How to Be an Atheist Without Being a Dick About It

[cbayer]

118. I can tell you about my own experience.

Baptism was a ritual performed generally in early adolescence. It was a rite of passage that basically said that one was now an adult member of the congregation and no longer one of the children. It had nothing to do with original sin or substitutionary atonement by Jesus, at least not for me. It was symbolic and optional. As in other denominations, we were taught that all people are basically born good and that Jesus was good and that trying to emulate him was a good thing.

What I have found is that christians, and protestants in particular, can be all over the place with these concepts. To dogmatically categorize them as just one thing misses the complexity and the nuances.

According to what I have read, there are about 33,00 different protestant denominations and 800 million people who call themselves protestant. It is ridiculous to state that they all embrace the same dogma. The only thing they have in common, imo, is that they follow the teachings of christ.

So, bottom line for me is this - support those who are doing what I consider good (working for social justice and civil liberties) whether they are believers or not. If their religious or areligious institution has some bizarre underlying beliefs that I don't share, why should I care if they are doing good works.

I find it hard to understand why those on the same progressive/liberal side would want to attack them.