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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK, yes, thanks for reminding me of hypocrisy quote, and I'll try not to use it too much against you. I guess the only relevant thing is that you seemed to direct it right at me, and that's what riled me up.

Yes, the NT is very accepting to non-believers and strangers. And Jesus was also not bothered about the guy who did miracles in His name. For me the bottom line is really that a non-Christian celebrating Lent is welcome to get whatever he or she wants out of it.

However, the issue of nasty atheist posters is a separate issue, and I do think they need to be challenged. If it takes some frank talk, instead of sweet talk, then I don't see a problem with challenging them frankly. [/quote]

Oh no, I didn't mean it toward you.  I don't really know which poster you are.  I thought that you were commenting that my post was judgmental, and I was defending it by pointing out that Jesus also criticized people who tried to deny access to God.  Maybe I should have quoted Luke so that it would have been clearer:  '“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”  It's the same passage, but Jesus' point is that the Pharisees tried to put barriers between ordinary people and God by denying them access to knowledge.

In any case, I do agree that there are some mean-spirited atheist posters.  I'll probably post something on that at some point.  But I mostly post if I think I can change something for the better.  But I can't convince Christians to be more Christian, so what influence would I have on atheists?

Sadly, I really didn't get much discussion going about inclusiveness aside from your comments, which is a shame.   That was the purpose of this whole thread.  [/quote]

I'm a new poster to this thread, and an atheist.  I would suggest that you approach angry atheists with sympathy and kindness.  Speaking in general terms - the angry ones are the ones are the ones who were personally hurt, sometimes very deeply, by religion in some way.  I personally grew up in a non-practicing Unitarian household, so you can see religion didn't hold that much power in my relationships at an early age.  I have very few problems with people who are religious, except the convert by the sword types.  Typically when I talk to someone who is angry about religion it turns out religion was used to hurt or control them in the past (or someone - typically a mother - is trying to use it to control them now.)  If you approach it as an argument about logic you will lose - twice over, because it will descend into name calling - and we all lose when we start calling each other names.  [/quote]

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