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I agree with almost 100% of your first paragraph. Only one quibble - I have no hostility at all towards Christianity. I probably harbor some towards many Christians who use their religion in ways with which I disagree though. I do have hostility towards Islam, for what that's worth. I don't care about books in hotel rooms. I completely ignore them - and I'd wager 98% of Christians do too.

I think the true fear of any atheist is that he might be wrong.

Nah. Not really. Do you fear that you are wrong and the Muslims are right? Of course not! It's the same for atheists. Just as you see no evidence to believe Allah is divine, atheists see no evidence that Jesus/Yahweh is divine. There is no difference at all.

Otherwise, why would he care that people are Christians?

Because it's 2013. People keep dying over religious texts. Idiots see god's punishment in Moore, OK. Preachers continue to steal from rubes and get away with it. Education and scientific gains are stifled by religious belief. Thousands of children are raped by the catholic church and all is well. It's high time we get past the nonsense as humans.

Only one quibble - I have no hostility at all towards Christianity. I probably harbor some towards many Christians who use their religion in ways with which I disagree though.

Referring to Christianity as just another Bronze Age myth on a pro-Christian site is open hostility. Even if you don't think you harbor such feelings, it's quite clear you do.

Christians doing bad things that are not proscribed by the Bible (i.e. a Christian boning someone else's wife, or stealing money, etc.) is not, in the least, a reflection upon Christianity. If the Christian belief system says "Always do A" and the Christian does "B", it is the failing of that individual to live up to the belief system, not a flaw in the belief system, itself. At most, you could argue that the person's church is doing a poor job of getting the message to sink in, but it is still not the fault of Christianity. The Commandments of God and the teachings of Christ are ideals that Christians live up to, but even Christianity (and Judaism) understand that all men fall short. However, without the ideal to strive for, how would ever improve ourselves?

Because it's 2013. People keep dying over religious texts. Idiots see god's punishment in Moore, OK. Preachers continue to steal from rubes and get away with it. Education and scientific gains are stifled by religious belief. Thousands of children are raped by the catholic church and all is well.

Now you're jumbling a bunch of stuff together. Many people may be dying over religious texts, but it sure as hell isn't because of the Christians. There is nothing in the Bible that commands people to go out and kill non-believers, or any other innocent person. The Koran does, however, so if you're angry at Islam, that is understandable. However, watching Islam go around slaughtering the adherents of all the other religions and then blaming all religion for violence is highly illogical, bordering on the asinine. You gave a good reason to hate Islam, but not religion in general.

As for religion getting in the way of education and science, once again, that may be true if you are referring to Islam. But if you are including Christianity and Judaism, then you don't know history at all. Not only was Christianity the only thing that protected scientific knowledge during the Dark Ages, but they were among the greatest supporters of scientific research in Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond. And I don't think I need to mention the contributions Jews made (go look up Jewish Noble prize winners vs. Muslim Nobel prize winners). Until recently, most noted Western scientists were faithful Christians.

With regards to the child molestation in the Catholic Church - that, once again, has nothing to do with Christianity, or even the Catholic Church, in general, other than, perhaps, their bad judgment in allowing homosexuals into the priesthood. It wasn't the religion that made these men commit crimes against children, and it wasn't official Church position to let these things happen. There were plenty of weak and irresponsible Church functionaries who failed to handle the situation properly.

Regardless, not only is it irrational to blame the Christian religion for the aberrant behavior of some of its adherents, but is it ignorant to think that child molestation is caused by, or limited to, religious people. In other words, if that child had been left with some atheists at a day care center, or a public school, or a neighbors house, they run roughly the same risk of getting molested, perhaps even a higher risk because so many sexual deviants shun Christianity.

Not really sure what you’re doing on FreeRepublic. Did Dummie Underground kick you out?

“Preachers continue to steal from rubes and get away with it”

By your logic, the Red Cross also steals from rubes and gets away with it. Trust an atheist to forget all the charity work done by churches.

“Education and scientific gains are stifled by religious belief”

Spoken like a true socialist. Science would be much better without any beliefs coming into play. Dr. Josef Mengele was one of the leading thinkers in this department.

“Thousands of children are raped by the catholic church and all is well.”

Except most of those victims were not actually “children”, they were post-pubescent. People often are stupid enough to refer to this scandal as the “Catholic pedophile scandal”, when it was really just the “Catholic homosexual statutory rape scandal”. A lot of Phy-ed teachers and coaches have also been rapists. Maybe they should be outlawed too.

“It’s high time we get past the nonsense as humans.”

I get the impression you’ve been watching a few too many Lenin speeches.

Why do you have hostility towards Islam? Why do you have hostility towards Christians? Maybe if you lived your life without hostility, and minding everybody else’s business, you’d be happier in your own life. Sure, there are a lot of people out there each of us won’t agree with, but if you stop policing everyone else, maybe your own life will flourish.

>> Thousands of children are raped by the catholic church and all is well.

And if you’re a man, people of your kind are largely responsible for raping children. If you’re a woman, people of your kind are responsible for slaughtering millions of nascent human beings.

Your issues with Christianity and the Catholic Church are more related to your DNA than the tenets of Christianity.