NOTHING that has been done in the name of religion that hasnt been done in the name of something else

[darkwolf176]

All of that is actually not that hard to believe, once you acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural, all-powerful being.

The thing is, we don't.

[Minimalist]

once you acknowledge the possibility of a supernatural, all-powerful being.

Yes. Once one makes that leap of logic I suppose it does. Why then does the parting of the Red Sea seem so improbable to you?

That should be child's play for a "god."

[Atheist_named_Christian]

Actually to me its not a lie. Its my belief. So to me what happens is that people learn about the story and God and his message of peace for all humans, and identify themselves to it, and end up making the world better by following the teachings of the Son of God

I perfectly understood that part - that you think it is a good thing when people believe what you believe yourself. I disagree, but my question was:

What is the reason that god exists? If you tell me we just made him up to make the world a better place, you are a plain atheist, IMO.
To me it's much more plausible that god does not exist (or is at least dead for quite some time now) - so please convince me that this is not the case!