Why do people think Christians are so weird?

Why do people think Christians are so weird? I mean seriously--why do people think that? It's not like we blow ourselves up in the middle of the street or fly planes into buildings in the name of our God. We don't worship cows or fat bald men. We don't believe people die and come back as other objects/animals/people. We don't believe people evolved from apes or that a huge explosion started the universe. We don't have like 10 husbands/wives and have like 30 kids with each. So why do people think we are so weird? I mean seriously--what do you think of when you hear the word "Christian"? Because whatever you're thinking or have been thinking is probably wrong. I mean, I'm sitting here on the internet, eating doritos, and listening to Aerosmith--and I'm a Christian! Yet some people have stereotyped us into these on-fire-for-Jesus freaks who condemn people to hell and shove religion down people's throats when we don't. Why does everyone think we are so freaking weird?

Why do people think Christians are so weird?
I wouldn't really say weird, but certainly misguided.





You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help? [Dan Barker, Former Christian minister in his book, Losing Faith in Faith]
Reply:Well, to start with, I am disgusted by stupidity, willful ignorance and self delusion... which pretty much sums up the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).





It disgusts me to know that three-quarters of the population of the USA is infected with some sort of insidious mental virus that leads them to the insane certainty that the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of a bunch of ignorant Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders represent some kind of cosmic 'TRUTH' about fundamental aspects of existence and reality.





It disgusts me to know that so many people dwell in a delusional reality in which a 6,000 year-old Earth is seperated from a 6,000 year-old Heaven by a solid 'firmament' structure (the sky).





I am disgusted by the fact that these people believe that they inhabit a magical universe, which they share with talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys, a shepherd staff that turns into an asp, demons chased out of people and into pigs, friendly spirits, evil spirits, walking on water, multiplying loaves and fishes, food falling from the sky, conception by a ghost, people raised from the dead, the sun stopping in its tracks, parting seas, people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky), world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain, creating people from a dust bunny and a rib, a magical tree of knowledge, god speaking from a burning bush... and ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker.





In a sane world, anybody running around spouting ANY of that crap, would be locked up in the State Farm for the Funny. Apparently, though, mass insanity seems to convey some sort of free pass for the loony.





It disgusts me to know that in our society, irrational, deluded people who ACTUALLY BELIEVE such nonsense is TRUE are permitted to vote, hold public office, procreate, and shape the minds trusting, vulnerable children.





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"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig
Reply:I don't think Christians are weird - only very sensitive and very defensive. I believe the world is made out of rock. If some person tries to tell me it's made out of popsicles, I don't even bother to comment. And I DON'T feel persecuted.
Reply:You get two thumbs up from me... Something else that is a little strange is that not only are we not strange, but we don't do much to stand out either... I know people say that we shove things down their throat, but I usually don't tell if they don't ask, otherwise they would not be very receptive to anything I had to say at all...
Reply:No Christians don't blow up buildings,





So called Christians only started two world wars.





So called Christians used the sword to convert the "New" world.





So called Christians are the richest people on the planet, at the expense of the rest of the world.





That is why Jesus said his true followers would be recongized by their works, not their faith.





http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/1998...
Reply:Ah, but you're partially wrong





I see many Religions pointing at the Branch Dividian Church and the FBI and calling it wrong,





Yet the FOUNDER of the Branch Dividian church said GOD TOLD HIM HE COULD HAVE 150 wives





He married a 12 and 14 year old girls (two of them)





David Koresh was married to a 14 year old





And ORGANIZED CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS DEFEND or at least POINT to this organization, giving it Credibility.





Shall we start with Alex Jones. He helped rebuild the Branch Dividian Church.





Many Apostiolic Pentacostal Chruchs praise the Branch Dividians





Now, defend that





Defend 150 wives





Defend marrying 12 and 14 year old girls before I go to the Middle School and pick out my next wife from the Cheerleading Squad!





Get on record





Say the Branch Dividan Church is horrible





OPPOSE your own Church Elders if they worry about the FBI rading churchs!





Oppose the Mormons, another Christian organizatioin that belives in mutlple wives!





DO IT





This is why people bash Christians





You open yourself to it by DEFENDING things like the Branch Dividian Church!





Is YOUR church a friend of foe of the Branch Dividian Church





ASK your minister





PIN your minister down





If you Church EVEN SLIGHTLY supports them, then it supports marriage to 150 women and marriage to both 12 year old and 14 year old girls!





FIND OUT





PIN your minister down in front of a witness





ASK about the Branch Dividian Church





You'd be surprised how many Christians look at Waco is some sort of modern atrocity





Marrying 14 year old girls is an atrocity!





Or do you approve of that, because I'll go down to the Middle School and pick my wife out!
Reply:So you pick on other people "weird" ideas but explain the ones in your religion by saying "with god all things are possible"





Priceless





Don't you see the madness in that?





P. S. Do some research into science before you make more of a fool of yourself than you already have.
Reply:What you consider religious terrorists can also be called political terrorists. They're using their faith as an excuse to promote what they percieve as an ideal world, and reduce U.S. influence where they live.





Arabs did get the short end of the stick; oil was found in the middle east and they were basically scr***d all of the past century, just so we in the west could get their oil. Whenever they got to keep the money, it went to immensely rich oil sheiks. Say what you will about the past twenty years, but there's a lot of resentment toward the west in that part of the world and it'll take time to be friends again. So the ground is fertile for terrorists.





People in other parts of the world have varying views on Christians; one is that you're immensely violent. When there are no muslims to kill, you kill each other. Just look at Northern Ireland, where Catholics and Protestants are slaugtering each other. No, that's a dumb comparison, I know, but yours isn't a whole lot better.





As for Christians and many wives, I guess they're not Christians in Utah...
Reply:DuckPhup is right. Harsh maybe but right. You, as a christian, believe that an invisible sky pixie first made the earth, man, and woman, and planted a naughty tree right in front of them that he didn't want them to eat from. Then hid behind a cloud and watched while one of his disgruntled angels tricked the poor stupid people into eating from that tree. And then came down and punished them and all their descendants for being disobedient. Do we do that with our children, or even our pets? Hell no. Why do we as lowly humans have to hold to a higher moral standard than god himself? It doesn't make any sense to believe in that or anything else in the damned bible. Please, think about it. Be real, not real confused.
Reply:Some are weird, as some non christians are weird. Not all.
Reply:Most Republicans are.
Reply:You drink the blood and eat the flesh of your god and you do not think that is strange?





A God that can die?
Reply:BECAUSE OF THE STATE OF OUR WORLD, ONLY A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE THINK WE CHRISTIANS ARE WEIRD. THOSE PEOPLE HAVE NOT READ THE BIBLE OR HAD ANY RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS. THEY ONLY KNOW THAT WHEN SOMEONE SAYS I AM A CHRISTIAN THEY THINK OHH NO A FANATIC. I AM A CHRISTIAN ALSO, I SWEAR AND DRINK ONCE IN AWHILE, BUT WHAT SCARES THESE PEOPLE IS THE KINDNESS A TRUE CHRISTIAN WILL SHOW THEM. IT IS AN ALIEN CONCEPT FOR SOME, KINDNESS WITHOUT STRINGS ATTACHED, BROTHERLY LOVE, AND AN ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN IN TRING TO ASSURE THAT ALL OF GODS PEOPLE ARE CARED FOR BY THEIR FELLOW MAN. I GUESS PEOPLE ARE SCARED BY GOOD THINGS BECAUSE THEY THINK THERE ARE STRINGS.WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I AM A CHRISTIAN, I DON'T JUST BLURT IT OUT I TRY TO WORK IT IN, AND I KNOW SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT RECEPTIVE TO THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPT AND I LEAVE IT ALONE. SOME PEOPLE JUST HAVE HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE WITH OVER ENTHUSIASTIC CHRISTIANS , BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE THAT BELIEVE THAT THEIR RELIGION IS THE ONLY RELIGION, AND SOME PEOPLE ARE EXCESSIVELY PUSHY ABOUT THEIR BELIEFS AND WON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER.. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS AND THEY HAVE NOT HEARD THE GOOD WORD!!! SO NEVER BE SHY TO TELL ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN THAT YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN BECAUSE IT WILL OPEN THE DOOR FOR TO SOME PEOPLES HEARTS IF THEY ARE READY TO HEAR ABOUT JESUS AND HIS FATHER AND THEIR LOVE FOR US.
Reply:Because the less people know, the more preconceived ideas they have. People no nothing (or almost nothing) about the meaning of Christianity and they don't want to know. People closed their minds to God's influence, because they chose to follow their own minds and ideas.
Reply:They 'know' it!
Reply:missionaries thats why, people dont want to hear what they have to say and they have always (to me) come off as creepy.
Reply:To be the (ahem) devil's advocate.......Christians believe woman came from some guy's rib; it's possible to slay a whole army with the jawbone of an a.s.s; a super heroic man lost his amazing strength through a haircut; your central figure was a man born of a virgin, who turned water into merlot, walked on water, died on a cross then came back later from the dead; and women looking at a flaming city turn into pillars of salt. RE: violence, many Christians were shooting at each other in Northern Ireland, etc., for years based on their religious boundaries. And then there's the Crusades, the Inquisition, the cult of Jim Jones in the 1970s, failed exorcisms and faith healing, and so forth. So there's plenty of weirdness going around.





That said, I don't consider Christians weirder than any other sort of people. Many are my friends and relatives, and I'm agnostic. Arguably, there are many branches under Christianity that practice polygamy, animal sacrifice, physical disclipine, and very orthodox beliefs that I personally feel are out of touch with modern society. But if I harbor any grudge against Christians, it's against the fervent, right-wing fundamentalists that are judgmental and try to impose their values on the rest of people, via political channels.





That's my perspective, and I share it out of respect. Great question.