Atheism is not self-worship. Holy shit, Brian.
One might think a better Christian might say something like, "I was once an atheist. It didn't work for me. If it works for you, that's great!"
You know, some kind of no-judgment, no-proselytization thing like that.
Back to the self-worship nonsense. Brian, arguably Christianity is pretty damn self-worshippy.
Let's see, for the Christian…
- There's this whole self-preservation bent.
- The god is in their image.
- The religion has been twisted to defend, support, encourage personal wealth accumulation.
- Being taught that there is a god who listens to your prayers? Think about that. Exclusive, albeit however temporary, one-to-one audience with your god. Sheeeeesh!!!
- Christianity emphasizes that salvation ONLY comes from believing in Jesus, and calls it the Gospel.
Good news to Christians because they believe it, bad news for other people. This is why we have a Christian Nationalism problem — it is baked into the religion to perceive it superior, thus baking it into its followers that they are superior — Brian, your own reaction to another poster's atheism is a perfect example of this.
I'll stop there.
We all believe in something. For some it's Karma, others it's organized religion, Yin/Yang, Fungschway, Science, Government, we all have some form of religion.
Matthew 10:34-36 "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth..." “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Jesus himself wasn't a teddy bear. The modern day liberal Jesus is often thought of as this kind, loving, all forgiving, teddy bear, when in fact he was not. Jesus said that everyone who has died will be raised from the dead and be judged (
John 5:26-29). So, all of us will stand before the “Christ as Judge.”