Are Christians and other religious people really Atheist, or do they really believe in tall tales?

Question

I can't understand how people can actually believe in biblical tall tales. A man walking on water, A man putting all the land dwelling animals on the earth in a boat, an invisible man calling himself god and talking to people, the tales are endless. Are the majority of people faking Christianity? I don't see any of these tall tales any different then Jack and the bean stock, Superman, Hulk, Batman, and any other made up comic book characters. Are Most Christians really atheists pretending to believe because they believe in a certain religious philosophy and they are covering by lying to the public, or are they that brainwashed that they think comic book like figures are actually real? We look back at how dumb people were 500, 1000, and 2000 years ago because they were primitive to us scientifically, democratically, morally, and other. How can people these days believe anything written down by a bunch of comic book maker cults of 2000 years ago?

Answer 1

Christians are not atheist...they are theists. Remember grammer....what the prefix "a" means? I think you just wanted to make a statement about your own beliefs regarding Christianity...but you sorta blew your credibility with the question.
The Skeptical Christian
Grace and Peace
Peg

Answer 2

It is not necessarily that Christians believe that these stories really happened exactly the way they are told. What we believe is the point or lesson the stories are trying to teach us, as guide lines as how to live our lives.
We believe that we are all the children of God and as we may use stories to teach our children right and wrong same can be said about the stories in the bible.
The Bible was written by people on Earth but were inspired by Angels conveying Gods message. So the message had to be explained in a way that the people of the time period could understand.
It is not important that you believe the stories in the Bible, just that you understand the lesson of the story. And most importantly that you have Faith.
I'm not sure who said this but I would have to agree with it.

"I would rather live my life with Faith that God exists and find out when I die that He doesn't, than live a life without Faith and find out He does."

Answer 3

These "tall tales" are meant to be instructional stories. A man who walks on water is not just a man. Building a huge boat miles from water is an exercise in faith. Find lessons that are meaningful to you -- other people's interpretations won't make any sense for your life any more than trading your cow for beans.

Answer 4

Most people that I know are religious because they were brought up thinking that it was the right things to do. The stories in the Bible teach valuable lessons in morals, strength, and tribulation and have, in the better instances, brought organization to cultures of people due to common belief.

A lot of christians are confused since there are so many different ways to be christian and so many differences in the way each church teaches the Bible. They believe in God, and that things are good and bad but what God does, the involvement in our lives, and the amount of our own crap we need to take responsibilty for seem to be the trip up's. So its not really athesim more then it is inaccurate knowledge and blurred understanding.

Also...all you haters suck! Think about it and stop getting mad everytime some one says there something wrong with your beliefes cause, cause your damn quick to say theres something wrong with everyone elses.

Answer 5

If you could go back 200 years and tell people from that time about a cigarette lighter they would say the same thing about cigarette lighters that you are now saying about the Bible. Just because we don't understand how the things in the Bible happened doesn't make them "tall tales". I hope you allow God to help you see how blind your hatred and arrogance have made you...

Answer 6

We shouldn't believe it. there is truly no data that God is genuine. a great number of people use the crappy excuse that you need to merely provide in and believe in it merely in case that is genuine. i'm no longer going to believe something except i sense that that is sweet. I gained't say i'm a Christian out of shock of going to Hell. i'm also drained of listening to the excuse that the Bible is data God is genuine. if it truly is the case, then I might want to bypass round questioning that there are vampires with gold eyes and they sparkle contained in the sunlight because Twilight suggested so. you may't base your existence on a e book, which isn't shown to be non fiction. this style of large volume of Christians opt for to study the which technique of 'stay and enable stay', and leave us Atheists on my own.

Answer 7

I think that some of them believe in the *idea* of Christianity, they identify themselves as Christians, but believe of it what they choose to believe. That's why they say that parts of the Bible that don't serve their purposes aren't meant to be taken literally, which casts serious doubts on the value of the book as a whole. Christianity serves other purposes, mostly psychological. It provides a justification for unhealthy attitudes toward other people and serves as a security blanket for those whose needs are not being met.

Answer 8

Christians and other religious people, by and large, genuinely do believe what they claim to. It is true that there is no more compelling evidence for God than there is for Jack and the Bean Stalk or Superman, but many religious people don't base their beliefs on evidence--they base them on faith.

The real question isn't "Why do they believe stuff without evidence?", as that's explained by the value they place on faith (belief without evidence or logic); rather, the real question is "Why do they believe in one unevidenced thing over another?" That is, since all faith-based beliefs are equally credible, it seems strange that they would favor one over another, and especially that they would condemn as heretics anyone who adhered to a different arbitrary faith-belief than they do.

The explanation for this phenomenon is more complex, but amounts in large part to (1) a strong indoctrination into a certain view at a young age; and (2) a lack of exposure to other views at the same time. This leads to many religious people developing a world-view that is entirely based on the myths which you are mocking: the reason the religious are so unwilling to revise their views is because to do so would mean tossing aside part of the very foundation of their understanding of the universe. Not only their metaphysical views, but also their understanding of ethics, of humanity, and of other religious views is framed upon their reliance on their own religion's teachings. That is why people are more likely to be open to, and tolerant of, opposing views if they are exposed to contradictory views at an early age, and if their own views are not too strongly imposed on them--if from an early age the only world you know of is the world of your own religious community and their beliefs, then, especially if those beliefs are very exclusionary (as is the case for most Christian denominations), you're likely to see a lot of butting heads when that individual is first exposed to opposing views.

Of course, while that sort of scheme is applicable in the broad sense, it's also an oversimplification. There are many other reasons individual religious people adhere to their views. Probably the most common is the spiritual experience: when religious people go through or perceive an extraordinary event or feeling, they almost invariably try to use that event or feeling to justify their religious beliefs.

Religious people also often try to rationalize their views by appealing to weak evidence and weak arguments that seem strong--see, for example, the popularity of books like "The Case for Christ" and of religious apologetic arguments like the design argument, even though someone who believes in his religion on faith presumably wouldn't need any such arguments or evidence to justify his views. The reason for this is that although the religious frequently appeal to "faith" when they can't rationally justify a certain belief they hold, they also, on some level, often realize what a terrifically weak argument this actually is, and so they love having much better arguments, at least to serve as "back-up" when they need it. Things like appeals to miracles (even absurd ones like "Jesus appeared on a piece of toast!"), theological arguments (even absurd ones like "If God exists, he'll reward you big-time for believing in him, so you should believe in him just in case!"), and personal spiritual experiences (no matter how vague and subjective) thus help bolster and add confidence to a religious person's beliefs in some rather strange things.

Answer 9

You think THAT is a tall tale??? How about a fish that grows legs and becomes a human???

Answer 10

I don't understand it, but I support their right to believe (I don't think it's very healthy sometimes, either).