I'm sorry but that is the most horrible idea I've ever heard.

There is a man who dedicates his entire life to helping others he volunteers for thousands of hours, he donates most of his money to charity, he helps out the community, and he has saved thousands of lives being a doctor. But he thinks about the presence of God and how since there is relatively no proof, if any, he decides to become athiest.

Does he deserve to go to hell? Do you think God would ACTUALLY condemn this man to hell?

The two reasons people are Christians are fear and that the beliefs were imposed on them.

There you go! Keep up the insults!

I'm only fearful or indoctrinated! Thanks dtewi!

It's pretty useless to explain it to you, so I won't bother.

I am not insulting, I am stating what are probably the two reason for belief in Christianity.

Many people do not follow anything blindly, they want to know what is happening.

Explain to me your reason to be a Christian. I fail to see two logical reasons beyond those two.

Yes you are being insulting. It would be like me saying that people are only atheist because they're mad at their parents or they just want to be different to get attention. Entirely stupid based on a few people I know.

Do not sidetrack the argument! You clearly feel affronted, but what I said was not insulting but too different for your tastes.

You're only trying to throw the debate off tangent because you have no rebuttal to my argument, right? If you did, you would have obviously answered by now.

I said I wasn't going to argue with you since it's useless. I was just saying that what you said was insulting.

*yawn*

I do believe that you can't think of another reason for believing in Christianity hence proving my point.

dtwei -

What about Christians that have seen the evidences of God in their life and of those around them? There is a 3rd reason, ya' know.

There are a lot of people, the majority I'd argue, of new converts that turn to Christianity because they've turned everywhere else to find a way to heal and help themselves from their problems. In many cases, it does a great service for those people. You can argue placebo, or whatever rational equation, but people do feel it gets fantastic results.

I know in my personal situation, with the Christians that are around me, it's helped them and myself. It's led me to be a more self-sacrificial person, a more caring person, a more aware person of those and their needs. In that, I've found self-fulfillment, and a way to better myself and my situation, and the situations of people around me.

So no, I don't believe fear or indoctrination are the only ways people become Christians. In fact, I don't think I've met many Christians that fit that idea. Yes, some come to Christ because they are indoctrinated by family. When I was a youth pastor, I told all the youth in my class flat out that they needed to leave, or reconsider what they're doing if they were forced into church by family. In fact, I've seen that happen growing up as a homeschooler - it has absolutely horrible results. And by horrible results, I mean the conversion isn't true, and the person falls away shortly after they leave the house.

Yes, people do come to God through very unscrupulous means such as fear and indoctrination. But in neither case to the conversions ring true. Religion based on fear yields useless people that live by the letter of the law, and not the love of the law in such a way to help others, and develop a true passion for God, and taking care of those around them. Indoctrination yields very flaky people that fall away very quickly. But still then, the core drive of Christianity are those that have that actual connection with God. You can call it psycosis, placebo, or whatever else you'd like to, but there are millions of people out there that have no symptoms of any illness, and are very smart people that will tell you that they've heard God, talked to God, had God tell them insightful things to help better their life. I'm one of them. I don't think it's totally irrational to say that God has talked to me, and improved my life.

I'm not going to start insulting your beliefs so I'm going to ignore much of the content that responding to would make me sound like a complete ass.

There is no evidence of God. Maybe those are peoples' consciences telling them what to do. Their conscience may have been weighing heavy on them telling them the right thing to do, and then they falsely convince themselves that it was God. The conscience isn't God.

And don't lie saying that fear or indoctrination weren't why the majority signed up for the church. You are putting up your own personal experiences which mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. And let's not forget that's it your perception of what was happening and you couldn't see into the minds of the children and figure out their reasoning. I've yet to see you put up a decent reason for belief. A third reason may be present, conformity, and a fourth, false proofs, but these may be stretchting it a little.

And because you can't think of another possible reason for someone to believe is why I won't debate. If you aren't open to the idea that there is another reason to believe in God outside of fear or indoctrination, nothing I say will be useful.