If Christianity has any appeal at all, a real ace in the hole, it's Jesus. But modern Christians spend more time pushing socially backward policies having zero to do with the guy, targeting and judging and hating on exactly the people Jesus actually spent his time helping. Not hard to figure out why that's not appealing.
When did an atheist ever say that the human mind is the most advanced mind in the universe? Unlike Christians, atheists do not believe in certainty. If an atheist ever said what you claim, he/she is wrong. Any scientist will tell you that we do not possess the knowledge/data to determine what you claimed. Do you even know what rationality means?
The difference here of course is when an atheist says you are wrong, he/she doesn't believe you will burn in eternal hell fire.
The point of a Christianity never has been to accommodate everyone's personal opinions into doctrine. The people who get most offended are the ones who don't understand that. That being said, the point of Christianity is certainly not to incite hatred and war. Christ, the person who the religions are supposed to be based around, spent his whole life trying to set an example of selfless sacrifice and endurance of persecution for future Christians to follow. Put simply, he taught that God had a purpose and plan for the world, and it was our job to simply accept it and meekly endure all of the other hardship that would ensue in life. However, it didn't take long for doctrine to get distorted and people to become petty and rise up with indignation as their numbers grew. This fuels a vicious cycle of retaliation from both sides and now any conversation about Christianity as much more about people and their past transgressions than any real spiritual conversation. This is my take anyways.
Please bare in mind that you don't speak for all atheists like I don't speak for all Christians... This kind of 'us vs them' mentality will never lead to anything productive.
Atheist here, but Christianity and religion aren't going anywhere. Still the cheapest and easiest way to network and socially stratify, and nobody's getting married at a courthouse.
Agreed, many people don't actually try to live as Jesus did and take to heart his message but instead have set up a cult of personality, as is taught in many Protestant churches (and no, I'm not even close to Catholic or Orthadox). And as I pointed out in another thread, this is route for failure if for no other reason than that this thinking leads to people creating an idol Jesus and leading them to even further trivial pursuits such as trying to determine what color of skin Jesus was, as if it is supposed to matter if you follow Him.
Funny - because Christ is supposed to be the foundation and basis of the religion. To be Christian is to be an adherent to the teachings of Jesus. Yet, so far have we strayed as a society from that, that we're referring to the epicenter of the faith as "the ace in the hole." Today, when we're arguing about "Christianity", it means an entirely different thing. It means whatever set of pre-disposed general opinions the speaker has attached to the term in their mind. I'm not a fan of rabid progressivism and villainization of faith and family piety. But to defend my position is to be labeled as a dreaded "Christian". I'm not a martyr, I'm just bored and apathetic. Why do we all love to call ourselves 'intellectuals' but have so much trouble separating ideas from generalities?
As a Christian you believe in certainty. You believe that there is a god. You believe that there is a certain path towards eternal bliss(Jesus). That is certainty. Maybe I'm using incorrect vernacular. An agnostic or a non-theist does not believe in certainty. He/She does not assume the existence of god and will be happy to "believe" in god and his rules on salvation when evidence other than a 2000 year old book exists.
I think it should be debated. There is no harm in a healthy debate. I agree though there will be no different conclusion in this debate than the thousands of debates that preceded this one.
Until people who are ready to move on from organized religion realize that they don't have to reject the idea of God completely and that there are other theological ideas out there (hint: occult means hiden, not evil or Satanic though there is a negative side of it). Does anyone by chance know the true meaning behind the Wizard of Oz?
His ministry lasted one year. We do not have many historical accounts of his life and how he lived it prior to his ministry.
