This is exactly the same answer I am giving the other thread. There are so many evil people of this religion, because they worship the words of an evil book. Looking throught the torah/bible/koran, I was struck by how many examples there are of good punishing people far out of comparison to their crimes, rediculous prohabition, and zenophobia.
The sort of Christians you are describing are mis-interprating the message of Jesus. Jesus preached tolerance, love, and forgiveness, as well as warning against judging others.
It would seem that while these people may well have read the bible they have not properly comprehended what they read. Unfortunately they give all Christians a bad name.
I can give examples of that from the actual teachings of the Christ? I know that he was pissed at the money changers in the temple and threw them out, but I can’t think of anyone he punished. Any other specific examples from what he said or taught? (I’m not saying they are not there; I just can’t think of any off the top of my head.)
I don’t think that sins are necessarily evil and I don’t think that everyting on that list is a sin. I don’t even think that what is a sin for one person is necessarily a sin for another. The word sin doesn’t communicate much to me anymore anyway. I think more in terms of whether or not I am being true to myself.
You only go to hell if you don’t accept Jesus.
I’m an atheist now, but when I was forced to go to church by my public school and parents they drilled that into you.
Quote #1:
Quote #2:
And this, friends, is why I have become shamefully, embarassingly skeptical of Christians and Christianity. I know, objectively, that most Christian people - including my own relatives, friends, co-workers, and random strangers who have been kind to me - are decent people who, given half a chance, would remind me that quote #2 describes them. Unfortunately, the quote #2 crowd is either not strong enough or not yet ready to stand up to the quote #1 crowd. And for that reason, the Christianity with which I’m routinely confronted leaves me with the ever-stronger belief that the Christian community does not, to put it mildly, have my best interests at heart.
Therefore, I join in the pitting of evil Christians and evil people acting Christian, and curse them for robbing me of the ability to trust in the fundamental goodness of the decent people I see and meet every day.
Do you pit evil atheists too?
I for one am happy to pit evil atheists. I just don’t know of too many atheists (evil or otherwise) in the news these days–do you?
Daniel
cwthree --very well said.
I am on the fence about the whole God thing. I have proclaimed myself Christian in the past, but I see sooooo much hypocrisy, shallowness, and outright ignoring of the message and His teachings-even within my own church. I may well have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but I am sleeping well o’ nights.
I guess I’m a Theist (Deist?), not a Christian.
Since we are talking about evil Christians, could someone elucidate for me how on Earth one can be a neo-con and claim that you’re a Christian? Where is the treating of the least of these etc? Where is the love of children(living, present children, not the “unborn”)–ie funding for schools, daycare, foster system? Where is the good stewardship of the Earth?
How in hell do they claim to be good and pure and righteous when everything they do is literally anti-Christ?
For those of you who may be confused by this–I tend to equate neo-con (and even some GOP now) with evil Christians. Just calling them the way I see them.
Actually, they understand it just fine. Problem is, the parts advocating hate, are just on the same level as the parts about jesus. Besides, jesus wasn’t all peace and love.
Here is a example:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother …
– Matthew 10:34-35 (AV)and on the more commical side, and on the more comical side, god hates figs.
That sound nice, but it has no relation to the actual defintion of sin. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great viewpoint to take to creat a positive society, but it is an example of rational thinking coming into conflict with what the religion actualy teaches, and what a person must do to be a good person.
Self-abuse is a nasty habit. 
I think this is part of the answer to the OP. Certain Christians believe that once they are “saved”, their behavior will not dictate whether they go to Hell, that nothing can take away their being saved. Other believe no one is saved until they are dead.
This gets into different definitions of love. I’m not sure “God is love” refers to the same thing as the emotion one lover feels to another (gay, straight or whatever).
Nyyyeeeeeeeeeeh, not really.
He’s describing what could/will happen in households in which one member accepts Christianity and another doesn’t. The “variance” comes when the non-believers disagree with the believers. Jesus isn’t even advocating that the Christians go out and forcibly convert the non-believers (that’s all Paul) – he says that if there’s a town that doesn’t accept them as missionaries, to leave it and go onto the next one.
Paul, IMO, is kind of a dick, but I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything detestable in the character of Jesus.
b.t.w. the reason I leave athiests out is that they don’t profess some sort of uyltimate suffering to those who are evil. And so being evil and atheist is not as hypocritical. That said I don’t believe athiests are necessarily more likely to be evil simply because they don’t beleive they will face some cosmic court of justice that will make them pay for their missdeeds and pay them for their good deeds.
b.t.w. if a Mod would prefer this in GD that is fine, I put it in the pit because I wasn’t sure it would stay in GD if I started it there.