I see that this has broadened into the sophisticated theology thread.
How about this cracker:
Also, has anyone noticed that a banana is exactly the right shape to fit in your hand?
IMO it’s because God doesn’t want mindless robots with no choice to follow Him. He wants people that chose to love and come to Him. Freewill is the filter He gave to make that possible. You don’t want to follow HIm is a valid choice, albeit one that will erase you from the book of life. When the final judgement comes you will just cease for the options are life eternally with God or a 2nd death, one that is permanent. The lake of fire and brimstone is reserved for Satan and the false prophet and a few other select.
People are, on balance, rational. They make rational choices. They love and protect their children. Now, I know there are exceptions. Mental illness and drug abuse and so forth. But, we’re talking about the vast majority out there. They don’t walk around poking themselves with forks - because poking yourself with a fork is irrational.
However, being religious means deliberately being irrational - on purpose - for a period of time. You agree to simply not use your brain. Want to impose arbitrary dietary restrictions? Want to cut off a portion of my penis? Want to take my money? Want to send my children off on “missions” for the church? Want to ruin the lives of homosexuals? Want to repress women? Sure!
So … why would people do that? Why would they choose - of their own free will - to participate in such madness?
Well, one reason is the threat of hell. Do what we say or there will be consequences.
Start there, apply just a little self-rationalization and a life time of indoctrination… and, you’ll be on a street corner begging people to convert in no time flat.
One other quick note - It is often difficult for atheists to accept that True Believers actually believe the things that they say that they believe. And, the reason is that it’s all so completely irrational. But, the weird truth is that, the vast majority of the time, the True Believers really do, in fact, believe the things that they say that they believe. They really do.
I’m afraid an awful lot of people only suspend disbelief, but do not truly believe.
The ones who preach, “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain” – and then go right on cussing.
The ones who steal, who lie, who hit people – while claiming to be faithful.
The guy who said to me, “I’ll turn the other cheek…and then I’m going to deck the son of a bitch.”
Belief? No: just a shallow kind of unexamined doctrinism. If they really believed, they’d behave that way.
Hell is cold, burned coffee and warm, flat soda.
I don’t see the relevance of this analogy. Suppose that the seat belt is made of barbed wire, but that the person you’re driving with somehow doesn’t realize this. Suppose that they genuinely think that seat belts really do make people much safer. Wouldn’t you still expect such a person to urge you to buckle up? Yes, they’d be factually wrong, but the point is, they don’t know that, and so their urging is still perfectly logical (given the premises) and compassionate.
The problem is that, even after you tell them this they still don’t know it, because these seat belts that you are pushing are just like all the other ones, and none of them come with any more evidence that they do what they claim to do than any other.
You’ve expressed one of the reasons why this gets debated. Yours is one minority interpretation of a particular Christian branch. It differs on many important points from many other minority sects, and the majority sect (i.e. it doesn’t appear to be the Catholic doctrine). Now given that, what is the true roulette square that a hell-fearing individual should put their pile of chips in?
Which god would this be? There are so many to choose from, y’know.
Take the example of the Baptist Minister who is preaching against homosexuality from the pulpit on Sunday morning, but is socking cock in a hotel room on Saturday night.
Does that guy really believe in God? How could he? Thing is, he went to a lot of trouble to conceal the illicit cocksucking from his parishioners and family. Because if they found out he was sucking cock, he would have suffered some severe penalties.
Now, does he not realize that God can see what he’s doing as he slobs another guy’s knob? Is he fooling God? Of course not. So he doesn’t suck cock in front of his wife, because he doesn’t want his wife to know, but he’s fine with sucking cock in front of God, because it doesn’t matter if God knows. It’s one thing to steal money from the company till when your boss isn’t watching, it’s another thing to steal when your boss is watching. If your boss is watching, you don’t steal, because you don’t want to get caught. When is God not watching?
This is an extreme example, but there are plenty of Christians who claim all day every day to believe in God, yet constantly do things that would anger the God they claim to believe in. And they go to quite a bit of trouble to keep other humans from finding out their transgressions but they don’t do anything to fool God.
In a word… bull.
There are millions of people who believe smoking causes cancer, but who still smoke, are there not?
Even those of us who sincerely believe something is evil and/or dangerous can still find temptatioin very hard to resist.
Another explanation not given yet (I think):
Some people are incredibly uncomfortable with people who believe something different from themselves. It really gets to them.
So if someone like this thinks the main reason they “believe” is to avoid hell and they see someone else who doesn’t care about any of that they get really shaken by it. To ward off doubting their own belief they double down and work to change the other person’s belief.
Too many 100% true believers aren’t actually all that secure in their beliefs and go to great lengths to be in denial about it. Even if it means burning people at the stake.
This is the correct answer. I know it’s required here to bash religious people and questions their motives and integrity, but there are a lot of people on the globe who truly believe in what their religion teaches, and honestly believe if you don’t find their version of God, you will go to hell. If you truly believe this, as many do, it becomes your mission to save these people.
Nobody needs to get into the eleventy billionth iteration of what’s wrong with religion, but there are people, despite what you think about it, who think their God/seatbelt is the one and only. Given this belief, their actions are totally explainable.
Are you looking for a serious answer? Your thread title would suggest otherwise. 
I’m fine with warm, flat soda. Eminently drinkable.
The coffee, now, there you have me.
This is one of the more heart-breaking aspects of addiction: the addict cannot be helped until and unless they want it for themselves. Pushing religion on an addict who doesn’t want it is pointless.
Turn this around: SUPPOSE you stumbled on a Christian web site and found somebody asking, “Why does Richard Dawkins write books trying to turn people against God?”
SUPPOSE then that you found Christian members giving answers like:
“He’s doing it to make money.”
“It’s a meme- he’s driven to share his ideas.”
“He gets a thrill from acting bold and transgressive.”
“It makes him feel like a big shot.”
At this point, wouldn’t you find yourself shaking your head and saying, “Folks, it’s SIMPLE! He’s writing these books because he really, truly believes that religion is false and dangerous. He thinks he’s doing you a favor. He thinks you’ll be happier and the world will be a better place if you listen to him and do as he prescribes.”
After all, apart from Dawkins and Sam Harris, there are VERY few people who’ve made much money espousing atheism. If you want to get rich, I can think of a hundred better ways than writing anti-God books. Hence, if someone is out there trying to share his beliefs (or non-beliefs), Occam’s Razor suggests it’s because he actually believes what he’s selling.
Well, guess what: religion is NOT a great way of getting rich! The average Catholic priest isn’t rolling in dough. Neither is a typical Lutheran minister, a typical rabbi, or a typical imam. Again, if you want to make big bucks, you go to the Wharton School, not to divinity school.
Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that, different as they are, Mother Angelica and Sam Harris are BOTH writing what they write because they think their message has value, and that people who embrace it will be better off?
Richard Dawkins can(and does) show show verifiable evidence for the claims he makes-he doesn’t ask anyone to rely on blind faith. If you want to claim that you are trying to save me from Hell or make sure I make it into Heaven the very least you should be required to do is:
You can claim that you are trying to show me the only way out of a burning theatre, but I’m not seeing any fire in this building with 5,000 exits, so if you don’t mind I’m going to stick round and enjoy the show.
I am. Thread title was meant to attract attention.
None of the responses have surprised me much. I am particularly interested in actual church doctrine (i.e. The LDS effort to baptise the dead) and what impact followers believe such efforts will make in cementing their spot in heaven.
Nothing you said addressed my point.
OBVIOUSLY, you have no obligation to listen if I try to preach to you. If you tell me to get lost, I should leave.
But my motivations for preaching are as simple as they seem. No need to scratch your head wondering “What’s his angle?”