Why are people so offended by...

[damian]

[refractor]

[James S]

Immaculate conception, anothing guest?

[another guest]

Don't blame me, I didn't say it, Nietsche did.

[James S]

What's that? Some kind of music group?

I'll just sum up Christianity in this nice little, relatively famous, paragraph:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the begotten Son of God."

[refractor]

Quicky-ill-thought-out-rambling-that-may-be-partly-devil's-advocate-(ha-ha)-but-don't-take-it-as-flame-bait-please:

It's probably that kind of stuff (the quote Moosey posted) that rankles the non-religious lot (like myself) the most.

To paraphrase the above:
"If you don't believe in Jesus then you're not living a fulfilling life (or you're not going to live a fulfilling life or you're going to hell when you die or whatever)".

What gives anybody the right (I'm including your God in that ) to make the assumption that I as a "godless" person am missing out on anything what-so-ever? How does God improve your life? (I'm serious). Would an atheist like myself, gain anything on a day-to-day basis by believing in God? I don't think that I would, whereas religious people would be screaming "of course!". There'd be nothing tangible or quantifiable though, would there...

It all just makes churches into cliques (albeit large ones) of people getting together and proclaiming "we're better than everybody else, we are" and feeling all smug and content about it. They try and make you feel "special" or that you actually have a part to play in something grander... when IMHO nobody is special and the only part we have to play is in evolution.

Another thing, how come Jesus's life was such a sacrifice? Surely God is omnipotent, so he could send down (another ) million Jesus's to persuade us that he's a nice, charitable God. Or maybe he could pop down out of the clouds to stop a war or something. Maybe he could get the churches to distribute some of their wealth to the people who need it?

Didn't he have a hissy-fit when people worshipped a sacred calf or something? Why isn't he smiting down Buddhists and Islamists, etc - melting Buddha statues etc?

If I'm so cursed by not believing in God, how come my life is pretty normal (and remarkably similar to the life of my girlfriend who's a practicing Christian)?

Meandering waffling over and out (to the tune of ... doobie doobie doo Inspector Gadget).

[James S]

But that's just it. People like myself don't think like that. I'm not about to say "I'm better than you because I'm a Christian," because I know that isn't true.

Being a Christian isn't about having a better earthly life. The Apostles, the first Christians, lived the most horrible life you could imagine. Constantly in jail, being spat on when they walked by. HORRIBLE. Being a Christian means you don't have to worry about yourself so you can try hard to help other people.
A lot of Christians realize that God isn't exactly what people think they need. Like a starving kid in a third world country. What does he immediately need the love of God for? He can't touch it, he can't eat it, it won't keep him warm at night.

Jesus life was such a sacrifice because Jesus was sin free. He broke the cycle of sin. Before Jesus, humans couldn't even go into the inner layer of the church, where God's presence dwelt, or else they'd be decintigrated, just because we were so unpure. But after Jesus lived a sin free life, that layer was broken, humans can be with God now. That's the normal theo-babel to most, I suppose, but that's why He was so great a sacrifice.
First of all, God works in mysterious ways. He's not going to just pop down from the clouds, as you put it, and change everyone's minds and stop people from fighting and immediately bring everyone to Heaven. That completely destroys our free will, which is what sets humans apart from all other animals. And sometimes wars are for the best. World War II, without it the world would be under a Nazi flag right now. And also, you don't understand that people deep into religion don't put a lot of stake in this life. We look forward to the afterlife, to heaven. So, not that this life 'doesn't matter,' but say a friend dies. Sure I'll mourn, but I'll see them again and in no time.
That's what is so weird, I think, to most non-religious people. I don't see this life as the end, I'm not looking to have the most wonderful life here on earth because I know that nothing I can do here will even come close to what it's like to be in Heaven.

Melting Buddha statues? That goes back to free will. God made us in his 'image' of free, moral beings. God is letting us chose whatever we want.

Again, your life here on earth might be great even if you don't have God. Actually, a good life here on earth is a very famous way for the devil to distract people from what, to me, truly matters. The Apostles had a horrible life all because they believed Jesus was the Messiah. People hated them, stoned them, beat them. They were continually fleeing. They didn't have a good life here on earth. But according to the Bible, "the last shall be first, and the first, last." 'He who is humbled will be exalted. And the meek shall inherit the earth.'

Being a Christian isn't about what God can do for me, it's about what I can do for God. ("Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." -JFK. Same thing)

[refractor]

Ok, nice reply, that cleared some stuff up. Thanks Moose.

[another guest]

[James S]

[Warren]

[David Horn]

[James S]

[James S]

[Warren]

Well, at least He doesn't look into your thoughts, that would be scary.

I just like not believing in god because it opens the universe to question, religion answers those questions with myths and stuff, but I'd rather learn about the big picture with scientific data, you can believe in the big bang theory, but then where did all that matter come from? You can't create nor destroy it, so where did it come from? We don't know, yet. Science can't answer everything, but we're always getting closer. Man said we'd never be able to fly, well, we did it. Man said we'd never get into space, well, we did it. Man said we'd never achieve 1Ghz (the mythical processing boundry), but we did it. Man says we can't travel through time, but we just haven't figured it out yet. Maybe it is impossible, we just haven't proved it yet. When did time start? Time is linear (when traveling not at the speed of light, which I don't understand why time should change from a speed...but I'll learn), so when did it start? And how? We don't know, yet. What I'm getting at is, I just prefer saying "we don't know yet", instead of "god did it".