Christianity in a nutshell:

[MidGe]

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To summarize Christianity you only need five words: "Love your neighbor as yourself." ... Even as an atheist, I think this ideal deserves high reverence.

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WAIT A SECOND. When asked to describe the JEWISH bible a renowned Rabbi said: "The whole of Torah is this: what is hateful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary."

Having the same summary for these two different religions can't be kosher.

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Umm, I far prefer the Torah from the christian view then, especially since so many people don't like themselves, view themselves as unworthy sinners, etc.... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Christianity in a nutshell: My parents taught it to me.

[Insp. Clue!So?]

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If it's wrong, in what way? (no fair claiming merely it is "unkind" rhetorically)


"Christianity is the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."


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You're truly terrified, aren't you?



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"Mirror in a bathroom"

[Insp. Clue!So?]

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So you are making the physically-testable claim that bread and wine are actually converted into flesh and blood?

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Did you read the rest of my post? I'm an atheist, I'm not making any claim at all, I'm just telling you what actual Christians believe.

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As for petty I think the descriptions are a thousand times more honest/accurate than those given by the faithful, who have or are vulverable to all sorts of hype and pr-related adjustments of what is a rather strange, nonsensical, tale (which in turn was taken from several other strange, non-sensical older such tales along with contemporary flavorings that continue to be added to this day).

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You are incorrect, as I tried to point out by emphasizing the existential implications of Christianity's highest commandment. Christianity cannot be understood as a rational belief system. It is nonrational. Treating it like a rational belief system is like trying to understand Pulp Fiction by reading a print-out of the voltage patterns in your computer's RAM while it plays the movie.

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I think you should shoot an email to the pope, who has gone out of his way to claim that Christianity (or at least Catholicism) is "rational". Anyway, to the extent Christianity makes claims in the dirty here and now, are you saying we CAN'T test it? If somebody claims that the Sun whizzed about in circles in the sky above Portugal 100 years ago, or that the wine we just put in that case is now really blood, such things are either true or not and subject to our "rational" examination (something greatly feared by the faithfull).

And of course it's not just Christianity that suffers from this little problem with reality. (And let's not get into the fact that all these major faiths often directly contradict themselve, heck blaspheme the [censored] out of each other; you know these "interfaith councils"? The only honest interfaith council should resemble a WWF multi-man no-rules smackdown. The "major faiths" all claim high degrees of certitude about what, if they are correct, are terribly important concepts with serious consequences for those holding other views).

The larger point here is, unlike Sklansky I don't feel the need to run about bashing people's heads in with Venn diagrams or whatever in order to prove that some deity is explicitly impossible; rather, simply showing how absurd these beliefs are *as held by the vast majority of folks who claim them* is sufficient (and of course very easy to do). Brother, folks don't go around brooding about these abstruse arguments concerning infinite love etc., they just spend a few hours each month mumbling dictated screeds derived from tall tales they were told at a tender age. It takes an educated idiot like NotReady to spend all that time and energy with these silly mental contortions involving knowing what even they should realize is on their own terms unknowable.

I'll happily grant (at a prob. of 10 (-40) the chance of a snot-nosed uber-being on the fifth-dimension planet Xanathrax, who is In Charge, but the sober evidence points the other way. And all that Abrahamic junk is just that, like Thor and the Moon God and all the rest before them.

[Kaj]

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To summarize Christianity you only need five words: "Love your neighbor as yourself." All possibility of human virtue falls away in the face of this commandment, and that void is the point of departure for Christianity. Even as an atheist, I think this ideal deserves high reverence. Not sure why nobody else on here agrees with me, not even the "Christians."

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I would say Subfallen is quite close as he has perfectly captured the second half of it. The essence of Christianity can be summed up in two commandments, as stated by Jesus in the 22nd chapter of Matthew. In this passage Jesus is asked "what is the greatest commandment?". His answer:

36 Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."
37 "This is the first and great commandment."
38 "And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
39 "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

I personally shorten it to five somewhat different words from Subfallen's: "Love God, love your neighbor." Straightforward in concept, but oh so difficult in practice.

LATE EDIT: I see that Peter666 also pointed out the first part about loving God.

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It's ironic that amongst American Christians, war is more popular than amongst non-Christians. So much for Jesus's teachings...

[OrigamiSensei]

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what happens if Im a masochist and I have pleasure from being kicked in the balls and forced to eat [censored]( some ppl do actually enjoy this) does it mean I should kick someone in the balls and force him to eat [censored]?

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This actually presents a perfect opportunity to clear up a common misunderstanding. Your objection would most appropriately apply to the commonly used formulation of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

The commandment to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and related exhortations such as "love your wife the way Christ loved the church" are quite different. Loving others does not mean treating people they way you wish to be treated, it means treating others the way they wish to be treated. Loving others involves taking the wants and needs of others into account and prioritizing them at an equal or higher level than we put our own selfish desires. It emphasizes servanthood over self-serving behavior.

It should also be noted this is very different from statements such as "The whole of Torah is this: what is hateful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary." and "an' it harm no other, do as thou wilt."

[Brad1970]

The definition of irony: when atheists try to define or debate a faith that they have no knowledge of.

Or is that the definition of idiocy?

[luckyme]

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The definition of irony: when atheists try to define or debate a faith that they have no knowledge of.

Or is that the definition of idiocy?

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So you never discuss homosexuality, or child birth, or islam, or Napoleon, or dogs? ( I'm skipping the bin der,done dat part).


luckyme

[tpir]

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The definition of irony: when atheists try to define or debate a faith that they have no knowledge of.

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Your faith isn't open to debate though, you have said so before. And faith doesn't have to conform to logic, so, what would there be to debate about even if you were open to it?

[Subfallen]

Inspector -

You are still attacking a straw man. Like it or not, the essence of Christianity is not rational truth concerning physical reality; rather, it is essentially transcendent. Christianity comes on its own terms. You may revere it---or you may ridicule it---but you cannot refute it.

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Brother, folks don't go around brooding about these abstruse arguments concerning infinite love etc., they just spend a few hours each month mumbling dictated screeds derived from tall tales they were told at a tender age.

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You are right of course, but these people are not Christians, so what of it? Rather, Christianity is only a rumor---a rumor of a beautiful mystery that has been a million times defiled by a million false re-tellings. To me it seems that Jesus was the first and last Christian.

[Warning: long, but lovely, scripture quotation ahead.]

1 Corinthians, Chapter 2: "1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." (Emphasis mine.)

Brad -

Lol. Ironically, you are the best atheist apologist I can imagine. Funny how that works.

NotReady -

I agree with you here. "What we all dread most is a maze with no center. That is why atheism is only a nightmare." (Chesterton.) But for those who do not long for God, maybe theism is the nightmare?