Before you started participating here did you have any idea of the extent of the hate that is Christianity.?

it truly breaks my heart.

i wish more people could know and realize that being a christian is truly about love. we should love others as christ loved us.

and every day that i am on here i see over and over that not all christians believe that. or if they do say they believe that it is not how they are living their lives.

i don't know how i can make it better, except to lead by example. if i can show others how my faith makes me a better person, then maybe they will see the good in it. and just not the ugliness that others show.

i cringe every time i read an answer from ANYONE that is mean and hateful. we could all use more love in our lives!

I agree with you that there is a great deal of hate on Yahoo! answers, but it knows no religious boundaries.

I am personally an Agnostic (yes, with a capital "A") and I am appauled by the hatred that I see my fellow agnostics and atheists spew out against Christians on a daily basis. It breaks my heart to see questions like this. We're supposed to be the better ones.

I conduct public opinion surveys for a living and I can tell you this: in the United States, non-Christians have a much greater distain for Christians than Christians do for non-Christians. But none of that matters, because the real enemy isn't religion or non-religion, it's the fact that both sides hurl epithets like "bigotry" and "hate-speech" at each other rather than having real conversations.

The most persuasive people in the last century were those who left name-calling behind and instead called for civil, open dialogue. People like Dr. King and Gandhi are the truly persuasive people, and whether we like it or not, they were religious.

So unless we want charismatic Christians and Hindi leaders running the world, we're going to have to leave the counter-productive name calling behind and adopt some tactics that work.

Hello Chubbybloke.......You would have great difficulty keeping religion out of the as you call it mainstream/public eye...Do you knot know that 90% of the British Law is based on the 10 commandments? The law relating to child labour (as under the age of 15 children are not to work in full time jobs), the age of consent, the laws against slavery were all brought about by Christians...You would have to go back to the dark ages & pre Hebre/Christianity/Muslim faiths to keep peoples faith out of the mainstream & even then the Pagon religions were at the fore setting the rules of how people should live....So that means that you would have to be in the cave man pre history before religion was out of the limelight.....AND, THERES AN AND!!!! evidence point that stoneage man had religions! I am no twit!

There is resentment on both sides. The problem with the fundies is that they think they are divinely justified. Atheists usually hate for a reason (usually decent at leaste). This is the lesser of the two evils, I think, because it's easier to make an atheist reconsider. Reasoning can only be trumped by better reasoning.

Still there are some wonderful christians. But it's because they are human firstly and religious after.

I haven't met a truly 'bad' atheist. Maybe they're venting their frustration. Maybe they aren't.

Follow closely - there has to be hate. It's just not possible to have christianity and NOT have it.

You see christianity has to have HELL. No choice.

Hell punished the sinful and is the core of justice in christianity. Everyone goes there until Jesus showed up - the Savior. If there is no hell, there is no need for him. He doesn't have to show with his magic tricks and stories.

Now if you MUST have hell in your theology and you're going to stick to it, you have to be able to look at your neighbors and really really believe there is an unseen place that all these people around you deserve to be tortured for ALL ETERNITY. Burning torture. All the time. Always on.

This same sentiment made torturers out of the Inquisition, Christianity's hour of truth - obey or we will torture you.

If you can walk down the street and believe that the old lady across the street - the Jewish lady - the one that bakes cookies and is nice to your kids - yeah her; she's deserving of ETERNAL TORTURE because she's Jewish. Then hate is simple and easy. Hating the deserving comes next.

Drop this fairy tale crap - the unprovable crap about hell and angels and devils and that book. All made up, supporting torture. Discardable.

Hate comes easy, with a theology based on torture.

I had an idea of the hatred as I am one of the targets of their hatred, I know that many christians promote hatred, lies, bigotry and intolerance. I know that they invade various other sections to spread their poison. I know that many christians try to make laws against non-christians and LBG people. I know that many middle of the road types can be as bigoted as the loons/fundamentals! Many also think that because they repeat stuff it confers immunity on them, I don't get that as repeating stuff that's bigoted means you are being as bad - I've had a person e-mail me to claim the pope isn't bigoted for preaching homophobic bile!

I've also had an e-mail from joshabilly that rationalizes racism and homophobia and appears to hint that minorities should shut up and accept that it's right that minorites are hated:

"Subject: the bible

Message: if you actually know the bible as well as you claim which, in seeing how you distort Jesus' words and several verses, i doubt; then how can you possibly find it just for a person to be a homosexual...it's not "covering up" bigotry to say what i said....most people I've read on this answers thing who get angry about my views and stance on morality seem to justify anything they want or want to be....if anyone is hateful or biggoted, it's the homosexuals, minorities, etc. who feel like they must always defend who they are or their way of life....I have no problem with gays, blacks, hispanics, Jews, WHOMEVER!!! I follow God's Law the best I can, and of COURSE i mess up and sin (before you start to throw that in my face), but I will not stand for anything that is a direct violation against his command: i.e. abortion, murder, adultery, and HOMOSEXUALITY"

many christians wonder why atheists get so mad yet they will never accept that there's good reasons why. one fundie even think that Fred Phelps is a plant to make them look bad!

I am glad that christianity is on the wane, there are many idiots like Rowan who places keeping the church togethor as more important then noble goals

many christians even want to be above the laws of the land and they want to preach hatred and get immunity for this, some homophobic christians want to focus on muslim homophobia and get immunity for christianity's homophobia

Actually - I do hear you on this one. I was just discussing this today with a good friend, and mentioned that it's very sad that so many people who follow Christian denominational religions are deluded... and he chirped in "and diluted!". I couldn't agree more.

The thing is, I am having a difficult time with this on this board. Because here we are, bantering back and forth... you know there are many "really wonderful Christians" and yet the focus isn't on them...

Now hear me out. not I nor any other Christian necessarily wants to be focused on... what I would prefer is NON focus on the second part of your comment "you just can't make up for the bigots and their hate that has infected our country". If you all continue to focus on that negative, and ignore the positive, well then.... by default the hate for Christianity *will* perpetuate.

Hope that's making sense.... just ignore it! Or fight it practically by focusing on the great things about Christianity.

blessings

I'm amazed that anyone could confuse American Christianity with Christianity. There are 10 times more Christians than there are citizens of the United States. American Christians make up some 7% of all Christians. And you think Y!A represents the majority of Christians?!

I was very much aware. Yahoo answers how ever, has given me a chance to meet and speak with REAL christians. The ones who actually follow what Jesus said. People who do not judge, or hate.

To be honest, I thought all christians were horrible, cruel people. Yahoo answers has shown me that a small population of them are not.

I had an idea of it because I was exposed to Fred Phelps and his brand of Christianity in 1980 when he was first getting started. I was at a youth conference at St. David's Episcopal Church in Topeka, KS, and he was protesting because the priest there welcomed gay people, people with AIDS, and welcomed anyone who wished to have a funeral there for an AIDS victim. Just last year someone torched St. Davids--I have a suspect in mind. But yes, I'd been exposed to the hate.