Atheists: Time to Come Out of the Closet!

Yep ... take Pablo Escobar, for example ... a career criminal who was a devout, God-fearing "Catholic"; attended Mass every day. LOL.Your definition of a "Christian" is disingenuous. A Christian is someone who follows Christ, which means obeying Christ's commandments. Any so-called Christian who leads a life of crime is therefore not a Christian. To such, Christ will say, "I never knew you, depart from me, you evildoers." (Matt 7:23) Nice strawman. That's not even close to my assertion, which is that people who fear God don't become career criminals or serial killers.

Oh, bullshit, all they have to do is say "I believe, please forgive me."

Well that's random - religious people can convince themselves of anything. Even the “king of cocaine” needs to confess his sins.
And that’s exactly what the late Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos once persuaded the infamous Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar to do.
After becoming Bishop of Pereira in 1976, one day he disguised himself as a milkman, travelled 5 hours by car to the legendary Hacienda Nápoles, and got access inside his home.
Once inside, he revealed himself as not a milkman but a Catholic Bishop, and demanded to see Pablo Escobar so he could persuade him to confess his sins.
Hoyos was successful in having him repent, and from time to time thereafter Pablo would donate to his diocesan charities.
He argued by accepting the drug money, it was diverted away from funding crime and instead helping the poor.This Priest Snuck Into Pablo Escobar’s Home to Make Him Confess His Sins | uCatholic
​ By your definition, there are no Christians. All men are sinners.“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard.” Romans 3,23But apparently it doesn't matter“Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.”Wrong again then. Actually, you've changed what your assertion, I know I'm not supposed to notice, sorry.

Dredge:

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All career criminals and serial killers are atheists, but not all atheists are career criminals and serial killers.

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So still wrong, by far the majority of criminals are believers who have simply “strayed from the path” yet can still be saved. Or some such bollox.

Your whole post is dripping with disingenuousness. Everyone's a god-fearing Catholic who says they are until they do something you don't like, and then they're not. How convenient for you. Life must be wonderful in that little fantasy world you've constructed for yourself.And how many Catholics actually describe their relationship with God as God-fearing anyway? Online, "God-fearing" is described as not actual fear of the Lord but as "awe or profound respect," or that "to fear God is to be in awe of his power and knowledge." I think most Catholics would use words like love, compassion, faith, omnipotence, eternal and infinite when describing how they view God, not fear.One of the fundamental principles of Catholicism is that we all sin, that we're all guilty of sin, especially the original sin. There's nothing in Catholicism saying that sin makes one a non-Catholic. In fact, Catholicism probably has one of the more rigorous systems in the religious world for dealing with sin with its confessionals.What you're doing has a name, the no true Scotsman fallacy, and you've been reminded of that repeatedly. Do you think repeating something obviously false on its face over and over is going to turn it into something true? Determined lying is a sin, which means by your own standards you're not a true Catholic.Catholics are about 15% of the prison population in the US. Plenty of Catholics commit crimes, some of the most heinous by priests, maybe even the one who offers you the Eucharist on Sunday. Even high priests have been convicted of crimes, like papal advisor Cardinal Angelo Beccie a few days ago. 252 priests have been criminally convicted of child sex abuse, many times more have settled with their victims out of court, and who knows how many more are hiding within the church, transferred around to hide their transgressions. Your entire church hierarchy seems to be rife with crime. How can you continue to be associated with what can be legitimately described as an outlaw church?Perhaps as a Christmas gift to EvC, but also to yourself, you could stop repeating self-evidently false claims.--Percy

If they were stupid enough to believe they can sin with impunity, they would have no fear of God, would they?
I said people who fear God don't become career criminals or serial killers.

Forgiveness is fundamental within Catholicism. "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them." John 20:23But you don't believe that. Your religion, which can't really be called Catholicism, seems to have a solidly fundamentalist focus. You've taken a poll, have you? You're just dripping with statistics, are you? This isn't just the dunderheaded bluster it sounds like?--Percy

No True Scotsman fallacy.

You really are confused , aren't you?

It's those jesus-meat crackers he keeps eating. They screw up the brain.Anyone who believes in ANY form of celestial spook, despite the lack of any form of evidence, even the most minor hint of efficacy, has deficient mental capacity and cannot be trusted to think.

Yep, he has some pretty bizarre views that seem to be primarily based on hate of everyone who thinks differently than him, so basically everyone.

Hi Tangle, There is only one sin that condemns mankind to the devils lake of fire. No man alive today can commit that sin.The man who did that was perfect and had no sin in him. He was formed from the dust of the ground. He was placed in a garden to keep it. He was forbidden to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the process of duration he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus sin entered into the universe and death entered the universe as the result of that sin.Also because of that sin that man and all of mankind was separated from God.God provided a way mankind could be restored to fellowship with Him. He put on the body of a man and came to earth, and was crucified so you and everybody else
could be reunited with Him, All you have to do is believe in Him and trust Him to do what He says He will do.But you don't believe He even exists which puts you at a great disadvantage.God Bless anyway,

Why should anyone believe he exists, Reverend? You show nothing but an impossible promise. A promise of everlasting life that cannot be kept.The operations of this universe do not allow the kinds of mechanisms you posit. Your spook has no reality in this world and cannot promise humanity anything. And no one, Reverend, can show us otherwise. Au Contraire. The greatest advantage is living in reality.

That's not my definition. I didn't say any Christian who's sinned is not a Christian - I said any so-called Christian who leads a life of crime (ie, a career criminal) is not a Christian.You call yourself "a moral being", yet you repeatedly lie about what I've said. Reciting a stupid, false, unbiblical Protestant doctrine doesn't help your cause.Christ has not "freed us from the penalty for our sins". The Bible says we (Christians included) will all be judged according to our deeds:"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body" (2Cor 5:10).Any Christian who understands this would fear God and therefore not become a career criminal or a serial killer. You claimed that my assertion was that "only atheists can be criminal". That's not the same as what I actually said, which is that "All career criminals and serial killers are atheists."As usual, you've lied about what I said.For starters, a "criminal" is not necessarily and a "career criminal" ... a criminal is someone who commits a crime, whereas a "career criminal" - according to the Collins English dictionary- is "a person who earns his or her income through criminal activities". Yet another strawman. I didn't assert anything about "criminals" - I referred to "career criminals". And I never said anything about being "saved".Furthermore, a lot of your jailhouse "Christians" never "strayed from the path" bcoz they were never on the "path" in the first place - they identify as "Christian" only for baptismal or cultural reasons. A lot of your jailhouse "Christians" would actually be agnostic or even atheist.

Disingenuous bullshit, Cracker Muncher. Your implications were quite clear.Anyone who commits a crime you don't approve of cannot be considered a christian let alone a cracker-muncher christian. Your bible doesn't say that and neither does your pope. In fact your religion is supposed to welcome the recalcitrant sinner.You are the liar.Your religion leads the list of evil creeds in prison.

Nope you said

Dredge:

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All career criminals and serial killers are atheists,

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I accept that you've probably now seen the stupidity of that statement and want to defend a different version of it. Very wise.So now it's only career criminals that are not Christians. Well fairly obviously career criminals aren't all Christians anyway - atheists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus etc So I guess we can agree on that.And I think you're agreeing now that people that call themselves Christians that have committed a serious offence but maybe only once in their lives can be Christians? Regardless of the seriousness of the offence? Maybe a someone who kills her husband after a lifetime of abuse perhaps?How about the homeless alcoholics and drug addicts that steal to eat and because they're really crap at it find themselves in prison very regularly?Would you include Robin Hood? How about that guy who lost his temper smashed up the temple and offended against society so much that the authorities had to crucify him?And that God of yours, the serial mass murderer and genocide specialist? The guy that's killed every living thing on earth since the beginning of time?Sorry Chuck, you can make up your own definitions of what you believe to be a Christian, but as you're somebody that doesn't accept protestants as Christians, no-one's listening to you. You're just another bat-shit crazy fundie in a world of your own.