I dislike religion in general. I dispute Christianity because it is the dominant religious group in my part of the world(the USA), and I had been a member of that group for the majority of my adult life, so I know firsthand the myopic foolishness that comes from that particular faith. I get to watch the irrational foundation laid by Christianity infect every other facet of peoples' lives. I have watched minor theological disputes tear families and friends apart, and I know as well that while they may be at each other's throat, should I interject from an atheist point, I would be the target of all of it.

I try to deal with Christians fairly, but I will not grant legitimacy to your ideas until you can back them up with proof. My own mother had tears in her eyes when we last discussed religion. I felt bad for her, but emotions have nothing to do with it. If rejecting irrational beliefs, however cherished, makes me a bad person in your eyes, so be it. I'm used to being called a pervert and a monster by people who have never met me and know nothing about me aside from the fact that I don't believe in their particular fiction.

If you are saying that actions influence if other people dislike or like us, yes. I think you know I was saying more then that. If not, then, I was saying more then that. 

This is very measurable. It would be tedious for sure, but doable. We can look nearby for some small contribution in evidence, do atheists really need a special heavily moderated forum with monster bold red letters visually slapping them in the face in order to prevent them from verbally abusing Christians? I don't know but someone on this site seems to think so.

Humans remember strong emotions over lesser. Someone who says things that hurt, frighten or offend will be remembered over someone who says things that make little difference.  Just as someone who says things that praise, thrill or support will be remembered over someone who says things that make little difference. This makes general observation next to useless as it biases opinion according to emotional response. This is why it's best to compile samples and classify them later for a count of opinion/argument types so that you can get a more objective view.

If you were to compile a solid sample of posts you would likely find that there is a majority of vocal atheists who dislike Christianity - as well as other religions. It is far less likely that you will find even a significant minority who dislike Christians.

Which brings me to another problem: Humans are also "tribal". We tend to view things as in-group versus out-group. This not only further biases observation, but it also means a certain percentage of folks making opinions will fail to differentiate between the ideas being argued and the people holding those ideas. This is often why "atheists" are disliked by "theists" in someone's opinion when the "theist"really only dislikes the "atheism". It works equally the other way around, of course.

And why is it your feelings are any more evidence then my feelings?

Actually if you asked me, I would say that those atheists who dislike Christians are in a majority, given my time on other boards, and my experiences with atheists IRL.

Of course this is ancedotal, but that's kinda the point.

For example?

I assumed since you were making statements you meant them. This is not the case? 

I did not see any infidel stuff in the link(it worked for me), but I'm sure Islam has plenty of laws on the books. I need no link to know this.

I have no doubt such mindsets exist, but this does not mean you are persecuted against. Those laws fell as they should have, and they fell while I'm sure atheism was not a majority voting block.

Divine punishment is no secret. What should he have said?

Actually, you don't know that. I agree caricatures can be made for many reasons, but a very common reason is as a target of hate. I have had people openly say they hated me, others just go into this endless sophomoric verbal tirade. Others have just calmly debated the issue - of course with the obligatory condescension.

Why exactly do atheists seem to irresistibly ridicule Christianity and the believer? Let's suppose you went to Africa and you were a visitor in a tribal village and they had some ceremony which included supernatural elements. Would you ridicule them for it? 

Atheists in general find it irrational to believe in god(s).  If you aren't being rational you are perceived to be 'stupid' by many of them.  Dealing with stupid (and stubborn) people is frustrating.  When frustrated enough from personal experiences with stupid people, and given a stupidity flag by a newly met person, one might act with general dislike towards a person without knowing them.  This is definitely rash and not called for by the atheist.

Still Christians are perceived to have a general hatred and dislike of atheists.

I could care less if I'm liked by my belief or lack thereof, it's actions that I wish to be judged by (and judge others upon).

1961 isn't all that long ago, just ask the NAACP.

Discrimination whether by skin color or by belief is wrong. Laws have been changed and so have perceptions. We'll see how the Right handles the demands by the gays for equal rights. If they stand up for the rights of everyone to be free as the US Constitution gurantees, real progress will be made in all areas. I'm surprised at some of the comments recently by Republicans, though right wing evangelicals don't seem to be suddenly supporting the rights of others for equality.

I'm not dodging. Are you dodgin? You made statements. Read your post. Statements are usually made to say something. 

I think you misunderstand. You know the old saying - "Hate the sin, love the sinner" (or something like that)? Most atheists don't hate Christians (or Muslims), we "hate" what you believe...and I think "hate" is too strong a word - to be precise, we find your God-belief to be incredibly frustrating because it makes no logical or scientific sense and it often causes you to do things that are irrational and conterproductive. That frustration often results in some vitriolic responses, to be sure. But we don't hate you. It's what results from your beliefs that we have a problem with.

If you can't point out where I made that claim then I've no idea why you're claiming that I did.

My post attempted to explain errors of perception and how to get around those errors of perception. I presented nothing that can not be verified by a quick search via Google as current psychology or by actually compiling a sample yourself.

I'm assuming you're expounding on the idea of penal substitution, as if Jesus died on the cross so I wouldn't have to. Which to me is an odd belief, when we take into account what Jesus himself says of the cross: "Take up your cross, and follow me". The cross is not a idea of having others suffer for us, it's an idea of us suffering for the sake of others. It's an assertion of ones dignity and compassion in midst of even depravity, to turn even the darkest corners of human nature on its head, to redeem it. 

Well, none of these are a reason for my belief, I never really had a fear of death, and I've been held at gunpoint and shot at on more than one occasion. Nor would any of the strong and meaningful relationships I've developed over the years of my life be fractured if I no longer believed. 

The life I've been given, and witness often leaves me cold, and indifferent. There's a sense of hardening particularly towards others. My poor friends refer to this situation we live in as "the struggle", and this struggle often produces even in them a callous regard for human life, the tendency to act violent just for they sheer joy of acting violently, concerned only with the welfare of a few close friends, but totally unconcerned for the well being of others. Though I'm not at such an extreme, I do share with them a fractured sense of compassion. There have been times that I've had to fake empathy so that I wouldn't appear heartless. 

It's not that I desire to be so indifferent, in fact I desire to be far more compassionate, it's just that my exposure to life has hardened me this way. What's lacking is a conviction, to anchor in my self-conscious desire as an instinctual will. This is the psychological makeup that creates such a need. 

When I found the Gospels in my adult hood, and accepted the meaning and depiction of Jesus Christ, I found the only thing I've ever known that convicts me to love. It grants me a frame of viewing the world, and my actions from the perspective of the cross, that the end result of our indifference and cruelty is Christ crucified, and this image of the one who asserted his dignity and love even to those who inflicted their cruelty on him, leaves the image of the cross as forever haunting, and yet redeeming. 

The cross is affective in that it presents human indifference at it's extreme, and deeply moving in that expresses love at it's extreme as well, as transformative even of the ugly. 

Oh I have nordey, oh I have. 

And I'll tell you Nordey, that it's not me who needs to go out and learn something, but you. 

That's fine, accept what ever silly beliefs you need to hold your atheistic perspective on life as far superior to any religious perspective. 

But responses like your previous one, seem only to showcase the shallowness of your ideas rather than the veracity of them.

Unless of course you believe, as the Gnostics did, that the act of taking up a cross was a metaphor for the giving up of selfish needs in pursuit of the Logos and acheiving a higher understanding of the universe - much as Plato did.

Religion skews perspective because it places an irrational bias against all data the religionist assimilates. The effect varies from religionist to religionist and from datum to datum, but it's unavoidable. How afflicted you are with it is something you really have to work out for yourself as a) I couldn't be bothered guessing from the small bit of stuff I know about you and b) it's the kind of thing one really has to do for oneself anyway - a bit like the alcoholic who cannot begin to be helped until he himself has admitted the problem.

It's not religion that creates irrational biases, anything that we have an emotional attachment is what creates irrational biases. One's own atheism can be source of his irrationality, if he has an emotional commitment to it. It's why in a court of law we don't permit a judge or a person in jury to be a close friend or relative of the accused, or of the victim of the accused, because we understand that our endearment to such persons, or to ideas, and beliefs leaves it quite difficult to be objective. 

You seem to be speaking of some supposed sort of supremacy of reason, that's been tainted by outside forces such as religion, rather than understanding that what taints reason is the other side of our dichotomy of creatures of self-awareness, and that is our instinctual nature. It's far more easier to believe in the guiltiness of a stranger, than it is in the guiltiness of our own son. It's far easier to evaluate the beliefs of others, than it is our very own. It's much easier to note the irrationality in other human beings, but far more difficult to perceive our own.

In this forum alone, I could find all sorts of instances of irrational biases, in a number of atheist here. Committed Jesus Mythicist generally provide an abundance of such instances, even the more touted ones like Rook Hawkins, who believes, and supports the conclusion that Jesus eating meat on the passover of all days, and Odysseus eating meat on a ship with fellow crewmen, is similarity revealing that the Gospels writers used Odysseus as the model for Jesus, but not only does he believe this but he also claims that all (not even some, or most, but all) critical scholars accept this conclusion as well. To me, such beliefs are the epitome of stupidity

Why does he believe such nonsense? It's not out of astute reasoning, but rather the irrationality that springs from a commitment and loyalty to the Mythicisist position, a position that he devotes his whole life around. 

If you believe the irrationality found among the religious is distinct from what I have just argued is the source, that knows no distinction between religious, non-religious, political, and all sorts of beliefs, I would love to here it, the why you feel this sort of irrationality is to be spoken of as strictly belonging to the religious. I would love to see how you distinguish between the irrationality of atheist such as Rook Hawkins, and the irrationality of lets say a creationist, as distinct and separate psychological phenomena. 

I have a hunch that this is a sort of committed belief of yours, that you have an emotional interest in believing it as true for whatever reasons that my be. It seems to be the reason why you use terms such as "unavoidable". I mean, how else am I suppose to understand that you accuse my perspective of being damaged because of my religion, based solely on the fact that I said I'm religious. You can't even showcase one example where my perspective has been damaged, but yet you hold to that belief, almost as if it were a blind faith.

Just face the facts Nordman, you may try to dress this up all you like, but the truth is, you have no bases to accuse my perspective of being damaged, you inability to even attempt to back up your claim reveals that. This belief of yours is there only out of faith in your own hypothesis, that creates for you a false belief that I and all other religious individuals have to fit into it. I'd wager that plenty of people on this forum, theist and atheist alike at this point can see this. 

It's actually more like a guy who comes in to the local pub and sits at the bar and accuses the stranger who sits next to him of being an alcoholic solely based on the fact that he a had drink in his hand. And when the stranger ask him why he thinks that, the guy tells him, that it's the stranger's job to figure that out on his own. And then claims," that if you drink, it's unavoidable that you're an alcoholic", and storms out the bar in a superman cape. 

It does not surprise me that you think your reasoning ability is unaffected by being religious. This is part of the delusion and is therefore a common mistake - so common in fact that it has become something of an elephant in the room, to use an awful analogy which seems to be "in" at the moment.

But you get my drift. Give me two scientific dissertations on the property of matter, one by an atheist and one by someone who has no problem in believing that some guy once nonchalantly turned water into wine before strolling across the waves to greet his pals. Now, which one will I adjudge to be sounder? Well, you know which one. Of course, if I hold the same beliefs as the second scientist I must use different criteria to judge the works in question. See what I mean? Two different approaches, and one in my view damaged by an obligation to suspend reason.

That is not to say that the first guy will necessarily have produced the better work. It could be flawed in other ways. Nor does it mean that the second guy necessarily allowed his silly beliefs to get in the way of his sounder reasoning. Nor is it even to say that my initial judgement as an atheist was entirely sound either. But my judgement as a religionist would be bound to be flawed, and if the flaw mightn't necessarily have too adverse an effect on my well-being there and then, the same flaw could well wreak havoc on it in another situation.

That is the tightrope you have elected to walk. Which is fine by me - as long as you don't try to persuade me that it beats keeping both feet on the ground. Whatever you're into - but it's not my cup of tea (to use even another cliched analogy).

Irrationality is irrationality. You have supplied nothing but emotions as evidence for your belief. While I don't think there is sufficient evidence to claim that Jesus was entirely myth, the mythicists certainly bring up some good points, and I think that the truth is that there was an individual upon whom this cult was built, and that his followers added elements of existing legends to his story to make it match what they wanted him to be.

The fact that you offer no empirical evidence for your conversion argues that your ability to reason is flawed at some fundamental level. "It makes me feel good" is a perfectly irrational reason to believe in anything, and any claims past that which are not independently verifiable are immediately suspect. I have noted the correlation of Christian belief to irrationality in an earlier post. Sometimes it's subtle(an acceptance of absurd saint stories with no evidence), sometimes not so subtle(Westboro Baptist church, anyone?).  But I have not found a religion yet, let alone some denomination of Christianity, that doesn't make absurd claims and expect it's followers to simply believe them. 

Nowt wrong wi' a little confirmation bias, as they say in Yorkshire. But yes, you're right. Of course I am biased in citing confirmation for my assertion that your reasoning is prone to a flaw. I do not mean to impute that I am free of flaws either, but in my defence I will point out that I am employing the bias to emphasise a flawed facet of your rationality which the flaw itself leaves you blind to, even though - as your Tolstoy quote shows - you are fully aware of both its presence and its effect. You just don't associate it with religion and your own reasoning. In fact you flatly deny that it has any.

And nor (I hope) did I ever mean to infer that atheism produces completely clear thinkers devoid of bias or even stupidity in their views. That itself would be rather stupid, not to say as biased a comment as to label its speaker devoid of recognising fact at all.

Where religion counts however is in that it guarantees to introduce the flaw, and as long as one adheres to the absurd beliefs in which it shrouds its (sometimes admittedly laudable) philosophies then it will impede rather than enhance one's ability to think logically. It is a testament to the mental agility of people that many succeed admirably in restricting the damage, but I can't help but feel that the world, and humanity, would be a lot better off if such intellect and agility were employed to more productive ends.

And if you read Isaiah the most vital old testament text for the Gospels, where blood only has a symbolic quality, where the prophet shuns those who practice animal sacrifices believing there's a sort of power and significance in the act itself:

 "What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the LORD. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure.[...]

and then Isaiah goes on to explain exactly what God wants to cleanse sins: "Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool (Isaiah 1)."

(notice what Isaiah claims sets thing right, and forgives sin)

You find this view quite central in the teachings of Jesus, who arrives on the scene in one of the gospels reading from the Isaiah text. He scolds the Pharisees for the relevance and exacting demands they afford the rituals act, what people eat, if they wash their hands, work on the sabbath, rather than what really matters, the renewal of one's heart. I mean it would take a stretch to assume that the God who rebukes the traditions of the Pharisees, the dedication and demands of abiding by literal practices of ritual, to portray his own death as no more than a mere act of ritual itself, as if the God who finds no pleasure in blood, all of a sudden finds it. 

It's abundantly clear that it isn't, but you can decide whose exegesis is more faithful and sound to the text, yours or mine. 

Well, I whole heartily believe that death of Jesus Christ was an atoning act, what I don't believe, is the penal substitution view that the act of atoning is solely reserved for Jesus Christ, but rather that it is also reserved for all those that follow him, that are his image bearers. The idea that we are also the light of this world, made evident by our love.  Jesus atoning action is not by possessing  some sort of magic blood, but rather by his commitment to love, even unto his own death. Only love renews the heart. 

Penal substitution is not the view of Gospels, or the Epistles, their own views are more consistently and accurately aligned with "The Moral Influence View of Atonement", a notion that dates back to the early church fathers, such as Augustine, and Clement. 

In the Epistles, Paul constantly emphasizes the power of atonement in believers, to follow in the foot steps of Christ, to the cross. The writers and the gospels treat the cross as an act believers are to repeat, not with a different sort of affect than Christ's own sacrifice, but rather as image bearers of that, atoning no differently. 

No, all you can expect from me is to present a far more accurate and faithful hermeneutic of the new testament text. If you believe I fail to do so, and still accept the penal substitution view as more accurate, you let me know. 

Well, I think atheist have a tendency to downplay a fundamental component of human nature, our instinctual drives, though we have the capability to reason, our emotions can run without it. Often times what many atheist, particularly  those who praise secular humanism, and hold a faith in pure reasoning, is that they hold a belief, that modern findings in science reject.  We behave morally and immorally out of instinctual desire to do so, and we may try to justify these acts by using reason to explain them, but in this process what happens is that people tend to confuse what's subservient to whom. Secular worldview often tend to convey far more power to self-awareness that it actually has.

Two people can have a discussion of what they feel to be moral and immoral, and collaborate and write a list of rules for moral living, putting the power of reason to use. But when facing actual moral dilemmas and conflict, all that that shit goes out the window, because without conviction we can't behave as morally as our self aware state may desire to. 

This is the area of my life, most important and vital to me, to feel convicted, to love over my indifference. And I have already expressed why I find Jesus Christ to be the ultimate source of conviction for me. And I can only use, reason, science and etc.. to analyze and articulate why I feel this way. I find something deeply moving and profound in this expression, a treasure one would give his whole life for, led to it by Jesus Christ. Who at least in my life, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Gospels writers and the early followers of Jesus called him God because of this, and so do I.

Well, I'm sorry to offend you, I really don't care if some person on the RRS forum respects me, I don't really pursue the popularity contest. Yet in life I find myself being greatly respected, more so than I could ever ask, by people of all walks of life. But I suggest that people don't assume, that what I have to say, is to win yours or anyone else's respect or validation. 

Secondly in no way shape of form, have I made even the slightest effort to win you or anyone else over to a God belief. Or asked anyone to treat the reasons for why I believe as empirical proof for God's existence. Someone had asked why I believe, and I explained exactly why, which I feel I've done with a great deal of precision, and reflection void of logical hiccups. 

Some people here believe that I need to have empirical proof to hold a God belief, but if I had it, I wouldn't even know what to do with it. I wouldn't be sure what sort of relevance this "proof" is to have. The empowering nature of Jesus Christ, and endearment of the gospel vision is more than enough of a reason for me to believe. 

I'm sure I would to, if I believed it to be an expression of penal substitution. And I sure don't find the modern day expressions of it, such as the heart of the civil rights movement, to be vile at all. 

Well, judging that servitude to God, is in application, servitude to others, a dedication to poor and disenfranchised. In one of the parables, God claims he does not know those who didn't tend to the least, that the act of not tending to them, was the act of not tending to him. And then claims that only in tending to the least, do they tend to him. 

Well, good for you. 

Well, even these sort of emotional findings aren't worthless, we can trace all sorts of things from em, such as the underpinning of the hostility towards the text, if it's based on the text itself, or as a reaction to the offensive behavior you find in some believers.  Or if these emotional finding are based on an accurate interpretation or misconceptions of the text.

I'd wager that your hostility and my fondness of the text are based on two diverging interpretations of the material, and if I did share your view I might just as well be hostile too. And the question that matters here is which of our interpretations is more accurate, and faithful to the time, situation and psychology of the people. 

Secular minded folks go to great lengths to prevent political access.

There is an ingrained prejudice against Christians amongst many atheists.

If you were a Christian you know there is more to it then that. You know the Gospels teach a much deeper Christ then this.