I greatly respect the teaching of Jesus and consider him a prophet. Whether or not he existed I do not know but, many of the sayings were good. If you talk to a Wiccan or any other religion they too like the teachings of Jesus himself although they don't consider him an idol.

It is radical fundamentalism that I do not like. It is like walking into a church one subjects themselves to a live version of the television show "Scare Tactics". In many ways over 20 years or so I stopped trying to be polite and shoo them off and became hardened and sarcastic because being polite to many equals I want to hear more regardless of how much I try to get away.

Christians remind me of my Uncle. He comes over and tries to "help out" but, whenever he does this he breaks something. In the beginning I would let him try to help and shrug it off. Later it became me saying nicely, "I'll do that later on. Don't mess with it. " and he still jumped on it and broke things anyway. Now it is me yelling out, "Don't touch that, Go home!"


[edit on 22/11/08 by toochaos4u]

Originally posted by Dontmakemebethe1
I supposed I am not understanding your post.

No, I actually think you did understand it as I agree with much of the rest of your post. This thread was set-up in reference to another thread which asks why is there is so much hatred towards Jesus?

As you say, the reality is that you don't (or won't) see that much actual hatred towards Jesus. I think most people - which includes atheists and people with a different faith or belief - actually see at least some merit in Jesus and his message. I've yet to see much of anything either on this board or off-line that actually suggests any differently.

People with strongly negative attitudes towards Jesus tend not to believe in Jesus or any other supernatural entity and so therefore don't actually hate Jesus per se as they believe there's nothing there to hate - and that's if those negative feelings actually stretch to "hate". Therefore any criticism they make has to be laid at self-professed Christians, not Jesus.

In a sense, it gets even harder for people with religious views to "hate" Jesus as it puts them in a difficult position regarding hypocrisy as to the veracity of belief in a supernatural force. Also, the 'good stuff' in the message of Jesus is often found in other beliefs too; I hope it's not a surprise to too many Christians that other religions tend to also encourage people to be 'nice', 'good', 'charitable' and so on.

Typical -

"Beliefs should be respected",
says the faithful Christian.

"OK, what about these beliefs - X,Y,Z ?"
asks the sceptic.

"Oh No !", says the Christian "they aren't Christian beliefs, so we can't respect them."

Purest hypocrisy and arrogance.

What they really mean is
"OUR beliefs should be respected"
(because all others are wrong).

I don't hate Jesus - but what I DO hate is the lies and hypocrisy of many of his followers.

Claiming to "respect beliefs" when what they really mean is :
"respect Christians beliefs, but reject all others."


Shameful.


Kapyong

Originally posted by prototism
Second, I have never directly stated that there are absolutely no "good" Christians. I'm sure many exist. I'm sure there are sects with agenda's as close to Jesus' teachings as you can get. So I suppose my comments were mainly directed at Baptists and other like minded sects.

Don't quote me, but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the "Christians" in this country are of this mindset. Of course, I could be wrong, and this assumption does't address the European Christians, whom I know nothing about. However, if I had to guess, I would say they were more "traditional", as a whole.

It's very hard for me to guess which mindset is actually prevalent.

I've spent all of my life in medium to large cities, either in the Northeast or the Northwest. The churches I've been aware of have been far more likely to organize anti-war protests than anti-gay or anti-choice protests.

I have never lived in a school district where there was a serious threat to teaching evolution in public schools.

So I think it probably depends a lot on where we're talking about – urban vs. rural, North vs. South, coasts vs. interior, etcetera.

That may even be an additional answer to the OP question:

Christians don't understand that people don't hate Jesus even after they've been told so because it doesn't correspond with their own experience in a different environment. And atheists don't believe that Christians don't think they should burn in hell even after being told so by a bunch of online Christians because it doesn't correspond with their real-life experience in a different environment.

I have been told that I will burn in hell by Christians who have decided to take the role of Judgement onto themselves. But many more Christians have declined the role of Judge, even when I press them, trying to bait them into saying something offensive about my unbelief. And I have been reminded many times, "all is possible in God"

And of course both sides have had real spiritual insight or intellectual liberation, and can't believe that it wouldn't be best for everyone to experience what they've experienced. Unfortunately, there are too many great experiences for any one person to have them all, so we each get only a sampling. Comparing which sample is better is probably a fruitless endeavor.

P.S - thanks for engaging in this little side discussion with me, and without turning it nasty even though I was rather aggressive in my first responses. I've found it interesting, I hope you have too

[edit on 11/22/08 by americandingbat]

Lucid Lunacy
Christians see Christ, The Bible, and sometimes The Church. All as ONE unified entity.
In that, it is all inspired by God, and integral to each other.

Non-Christians don't see that unity.

Interestingly, I could make a case for the idea that Christ didn't see that unity either. He did, after all, barge into the temple and kick the pharisees out.

So ultimately the main reason Christians see so much "hate towards Christ" is that
they are thinking like Christians when they evaluate the intent of the non-Christian
i.e not separating Christ from the Whole of their faith

There is a standard response occassionally given by Muslims to the challenge to try to see anything from the perspective of a non-Muslim. That response is "I am not capable of seeing from the perspective of a non-Muslim." It seems that many Christians take this approach as well.(And speaking of Muslims, let's not forget that the religion of Islam formally and officially recognizes Jesus as a prophet.)

This sort of thinking reminds me of how some people feel towards their sports teams when they routinely lose. Talk to a Red Socks or a Vikings fan. Even when their teams lose year after year after years, these people continually insist on loyalty towards "the team." I asked one of them about this once, and he got very indignant, and explained that team loyalty was like family loyalty. It was simply a given that "you don't turn your back on no matter what."

Essentially the same perspective is practiced by wolf packs.

Or as our dear President phrased it, "If you're not with us you're against us."

Personally I theorize that a great many people are pack animals dressed as humans.






[edit on 23-11-2008 by LordBucket]

defcon5
The groups who engage in this type of activity generally fall into three categories. The Jehovah Witnesses, Independent Churches (cults), and The Roman Catholic Church,

No, no, no!!!!

It's protestants who are the problem.

In my entire life I've only ever had one Jehovah's Witness preach to me. I've never had a Catholic give me any problems. None of the cult groups I've personally experienced describe themselves as Christian.

It's protestants who stood on the street corner of my high school harassing me and my school friends every day when we tried to go home from schoool. It's protestants who threatened that I would burn forever in hell if I didn't accept Jesus. It's protestants who infiltrated every student organization and insisted on group prayers at the end of meetings. It's protestants who insisted on having banners on the front lawn of the school campus. It's protestants who asked me to accept Jesus as my personal savior about once a week for four years.

Have I sought you out intentionally to ram my ideology down your throat?

You personally? No...but members of your religion are responsible for almost all the proslytizing
I experienced during my schoolage years. Now that I'm out of school, the Mormons have largely taken over. Protestants mostly seem to target schoolchildren.

At the same time there is a very vocal Homosexual lobby that wish to bash everything
biblical because it will never be compatible with their lifestyle.

That may be, but in my own personal experience, proslytizing homosexuals are not as manipulative, rude, or insistent about it as protestants are. When gays have tried to convince me to "switch over" their approach is usually "Hey! I really like sex. You're cute. Wanna give it a try? No? Ok, but you'll never know what you're missing out on." And that's the end of it. Don't get me wrong...that can be uncomfortable. But it's not nearly as obnoxious as what protestants do. Gays don't continually try to keep converting you year after year. Gays don't mail you Christmas cards saying "I pray that you will be saved." Gays don't threaten you with "If you don't convert, you're gonna go to Hell and BURN forever in eternity!"

Protestants are memebrs of the most insistent, obnoxious, rude, and manipulative group I have ever known.

This is not to say that "all protestants" are this way. That is not true. However, speaking generally of the group as a whole, I am aware of no other group which is as manipulative, obnoxious, or consistently in-your-face, year after year after year.

I say they are one in the same, with few exceptions,
and it’s the message that you truly hate.

No. It's not the message. It's not even the messengers. It's the manner in which the message is delivered. And, honestly, it's traumatic childhood experiences. If Christians were to try to approach me now with the things they did when I was younger, I would laugh in their faces. But when an adult missionary tells a 10 year old that they're going to spend eternity burning in hellfire if they don't accept Jesus as their savior...that is seriously not ok.

Yes, that happened to me.

what have I ever done personally to make you hate me?

Personally? Nothing. I dont know you. But as a member of a group with so many extremely vocal members who are so consistently obnoxious, you need to understand that these are the people that people tend to associate with Christianity. Christians...don't try to get out of this by making excuses that "it wasn't me" "it wasn't my church" or "oh...but surely he was an unusual case." The things that I've described happen routinely. If you don't want the general public to blame you collectively as a group, you need to clean house of the large number of extremely vocal members of your group that make life miserable for everyone else.

Originally posted by toochaos4u
In many ways over 20 years or so I stopped trying to be polite and shoo them off and became hardened and sarcastic because being polite to many equals I want to hear more regardless of how much I try to get away.

I've never thought about it that way, but it's true. It's like when telemarketers call, I used to act nice and tell them politely that I'm not interested, but now I just hang up - because if you act polite, they just keep pushing it.
Or when the mormons come and say "let me tell you about my friend Jesus".
Imagine how they would feel if I knocked on their doors and said "let me tell you about my imaginary friend - the pink cookie monster of doom".
But I digress.

Originally posted by LordBucket
It's protestants who threatened that I would burn forever in hell if I didn't accept Jesus.

Ahh...
The fiery "love" of God seeps into the public, methinks.


[edit on 23-11-2008 by TruthParadox]

You all need to stop a minute, we are all brothers/sisters here in this world, and those christians and christStains are our brothers, just a little more retarded seemingly when it comes to spiritual truths.

The true journey of spiritual things is a long, never ending, road that is hard to make progress on.

So people that fall into orginized religion are those that are on the road and instead of walking they sit down and lyingly say to themselves "WE'VE ARIVED!". This is self deception.

Then again some do honestly continue to progress in spiritual paths, and after all isn't that the point?

Originally posted by defcon5
The only Church historically to ever kill masses of people was the Roman Catholic Church,

I don't think this is strictly true. From a "Social History of England" by Asa Briggs: "Between 1563 and Elizabeth's death in 1603, in the county of Essex alone, 174 persons were indicted for black witchcraft...although only half that number were executed."

That was just in one county. They were still burning witches for nearly another century in Britain, and this was all being done at the instigation of the Church of England.

There were of course also many cults such as the Jonestown suicide, and it is known that a large number of these poor gullible people did not want to die.

Martin Luther's Protestants in Germany also went witch-hunting and many more died.

But what do you expect of a religion that teaches one to hate mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers - Luke 14:26 and to make war - Matthew 10:34/36.