An Atheist's Take on Christian Prayer.

Upper hand in what?
Egotism?

 

At making you react and be upset.

 

it certainly affords them control over your emotions. i'd call that the upper hand.

 

My point is that you are a troll whether or not you're aware of it - a troll with a very narrow agenda. A troll, not because you pontificate on the superiority of atheism, but because you appear to have very little else to say about anything else, and thereby bore the absolute shit out of me.

 

LOL, W.T.Fuuuuck are you guys talking about? It doesn't ruin my day or anything like that. Annoying for a second, like a fly or something... ping you're dead, yeah whatever! pfft, "controlling my emotions"... what a riot!

 

Gesundheit

 

if you're reacting then your reaction is shaped by whatever you're reacting to, rather than you, makes you subservient. if you don't let yourself react then you retain control. simples.

 

It's not so much that he has a narrow agenda (which he has). It's that he also hasn't said anything so far that advances it by a coherent argument--much like a Christian posting over and over again "I believe in God." Or "atheists are fools." Or "atheists believe that Richard Dawkins is infallible." For example, this business of Jesus pretending to commit suicide. Since no Christian believes that, what is the "gotcha" value of an atheist bringing it up. The prevailing view is that Jesus was crucified, as a form of execution. To characterize crucifixion as suicide takes imagination, and to say that Jesus "pretended" to do it gets even more puzzling. So what is Evangelical Atheist trying to say? I don't know. He'd have to explain it, and when a person has to do that, it reduces any value the statement might have as satire.

The part about suicide might be a confused reference to the idea that Jesus willingly accepted his crucifixion as a sacrifice for the benefit of humanity. This is comparable to a soldier willingly risking or giving his life for his country, or the captain going down with the ship. Nobody thinks of that as suicide. Even the Westboro Baptists aren't that sick. As for "pretending" to commit suicide, that might be based on the belief by some Gnostics that Jesus' death was an illusion, or that he somehow substituted a ringer in his place. Most Christians today, however, would have no idea what this was all about. In other words, as satire, the statement is lame. The rest of the "prayer" seems to be based on the idea that Jesus and Yahweh are identical. What Christian believes this? The idea of the Trinity is admittedly difficult, but whatever it means, it doesn't mean identity among the three separate "persons" of God, so attributing deeds of the Father to the Son falls flat. Christians rejected that idea, called Sabellianism, long ago That's why the so-called prayer comes across as an angry rant.

 

Word. Stop reading my posts then.

 

So has atheism.

 

This is a silly superstition that is based on the thought that the soul leaves the body when you sneeze and is pagan in origin. It has no valid basis in Christianity.

 

Although I don't often agree with Okiefreak, he is right. Almost no Christians believe the things Evangelical Atheist is trying to satirize, thus what Evangelical Atheist says comes off as more of pointless rant than any kind of effective criticism.

 

How has a lack of belief been used that way?

 

Lack of belief, per se, would probably have no necessary relationship to dangerousness or progress, which I think was the point in question. The same would be true of religion. However, some of the most dangerous and non-progressive movements in history have incorporated atheism into their belief systems. The U.S.S.R., Pol Pot's Cambodia, North Korea, and the People's Republic of China come to mind.

 

If i was christian i would be offended

 

Because I'm a Christian, I'm not offended. Evangelical Atheist doesn't like Christianity because of notions he has about it, some of which seem to be inaccurate. By posting them here, he gave us an opportunity to respond to them and possibly clear some of them up. Atheism is a growing movement in Oklahoma, undoubtedly because of the overbearing examples of Christianity that some of our self-appointed spokespersons are providing. To me, they are Pharisees, but the press and the public view them as Christians, and the reputation of Christianity suffers accordingly.

 

As Okiefreak said; for one the Soviet Union did a pretty good job of that.

 

Likewise, although Okiefreak and I disagree on many of the beliefs of Christianity, we do agree that there are many who call themselves Christian that are not displaying the qualities of Christ that would prove them to be Christian in the first place and thus give Christianity a bad name.

 

How, exactly?

 

Because it's so true.

Of course it's not all christians, but, he's got a good chunk of the skin deep ones outlined here.