To Josephus.

Sorry I should have worded that better to say that divisiveness is in the people not the faith itself. You're right. However, there are some divisiveness among the people, and that's what I'm referring to. It's not about the teachings as much as how well we are at both knowing the teachings to be loving, as well as living up to the standard of being gentle. As well as being patient and forgiving because we all are in the same boat with sin.

Most Christians that I know are not divisive at all. They are warm, welcoming, and uplifting. But the ones that I see that have something divisive I can usually see their stance or their struggle. Some just get pushy instead of being gentle, and though they might have a good heart to try and save someone they care about, what they do instead is push them away. It's sad to see this in families when a parent loves their kids and throughout their lives in the topic of religion they can't come together.

Others get angry at sin. Armchair Critic pointed out being judgmental, and I see his point. Some get angry at others sins, and others just quietly distance themselves from those sinning. In either case, the stereotype of being judgmental is part of several ongoing negative stereotypes Christians are views as. Sometimes it's not the divisiveness of the Christians, but the divisiveness of the reactions to Christians that are the issue. No one likes to be judged or distanced because of their sins, so the reaction sometimes is aggressive against a Christian regardless if they said anything or if they quietly avoided that person.

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I think a good reference at different types of Christians are in the second and third chapters of Revelation. Where seven church cities are told what they are doing well and what they are lacking. The part to the Ephesian church hits the nail on the head for a Christian path that loses it's love for one another. While two others show an issue of not rejecting false doctrine and tolerating some bad teachings within them. The issue of rejecting sin and loving your neighbor are hard to juggle sometimes. Sometimes Christians fall towards one side and lack the other attribute. Either to reject sin and lose their love for others; or in trying to love and welcome others, compromise on standing against sinfulness or on even believing the bible.

To OzSpen.

You're probabley right that there is divisiveness due to doctrine versus false doctrine. However that's an element that I don't see too much of. So I can't really comment on it causing division. But I know of people who are married and go to seperate churches. So the issue you're talking about is real, it's just not what I have anything worthwhile to offer on.

Dear Banjo,

«the actors of those “atrocities and terrible injustices”, all of which [except the stoning to death of (Saint) Etienne by the Jewish religious zealot, (Saint) Paul] were committed some 2,000 years ago, in the name and under the authority of two major religious institutions (Judaism and Catholicism)»

Judaism and Catholicism are institutions all right, but are they indeed religious? Yes they touch on religion, they overlap with religion: only to that extent we can call them "religious", not when they do and teach other things, especially when they get involved with politics.

Yes, atrocities were also carried out in the name of Hinduism, such as the ill treatment of widows, currently also the persecution of the Rohingya in Burma in the name of Buddhism, but these are not religious acts and were never ordained by God or by the Buddha.

were never ordained by God or by the Buddha.
Yuyutsu,
So, why do you think God or Buddha don't stop the attrocities ?

I'm not all that interested in whether or not Jesus did this or that, etc. etc. I'm concerned about the divisiveness between believers and non-believers.

Surely we all have to have some sort of system of values, of moral principles ? Even us atheists can learn from religious teachings - and of course from other sources, such as the Greek philosophers etc. - as rough guides to what we believe is proper behaviour towards other people ? It doesn't mean that we've suddenly dropped our guts and become religious, since after all, no religion has any monopoly on the best moral principles.

So this topic should concern all of us, and we shouldn't let it degenerate into some obscurantist hair-splitting, which allows us atheists to pretend that moral principles - even those in religious teachings - have nothing to do with us. We may find that we have more in common with good people everywhere than only those who claim to have the same narrow views that we may have.

Just saying :)

Joe