Quote from: jaysabi on June 20, 2015, 10:20:28 PM

Quote from: MakingMoneyHoney on June 17, 2015, 05:02:04 PM

Quote from: mayflor2 on June 17, 2015, 01:55:42 PM

Quote from: cryptodevil on May 08, 2015, 05:25:31 PM

You ask why rational people try to engage theists into critical thinking, then go on to detail how you, like most atheists, began as a child being conditioned to believe the theist myths of your parents until you discovered the skills of critical thinking and objective reasoning.

So you prove that theists can break their conditioning but then question why we bother trying to free the minds of others who, like us once, were brainwashed.

Some Christians are threatened by atheism's rise on the pop charts. Some say atheists "hate God." But of course, a philosophical atheist cannot hate something he does not believe exists. Many atheists, though, do hate religion...

There's no good reason why a Christian should ever be "threatened" by atheism's rise. Saddened maybe, feeling bad for them, yes. But threatened? There's no good reason for that. Christians believe God will be with them forever and they'll go to Heaven, and God will shine His light on them, and bless them. There's nothing to be threatened with when God is with you, who can be against you?

Romans 8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Perhaps not Christians individually, but certainly a shrinking pool of adherents is threatening to the religion as a whole. The financial base drying up is an existential threat, and a smaller base is less political power as well. Individuals care about converting nonbelievers because they're taught to believe this is necessary (for soul-saving reasons) by the church hierarchy, when it's actually for perseverance of the financial and political power base of the church.

It's not threatening to the religion. It may be threatening to specific churches money supply, but I know plenty of Christians don't even bother going to church, versus just living their life and praying straight to God. God's not going to disappear even if all the physical churches disappeared. The bible is still one of the most read books and best selling books of all time. There are now lots of religious youtube stations, programs on tv, and on radio (like satellite radio), and websites. And I still think it's sad when people don't believe, so I would hope people would convert even if only to live their lives doing unto others as they would have done to themselves (versus not caring what they do to others because they don't believe in consequences). There are consequences, even if you don't believe in God. But I couldn't care less if they went to church or not. Accepting Jesus as your savior, reading the bible, forgiving others, asking for forgiveness, is pretty much all you need.