1. Yes and no. It has its Messiah, but fundamentally, they're all the same
2. I don't need to point back to the crusades or witch burnings. I only need to point back to the Holocaust, and then not that far back - to the Catholic led Rwandan genocide, or the African nations where Protestant Christian missionaries went to scare simple natives about witches - causing them to round up suspected witches and burn them alive. Or even the countries where both Protestant and Catholic missionaries, priests, bishops, and archbishops lobbied governments to give life in prison (after a public whipping) to homosexuals causing gangs to go around beating up lgbt. When Nigeria's Prime Minister was facing re-election after signing his anti-LGBT bill, which was unpopular among people, he went to the pope looking for an endorsement. The pope didn't chastise him because of the bill he signed into law He chastised those countries who withheld money from those countries that pass such laws.
(PS: Did you know that Hitler's FIRST treaty was with the pope, who agreed to shut down the Catholic Center Party in exchange for a monopoly on education - thus ousting the Lutherans and allowing Hitler to rise to power? Did you know that 93% of GErmans listed themselves as Christian on the 1939 census?
But I don't need to go that far back. Look at the guy in California who wants people to be able to shoot sodomites in the head or use any other convenient method to kill them. And look at that Indiana Law. Christians haven't changed. I still don't have the right to own my own body because of you. LGBT still don't have equality because of you. Yours is a very hateful religion and I think that Christians should start asking themselves why.
I do understand that they give the most money to charity, but I also understand what money is and how it works. You apparently don't have a clue. MONEY PROVABLY CAUSES POVERTY AND LACK. Not enough room to go into detail here, but if you understood what Jesus taught, you would know how stupid your position is on this point. Learn about money and what Jesus taught. Bring the two together. Then you will realize that giving fiscal charity rather than personal charity brings more harm into the world. Money is not a force for good therefore Fiscal charity is not a force for good. Care to see the PROOF?
3. when Christians legislate their religion into law forcing me to violate my ethics to follow your gross immorality, your religion is being forced down my throat. I don't care what you believe up to the point where your rights end where mind begin
4. 10 years ago I wouldn't have cared, but over the last few years, I've become anti-theist. Hard to believe. I used to be a devout Christian and loved my religion. There came a day when I realized that I realized that if the Christian god were actually real, it would ot deserve my respect. It is a cruel sadist.
5. Always is too strong a word. What's happening today is that thanks to quantum mechanics, we are discovering things that prove that the God of the Bible doesn't exist, but something else probably does, and it's SO wonderful. It's so empowering. It cannot appreciate worship and cannot answer prayers, but "mind" is so powerful because of it that we can manifest our wants -- just as Jesus said we could. The teachings of Jesus are totally consistent with the teachings of M theory. The teachings of Jesus are totally OPPOSITE the teachings of Christianity. Amazing times we live in.
6. Oh yes. I was a Christian until my 30s (and an ethnic Christian for 20 years after that). I was even born agaiin at 12. My favorite thing were the evening communiion hymn services. I really looked forward to them. I thought I had a relationship with God until I discovered the magnificence of spirituality and that which I can experience at-will by entering the NOW. I'm sure that's what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven that is within you. Now I understand that my "relationship with God" was mental masturbation - me confusing my own thoughts and emotions with God. Now that I have followed the new path, ego is gone - or largely so. With that, there is o more emotional sufferiing because I no longer confuse emotions with feelings.
7. I think that Christianity, like the other two Abrahamic religions are a plague on humanity. They are horrible. If there were a pill tht did to people what Christianity does to people, it would be outlawed. Looking at the USA red states, the most Christian states, people ther have the highest rates of
teen pregnancy
divorce
abortion
porn purchasing
bullying in schools
crime
compare that with largely atheist Vermont that has not had a single case of school bullying or white cops shooting blacks in the back or anywhere else.
76% of our prison populations are Christian. Less than 1% are atheist. We know you by your fruit
8. I don't like that Christians don't know that they are bullies and that they are extremely short-sighted, thus putting us all in danger.
9. I love the teachings of Jesus, but the rest is dangerous crap. Look what it makes people do. If Christianity taught what Jesus taught, and left the rest alone, we could have peace on earth this year. It prefers the teachings of Pual & friends as well as the OT. The teachings of Jesus take courage to live by. The teachings of the others require cowardice.
10. You don't agree with him because you are a Christian and people don't like criticism - even if it's honest criticism. I personally think that he goes too far. He doesn't know a thing about spirituality but he criticized that too. As to his criticisms of the Abrahamic Religions, I agree with his points, but I think he could be more polite in his alterations. Still, I appreciate his presence on the stage because he gives so many courage to speak truth to Christians. You are looking at yourselves through rose colored glasses. Clean your mirror!
11. those who call their religion a relationship are lying. They are realizing that their religion is dead. They lost the culture war that they themselves declared against me and the rest of Americans that they disagree with. They are realizing that since the Internet, a lot of things that weren't knowable before are now known -- such as the Christmas story is a provable lie, as is the triumphant march into Jerusalem on a donkey, as it the crucifixion story. they realize that Israel discovered that the story of the Exodus (the first five books of the bible) are a myth rather than Jewish history. That's just for starters We are learning how to think, while places like Liberty University and Bob Jones U sell Ph.D's in Christian apologetics, that we commonly refer to as just more Christian lies. Christians as a group are very dishonest
EDIT: For hundreds of thousands of years, there were cultures that were able to live at peace with one another. They didn't believe in God, and never heard of Jesus, but they naturally lived as Jesus said to do. they were largely exterminated by the Christians i the last 600 years. They had total equality among adults, no private ownership of wealth, no money, no greed, no crime, no police, no prisons, no mental illness, no war (within their own tribes, though when they began coming into contact with Chritians and others who love money more than their god, they were attacked and forced off their land and into the horrible money system.)
In 909 CE, The Iroquois formed a league of nations - a confederacy - a democratic republic with democracy by consensus. It is the only such nation known in recorded history. Christians in Europe, who had devastated forest and field in unending wars, saw the abundance that the natives had and their Christian greed (that money creates) took over. Christians destroyed that utopian government.
If you have the courage or the stomach to read what happened in the Chritian invasion of the Americas, I encourage you to do so. Begin with the Spanish conquests in South and Central America as well as America's southwest. Compare and contrast the cultures who lived as Jesus said to - without knowing him - with the Christians who forced them to change their way, dress properly, worship god, and fall in love with inequality
The reason the indigenous peoples lived amidst such abundance is because they nurtured nature and never took advantage of it. They saw themselves as responsible for its care. We, on the other hand ransack the earth for profits. So now that we are facing and have already entered a mass extinction of all life on earth, I STILL hear Christians (and only Christians) saying that jobs are more important than saving the earth. I guess they think they'll be raptured before the effects of what we have done reach them. They're wrong. They are already here and because they don't know how money works, they don't know that the "tribulation" will not avoid America.
In fact, America now has more hunger than many 3rd world nations, and if we keep destroying our aquifers because of fracking and bad farming practices, we will have more thirst than Ethiopia. We have higher infancy death rates than many 3rd world nations. In every category studied, America, the Christian nation, is doing worse than any other industrialized nation and many 3rd world nations. That doesn't say much for Christianity, does it?
Have a good day right back at you. Sorry about the typos. My keyboard isn't working right. My kitty likes to sit on my keyboard so some keys need to be pounded to make them type. This causes some letters to come out double, missing, or even cause my fingers to jump to another key. I'll clean it up this afternoon.