Allow me to introduce you to the No True Scotsman fallacy.

“What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26

christianity is certainly not hateful. it teaches nothing but love.

Nothing but love. Really? That’s your claim now? What denomination are you?

You don’t like being called on your shitty attitude? Change your attitude. Keep your empty threats to yourself too unless you want even more open mockery.

I’d find it easier to grasp “Jesus’s love” if the Bible didn’t give the impression of being written by an Bronze age cult member displaying the ignorance of that time, such as countless animal sacrifices to please their God, and treating women as possessions of men (it’s instructions are all aimed at men with reference to “their” females).

Start with the concept of praying. If you can demonstrate that statistically more religious areas suffer less than areas with little or no religion, then I’ll give your other stories more consideration. If this were true it would be very trivial to show.

If you can show me anything in your Bible which shows facts known to the author but not known to common folk of the time, or if you can show anything from any other cult, past or present, which is untrue, or any event of any kind which shows the need for a God to make it happen, then I’ll give your particular religion more mindshare.

If belonging to a group consensus makes you feel warm and fuzzy, it can no doubt be a beneficial thing, albeit a brief effect, just like any other placebo. But don’t expect the rational folk to tiptoe around and not burst bubbles, because facts about the world is what makes *us* feel warm and fuzzy (it’s why scientists are disproportionally non-theistic).

Ultimately, we all have our own ingrained level of happyness which we always settle back to after experiencing blips of highs and lows. It’s down to you whether you’d rather spend that in a deluded state, with the ultimate bitterness which follows from the increasingly educated demographic pointing out to you how vacuous your words are about the modern world.

We value truth highly. As yourself whether the religion you belong to aligns with a) what’s true, or b) the religion you were exposed to at a young impressionable age. If you answered “a” then ask yourself how someone in India would typically answer that question, or people in Saudi Arabia. Is the religion you subscribe to based on truth, or your location?

I couldn’t give a shit how sick and tired you are of my not kowtowing to you. You aren’t reasoning, you’re demanding. I will now accept your privilege or your assumption that your way is the only way and I will resist the wickedness of organised religion until it has been pushed to the very edges of society. Unlike you lunatics though I will use only words to do so. I won’t try to force laws restricting rights to Christians as you lot do to women. I won’t try to outlaw your religious marriages as you do to gay marriages. Far from being a bully I will stand up to your bullying tactics and correct you wherever I meet your kind.

“your nothing but a bully” – “You’re”

Like Mitch Hedberg said, I don’t want to be known as a boating enthusiast… I’m just a guy who likes to boat.

To the first question, I am neither in possession of a soul nor an empty shell. I am a carbon based, living, breathing mammal of the species Homo Sapiens. I am three dimensional, made of meat and water, and inside my shell, there are guts, organs, blood and my semi-digested dinner.

In answer to your second question, there is far more to everyone than meets the eye. I have interests, hobbies, feelings and thoughts that would not be obvious based on mere visual inspection of myself. Also, you would be hard pressed to see my skeleton, for example, without scientifically based medical techniques and equipment.

What lies behind my eyes is my ocular nerves, which connect my eyes to my visual cortex, which is located in the back quarter of my brain.

You claim knowledge that you can not present any empirical evidence. And your farcical “questions they won’t answer” comment/post further refutes the validity of your statement.

With this knowledge, I am glad that when my body dies, I won’t EVER have to line up again. Because I will be dead. I sleep soundly knowing this, because I am not afraid of dying. I am not afraid of dying because I am fairly convinced by the evidence available that I won’t be set of fire until the heat death of the universe. (You’ll have to google that one yourself…. )

Love
Nate

I made fun of christians all the time and refused the gospel. not to mention, I had a sin record like 30 miles long. I lied, stole, used God’s name as a cuss word, and had dirty fantasies about girls.

Bias, exaggeration and selective use of facts are the mainstay of Christians. Selective memory is a way to maintain cognitive dissonance. I’m sure that you were probably no bigger an asshat than you are now that you are a Christian. Probably less of one.

I don’t believe in sin either. I think it is an invented sickness to sell an imaginary cure. I cannot “give up my sinful nature” because I don’t believe in a sinful nature or any other such nonsense.

We should not have faith. Faith and reason are enemies. Any attempt to convince another person that your faith is true, objectively true, true for everyone, is unthinkable arrogance on your part.

We call this one “confirmation bias”. Also anecdote isn’t evidence and sometimes coincidences are just coincidences. If you want to verify that prayer works then pray that I’ll win the lottery this weekend. I’ll let you know if I do.

Try again.

Can you do that?

Of course you can’t. Ask yourself why not.

See, we can make assertions too.

You’re rhetoric is pointless. Threats of an imaginary hell aren’t going to get us to believe in an imaginary man in the sky. We’d have to believe in hell and a god that watches us for that threat to be effective and then you wouldn’t use it.