What do you hate?

[FoxWithWings]

That decision is made very carefully. I would recommend it this way.

Read the Bible first, become knowledgeable on the Faith, and you would know the false preachers on sight. The basic rule of thumb to follow is this: if they preach hate, then they are not Men of God.

SunXia, those excuses are just that: excuses. You cannot judge a religion on its followers, only by its teachings.

[SunXia]

Again, "False" and "True" don't come into Religion at all as all religions are based on Faith which is personal and thus subjective!! Everybody interprets everything differently and just because one person, or more, are telling me they found happiness from this book doesn't mean that I cannot discount the bad things that have been done n the name of Religions that are founded on the same book!!

You also can't say that those people were false preachers because where is your proof on that?? Puritans in England who wanted more change in the Anglican religion in the 1600's were willing to go to war over it in the 1640's after the changes Laud made during the reign of Charles I that sparked the Bishops' Wars!! You can't convince me that these people didn't believe what they were fighting for and to Puritans, personal interpretation of the Scriptures was central to their Beliefs!!

And I am not willing to accept that none of these Puritans, who put such focus on the Bible and scriptures within, did not read it, it would be a pretty hypocritical reason to go to war if they didn't!!

My point stands, the Bible, like anything, is subject to the individual interpretation of the person reading it and throughout history many have read it and have been willing to go to war and commit regicide over it!!

[Dong Zhou]

As this is going to probably get heavy, I would suggest moving it to the religion thread

[Shikanosuke]

On the basic question of why atheists might try to be persuade religious people against faith: Some will do it because thy are militant jerks, some will do it for similar zeal of "making life better" in the way Shi mentioned (the idea that faith hampers thinking) that some religious missionaries went about spreading their faith, some because they have seen the damage religion can do, some will just be a friendly debate, some because the faithful are being jerks (like Sun Xia mentioned).

There are times in my life where my family and myself where being so hurt by the Church we follow, that a kind atheist may well have felt it helpful to try to wean us off faith.

DZ is accurate here. I'm not sure why there's debate in any other vein. No one likes aggressive Chrstians and no one likes aggressive atheists. We don't need to generalize either side.

[SunXia]

Shik is right there is good and bad in all walks of life, even within religions and even when those teachings are sound, people don't always practice what they preach, same with Atheists!!

I love this quote by Marcus Aurelius:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Even when I was a practicing Catholic, I found the idea of condemning someone, or equally being nice to their face but mentally brushing them off as sadly condemned to hell, because they didn't worship invisible bring in a certain way to be repugnant!!

[mendedties]

*Flees the Imperial Court*

This is my third time reading this over the last 2 days, and for some reason it still makes me laugh so hard.

[Shozuhn]

We should probably take this debate to a more appropriate thread...

Sun Xia:
I have his book called 'Meditations' and I've always found him to be an excellent philosopher and thinker. And his logic in this saying is pretty much what I've always thought, put into words.
However, the Bible makes it clear that belief in God is not mandatory for salvation. (see Romans ch2: 5 - 16)
So any "Christian" who would claim anyone is going to hell due to not being Christian is just a fool, in my opinion.
I find the subject of hell a touchy subject anyways. I mean the Bible says quite literally hundreds of times that the reward of the righteous is eternal life. Now what sense does it make for the Bible to say this over and over if hell exists; thus everyone will have eternal life anyways, and destination is the only question?
My religious opinions are probably far from standard tho. I've had these discussions with other Christians before, and I'm quite certain my views are not textbook Christianity. I remember when I was maybe 16 or so, and I tried to tell my parents that I didn't believe that hell could exist. It was a rather tense and embarrassing conversation. I believe that at one point I said pretty much this: "If hell exists, then I am a far superior moral being then God." Needless to say, from my parents perspective, this was far more then a mouth full.
I could go on all day, as I love to discuss religion and what/why people believe. I think I'll drop it for now tho. Maybe we can pick it up some time later in a more appropriate thread

[dan99990]

I hate this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa

I hate the people who did this: http://www.history.com/news/mali-rebels ... n-timbuktu

[FoxWithWings]

That is just...

Horrific, disgusting. That is just so wrong. THAT is why I despise extremists of any caliber. Idiots, just idiots. That's history!

[James]

I don't normally have anything to say here. But damn, I hate how easily the prospect of getting a little money can cause a family member to turn against everyone else in their family, and that such a thing can be so common that you can run into multiple examples as an individual in just a year.