About 98% of the people I meet from organized religions, are the worst hypocrites. That is why.

I'm amazed, truly, at how many "stop bashing the Christians" threads I've seen recently... not just here, on other sites too. I'll start off, however, by saying that many of the so-called "anti-Christians" are extremely brash, undiplomatic and bereft of the slightest amount of decorum.

The kind of vibe I'm getting feels like this. Many Christians are told by their leaders, and interpret in their books that they will be persecuted, and that it's simply prophecy. "All these things must come to pass!"

Several Israel/Palestine threads, abortion threads, LGBT rights threads, lib vs. con threads and others on various message boards have Christians who have an unpopular opinion. Due to the possibility that their opinions may be considered abhorrent around a certain topic, they actually feel persecution. After all, what were things in the West like fifty years ago? Two hundred years ago?

As the Christian world-view is somewhat dwindling on the leaderboard of philosophies in this day and age, I'm not surprised that people feel threatened... for lack of a better word. To be fair, there are some awesome, wonderful, spectacular Christians on this thread (and soooo many off of it) who do not deserve the ill treatment that many give them. But what about the others?

Well, for the others I say this:

What did you expect when you posted the thread about Hallow e'en and its "satanic" origins?

What did you expect when you posted those videos on the evils of the New Age philosophies and every non-Christian faith - especially the Eastern ones?

What did you expect when you insinuated that the Antichrist would be a Muslim, or that Islam is rotten to the core?

Honestly, what did you expect when you recited John 8:44 to every atheist, Wiccan, Buddhist, Muslim etc. that decided they didn't agree with you?

Some Christians talk about tough love when they go on these wanton Raids of Rebuke. Well, did it ever occur to them that the "Christian-bashers" are returning that same tough love?

For the record, both parties make me feel like I'm leaving my 80s rather than entering my 20s.

I was raised Baptist and Assembly of God. My parents still believe, however, I do not. At best I am Agnostic. I think there may be something there, but I don't know. It could be God, Allah, Vishnu, Ba'al or any number of things. It could also be nothing. I have seen things that causes me to believe there is something. I refuse to argue about it all. In the end, nobody really knows anything. You can't prove that a god, just like you can't prove without a doubt that there isn't. In short, why don't we all just accept that we don't always agree, and that it's okay. Why can't we just say "I don't know, but I'm okay with that. I believe this, you believe that, lets be friends anyway."

First let me state that I was once a pastor and had to recently reevaluate my faith. I posted here on ATS My Personal Crisis of Faith. I reexamined my counseling model in hopes of better understanding my feelings and frustrations. I would like to offer a theory of human nature in response to why there is so much emotional content in our discussions on ATS, especially when it comes to Christianity, I believe there are two core issues that provide us with our personal sense of substance. I define substance in this case as how we feel about ourselves; whether we see ourselves as adequate or not adequate; respected or not respected; or a part of the circle or outside the circle. These two issues are human longings.

#1. We long for purpose and impact. Our life has meaning because we have purpose. Our life has value because we have impact. My life matters. I am a hard worker! I am a good father or mother.

#2. We long for relationship. We want to be in community. We want to feel part of a larger group of like minded people. I am an American! I am an ATS member!.

I believe all the other emotional behavior and thinking revolves around our sense of those longings being either met or lacking. The more we feel threatened in obtaining or maintaining those longings the more intense our emotional responses. If someone appears to be disrespecting us our response may be anger or even hatred. If someone appears to be better than us we may become envious or jealous. If these longings are not met we can become bitter and resentful of others and attempt to put them in their place (which is usually below us).

These longings are powerful! Very powerful! If we perceive others blocking or threatening us from obtaining their satisfaction we will FIGHT as if our life depended on it, because in our thinking and in relationship to these longings, we believe it does. If we feel someone is blocking us we may initially attempt to convince the other person to agree. If they continue to block we may try to manipulate and if that doesn’t work we may try to threaten by using anger or by shaming. If we believe they are blocking fulfillment of our longings they become our enemy.

These longings even drive our use of medications. If we area salesperson and we are not meeting our sales quota, we might be tempted to use coc aine to give ourselves an edge over our competition. If you are a mother who has an angry distant daughter you might utilize a pain killer to dull the pain of that broken relationship.

They impact our behavior. If I am a kid in the hood with a dysfunctional family I might join a gang for protection and for a sense of belonging. I might shoot someone just to feel the power from the ultimate impact on another person’s life. As a parent we might try to win our child’s affection by giving them whatever they want just to reinforce our sense of maintaining relationship with our kid.

Another issue that drives the lack of civility on ATS is ambiguity. We hate ambiguity! It threatens our sense of substance! That is why so often our battles form along the lines of either black or white. We want what we believe to clearly define us. We want our drink to be either hot or cold. You are either with me or against me. You either support my longings or you threaten them.

Why is it so hard to embrace change, to change our thinking and our behavior? It is because we have embraced what appears to be working and we call it truth. It is our truth and we use it to define and defend ourselves. If what others are saying or demonstrating doesn’t support our belief system we are threatened in our being, in our security, and in our satisfaction. That is why we try to surround ourselves with like minded people. It reinforces our belief system. The result is we tend to then see the world as us and them. We then objectify them as the wrong, weak, inferior, sinners, etc.

We want a recipe that will always give us the perfect cake! It is the same way when it comes to our sense of salvation. We want a perfect recipe to guarantee our eternal lives.
Even though scripture states that we are saved by faith, not by works, lest any man boast; so much of church effort revolves around following a perceived recipe of spiritual ingredients. Tithes, offerings, baptism, speaking in tongues, bible study, prayer, visiting the sick, wearing the right clothes, not wearing jewelry or make up, using or not utilizing musical instruments, and so on and on. We utilize these things as the ingredients in our recipe to guarantee our salvation. These are the very things and differences that denominations formed around. They are the very things that become barriers to others.

We stubbornly hold onto rigid beliefs because we are often afraid of the alternative. Ambiguity doesn't appear to offer hope to satisfy our longings! I am not talking about uncertainty like either it will or it won’t. Ambiguity says maybe or maybe not. So we place our faith in what is black or white because they offer two distinct possibilities. it either will or won’t; it is or isn’t. However, ambiguity just shrugs its shoulders.

So what does this fear of ambiguity lead to? It leads to the greatest fear of all in my opinion! The fear of rejection! Our sense of substance (who we believe we are) is so often dependent on what we perceive others think of us. The temptation then is to present ourselves to others in a way that protects and strengthens our longings for respect and relationship. If their response to us doesn’t appear to support us then we will choose either flight or fight.

I believe there is no greater fear than that of rejection, by man or by God. It is the reflection in the mirror that haunts us all our lives. Faith gives hope that those longings will be satisfied. Faith is the greatest equalizer. It gives no advantage to the greater intellect nor to the richer man. Don’t take that faith away from anyone!

Originally posted by ollncasino

Originally posted by chrismarco
I find it amazing that some many on here believe in big foot, aliens, demons and ghosts but if someone who's a christian is a moron in many of your eyes.

Religious people are free to believe that a pink elephant nestling in a tree is their god.

However, when their beliefs start to reduce other people's rights, then people who don't believe in a pink elephant nestling in a tree are perfectly entitled to criticize those beliefs.

edit on 9-12-2012 by ollncasino because: (no reason given)

People posting information based on their Christian beliefs is not reducing the rights of anyone else. it is them stating their opinion, based on their personal beliefs. Just like every single other person does on the site. I have never seen a single Christian post here in a way that would infringe on anyone's rights. I have, however, seen people post to the effect that Christians should have no right to state their opinions, if those opinions are based on Christian beliefs. So who is trying to reduce whose rights here?

I think what the OP is trying to say is (and please, OP, correct me if I am mistaken); if people can post stuff about Mayan calendars, ancient Buddhist stories, New Age practices, alien benefactors or enemies, and so on, then Christians should be able to post on their beliefs as well, without being told they have no right to do so, or being called names.

I just think these rants create more problems than solutions. Aren't we here, on ATS, to broaden our horizons in the knowledge department?

How about this: if you believe in God, awesome. If you don't, great. Let's just leave it at that and no one will be offended.

Then we can start talking about how we're going to arrest Ben Bernanke.

Lima-1, out.