@Stigma I don't disagree with you in principle but the practice is very different in most western christian churches. This was not the case in medieval catholicism. They got burnt by going too far in other directions like indulgences for money. But today the majority of Christian leaders in the west are liberal fruit cakes living in a world of prosperity that shields them from reality.

The other day I was at a town once famous as an ancient Marian shrine but today more famous for being a latter day sodom and gommorah. The aim was to get my lady her plenary indulgence for the jubilee year. At the re-booted post Henry VIII catholic Marian shrine we could not get in because the "godless" needed to be excluded for their messed up behaviour -they would have been passing out drunk and sleeping in the church if they had been given the chance. We had to call a number to get let in by someone who told us just what he thought of the wildlife. Then she fancied seeing the Church Henry stole, so we went to see that one too. There the godless were sleeping in the churchyard and bringing small dogs into the church where they could urinate as their owners were being "helped" by well meaning people. There were some of those silly rainbow fag flags and some writings up on the wall (like a primary school teacher's display about the need to be kind to immigrants and to disarm).

I wouldn't blame someone raised against that having had enough of the Christian church's mercy and forgiveness. Its not the principles its the current practise. Look at that woman preacher who laid into trump when she was supposed to be welcoming her head of state into office. The churches have lost the plot. That's actually nothing to do with atheism but a lot of people conflate the church with deity.

@First-light You know, leaving you with that brief essay was lazy of me. Let me expand my thoughts on it:

It isn't the preserve of Christians that unrequited forgiveness be given to all and sundry. Like everything in Christianity, it presumes cultural familiarity, community and cohesion.

It is the malignancy of a diverse society that the ethics of Christianity be put upon those who would reject it. That is, the "self evident" ethics, taken on by a cultural familiarity but ultimately divergent ideologies (humanists, progressives, liberals etc.) attempt to apply that lesson of forgiveness to those it does not apply to, or those who would steal and rob you of that moral guidance.

A Christian forgiving a Christian within the concept of Christian forgiveness will find themselves forgiven!

A progressive who forgives a non will find themselves abused...

Charity, as seen by the Christian church is not as you propose

Mark 4:21

A Lamp Under a Basket

21 And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” 24 And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. 25 For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

One can not survive on charity alone, and so it does the Christian and the one receiving charity ill to persist in that manner.

@Typo-MAGAshiv While it is very true that a lot of atheists are actually anti christians, I also have some sympathy for them. They are still in the matrix of modern western thought and they can't see past the fact that they hate modern liberal ethics or they hate christian morals (usually over sexual practices) and so they reject christianity and therefore they reject any divinity.

The problem is that christianity got a monopoly on divinity and morality in the west. Almost all modern liberal ethics have their roots in christian ideas of tolerance, benevolence and forgiveness. Its no surprise when we see the way that the Christian church controlled almost all aspects of life in the middle ages in the west.

I live with a very devout catholic. She sings many of the offices of the day, she plays endless lectures from catholic theologians during the day. She always does her rosary in latin. I am just back from taking her on a pilgrimage. She is always telling me that without christian ethics, the world would be a terrible place. I always counter by saying that "I do not need a god to tell me the things any man can see if he has eyes" I don't need a god to tell me not to kill or steal from or deceive my own people, not to chase other men's women, not to disrespect my father and mother, not to take cocks up my arse or to encourage well fed mothers to kill their own children in their wombs. These things are self evident. The problem is that the monopoly on goodness remains unbroken in the west. It all comes back through the christian church.

Where I would differ a little from the christian church is in the unending forgiveness and the constant desire to give people stuff when they ask but have not earned nor show any tendency to start earning. These thigs are not self evidently good. Kindness is self evidently good until it is not reciprocated. Taking care of the weak is good, provided they do not see it as entitlement and become ungrateful. We need to break free from the shackles of the concept of charity as seen by the christian church. Again one does not need to be an atheist to see what is self evident. Taking christian charity to what seemed like its logical conclusion has got immigrants and women taking over, bums living better than workers.

@Typo-MAGAshiv I don't think this really belongs here. Carnold is showing an image is a buff dude with a dumbell, cross and bible, telling a fat atheist slob smoking a cigarette that the god that is real is the one the fat slob hates. Carnold is quite catholic but I don't think he has really looked into the concept of mortification of the flesh. I don't see images of catholic saints getting buffed up because the pursuit of sanctity turns one away from this world and the flesh towards the next world and life everlasting. In fact many of the most famous saints actually welcomed illness and infirmity as being mortification and allowing them to suffer small passions of their own. Serious illness was seen as an opportunity to be tested to the max, a dry run for the real thing where you need to die in a state of grace if you are to go to heaven. There is a lot of room for thought between the supreme unction and death and a little training never hurt.

I agree that there is a bit of truth in the idea of the reactionary atheist, who hates the world and the judaeo christian ideas that underpin modern western society.

@Typo-MAGAshiv I don't find "fallen or disillusioned believers grudge-fucking the concept of God out of resentment " all that common, and those who do exist stand ideologically and theologically far, far apart from those who comfortably identify as a-theist. Then as yet another entirely different concept, stands the absurd caricature of what an atheist must think and act like, that believers conjure up in their minds, more absurdly so in measure with how socially immersed they keep themselves in the church flock milieu. They end up with a conception of an evil, hateful, and antisocial person, largely an abstraction of the opposite of all the "good" aspects and traits of their fellow believers.

A few times in life, mostly when younger, someone got genuinely shocked to find out I was atheist. But... you're so nice/mellow/chill!!! I think the more evangelical strains of Christianity play this up in their sermons as an unethical shortcut to ingroup cohesion.

I've never been a believer at all, from childhood. No angst or conflict around it at all, just an emotionally neutral lack of need for the concept of God.