Request from a Christian.

[Pat Mustard]

Where did you grow up / go to school?

Cutting in, define "grow up".

That stuff you get up to before you die.

[brewer]

Cutting in, define "grow up".

That stuff you get up to before you die.

Thanks Mr. Greene.

[Mr Greene]

Where he spent his childhood/got an education.

[Jesster]

Where did you grow up / go to school?

Cutting in, define "grow up".

Farm in a cheerful mood

[brewer]

Cutting in, define "grow up".

Farm in a cheerful mood

The thought had crossed my mind that you might be broccoli.

[Astonished]

Yes the story will be in there. I believe it happened due to a sense of tribalism in the church. Maybe even collectiveness. The Bible teaches us to treat others like we want to be treated, something is getting in the way of that.

A relatively tiny section of the bible suggests this, yes. The rest of the bible does not. So clearly you have selected the part of the book that lines up with how you think things should be. And I agree, they should be that way. You've found ways of justifying to yourself how this is the "real Christianity", and that everyone else is mistaken to be acting on all the other parts which contradict this message.

This is what everyone does, but they don't see it. Religion ends up being a mirror for peoples' morality. There is no correct interpretation. There is just a book, and myths surrounding a book. And objectively, the bible is a morally disgusting book for almost all of it. You have to cherry pick it to come up with anything nice, and even then it's just common sense morality and nothing more.

I'm all for cherry picking. I want people to be nice, however they justify it to themselves. I'm just pointing out that this is what is happening. There is no "real Christianity". In fact, for both Christianity and Islam, the "radicals" are people like yourself who have taken an incredibly tangential view of the bible to come up with something peaceful. Give it to anyone who hasn't been told not to ignore great swathes of the book, while also being told it's the "word of God", and you have a recipe for disaster. You literally can't follow the whole book, because it's a mess of contradictions. So you end up having to make up your own version. It's the "big book of multiple choice". If you focus on the parts you like, you can make it support almost any moral viewpoint.

I've asked before what exactly Christianity offers, morality wise, that isn't completely obvious to any well-balanced atheist. The general reply I got is that there is nothing.

In reality, the religion is the oral myths. The book is just a backdrop. You've been raised with the idea (or figured out) that Christianity is about peace and understanding. And that's that. To you, that is Christianity. It doesn't matter what the book says. If you were raised a long time ago, you'd have been taught it's about hellfire, judgement, war and wiping out people who disagree. Now, you may have been repulsed and rejected this "version", but that would have been the norm. That would be the religion, as it stood then.

Exactly. You can't polish a turd and then tell anyone else it's not a turd anymore even if you twist your definition to allow it to become something else in your warped dictionary.

Have enough fucking self-respect to give yourself credit for your own ability to see that the bible is a myth and not to be taken seriously nor even to be taken as useful for advice any more than a fortune cookie.

[Natachan]

Hmm... mistreatment by Christians....

Well, there is two types, the type that happened before I deconverted and the type that happened after I became an atheist.

Before I stopped believing my experiences were almost all positive, except for a few mild instances in school. I believed that prayer was a personal private matter, that should not be done in public. I had teachers who pressured students into prayer. I know of another teacher who would dock the grades of students who didn't follow her fundamentalist baptist ideology. This did not stop until my sibling was in her class and my parents made her stop.

After I lost my belief my experiences turned more negative. My tires were slashed, my car keyed. A woman I was working at tried her best to get me fired by blaming me for missing stock. I routinely have cops either following me or pulling me over for no reason (I have a Darwin fish on my car). My family has been supportive, but they are all highly educated individuals.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes the story will be in there. I believe it happened due to a sense of tribalism in the church. Maybe even collectiveness. The Bible teaches us to treat others like we want to be treated, something is getting in the way of that.

Uh, yeah, it's the fucking bible that's getting in the way of that.......... 

People who have no other reason, whatsoever, to mistreat another human being find their reasons in, ding ding ding, the bible.

[Cyberman]

How about treating people the way they want to be treated?

Ah, but that would mean making the effort to get to know them, wouldn't it?

[Astonished]

How about treating people the way they want to be treated?

Ah, but that would mean making the effort to get to know them, wouldn't it?

Or believing they deserve it because they're all just miserable sinners deserving of eternal hellfire, so why bother treating them well? Or perhaps the bible is just too stringent about that fate to allow anyone to think nicely of themselves and others. Such a good book, can't go wrong demolishing self-esteem like that.