I think in terms of the Bible the English revised one [why did we need to change the word of God]
A truth exists within that second Bible we see true rules to live by that stand out as in my view brilliant
But too ,stay with me on this, the information that our very reproductive act is original sin!
Well recent revelations may support that, about the people who said it to us
Yes religion is divisive, always will be
But should we not speak about that?

Belly, What is divisive in North Korea and Communist China, where millions are persecuted and murdered. Are the religions divisive or oppressed by another religion - Atheism?

NNS: 1640 of those wars were not religious,

This doesn't mean that the perpetrators of these Wars were Atheists. It just means that the Wars were over, usually Land or Crowns. The Perpetrators were religious people.

BP: “The Great Big Book of Horrible Things"

OMG! One I haven't got. Fixed, just ordered.

Here is the scenario. An Atheist comes along & meets a Religious. (Southern Baptist, say) The SB tell the Atheist that he's a sinner & the Atheist says, "Aren't we all" & tries to walk on. He gets hasseled by the SB, "Pray for forgiveness, become Born Again." The Atheist walks on. The SB persists & waves the Bible at him. The Atheist then says, "Sorry I don't believe in God" & walks on.

Now that like waving a red flag at a Bull to a SB. (personal experience here) The SB keeps insisting in engaging in conversation much to the consternation of the Atheist. So the Atheist says, "Look, mate, there is no God. Go away." The SB still persists, waving & quoting the Bible & New Testament with much flurry & insisting the Atheist is a Sinner.

Now the Question. Just who is being divisive here, the Atheist or the SB?

There are some Religious Cults that are no better than the moslims in this regard in as much that they would still be burning people at the Stake.

Note: Protestants burnt more people at the Stake than Catholics ever did.

josephus needs to disagree, with everything, see he claims to be Christian but just maybe the type that are leaving Church benches empty
Conservatives own or think they do Christ
Had he existed I suspect he would wack them behind the ears, often

.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

.

You ask :

“Why are atheists so divisive?"

I presume you mean “why are atheists divisive towards religious people?”

I don’t think it’s true to say that atheists, generally, are “divisive”. My impression is that they are largely indifferent – as long as they are not being confronted, provoked or preached to by would-be moralists, proselytists, evangelists or whatever (e.g., Izzy Folau).

Might I add that in addition to atheists, I have the impression that there are also a growing number of “ordinary people” who have never been confronted with the question of religious beliefs and have therefore never accepted nor rejected them. I class myself among this group though I was baptised and confirmed as a Christian and served as an altar boy for many years.

Having carefully and conscientiously studied the god hypothesis most of my life, I never found any reason to believe in it. In fact, I became convinced that it was a purely human concept.

While, therefore, I don’t reject my Christian inheritance, I have never adopted the religious beliefs that go with it. And as it seems silly to me to define myself as an “a-theist”, i.e., by reference to “theists” (people who believe in something that I consider does not exist), I prefer to think of myself as just an ordinary person.

Divisiveness seems to me to be far more prevalent among religious people. No less than 84% of the world’s population declare adhering to a religion, yet, according to the adherents.com data base, there are 4,351 religions in the world (http://www.adherents.com/) - and that does not take into account all the different denominations of certain major religions : e.g., there are about 34,000 Christian denominations, several branches of Islam (Sunni, Shia, Sufism, Ibadi Muslims, Wahhabis, etc.) and several branches of Judaism (Pharisees, Sadducees, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Haredi, Hasidic, etc.).

As Graham suggests : “If you want to go to a Christian church … just walk through the door” or, alternatively, he could just walk through the door of a Mosque, Temple or whatever. No need to be divisive.

.

To Belly.

You said religion is very divisive, but should we not speak about that?

I'm sorry if my points were not made clear. I started with some explanations for the any divisive actions that I've seen that sometimes comes from Christians. But as the topic continued (as Graham noticed), the topic was very divisive against religion and many have used it as an opportunity to fill the air with anything they want to say against religion. (Whether it be serious, or just to mock and insult. For an example of insult, look at Mr. O's new branded insult "one dollar brain.")

That counts as a double standard in my opinion. Religions are held to the standard to not be divisive (that's the criticism of this topic) but it's ok for atheists to continue on their insults, their divisiveness to any religion? No dice, double standards should be rooted out from among you. Among any of us. However instead of even confronting the double standard, none of the atheists around here seem to even see their own behavior. You included Belly.

All I'm asking for is an explanation why atheists are as divisive towards religion. Or am I imagining things that more and more that there's growing pressure to remove religion from the public. Neither speak about it in public, as well as many places around the world trying to remove anything that has a religious symbol or religious phrase that can be seen in the public. Just getting to the point of you seeing your own behavior or the behavior of fellow atheists is like pulling teeth. If religion needs an explanation then so do atheists who in their causes drag religious people through the mud. That's my point that none of you seem to own up to. Justify your actions if they can be justified, or explain them if they can't be justified.

Look around you. Just in OLO, can you all really say your so blind that you don't see the regulars of the anti-religion brigade who step up whenever religion is mentioned?