The Rabid Atheist
By Drenched
This essay focuses on answering a reasonable question that many Christians have asked atheists, concerning why some atheists seem to feel so "rabid" about their beliefs (or lack thereof) and why some atheists "feel so threatened" by Christianity. I think this can best be answered by a brief examination of Christianity's history, teachings, and goals for the future from an atheist's point of view.
While I don't mean to offend, this essay is complete with my emotions on the issues brought up, because answering the question of "Why do some atheists feel..." is impossible without expressing my feelings.
Christian History:
You probably already know that "he who forgets history is condemned to repeat it". If you've studied history, you also might guess that almost two thousand years of persecution, torture, and death at the hands of Christians may have something to do with non-believers feeling threatened.
It is a historical fact that Christianity is responsible for almost two thousand years of intellectual oppression, brutally enforced tyranny spread by violent invasions, and millions of lost human lives. From the crusades to the witchburnings, from the Inquisition to Galileo's forced recantation of his theories, Christians have ruled with fear and violence, systematically destroying all new thought and ideas that might threaten their dogma and thus threaten their power.
With the church's iron fist insisting that the world is flat, that we are the center of the universe and the sun revolves around us, and that any progressive thinking contradicting its absurd mythology is blasphemy, punishable by torture and death, is it any wonder we had the Dark Ages?
Without almost 2000 years of intellectual and physical oppression, it is easily conceivable that perhaps mankind would have put a man on the moon 500 years ago instead of 30 years ago. Imagine the technology we could have today, bio-engineered crops feeding the world's hungry, medical technology eradicating disease forever, weather control preventing drought and natural disaster, alternative fuels that don't pollute. But, alas, the church vigorously stamped out all science (truth) that threatened the dogma (mythology) which gives the church its power.
Of course an omnipotent god could have simply made the planet better. All trees could bear fruit, all the soil could be fertile, weather could be more mild, disease might not exist, but instead god supposedly punishes us all for the sins of one woman, and then religion deprives us of the science we need to prevent the plague, famine, and catastrophes that god supposedly causes/allows.
Contrary to Christian belief, America was not founded on Christian principles. Quite the opposite, this country was founded to escape the Christian principles that had oppressed Europeans for centuries. If you doubt this, check out the evidence compiled by a Christian writer at http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm. The founding fathers' ideas of separation of Church and State, and the freedom of religion they wrote into our founding documents, are both obvious efforts to prevent the Christian tyranny and persecution from which they had recently escaped.
Once the church had been stripped of political power in America by separating Church and State, new ideas could flow freely without fear of torture (bar the occasional witchburning), and the technology behind the industrial revolution was possible. The results of this are self evident. In two hundred years, technology born of free thought has improved the human condition all over the globe far more than submissively praying to god could do in two thousand years. What if this had been allowed to happen 500 years before, or a 1000 years before? Where would we be today? Christianity literally robbed us all of the possibility of having "heaven on earth" right here, right now, today.
Forgive the past "mistakes" of the church? Systematic persecution is not a mistake. Black culture has not forgiven the slave owners, and Jews have certainly not forgiven the Nazis. Christian atrocities were FAR worse than both of these put together, and outlasted both of these by over a thousand years. History clearly shows that ideas like slave ownership, Nazism, and Christianity should not be tolerated, much less forgiven. These ideas will eventually be eradicated, and stamped out forever, but not by violence. Unlike Christianity, truth and morality do not require violence nor evangelism to gain converts, only freedom of thought and expression.
How dare I compare Christians to Nazis and slave owners? Nazis were Christians whose standard issue Nazi beltbuckles bore the words "Gott ist mit uns", or "God is with us". Slave owners were Christians, and rules for slave ownership are clearly defined in many places within the Bible, including but not limited to Exodus 21:2-7.
Christian Teachings:
All tyrants must make and enforce rules that prevent speaking out against said tyrant (or taking his name in vain), and that prevent the rise of competing tyrants (or false idols). Please re-read the first three commandments, and ask yourself why this all powerful god is so insecure? Freedom of speech against god and freedom of religion are criminalized in the commandments at an even higher level than murder is criminalized, thus paving the way in the Christian conscience to silence, persecute, torture, murder, and convert these blasphemous "criminals".
The Bible, especially The Old Testament, paints a wrathful, angry, jealous, insecure, vengeful god that Christians worship, and their religion is at heart no different. Some say these are just stories, to illustrate some illusive set of ideas. After reading (cover-to-cover more than once) the hodge-podge of contradictions that Christians call the "infallible word of god", I have only discerned one consistent message that permeates the entire book. It is that devotion to god is always more important than human life. This theme is driven home again and again throughout both Testaments. Just about every atrocity one can think of is justified in the Bible when doing god's will. This provides Christians a clear conscience to commit their atrocities, conquests, and persecutions, so long as they are done in god's name.
For example, the Nazi holocaust is child's play compared to Moses' exploits of looting, pillaging, rape, and wholesale slaughter of women and children. But to a Christian that is okay because his victims were heathens or pagans. After sacking a city and killing all the adult males, Moses' troops would return with the spoils, and he would order them to kill all the captured adult women and male children, but any female virgins were kept alive to be raped by the soldiers. I'm not making this up, read your own Bible, Numbers 31:7-18. This is only one of hundreds of examples in the Bible of how spreading human suffering and death, mass murder, rape, and torture, are good things done by good people like Moses, so long as it's in the name of the "Lord" and the victims are "non-believers". What sort of morals does Christianity really teach when its heroes consistently break the last seven commandments in the name of the first three?
(It amazes me how anyone who has actually read the Bible can still want to worship that god.)
Another example of divinely inspired immorality is that today's Church is a haven for pedophiles, whose crimes against children are routinely covered up with the divine goal of protecting the "integrity" of god's Church. An embarrassed clergy quietly transfers the offender to a new church where he has a fresh new crop of young choirboys to prey upon, because anything is okay when done in god's best interest. What does this teach us about the morals of those closest to god? Perhaps it teaches that freedom to masturbate without guilt is a good idea, and that the intense sexual repression born of the perversion called "Christian sexual morality" often comes to the surface in the form of hideous sex crimes.
Any female Christians out there? The next time you are having menstrual cramps and bleeding, or enduring the indescribable pain of childbirth, keep in mind that this is all part of a specific curse put upon you by god himself, to punish you for disobedience. Shame be yours forever, for the sin of seeking knowledge (which is not a very emotionally healthy thing to tell a young girl). God punished you severely for exercising the "god-given gift" of freewill, and would have rather had you submissively frolicking in Eden's ignorance forever. Of course ignorance is bliss, so don't give up girls, because eternal bliss can still be found through Christ.
Regardless, having a choice between doing god's will, or burning in hell for eternity, is not any sort of free will at all. Things done under duress, such as threat of eternal punishment, are things done by slaves, not by free human beings. As an atheist I do good things because I freely choose to be a good person, not because I fear hell.
Christians believe that as humans we cannot have morality without faith in their god. Not only is this belief obviously untrue when looking at non-Christian cultures, it also devalues humanity to a level below animals, and shows how little faith Christians have in the human race and in themselves.
I ask how Christians can be moral, with a god that takes credit for all their achievements, while satan takes the blame for all their wrongdoing, and any residual responsibility they might feel for their actions is absolved at the confessional. An atheist is obligated to accept responsibility for his actions right here and now in this earthly life, because there is no one else to blame, and no one to forgive him.
Christian Goals for the Future:
"Oh, but those atrocities were a long time ago, and Christianity is not like that anymore," you say? The Neo-Nazi party isn't "like that" anymore either, but that does not make their ideas okay. They would do it again if they could and so would you. Admit you think the world would be a better place if everyone were a Christian (or better yet, if there were no non-Christians), admit that you think you're somehow above others because you are "saved", admit that your morals fall short when doing "god's" work. Just ask any homosexual after a fag-bashing, or any abortion doctor. I used to have a "darwin fish" on my car, and had to take it off because you "moral" people would literally try to run me off the road. You still try to oppress new thought (Kansas creationism) and your televangelist still refer to their work as a "crusade". Dear god, please protect me from those who believe in you.
Christians continue to erode the beneficial separation of Church and State at every turn. Only in the last fifty years have they managed to add "In God We Trust" to our currency, and the words "under God" to our pledge of allegiance. I can't count the number of times I was kicked out of homeroom class for refusing to say that part of the pledge. Sure felt like persecution to me.
Since the founding of our country, and for hundreds of years after, these words were not part of our currency nor our pledge. These words were added during the 1950's by Christians following McCarthy on yet another brutal Christian witch-hunt against American citizens who chose not to believe, based on a lie spread by Christians that atheists are somehow all communists.
Now they want to post their Ten Commandments of Intolerance in our public schools for all our impressionable Buddhist, Hindu, and atheist children to see, informing them that their revered god is a "false idol", or their atheist father will go to hell for "taking the lords name in vain". How dare Christians make the assertion to children that worshiping a different god is an equal crime to killing another man? At this age children still believe in Santa, and there is still a good chance of infecting them with the Christian disease.
My last job was at a Catholic owned company, and I watched as Catholics were promoted unfairly, and even segregated in a separate building. The Human Resources administrator once actually referred to me as a "heathen". That's your word for us, right? A lot easier to trod upon a heathen, or a nigger, or a raghead, than upon a human being.
"Onward Christian Soldier." A familiar slogan, but what does that mean? A soldier only has one purpose, and that is to kill. Are you saying you want to kill me? A handgun's only purpose is to kill, and so some people want them banned. I say we ban Christian Soldiers instead. I might need my gun to protect myself against Christian Soldiers one day, as so many thousands of people have needed their swords in the past.
"But at MY church it isn't all fire and brimstone, they teach us about love for god and one another!" The church today is having to adapt quickly in order to survive the freedom of thought that threatens it, and to retain a shadow of its former power. Your numbers are dwindling. You hear sermons about loving one another in church only because today's educated man will no longer tolerate the fire and brimstone threats. The tobacco industry has got a good "hook" too, but so what. You don't need to be in church to speak of love.
Pascal's Wager:
"What if when you die, to your surprise you find yourself on heaven's gates, awaiting judgment, then what?" In the highly unlikely event that I find myself in this situation, then I will stand up tall and unafraid, secure in the knowledge that I have reasonable questions on which I have pondered all my life. I will demand answers for the human condition, answers for the misery inflicted on us, answers for the blood shed in his name. I respect and value the human race, and I will not tolerate my fellow humans to be treated this way, not even by our creator. If god does not (or can not) have the grace to answer my valid concerns, then I will look forward to hell and gladly join Lucifer in his rebellion against this unjust, ego-maniac of a tyrant. At least there are no accounts in the Bible of satan raining sulfur on populated cities, or drowning the worlds inhabitants in a flood. A just god could not possibly expect me to willingly choose to worship him after committing such heinous crimes against my fellow humanity.
When we look outside U.S. borders and consider that there are millions more Buddhist people in the world than there are Christians, it all suddenly seems very narrow minded. Does Christ routinely send the yellow heathens to burn forever in hell, or are they all just miserably "separated from god" in some limbo?
If god is benevolent, then why should I fear him on judgment day? If god is not benevolent, then why should I worship him at all? Pascal recommended we wager our entire lives on the fear that a cruel god might exist and torture us eternally. No thank you, I'll place my bet on the human race, the existence of which is not in question. If Pascal is right, then god is morally reprehensible, and heaven is beneath my dignity.
Conclusion:
Although my thoughts and the words that express them here are harsh and strong, they are only words and thoughts, and it would be inaccurate for Christians to perceive from my "rabid" atheism as a threat. I have no desire to lower myself to the Christian level and establish an "atheist inquisition" or "atheist crusades". The thought of doing so turns my stomach, as it should any logical, moral, thinking man. I believe the Christian social disease is dying out on its own, and will continue to do so, as the light of science gets brighter and continues to shine down and burn the vampire that once sucked the life from humanity. As a child outgrows Santa, our adolescent culture is outgrowing its need for Christianity.
Most Christians are nice enough people on the surface (even if often judgmental and condescending), but as a religion they are power-mad and inherently evil. There is certainly something evil about supporting a belief system so firmly rooted in violence, terror, corruption, lies, and failed prophecy.
It pains me when I see my loved ones afflicted with this disease, basing their belief system in absurdity, and making decisions that are often as absurd and detrimental as the beliefs they are based on.
Following is a link for those who still believe the Bible is the infallible word of god, or those who doubt that the Bible describes hundreds of crimes against humanity committed in the name of god. Atheist will get a good laugh, and Christians will get confused or angry and dismiss it as heresy:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
I hope I have not offended anyone too much by stating what I believe to be truth. I hope this answers why non-believers "feel so threatened." I hope I have made you think, even if you only think that you hate me. I am curious if the Christian mentality even allowed any of you to read this far.
If so, let me part with one thought on the "cherished" value of faith: Faith is intellectual bankruptcy. To ask that a belief be accepted on faith is to admit that the belief cannot be accepted on its own merits. To believe without reason is irresponsible, and to act on such beliefs is evil. No human is truly evil, but faith enables good people to commit evil and feel good about it. Think about what the Christian Crusaders, the Nazis, and the terrorists of 9/11 had in common (this is why we fear you), and replace your own evil faith with healthy questions.
Good luck to all, especially Christians.
By Drenched
| ||
| ||
| ||
|
While I don't mean to offend, this essay is complete with my emotions on the issues brought up, because answering the question of "Why do some atheists feel..." is impossible without expressing my feelings.
Christian History:
You probably already know that "he who forgets history is condemned to repeat it". If you've studied history, you also might guess that almost two thousand years of persecution, torture, and death at the hands of Christians may have something to do with non-believers feeling threatened.
It is a historical fact that Christianity is responsible for almost two thousand years of intellectual oppression, brutally enforced tyranny spread by violent invasions, and millions of lost human lives. From the crusades to the witchburnings, from the Inquisition to Galileo's forced recantation of his theories, Christians have ruled with fear and violence, systematically destroying all new thought and ideas that might threaten their dogma and thus threaten their power.
With the church's iron fist insisting that the world is flat, that we are the center of the universe and the sun revolves around us, and that any progressive thinking contradicting its absurd mythology is blasphemy, punishable by torture and death, is it any wonder we had the Dark Ages?
Without almost 2000 years of intellectual and physical oppression, it is easily conceivable that perhaps mankind would have put a man on the moon 500 years ago instead of 30 years ago. Imagine the technology we could have today, bio-engineered crops feeding the world's hungry, medical technology eradicating disease forever, weather control preventing drought and natural disaster, alternative fuels that don't pollute. But, alas, the church vigorously stamped out all science (truth) that threatened the dogma (mythology) which gives the church its power.
Of course an omnipotent god could have simply made the planet better. All trees could bear fruit, all the soil could be fertile, weather could be more mild, disease might not exist, but instead god supposedly punishes us all for the sins of one woman, and then religion deprives us of the science we need to prevent the plague, famine, and catastrophes that god supposedly causes/allows.
Contrary to Christian belief, America was not founded on Christian principles. Quite the opposite, this country was founded to escape the Christian principles that had oppressed Europeans for centuries. If you doubt this, check out the evidence compiled by a Christian writer at http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm. The founding fathers' ideas of separation of Church and State, and the freedom of religion they wrote into our founding documents, are both obvious efforts to prevent the Christian tyranny and persecution from which they had recently escaped.
Once the church had been stripped of political power in America by separating Church and State, new ideas could flow freely without fear of torture (bar the occasional witchburning), and the technology behind the industrial revolution was possible. The results of this are self evident. In two hundred years, technology born of free thought has improved the human condition all over the globe far more than submissively praying to god could do in two thousand years. What if this had been allowed to happen 500 years before, or a 1000 years before? Where would we be today? Christianity literally robbed us all of the possibility of having "heaven on earth" right here, right now, today.
Forgive the past "mistakes" of the church? Systematic persecution is not a mistake. Black culture has not forgiven the slave owners, and Jews have certainly not forgiven the Nazis. Christian atrocities were FAR worse than both of these put together, and outlasted both of these by over a thousand years. History clearly shows that ideas like slave ownership, Nazism, and Christianity should not be tolerated, much less forgiven. These ideas will eventually be eradicated, and stamped out forever, but not by violence. Unlike Christianity, truth and morality do not require violence nor evangelism to gain converts, only freedom of thought and expression.
How dare I compare Christians to Nazis and slave owners? Nazis were Christians whose standard issue Nazi beltbuckles bore the words "Gott ist mit uns", or "God is with us". Slave owners were Christians, and rules for slave ownership are clearly defined in many places within the Bible, including but not limited to Exodus 21:2-7.
Christian Teachings:
All tyrants must make and enforce rules that prevent speaking out against said tyrant (or taking his name in vain), and that prevent the rise of competing tyrants (or false idols). Please re-read the first three commandments, and ask yourself why this all powerful god is so insecure? Freedom of speech against god and freedom of religion are criminalized in the commandments at an even higher level than murder is criminalized, thus paving the way in the Christian conscience to silence, persecute, torture, murder, and convert these blasphemous "criminals".
The Bible, especially The Old Testament, paints a wrathful, angry, jealous, insecure, vengeful god that Christians worship, and their religion is at heart no different. Some say these are just stories, to illustrate some illusive set of ideas. After reading (cover-to-cover more than once) the hodge-podge of contradictions that Christians call the "infallible word of god", I have only discerned one consistent message that permeates the entire book. It is that devotion to god is always more important than human life. This theme is driven home again and again throughout both Testaments. Just about every atrocity one can think of is justified in the Bible when doing god's will. This provides Christians a clear conscience to commit their atrocities, conquests, and persecutions, so long as they are done in god's name.
For example, the Nazi holocaust is child's play compared to Moses' exploits of looting, pillaging, rape, and wholesale slaughter of women and children. But to a Christian that is okay because his victims were heathens or pagans. After sacking a city and killing all the adult males, Moses' troops would return with the spoils, and he would order them to kill all the captured adult women and male children, but any female virgins were kept alive to be raped by the soldiers. I'm not making this up, read your own Bible, Numbers 31:7-18. This is only one of hundreds of examples in the Bible of how spreading human suffering and death, mass murder, rape, and torture, are good things done by good people like Moses, so long as it's in the name of the "Lord" and the victims are "non-believers". What sort of morals does Christianity really teach when its heroes consistently break the last seven commandments in the name of the first three?
(It amazes me how anyone who has actually read the Bible can still want to worship that god.)
Another example of divinely inspired immorality is that today's Church is a haven for pedophiles, whose crimes against children are routinely covered up with the divine goal of protecting the "integrity" of god's Church. An embarrassed clergy quietly transfers the offender to a new church where he has a fresh new crop of young choirboys to prey upon, because anything is okay when done in god's best interest. What does this teach us about the morals of those closest to god? Perhaps it teaches that freedom to masturbate without guilt is a good idea, and that the intense sexual repression born of the perversion called "Christian sexual morality" often comes to the surface in the form of hideous sex crimes.
Any female Christians out there? The next time you are having menstrual cramps and bleeding, or enduring the indescribable pain of childbirth, keep in mind that this is all part of a specific curse put upon you by god himself, to punish you for disobedience. Shame be yours forever, for the sin of seeking knowledge (which is not a very emotionally healthy thing to tell a young girl). God punished you severely for exercising the "god-given gift" of freewill, and would have rather had you submissively frolicking in Eden's ignorance forever. Of course ignorance is bliss, so don't give up girls, because eternal bliss can still be found through Christ.
Regardless, having a choice between doing god's will, or burning in hell for eternity, is not any sort of free will at all. Things done under duress, such as threat of eternal punishment, are things done by slaves, not by free human beings. As an atheist I do good things because I freely choose to be a good person, not because I fear hell.
Christians believe that as humans we cannot have morality without faith in their god. Not only is this belief obviously untrue when looking at non-Christian cultures, it also devalues humanity to a level below animals, and shows how little faith Christians have in the human race and in themselves.
I ask how Christians can be moral, with a god that takes credit for all their achievements, while satan takes the blame for all their wrongdoing, and any residual responsibility they might feel for their actions is absolved at the confessional. An atheist is obligated to accept responsibility for his actions right here and now in this earthly life, because there is no one else to blame, and no one to forgive him.
Christian Goals for the Future:
"Oh, but those atrocities were a long time ago, and Christianity is not like that anymore," you say? The Neo-Nazi party isn't "like that" anymore either, but that does not make their ideas okay. They would do it again if they could and so would you. Admit you think the world would be a better place if everyone were a Christian (or better yet, if there were no non-Christians), admit that you think you're somehow above others because you are "saved", admit that your morals fall short when doing "god's" work. Just ask any homosexual after a fag-bashing, or any abortion doctor. I used to have a "darwin fish" on my car, and had to take it off because you "moral" people would literally try to run me off the road. You still try to oppress new thought (Kansas creationism) and your televangelist still refer to their work as a "crusade". Dear god, please protect me from those who believe in you.
Christians continue to erode the beneficial separation of Church and State at every turn. Only in the last fifty years have they managed to add "In God We Trust" to our currency, and the words "under God" to our pledge of allegiance. I can't count the number of times I was kicked out of homeroom class for refusing to say that part of the pledge. Sure felt like persecution to me.
Since the founding of our country, and for hundreds of years after, these words were not part of our currency nor our pledge. These words were added during the 1950's by Christians following McCarthy on yet another brutal Christian witch-hunt against American citizens who chose not to believe, based on a lie spread by Christians that atheists are somehow all communists.
Now they want to post their Ten Commandments of Intolerance in our public schools for all our impressionable Buddhist, Hindu, and atheist children to see, informing them that their revered god is a "false idol", or their atheist father will go to hell for "taking the lords name in vain". How dare Christians make the assertion to children that worshiping a different god is an equal crime to killing another man? At this age children still believe in Santa, and there is still a good chance of infecting them with the Christian disease.
My last job was at a Catholic owned company, and I watched as Catholics were promoted unfairly, and even segregated in a separate building. The Human Resources administrator once actually referred to me as a "heathen". That's your word for us, right? A lot easier to trod upon a heathen, or a nigger, or a raghead, than upon a human being.
"Onward Christian Soldier." A familiar slogan, but what does that mean? A soldier only has one purpose, and that is to kill. Are you saying you want to kill me? A handgun's only purpose is to kill, and so some people want them banned. I say we ban Christian Soldiers instead. I might need my gun to protect myself against Christian Soldiers one day, as so many thousands of people have needed their swords in the past.
"But at MY church it isn't all fire and brimstone, they teach us about love for god and one another!" The church today is having to adapt quickly in order to survive the freedom of thought that threatens it, and to retain a shadow of its former power. Your numbers are dwindling. You hear sermons about loving one another in church only because today's educated man will no longer tolerate the fire and brimstone threats. The tobacco industry has got a good "hook" too, but so what. You don't need to be in church to speak of love.
Pascal's Wager:
"What if when you die, to your surprise you find yourself on heaven's gates, awaiting judgment, then what?" In the highly unlikely event that I find myself in this situation, then I will stand up tall and unafraid, secure in the knowledge that I have reasonable questions on which I have pondered all my life. I will demand answers for the human condition, answers for the misery inflicted on us, answers for the blood shed in his name. I respect and value the human race, and I will not tolerate my fellow humans to be treated this way, not even by our creator. If god does not (or can not) have the grace to answer my valid concerns, then I will look forward to hell and gladly join Lucifer in his rebellion against this unjust, ego-maniac of a tyrant. At least there are no accounts in the Bible of satan raining sulfur on populated cities, or drowning the worlds inhabitants in a flood. A just god could not possibly expect me to willingly choose to worship him after committing such heinous crimes against my fellow humanity.
When we look outside U.S. borders and consider that there are millions more Buddhist people in the world than there are Christians, it all suddenly seems very narrow minded. Does Christ routinely send the yellow heathens to burn forever in hell, or are they all just miserably "separated from god" in some limbo?
If god is benevolent, then why should I fear him on judgment day? If god is not benevolent, then why should I worship him at all? Pascal recommended we wager our entire lives on the fear that a cruel god might exist and torture us eternally. No thank you, I'll place my bet on the human race, the existence of which is not in question. If Pascal is right, then god is morally reprehensible, and heaven is beneath my dignity.
Conclusion:
Although my thoughts and the words that express them here are harsh and strong, they are only words and thoughts, and it would be inaccurate for Christians to perceive from my "rabid" atheism as a threat. I have no desire to lower myself to the Christian level and establish an "atheist inquisition" or "atheist crusades". The thought of doing so turns my stomach, as it should any logical, moral, thinking man. I believe the Christian social disease is dying out on its own, and will continue to do so, as the light of science gets brighter and continues to shine down and burn the vampire that once sucked the life from humanity. As a child outgrows Santa, our adolescent culture is outgrowing its need for Christianity.
Most Christians are nice enough people on the surface (even if often judgmental and condescending), but as a religion they are power-mad and inherently evil. There is certainly something evil about supporting a belief system so firmly rooted in violence, terror, corruption, lies, and failed prophecy.
It pains me when I see my loved ones afflicted with this disease, basing their belief system in absurdity, and making decisions that are often as absurd and detrimental as the beliefs they are based on.
Following is a link for those who still believe the Bible is the infallible word of god, or those who doubt that the Bible describes hundreds of crimes against humanity committed in the name of god. Atheist will get a good laugh, and Christians will get confused or angry and dismiss it as heresy:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
I hope I have not offended anyone too much by stating what I believe to be truth. I hope this answers why non-believers "feel so threatened." I hope I have made you think, even if you only think that you hate me. I am curious if the Christian mentality even allowed any of you to read this far.
If so, let me part with one thought on the "cherished" value of faith: Faith is intellectual bankruptcy. To ask that a belief be accepted on faith is to admit that the belief cannot be accepted on its own merits. To believe without reason is irresponsible, and to act on such beliefs is evil. No human is truly evil, but faith enables good people to commit evil and feel good about it. Think about what the Christian Crusaders, the Nazis, and the terrorists of 9/11 had in common (this is why we fear you), and replace your own evil faith with healthy questions.
Good luck to all, especially Christians.
December 07, 2002