It is freeing to recognize that I have never sinned and it pissed Christians off when I say this. To clarify, in Christianity sin is not simply “the bad things we do” it is specifically an offense against god. God does not exists so i have never sinned against him.
I’ve been an atheist for for 16 years but it was only recently that I realized this distinction. It short-circuits the guilt based evangelism. It forces the christian to first demonstrate that god exists before they can convince me I have sinned and need to be saved from that sin. And to say the least, they are ill equipped to demonstrate the existence of god.
I had a couple Christian missionaries ring my doorbell last week and I brought some of that up.
She was reading from the King James New Testament I think… I asked her who controlled the text between the time God wrote it and today. She didn’t have an answer and seemed confused as to why I was asking.
I said that the message of the Bible has been controlled by the Church or the State since its inception, and both of those entities have an acute interest in guiding the will of the people, for good or for ill, depending on when and where. It’s how society has always worked.
I asked if she could see how that message could have been altered over time in the interest of maintaining a complacent (I didn’t say it, but also “ignorant”) populace. Needless to say, it wasn’t very effective.
If they aren’t allowed to question it, then you aren’t allowed to question them on it. That must make them feel powerful.