1. Atheists for Jesus

Comment #121056 by lilzilla on February 2, 2008 at 10:55 pm

The reason it's hard or difficult to spread niceness is that it's very easy to erroneously believe one is "nice", ignoring one's un-nice behaviour most of the time. As pointed out by some helpful curmudgeons in this very discussion, Jesus himself behaved cruelly and pettily at times. As Dr. Dawkins points out himself, people who believe themselves to be highly moral or good, but reason themselves into actions that hurt others. Plenty-- /plenty/ of Christians feel that following Jesus' teachings about being good to each other are just as important as belief in his divinity. Some of them fail and are horrible much of the time, but some of them succeed. If Dr. Dawkins is serious about spreading niceness, he would presumably consent to behaving nicely himself, which he has not shown an aptitude for in the past, nor here.

I call myself an Atheist for Jesus. To be more accurate, I suppose I'm an Atheist for the Popular Conception of Jesus as a Liberal Radical Promoter of Peace and Love (aka Hippie Jesus). Though I don't believe epiphany comes from an external source, I think it's very important to respect as a human experience, and one that will influence people's beliefs more than any well-reasoned article ever could.