1. You Can Do Terrible Things in the Name of Either One

We're putting aside the question of which belief system has killed more people by percentage of population, or whether a hypothetical world without religion would have seen fewer or more genocides than ours. We're not going to open a spreadsheet and try to count which belief system manufactures more murderous sociopaths per capita.
All I need from you is agreement that it's entirely possible for either an atheist or theist world to devolve into a screaming murder festival. The religious leader sends his people into battle because he thinks God commanded it, the Stalins and Maos of the world do the same because they see their people as nothing more than meaty fuel to be ground up to feed the machinery of The State. In both cases, the people are equally dead.
Yeah, yeah, I know the Christians are saying that the guy who fights an unjust or needless war is violating God's law, and thus isn't a good Christian. Meanwhile, the atheists are saying that Stalin was merely bloodthirsty, separate and apart from his disbelief in a higher power. Both believe, then, that it is a corruption of their belief system that allows unjust slaughter to happen.
But for this project, All we need to agree on is this: it happens in both cases. And if the opposing belief system vanished tomorrow, war and bloodshed and terror would still take place.

2. Both Sides Really Do Believe What They're Saying

Christians do this thing that drives atheists nuts, where they talk like God is patently obvious to all mankind, and that atheism is therefore just petty, intentional rebellion against Christians. In other words, that atheists don't honestly believe what they say, and just say it because they're jerks.
But atheists do something very similar, particularly when a Christian says:
"Only the saved go to Heaven!"
...and what the atheist hears is:
"I want everyone else to go to Hell!"
It's the same thing, thinking that deep down Christians don't really believe this is the law handed down by a creator, and therefore Christianity is just a petty, intentional rebellion against the non-Christians of the world. In other words, that Christians don't honestly believe what they say, and just say it because they're jerks.

3. In Everyday Life, You're Not That Different

You Christians, if the transmission in your Camaro explodes, are you going to use prayer to reconstruct it? No, you'll call a mechanic. When your tooth hurts, you don't assume it's possessed by demons. You look for a cavity. Basic, everyday troubleshooting.
Well, at the very worst, the atheists are just applying the same common sense, real-world troubleshooting to the God question. At the creation of the universe and in the heart of mankind, they expect to find the same physical, tangible answers they'd find inside a burnt transmission. If they're wrong about God, they're only wrong in that they've taken the tried-and-true troubleshooting we all practice one step too far.
On the other hand...
Atheists, even if you reject the idea of God completely and claim to live according only to the cold logic of the physical sciences, you all still live as if the absolute morality of some magical lawgiver were true.
No, wait. Don't go away.
When some guy hustles you out of eighty bucks in an ebay scam, you don't nod and say, "Interesting! This fellow lacks the genetic predisposition toward equitable dealing that generations of sexual selection in favor of social behavior has instilled in the rest of us! A fascinating difference!"
No, you think what that guy did was wrong. You want justice. You think he should have acted differently.
Even though there's no "wrong" molecule floating in the air and there's no "justice" element on the Periodic Table. You don't think of the swindler as just a fellow animal who happens to behave differently than you. You think he should have acted some other way, according to an invisible ideal that everybody is aware of and knows they should obey.


4. There Are Good People on Both Sides

This is an easy one. I shouldn't lose anybody here. All you need is examples.
Atheists, you can despise a Falwell or the gay funeral protesting guy, but you've known Christians who did it right. Famous ones like Martin Luther King Jr., or just common ones you've run across who seem to have an inexaustible well of generosity and good cheer. You know how many charities have crosses on their logo.
Christians... look. The church loves to phrase it like:
"The faithful will be joined with their father in Heaven, while the liars, the murderous, the treacherous will be cast down with Satan and his hordes."
See the gap there, between the first part of the statement and the second? What about all the people in between? The atheists and Muslims and Buddhists and Scientologists who aren't murderous or treacherous or liars?
I understand the concept, that all morality comes from God and thus those on the outside are vulnerable to temptation and the devil and all that. But you know good people who aren't believers. I know you do. You can't miss them. Therefore:
If God alone can deliver us from temptation,
And,
Some people who don't believe in God are also able to resist temptation,
Then,
God must offer his protection against temptation even to some who don't believe in God. One could even say that God aids the atheist's honest desire to follow one of God's rules... even while he continues to deny God

5. Your Point of View is Legitimately Offensive to Them

Now, this says nothing about whether or not it's true. For this, I only ask that you understand why they get offended.
Everybody is aware that something can be both true and offensive, right?
You see a friend holding a newborn baby and you say, "You know, there's a chance he'll die tomorrow." Or you stand over the casket at your uncle's funeral and say, "He'll definitely be consuming fewer of the world's natural resources now." Both statements completely, 100% factually correct, and can be defended to the end of time by cold, undeniable logic. And both are incredibly offensive.
To say such things, and to be surprised when the hearers take offense, would show such a profound misunderstanding of human nature that everyone will assume you were raised by wolves.
So Christians, knowing what we just said about how it is possible to be a true, honest atheist, that people walk around every day and truly see no evidence of God, can you understand why it's offensive to them to hear that they, and their family, and their children, and their friends, are going to burn for eternity for it?
Especially if you, as most modern churches do, imply that people born into other cultures who honestly follow other faiths, are also going to burn? Because they were fooled by Satan?

6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy

Cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson wrote in one of his books - and this was probably just moments before the character was split in half by a robot weilding a samurai sword - that the only real sign of intelligence was the ability to detect subtlety.
Anybody can memorize facts. But you remain a clumsy, intellectual oaf of a person as long as you keep looking for sheer black and white in every situation. That's what's so frustrating about politics, the way everybody wants to paint the two parties as angels vs. devils. And if you just said to yourself, "Yeah! Those evil ________ are always trying to polarize us that way!" then, guess what, you just did the same thing.
So please, please, please, when we get into these atheist vs. Christian arguments, can the atheists stop acting like Christians want to abolish all science and live in grass huts? Just because some Christians reject the science on evolution, doesn't mean they reject all science.
I mean, give me a break. America has been full of Christians since the day we invaded it, and has been a scientific and technological freaking superpower. So please stop waving your arms and warning that if Christians get their way, we'll all be sacrificing virgins on altars and replacing surgeons with priests.
And Christians, will you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, stop implying that the atheist lifestyle is one long drug-riddled blood orgy? You take a country like Japan, where just 12% of the people say religion is important to their lives and yet have some of the lowest crime rates in the world.


7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too

If you're like me, there's this weird process that happens when you encounter somebody who believes the opposite as you, especially when they're really pushy about it. You actually go the other direction. I secretly think the Yankees are good enough to win 80 games this year and maybe make the playoffs, the other guy snorts in my face and tells me they'll be lucky to finish last. I roar back that they're going to win 100 and take home the title.
It's like that other guy is so irritating, I want to position myself further away. Or maybe it's like haggling over the price of a used car, you start low so that once the compromise happens, you'll be closer to your end than his.
It's often the same thing here. It looks like this:
"I believe the Bible is true."
"There is no evidence that this one religious text is any truer than other texts like it."
"EVERY LETTER IN THIS BOOK IS ETCHED DIRECTLY FROM THE HAND OF THE ALMIGHTY AND ANY ONE SYLLABLE CAN REDUCE ALL OF THE WORK OF ALL THE WORLD'S SCIENTISTS TO RUBBLE!"
"YOUR BRAINWASHED DEVOTION TO A RIDICULOUS BOOK OF SUPERSTITIOUS LIES HAS DESTROYED CIVILIZATION AND KILLED BILLIONS!!!!"
In reality, there are very few Christians who do or even try to follow the Bible exactly, including all the obscure rules about church women staying silent and hatted. Word of God or not, the faith changes, adapts with the times. That is, in fact, the entire point of Christianity. Jesus was a reformer, and set that precedent. It continues to this day, it's what I like about it.

Now Christians hate to admit that, because it opens the door for the other guy to say, "See! If it's not the word of God then you admit it's all a big pile of fly-ridden crap and that atheism is the one true belief system!" So, the Christian digs in and pretends they've never experienced a moment of religious doubt in their lives.
Conversely, atheists like to pretend they're islands of pure, rational thought in a sea of wild-eyed craziness. But we all have a little crazy in our world, and we all depend on some fantasy that floats outside the boundaries of cold reason.
Atheists still tell their girlfriends they "love" them, and not that they simply feel a psychological artifact of a biochemical bond generated by the mating instinct. They still refer to their "mind" as if it's something more than chemical switches. And remember what we talked about with "justice" and "right" and "wrong." None of it is scientific.
Even weirder? Free will. Remember, to a neuroscientist, free will is every bit as real as the Tooth Fairy. They can watch your neurons light up at the moment you make moral decisions, can trace the exact electrochemical pathways. If there is nothing beyond the physical, then your ability to choose your actions vanishes along with God and Heaven and the angels. It was an atheist professor who told me that, in a class on ethics.
Two days later, he told me if I was ever late to class again, he'd knock 100 points off my grade.
To deter me from being late in the future.
As if I had the free will to be late or on time.
So we all got those contradictions, that's my point. None of us are 100% on board.


8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid

9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table

Okay, bear with me here.
Christians, I'm not saying that atheists have brought good things to the world by telling people not to believe in God. I'm talking about the thing that drives atheism, the philosophy behind it.
I'm talking about rationalism. I'm talking about the philosophy that started saying, centuries ago, that it's not demons that cause disease. It's microbes, and genetic defects, and chemistry. And that we can find those causes and we can find cures. Cures in the physical world, without consulting the priest, without going through a ceremony.
Think about what I said before. If atheism is wrong, it's only wrong in that it takes rationalism too far, beyond the edges of the universe. But you don't have a problem with the rationalism itself. There are people you love who would not be alive without it. You can pray that grandpa's heart holds out for another year, but rational thinking invented the pacemaker.


So even if you detest atheism, you can at least agree that it grew out of something good.
Atheists. You hate wars. You hate genocide, you hate iron-fisted dictators who line up peasants and jump over them with monster trucks. You hate it when corporations steal your money, and when fat suburbanites will let a million Africans starve before they'll donate. You hate guys who treat women like lifeless sex dolls, guys who lie and leave.
You hate all of that, because you know that the ability to have empathy for other humans (even those who don't benefit us) is the only thing that separates us from the cockroaches. And when that fails, it's terrifying and awful in countless ways.
In the middle of a religious debate, you may say that religion and superstition are the prime evil in human society. But you look behind it, and you'll find that other monster is bigger. Humans doing the opposite, acting like animals. Treating other humans as nothing but engines for their own pleasure.
Religion - whether it was handed down by God or just invented by a bunch of guys- serves mainly to fight that. It makes humanity sacred, and the moral law moreso. You can hate the methods it uses, you can say that there are other ways, you can say that it only replaces one cancer with another. But most of what it's trying to get you to do - treat other humans as sacred and put morality above your own impulses - you already do. And you criticize religion mainly for not doing it.

10. You'll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence

Remember when I said that, when somebody comes on too strong, no matter what they're selling, we tend to run the other way? I mean, sure, the "God Hates gays" guy has changed tens of thousands of minds. But not in the direction he intended.
People are not convinced that way. The sarcasm, the disdain, the laughter. It makes you feel better, and rallies your friends, but it does exactly nothing to change minds on the other side. Conservatives may like to read Ann Coulter, but nobody else does.
No, in reality, if changing minds is your thing, there's only one way to do it:
Lead by Example.
There's a thing the church has been doing for centuries, that I don't think it can do any longer. It goes like this:
"Jesus is the son of God."
"How do I know that?"
"Because if you don't know that, then you will burn in Hell for eternity."
No. Uh-uh. If you want people to live their life in a certain way, based on a certain fact, you can't substitute a threat for evidence.
You have to lead by example.
Atheists, same thing. you want to show me that atheism is the key to a balanced, satisfying, confident life? Show me.
Trust me, if they introduce a new energy drink tomorrow and I observe that everybody who drinks it suddenly can dunk a basketball from their knees, I'm going to notice. So will everyone else.
That drink will be unstoppable.
So if you want to criticize the Christians' intolerance, then be tolerant. Show them how it's done. Shame them with your tolerance. You won't have to say they're awful. They'll look awful by sheer comparison to you.
And don't show up in a room full of Christians and start making fun of their taboos, immediately talking about boobs or whatever, as if the only reason people adhere to a rule is out of fear of experiencing the awesomeness of breaking it. You've got taboos, too. All of you. Things you don't like to see or hear in polite conversation. This is the internet, I can show you the pictures.
Be tolerant. Lead by example.
Both of you.
And don't think of it as a tactic to win converts. Think of it as common courtesy



Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_15663_10-things-christians-atheists-can-and-must-agree-on.html

Nice. Though I don't agree with number three. Come to Africa.

Reyginus: Nice. Though I don't agree with number three. Come to Africa.

can you explain?

Βουκέφαλος:

can you explain?

According to your number 3, we troubleshoot everyday problems by the application of scientific knowlegde. In africa, an ailment as toothache can be rectified using the occult/religions knowledge.

Reyginus: According to your number 3, we troubleshoot everyday problems by the application of scientific knowlegde. In africa, an ailment as toothache can be rectified using the occult/religions knowledge.

Please, dont mind this guy. He is not one of the intelligent christians.




Nice article by the way

Logicboy03:


Please, dont mind this guy. He is not one of the intelligent christians.




Nice article by the way

yeah i figured

Logicboy03:


Please, dont mind this guy. He is not one of the intelligent christians.




Nice article by the way

Ad hominem.

Βουκέφαλος:

yeah i figured

You surprise me. I'm dissapointed.

*yawn*

Logicboy03:


Please, dont mind this guy. He is not one of the intelligent christians.




Nice article by the way

Reyginus unintelligence is so alarming and stunning.

Kay 17: *yawn*

Kay, how was your night...? Eat something.

^^^

Looooool!! It is a terribly written OP.

Kay 17: ^^^

Looooool!! It is a terribly written OP.

It is a good attempt to birdge the gap between atheists and religious


However, there is an obvious religious bias in the op.


Take number 5, how does a christian have the legitimate right to be offended at my disbelief? madness

they agree about every thing except belive in God

5. Your Point of View is Legitimately Offensive to Them

Now, this says nothing about whether or not it's true. For this, I only ask that you understand why they get offended.
Everybody is aware that something can be both true and offensive, right?
You see a friend holding a newborn baby and you say, "You know, there's a chance he'll die tomorrow." Or you stand over the casket at your uncle's funeral and say, "He'll definitely be consuming fewer of the world's natural resources now." Both statements completely, 100% factually correct, and can be defended to the end of time by cold, undeniable logic. And both are incredibly offensive.
To say such things, and to be surprised when the hearers take offense, would show such a profound misunderstanding of human nature that everyone will assume you were raised by wolves.
So Christians, knowing what we just said about how it is possible to be a true, honest atheist, that people walk around every day and truly see no evidence of God, can you understand why it's offensive to them to hear that they, and their family, and their children, and their friends, are going to burn for eternity for it?
Especially if you, as most modern churches do, imply that people born into other cultures who honestly follow other faiths, are also going to burn? Because they were fooled by Satan?

This is the reason why we need a separate atheist section here. I am tired of the stuppidity of christians here. I am very happy I no longer have to tolerate muslims here as they have wisely quarantined themselves. Christianity is crying out for the same treatment.

A message for all atheists in the house:

https://www.nairaland.com/1222345/message-all-atheists-house