Religion or Awesome? Your Choice.

This comment thread has renewed my respect for the general population of digg.

I say this because there are comments with positive diggs that were posted by Christians. They argue that saying that atheists are immune to doing "dumb shit" is idiotic. ColonelJessup made an excellent point: atheists, if trying to shove their ideology down the throats of the religious, are being just as bad as their opponents. I absolutely agree with this. We're all arguing about God, aren't we? Atheists argue that there is no empirical data that supports the theory of the existence of God. The religious argue that there is evidence all around us, it is just seen by us as something different. Neither argument will ever actually get anywhere.

The counterargument to the "do unto others" rule was that a large part of being religious is the spreading of one's religion. One can't be a true Christian if he doesn't spread the teachings of Jesus. I see it this way- Christianity wants its followers to be like Jesus. Jesus was awesome. So, by the transitive property of awesomeness, Christians want to be awesome. I think that last part is what most Christians tend to forget. We tend too often to focus on the "Jesus or hell" aspect of Christianity, without remembering why we're promoting Jesus.

Question- why exactly are non-followers going to hell? Because they aren't like Jesus, or because they don't follow Jesus? What if a non-follower is just turned off by organized religion, but is still a good person? I think that person doesn't have much to worry about, regardless of ideology.

Perhaps we should remember that when we die and are judged, we are judged by how much good we did in our life. Who is more likely to get into heaven (even assuming that christianity is %100 correct)- the Christian preacher who did nothing but fight atheists all his life, the monk who sat at the mountaintop and praised God all his life, or the atheist who volunteered at a soup kitchen every weekend of his life? I believe that the atheist would easily get into a Christian heaven, because the other two never really acted like Jesus.

I don't try to convert people. Atheists generally don't like having Jesus shoved down their throat. I think the ultimate goal of becoming a Christian is becoming happier. When "converting" someone, I skip the Christian bit, and just do my best to make them happy. The wisdom in the Bible gives me a few good ideas about how to make myself and others happy. That's where I draw my wisdom, and I'm willing to share it whenever it's wanted.

If they choose not to accept it, that's fine. Maybe they have their own methods. As long as they're making people happier, they're being like Jesus. They're being Christian. As long as they're enabling love, they're familiarizing themselves with God.

In a nutshell- whether or not you're worried about heaven, don't be an ass.