Are We a Hateful Bunch?
by Neal Stone
We are not a bunch of angry, bitter and hateful people here. In fact I have never felt so much support, friendship and understanding as I have gotten from the people who post at this site. If I were to run into a church and announce I didn't believe in their god, I can assure you I would get anything but love and understanding. I have seen my own family treated bad by church ushers because they were living in sin. The irony is the church preached they needed to get right with god, then drove them away when they showed up to do just that.
Want to see hateful comments? Read the Bible. How many times were people ordered murdered by God's people? Women raped in God's name, a man tormented to the edge of death just so God can prove a point to Satan (Job). How about telling me I will burn in Hell because I don't follow your beliefs?
Here I can share my feelings, thoughts and ideas without fear or judgment. I can be myself and not hide or pretend to be something I am not. What a nice feeling that is.
I don't dispute the fact that I did make these comments and in fact admit I did. But it wasn't because of anger, bitterness or guilt. It was a response to the usual small minded assumptions Christians make when they come to this site.
When they show up they never take the time to read our posts and try and get to know us or understand where we are coming from and who we are. If we reply to them we are automatically assumed wrong and our insights are ignored.
I work in tech support and love my job. But there are days when I get asked a dumb question and I just roll my eyes, crawl under my desk and cry like a little girl. After 25 years of the IBM PC model some people still don't get it. So I an become annoyed at times.
What really sets me off though is the condescending, self-righteous attitudes that these Christians give us. As if we don't know what we are talking about or never had their experience. Hell, some here are former pastors of many years in the ministry.
For example my post was titled, and ended with, “Give Me Reason”, not “Give Me A Reason”. Yet tlig assumed I was looking for a reason to believe rather I was stating my desire to live BY REASON, not by faith in a god.
How many times have we heard:
You were never a Christian
You don't know anything about church/the Bible/God/Jesus
and my favorite (tligs too) “You never met MY Jesus”
I even had someone say I never knew anything about the Bible and must have been from some church of 500 BC. Say what?!
I can assure you tlig and all other Christians who lurk here I HAVE met your Jesus. Below you will find a link. Don't worry, it's not some trick to give you a virus. Rather it's an old link to a Bible program written for MSDOS in 1997.
http://www.simtel.net/free/Bible-Related-and-Religious-Programs/asw_doszip/28642.html
Wait! Why would I give you this link? Simple, I wrote the program. Download it, unzip the files and run the program or read the included text files. You will find that yes I did indeed meet YOUR Jesus. Not only did I write this program I included the “salvation message” and even wanted to build a ministry so I can give Bibles away for free. I had a Christian web site and used it to share “God's Word”.
So don't come here with your assumptions and judgments thinking we don't know what we are talking about or know “your Jesus”. A lot of us started out just like you. Then we grew up and realized there is something more important that trying to “save the world”. You don't need religion to do it. Life today is wonderful and we can all move forward to a better life if we seek real answers to our problems. Reading the Bible and praying more just doesn't cut it. Just have faith doesn't cut it. God has his reasons or works in mysterious ways just doesn't cut it.
So there you have it. Proof that some of us here were once like you Christians. You may wonder what it was then that made us change and turn away from religion or church.
We started to think. I dare you to try it!
We are not a bunch of angry, bitter and hateful people here. In fact I have never felt so much support, friendship and understanding as I have gotten from the people who post at this site. If I were to run into a church and announce I didn't believe in their god, I can assure you I would get anything but love and understanding. I have seen my own family treated bad by church ushers because they were living in sin. The irony is the church preached they needed to get right with god, then drove them away when they showed up to do just that.
Want to see hateful comments? Read the Bible. How many times were people ordered murdered by God's people? Women raped in God's name, a man tormented to the edge of death just so God can prove a point to Satan (Job). How about telling me I will burn in Hell because I don't follow your beliefs?
Here I can share my feelings, thoughts and ideas without fear or judgment. I can be myself and not hide or pretend to be something I am not. What a nice feeling that is.
I don't dispute the fact that I did make these comments and in fact admit I did. But it wasn't because of anger, bitterness or guilt. It was a response to the usual small minded assumptions Christians make when they come to this site.
When they show up they never take the time to read our posts and try and get to know us or understand where we are coming from and who we are. If we reply to them we are automatically assumed wrong and our insights are ignored.
I work in tech support and love my job. But there are days when I get asked a dumb question and I just roll my eyes, crawl under my desk and cry like a little girl. After 25 years of the IBM PC model some people still don't get it. So I an become annoyed at times.
What really sets me off though is the condescending, self-righteous attitudes that these Christians give us. As if we don't know what we are talking about or never had their experience. Hell, some here are former pastors of many years in the ministry.
For example my post was titled, and ended with, “Give Me Reason”, not “Give Me A Reason”. Yet tlig assumed I was looking for a reason to believe rather I was stating my desire to live BY REASON, not by faith in a god.
How many times have we heard:
You were never a Christian
You don't know anything about church/the Bible/God/Jesus
and my favorite (tligs too) “You never met MY Jesus”
I even had someone say I never knew anything about the Bible and must have been from some church of 500 BC. Say what?!
I can assure you tlig and all other Christians who lurk here I HAVE met your Jesus. Below you will find a link. Don't worry, it's not some trick to give you a virus. Rather it's an old link to a Bible program written for MSDOS in 1997.
http://www.simtel.net/free/Bible-Related-and-Religious-Programs/asw_doszip/28642.html
Wait! Why would I give you this link? Simple, I wrote the program. Download it, unzip the files and run the program or read the included text files. You will find that yes I did indeed meet YOUR Jesus. Not only did I write this program I included the “salvation message” and even wanted to build a ministry so I can give Bibles away for free. I had a Christian web site and used it to share “God's Word”.
So don't come here with your assumptions and judgments thinking we don't know what we are talking about or know “your Jesus”. A lot of us started out just like you. Then we grew up and realized there is something more important that trying to “save the world”. You don't need religion to do it. Life today is wonderful and we can all move forward to a better life if we seek real answers to our problems. Reading the Bible and praying more just doesn't cut it. Just have faith doesn't cut it. God has his reasons or works in mysterious ways just doesn't cut it.
So there you have it. Proof that some of us here were once like you Christians. You may wonder what it was then that made us change and turn away from religion or church.
We started to think. I dare you to try it!
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