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I had a head-on collision and very nearly was killed. While I was in the hospital I read the Bible and became a Christian. Yay for Christianity. It can help pe
by xlnt 18y ago
I had a head-on collision and very nearly was killed. While I was in the hospital I read the Bible and became a Christian.
Yay for Christianity. It can help people.
- sant0sk1 18y agoYes the Bible can and does help people daily. In fact, the Bible has changed my life in the most profound ways. Unfortunately, most folks are too busy scoffing at it to pick it up and give it a read.
- rw 18y agoOr, we read it, then started scoffing. Please, do not generalize around these parts about religion.
- sant0sk1 18y agoActually, you are the one generalizing by saying my comment was about religion. I mentioned nothing of the sort.
- rms 18y agoGenerally when people refer to the bible they are talking about religion. Were you referring to the study of the bible as literature?
- sant0sk1 18y agoWell, the bible is a great literary work and there is no doubting that. Many writers have borrowed from its themes, styles, and prose throughout history (Shakespeare a prominent example). The reason I say my comment (and my view of the bible) is non-religious is that when one begins to study the bible in detail, he realizes that it is critical of all organized religion, even nominal Christianity. I don't blame rw for lumping me in with the majority, but he did lump me in, which is generalizing.
- xlnt 18y agoThe thread was clearly about Christianity, and you were talking about the Christian holy book, and you're going to blame other people for thinking you were saying something to do with religion?
- Hexstream 18y agoYou know, the Bible helped me too! Things like "Don't kill your neighbor"... I never would have came up with this myself!
- xlnt 18y agoIt's people like you who inspire me to post examples of Christianity genuinely helping people. I am an atheist, but I don't agree with the hateful or mocking attitude many atheists have.
- axod 18y agoI expect it's mainly in response to the argument that without religion you cannot have morality which lots of religious types seem to believe. The hijacking of morality by religious people can be pretty irritating.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- xlnt 18y agoWhile I agree the conclusion isn't true, I have yet to see any modern, public atheists write anything one quarter decent about morality. I have seen some very bad writing about morality, such as in The God Delusion, which can't be helping matters. If you disagree, post a source.
- axod 18y agoThe us is roughly twice as religeous as the uk. Is it twice as moral? I'd say crime is quite a bit higher in the us. In my experience growing up in the uk (majority of people are not religeous), the majority DO have a good sense of what is right and wrong.
- xlnt 18y agoOh certainly, I agree. However, the lack of (non-awful) explicit, atheistic writing on morality is still an important problem, and helps religious people get away with denying atheists can be moral. If you are moral, but can't explain why, it's easier for people to doubt.
- redorb 18y agosorry you feel that way im not a chrstian but i think most religions can benefit a person if its a fit for them . . as long as they dont try to convert me im cool
- xlnt 18y agofeel what way? i wasn't being sarcastic.
- rms 18y ago>Yay for Christianity. It can help people. I hear that if you're ever in prison you should join the church so you can get paroled faster.
- axod 18y agoAmerica is way too religious. It's seriously scary that a developed country is still deeply religious.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoI think you are conflating dogma with religion, which is a common error for both the faithful and the godless.
- axod 18y agoUsing words "faithful" and "godless" is sort of irritating to me. It's a little one sided.
- ajkirwin 18y agoI'll go right ahead and bite the karma loss for suggesting that "near death experiences" and perhaps head trauma causes people to lean towards the bible.
- marvin 18y agoThe head-on collision and near death probably did a lot more than reading the Bible. This guy becoming a Christian was more a part of the process than the triggering factor. Near-death experiences often have a profound effect on people's lives.
- Prrometheus 18y agoSay what you will about Christianity, it does encourage people to lead clean lives and reinforces that message with effective social pressure. To people with certain kinds of problems that can be incredibly helpful. There's a reason why Christianity has so many turn-around stories.
- Hexstream 18y ago"There's a reason why Christianity has so many turn-around stories." In absolute terms, sure, because there are lots of Christians and of course some of them will have a turn-around story. But if you take the ratio of turn-around/number of Christians and compared that to other religions or atheists I'm not sure you'd get a very impressive number. This is all because of confirmation bias again. It's easier to see the couple thousands of success stories attributed to a religion than the millions of failures we don't hear about.
- Prrometheus 18y agoDiscipline is good for a certain kind of person. Religion provides discipline for those who have no self-discipline. I don't see why so many on this thread need to convince themselves that religion never helps people. It does. I've seen it. Does it help everyone? Probably not. Is it a net positive for society as a whole? I don't think so. However, it clearly and surely helps some people some of the time. I don't have any numbers, just personal anecdotes, but I've sure seen people saved by religion who would otherwise probably be dead, and I'm a hardcore atheist radical.