| I have nothing against Christianity in itself. I have nothing against any religion. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and I'm not going to stop people from believing the way they do. What I have a problem with is forcing your religion on someone else. This most often happens with Christians in my experience. No Jew, Pagan, Satanist or atheist that I have ever known has ever once told me that I should believe the same way they do. I have only gotten this from Christians. I am sure that there are Pagans that do this, I am sure there are people from any religion that do this. However, I feel that there is no good that can come from it, no matter what religion you believe. You will never get everyone in the world to agree with your beliefs, religious, political, or otherwise. The world would be extremely boring if anyone did accomplish this. Why do you think so many people promote diversity? If you go door-to-door saying "Believe in my way or burn in Hell for all eternity," you're far more likely to drive people away than you are to gain followers. I do realise, being brought up Catholic (now atheist, have been since the day I realised I could think for myself and didn't have to believe the same things my mother did), that the Bible says you should spread the word of God, but I'm absolutely positive that, even if God does exist, he didn't mean that you should scare people into joining your religion. Also, the thing you must remember is that the Bible was, in fact, written by humans. God himself didn't just start writing Bibles and have them start raining down on earth at the dawn of mankind. I'm sorry to say that no one has any sound evidence to prove that the Bible was the word of God spoken to the prophets. Who's to say that the prophets weren't just a bunch of crazy people writing what the voices in their head told them to write. I don't mean to be sacrilegious when I say that, so please don't take too much offence to it, it's just my opinion. I realise that anybody with a religion believes the things they do because of faith, but not everyone has faith in the same things you do. Some people would prefer not having to believe in something simply because someone told them this is how it is. I'm one of those people. I prefer to believe in something with a little more evidence to back it up. I took a huge risk when I said I was atheist, please do not send me e-mail trying to "save" me. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Oh well, I'm the one who has to pay the consequences when I die, not you. However, I think that as long as you live a good life on earth whether you follow the scriptures or not, there should be no reason why you are sentanced to eternal damnation. On earth, we don't like the idea of being persecuted for our beliefs, and those that do treat anyone with different beliefs than their own like crap the way born-agains tend to are, in my humble opinion, hypocrites. If God is infallible, if in fact there is a God, then I doubt he'd send someone that led a great life, was very charitable, tried to change the world for the better, and put a smile on everyone's face to Hell for the soul purpose that he wasn't a Christian. Another reason I don't care for born-agains is, how do they know their way is right? Every religion ever could be wrong as far as we mere mortals know. Who knows, maybe the Heaven's Gate cult was right, and we never allowed them to be a true religion. Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting mass-suicide cults, I'm just stating that for all we know, they could have been right. They could have gone onto the space ship when they died and be in eternal bliss right now. How do we know? And who are we to judge what religion is right and what is wrong? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is a God, but that's no justification for a mere mortal to tell me that my way of life is wrong and I'm going to be sent to Hell because I'm a sinner. I don't judge you, why should I take judgement from you? Why should I change my ways because you or anyone else tells me I'm wrong? The answer: I shouldn't, and neither should anyone else. If you try converting someone, don't get mad when they tell you to fuck off and leave them alone. Yes, you do have a right to tell people what you believe, just as much as a liberal has the right to state their opinions to a conservative. However, you have no right to tell someone that everything they believe in is wrong and they should believe in your way, just as I have no right to say that you're not allowed to think that Bush is a good President. I whole-heartedly believe that that's true, but I have no right to say that I'm right and you're wrong. It's an opinion, I can't prove it. You can't prove that you're religious beliefs are right, I can't prove that my political beliefs are right. |
| "Born-Again" Christians |