All Christians should read this..

[Darwinian]

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2006/...ancer.html

[StewartP]

Old habits die hard.

I had to make a conscious effort to stop talking to god, little prayers, little thanksgivings. When something fortuitous happened I had to make the effort to not give a little "thank-you Lord". When problems arose I had to stop with the "please God..."

When my daughter was ill in hospital with pneumonia a year ago I din't pray. C'mon Stew, use your head, there is no God. If there was, why would Briony be sick in the first place? To test me. To test you? what kind of sick bastard would harm your child to test you? C'mon be logical, you KNOW there's no God. It's just you and your family armed with 21st century medical science that are going to lick this. Put your trust in the numbers, pneumonia gets beaten all the time by the medics.

And when she came home 2 days later I gave my thanks and praise to the doctors and nurses.

Christianity is a hell of a monkey on your back to shake off.

[Brick-top]

Is your daughter alright now?

[StewartP]

Hey, she's super-duper.

My son (11), however broke his arm very badly 3 months ago but is now fine and will have the pins removed in a few weeks. God wasn't involved in that incident either.

[Tiberius]

I was once a liberal Christian who got nagged at by friends to stop saying "Thank God" because it is apparently offensive. Strange that I had to become an atheist to finally say "Thank goodness" instead.

[Brick-top]

Hey, she's super-duper.

My son (11), however broke his arm very badly 3 months ago but is now fine and will have the pins removed in a few weeks. God wasn't involved in that incident either.

Ouch, my dad broke his leg (again) and he hasn't been walking very well ever since.

Which would explain we did a 70 mile hike we did a few months ago.

[Edwardo Piet]

Well my belief now is this: Why be afraid of going to hell if you're just as likely to go to hell whatever religion you follow. And just as likely to go to heaven whatever religion you follow, even if you don't follow a religion at all. God might want noone to believe in him and only send atheists to heaven and all believers in ANY God to hell. Because faith is 'made up' and so is heaven and hell. If I invent a God its just as likely as the ones 'invented' by religion, and this God might even unfairly hate believers and love atheists.

[Alan]

Well my belief now is this: Why be afraid of going to hell if you're just as likely to go to hell whatever religion you follow. And just as likely to go to heaven whatever religion you follow, even if you don't follow a religion at all. God might want noone to believe in him and only send atheists to heaven and all believers in ANY God to hell. Because faith is 'made up' and so is heaven and hell. If I invent a God its just as likely as the ones 'invented' by religion, and this God might even unfairly hate believers and love atheists.

Why? Because you were raised in that fear. Children expect their parents and elderly to be wiser and speak the truth. They are impressionable. For them "if you touch yourself, you will die a neverending death in a river of fire" is as credible as "if you cross the road without waiting for the traffic light to turn green, you will get run over by a car".

I don't think a raised atheist can that easily be converted with fear. Fear is what was instilled in many theists' hearts in their childhood and that's why it's also what keeps them in their religion in adulthood even when they learn better.

There's a good reason Dawkins called it psychological child abuse.

I was raised by a Christian moderate mom and a religiously apathetic dad, so hell never was much of a reality for me (in fact, most moderates I know are convinced they won't go to hell even if their religion in question would say otherwise -- the good old "wouldn't happen to me" reasoning), but I can understand how troublesome it must be for people who were raised by literalists and other extremists -- particularly in the U.S. and South America where the fear of hellfire is very real for many Christians.