What goes through your mind when someone says, "I'm a Christian?"

[Silent3]

69. I have a hard time believing you ever held "the same thoughts" as this other poster...

...when you follow up by saying that after somehow giving those thoughts up, you've "been much happier since".

If you ever held similar thoughts it wouldn't likely matter to you what makes you happier or not. If you ever were a real skeptic, you'd consider only what does or does not make sense, what's logical and rational. You wouldn't choose what you believe by thinking about what belief makes you happiest.

I think it's also important to note that this thread isn't merely about people who are technically Christian, or whether you yourself would call them Christians. It's about people who strongly self-identify very specifically with the word "Christian", flat out, with any particular denomination coming second, if at all.

Liberal and/or intellectual non-literalist Christians might not like this, but the fact is that the word Christian has become strongly associated with right-wing Fundamentalist Christianity. There's a whole lot there that's very, very easy to criticize without it taking much hubris to call that bullshit the bullshit that it is.

Even with a bit looser, less literalist interpretation of Christianity, the whole idea of someone "dying for your sins", original sin and substitutional atonement via God sacrificing himself to himself, is more than a bit crazy when you think about it.