I've encountered statements like the following:
"Most of my atheist friends are better Christians than those who claim to follow Jesus."
What do you make of it? Can that be true? Or share a similar one, along with your thoughts.
Here's another: (from post #18)
"As a Christian, the primary (if not only) reason you do good things is to please someone else (your invisible sky daddy, I've taken to calling him). As an atheist, the only reason I do good things is because it's the right thing to do. The Christian may think it's the right thing to do, too, of course, but obviously, one of us has ulterior motives, the other's motives are plain and simple and pure."
What say you? Is it true? Are Christians guilty of this? Or, if I could phrase it biblically, is "do all for the glory of God" a worse or too-complex motive than "do because it should be done"?
I think the sayings are mostly true. Christianity and Christians have a long and sad history of being legalistic and lacking in love. (And make no mistake, where there is legalism you will not find love and where there is love, you will not find legalism).
But I would say that this is human nature, not 'Christian nature' that is being observed.
Any group of people who are convinced in their own minds that they have the exclusive ownership of truth, that anyone who disagrees with them about truth is a heretic and an infidel and certain to burn in hell forever is going to fall into the classic human error of pride. Then comes the holier-than-thou attitude, the looking down noses, the marginalizing of 'the other', the false love ("we'll accept you if you do x, y, z first) which is legalism, etc, etc.
An observer can see the same behavior in any religious group, but, as someone else mentioned, especially the "Abrahamic faiths" (i.e. Judaism, Islam and Christianity) because they hold tightly to the exclusivity of their faiths. The behavior can also be found in non-religious groups of people. For example, look at the rhetoric and vitriol in politics.
In my experience with atheists and agnostics, most just would rather "live and let live" with regard to moral life choices. I, personally, wish more Christians would learn to do the same.
Also, my understanding of the "Christian life" and the motivation for doing good as taught to us in Scripture is that we will do good works because good works are in our heart to do, not because we're afraid of displeasing "Sky Daddy."
I also believe - I didn't used to - that most people are generally good in that they're generally rational enough to realize that being decent human beings who treat their neighbors with kindness is in their own best interest. Threat of punishment for not being kind, imho, tends to muddy the waters and make people more likely to be cruel, not less.
If your measure of "good Christian" is someone who follows the Golden Rule.... then IME, generally speaking, atheists are better at it than Christians. But that's probably because so many Christians have been spiritually abused to the point that they sincerely believe abuse = love.
well I hope it makes some sense anyways.
