Do chistians see Atheist as bad people?

Well said, LLV.

 

Why say fundamentalist when they mean those that are using Christianity as a cover for their own evil?

 

I beg your pardon LLV; I used the term Hard Line Christianity later in the post, but not at top. I stand by my belief that logical argument I posted above sums up fundamentalist Christian thinking.


Darth-Stryphe:
One would think that the creation of the world out of nothingness would be qualifying evidence.
The only religious text I?ve ever read that comes close to matching the scientific evidence is the Hesiod, Greek creation myths. Seriously, try reading it. Whereas the Bible is blatantly contradicted by scientific evidence. Does the evidence then indicate that the Greek religion was the appropriate one?

One would think that a small "cult" that ended up overtaking and ruling one of the world's mightest Empires, an Empire at one time bent on destruction of this once small "cult", would be qualifiable evidence (referring to the eventual Christaination of the Roman Empire).
An Empire which was then crushed by Pagan warriors. Christianity once spread throughout Africa and well into Asia. But Islam is now the dominant religion in the Christian Holy Land. Islamic forces were able to fight back numerous Christian Crusades. Islam is the dominant religion of Africa and western Asia, and is the fastest growing religion in the world. Does this mean that the Islamic beliefs are the true ones?

 

Or that christianity was once true, and now it's islam's turn to be true?

 

Nope.


There us a verse that says people will start to turn away from Christianity in the end times (forgot where, sorry). It just means the end is near. God isn't going to let the world go on much longer like this without making another big change. I believe this change is the end.


But that's just me.

 

Answering the original question:

That's a really general statement. Do some Christians see all atheists as bad people? Sure. Do all Christians see all atheists as bad people? Heck no. Do some Christians see some atheists as bad people? Yup.

I know lots of atheists that are "good people." Does this mean I believe they're going to heaven? No. I believe that if you are an atheist, you're not going to heaven. Before you flame me for being some non-tolerant fundamentalist freak, let me say this: hell is not fiery torment. Although it has been portrayed as such, the only clear definition the Bible gives us concerning hell is eternal separation from God. If you spend your whole life rejecting the existence of God, what's eternity doing the same thing? The reason that hell is portrayed as so undesirable is because eternal separation from God easily translates into eternal torment. I'm not saying you're going to "burn in hell for eternity." You're going to be separated from God for eternity. Being a good person isn't going to get you into heaven.

Now you can flame me for being a fundamentalist freak.

 

That's a really general statement. Do some Christians see all atheists as bad people? Sure. Do all Christians see all atheists as bad people? Heck no. Do some Christians see some atheists as bad people? Yup.
Ditto.

Since 'fundamentalism' was brought up: I must say that I have often wondered why believing that Christ is the only way to Heaven is somehow a wacky fundamentalist notion. For those that think so: what would a non-wacky-fundamentalist believe? That Christ would do it, but maybe Buddha or another god could also? That's like saying that a mathematician that believes that 2+2=4 is a fundamentalist mathematician wacko.
I.E. Christ said he is the way and as Christians (hence the name) we follow Him and believe Him.
Know what I mean? There can only be one truth. Christians believe that Christ is that One.

I understand the confusion regarding "well if God is merciful..." by the way. It is a hard concept. Basically, it is our choice to come close to God or stay away. I'll leave it at that.

 

"It just means the end is near."

The end has been "near" for 2,000 years now. Every generation of Christians seems to believe that their time is the end time. Why is this generation so special as to be the one?

 

i don't understand the notion of faith alone as a means of salvation.

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'

there isn't even any mention of faith in the above, but it talks about those who will inherit the kingdom of God.

 

"i don't understand the notion of faith alone as a means of salvation.
there isn't even any mention of faith in the above, but it talks about those who will inherit the kingdom of God."

Ephesians 2:8&9 - "For it is by grace you have been saved THROUGH FAITH - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast"

If we do not have faith, we cannot recieve grace. Grace is his mercy;forgivness. Make sense or are you still confused?

 

Then the King will say to those on His right hand
Of course both the 'saved' and 'unsaved' can be good people, and do those things that you posted with the scriptural quote. I think that the passage is trying to show the characteristics of one who walks with God - a kind of "if you love me and wish to please me then live life this way". Others can correct me if I'm off-base here.
Also, the scriptures discuss the differences between salvation and 'works' in several places (I have to run along - maybe someone can post one of them).

 

"Since 'fundamentalism' was brought up: I must say that I have often wondered why believing that Christ is the only way to Heaven is somehow a wacky fundamentalist notion. For those that think so: what would a non-wacky-fundamentalist believe?"

A lot of Christians I know believe that you'll be judged by your actions and quite a few believe that all religions are different views of the same God.

"There can only be one truth."

I don't see why that has to be true.

 

"There can only be one truth."

I don't see why that has to be true.

Well, if I believe my truth, and you believe your truth, and our truths contradict each other, there's only three options: You're right and I'm wrong, you're wrong and I'm right, or we're both wrong. This is, of course, assuming that you believe in absolute reality. Which, seeing some of the philosophies some people on this board have, is highly in doubt.

 

Think of any surface in which the sun's reflection moves whenever you do. Stand two people side by side, and ask them to point to that reflection. They'll point to two different places--but neither is wrong; they're simply following what they see from their perspective.

 

I haven't read any part of the thread, so I'm just answering the question in the title.

I have many friends who are atheists, and some of them are the nicest people I know. One of the most sincerely generous people I know is an agnostic. Atheists are not bad people. The only kind I would consider bad are those (though they can really believe ANYTHING and do this) that try to oppress other people's beliefs.

EDIT: Ok, now that I've actually read the thread, I'll respond to that! (lucky y'all) First of all, I am a Christian. Second of all, I have found it interesting that while people are so careful to say and to enforce the (totally correct) idea that "not all Muslims are the extremist groups that we see on TV), very few bother to think about the fact that it is the same way with Christians -- few of us are such extreme fundamentalists. But, the fundamentalists, being extreme, get the most publicity. Follow through w/your ideas folks! That whole "extremism does not represent the whole" idea goes across the board to all religions and most political ideas! (whew)

Second of all, I'm not even going to get into the whole "Only Christians go to heaven" debate because I am sketchy on what I believe myself. All I have to say is this: I refuse to believe Anne Frank went to Hell.

Ok! I'm done!

 

Giest, that is not exactly a good example. The light is the same, even if the perspective is different.

On the other hand, truth has to absolute or relative. If it is relative, then truths WILL contradict. Since truth is by its nature is what is real, there cannot be two real things that say the other doesn't exist.

 

Okay, first I will answer the question. How can atheists be bad people? I don't know of any atheists that lead a series of violent crusades during mid-evil times in Europe. I also don't know of any atheists that imprisoned Jewish people during World War II because of their beliefs. I also don't know of any atheists that planned a giant terrorist attack on the United States on 9/11/01, or who have killed themselves and others in the name of religion.

Religion is good, for the most part. Don't get me wrong, and I am well aware that the above crimes were caused by fundamentalists. I am a Christian, and I grew up Catholic. I am confused right now as to my own beliefs, and I feel that this is something I should work out on my own. I don't appreciate when people (even on this thread) try to force their beliefs on me. I really don't like preachers. I believe in a merciful God though, and I believe that He will judge us by our actions when all is said and done. I also don't believe in hell, is that wrong?

I refuse to believe that a perfectly good, charitable, honorable person will not go to heaven (if heaven exists) just because he or she is not Christian. Who's to say that we are right?

 

Errrr your example of the Holocaust is not quite accurate..

And in my opinion the crusades were a ecenomic/political and social shrouded in religious terms.

'For God and Country!' sounding so much better then 'Because we're theiving psychopaths!'

And of course Communist Atheist in Several countries have put effort into destroying religion, but because religion has been so evil thats okay, right?

More to the point, if you're of the belief that heaven doesn't exist I wouldn't aspire to hold opinions on who is qualified to enter.

After all, why would any atheist worth their salt worry if they were on the A list for a place they didn't believe in?

 

"On the other hand, truth has to absolute or relative."

There are also partial truths--a category that I believe most religions fall into.

Bible stories notwithstanding, God doesn't come down in whirlwinds, burning bushes or what have you and tell people face-to-face who He is and what to do. That's all left up to interpretation and gut feelings--and people all over the world have developed, and continue to develop, wildly varying impressions of whatever God may be.

I find it irrational for any group (and I'm not just talking Christianity here) to claim that God loves them more, based on nothing more than the book they wrote that says so.

 

The Crusades were not actions undertaken by greedy barons out to carve Empires of their own in the Holy Land, as some might think. Some of the nobles that went on the Crusades were among the most powerful in Europe. They knew that the Crusades would be an enormous drain on their estates, likely for little to no material gain on their parts.

The Crusades were not an arbitrary set of wars. They were the Christian counter-attack. In 1095, Christianity was reeling. The Church was sundered between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths, and Islam was becoming increasingly aggressive. When Islamic forces took Jerusalem, they continued to permit Christians and Jews to live and visit the city in peace.

In 1009, Hakem, Caliph of Egypt, ordered the destruction of all Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Church of the Sepulcher. Christians were cruelly persecuted, and the pilgrimages were severely restricted. In 1070, things got worse when the Seljukian Turks took Jerusalem. By 1092, not one of the great sees of Asia was under Christian control.

As was said above, the Crusades were Christianities great counter-attack. While some of the men who went on the Crusades were undoubtedly motivated by greed, most went because they believed in the cause. That was a far more religious time, where the average person was about as religiously extreme as any modern day terrorist.

Their methods were crude by times, but so were those of their enemies. Neither side could really make the claim that other guys weren?t playing fair; they were both playing the game of war long before their was ever a Geneva convention. Don?t blame either side. What the Christians did is no different from what the US is doing right now; the US just happens to use slightly more enlightened methods.

 

Errrr your example of the Holocaust is not quite accurate..

Read Martin Luther's book "The Jews and their Lies" to get an insight into what inspired Hitler.

"If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of
the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with
the words 'I baptise thee in the name of Abraham'."
[Martin Luther, "Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor" by
Peter F. Weiner (1985, Gustav Broukal Press)]


And in my opinion the crusades were a ecenomic/political and social shrouded in religious terms.

'For God and Country!' sounding so much better then 'Because we're theiving psychopaths!'

And of course Communist Atheist in Several countries have put effort into destroying religion, but because religion has been so evil thats okay, right?


Of course the Crusades were. Christians only wanted that dry piece of land back because they wanted to have a beach getaway in the winter. Why did they kill Jews as well as Muslims?


Both sides have their scumbags. And religion doesn't make you anymore more moral than an atheist. Good and bad on both sides. Unfortunately, Christians like to often claim the moral highground.

What I don't understand is anytime a Christian goes on a killing spree he's not a true(TM) Christian. Yet if you've ever read the OT you know god likes to commit genocide and mass killing(the flood, Midianites, Amalekites, Ethiopians, Egyptians..etc) all the time.

Of course most Christians claim these are his righteous justice.



Psalms, Chapter 2

2:7
I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

2:8
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

2:9
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

 

Ender the Crusaders killed christians Jews and muslims, they were equal opportunity psychopaths.

Of course the Muslims killed people of all three religions too.

Anyways I'm quite certain that a lot of the footsoilders believed in the holiness of their cause.

But i question the reasons for the higher ups. Did the Kings go because they wanted to or because the Pope could excommunicat ehtem and set thier lands onder interdict?
They certainly abandoned it quickly enough.
And lets not even consider the horror of the fourth crusade.

And ender I am fully aware that msot of the killing done in the name of all religions is done by fringe lunatics.

As for Anti-Semitism... it was well rooted in europe before Hitler and Luther. While I do not doubt the fault for it's spread lies mostly with the shurch, by the time of the holocaust it was much deeper then religious rivalry.
As I remember Hitler focused on imaginary tales of Aryan genetic superiority, not because jews were 'christ killers'.

 

The anti-Semitism of the new [Christian Social] movement was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.?

( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York: Mariner Books, 1999, p. 119. )



My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice....
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people....
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922

Don't forget that it was supposedly the Jews that handed over Jesus to the Romans. He also mentions Luther constantly in Mein Kampf. He was whacked though. Thought Jesus was an Aryan.

 

From Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944

All of these are quotes from Adolf Hitler:


Night of 11th-12th July, 1941:

National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.... The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.... Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things. (p 6 & 7)

10th October, 1941, midday:

Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure. (p 43)

14th October, 1941, midday:

The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity.... Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse.... ...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State. (p 49-52)

19th October, 1941, night:

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.

21st October, 1941, midday:

Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer.... The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation.... Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea. (p 63-65)

13th December, 1941, midnight:


Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... .... When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease. (p 118 & 119)


14th December, 1941, midday:


Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself.... Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics. (p 119 & 120)

9th April, 1942, dinner:


There is something very unhealthy about Christianity (p 339)

27th February, 1942, midday:


It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch Uin the next 200 yearse will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)

Hmm...

 

Ah yes, the work of Martin Bormann. A Christian who seems to be making apologetics for Christianity. Forgive me if I trust Hitler's own words before he gained power.

That being said he certainly wasn't an atheist.


I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought.

At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party.

-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

(Note: Karl Lueger (1844-1910) belonged as a member of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party, he became mayor of Vienna and kept his post until his death.)



The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes. My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times.

-Adolf Hitler speaking about Dr. Karl Lueger of the Christian Social Party (Mein Kampf)



How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement!

My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all.

-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)