Which aspect of the christian faith do agnostics or atheists find most puzzling?

Question

Which aspect of the christian faith do agnostics or atheists find most puzzling?

Answer 1

The willingness to believe without evidence.

Answer 2

God is all powerful but can't control anything. This is always explained away in circles. Still doesn't make sense.  

Answer 3

The fact that they can believe things that have not one shred of evidence to support them.

Answer 4

Everything between the covers of the Bible.

Answer 5

I'm not puzzled at all by it.

I understand it inside and out, as I used to be one of them.  They are brainwashed, delusional people.  And they don't want to be otherwise.  They don't value the truth.  They are comfortable and happy being brainwashed, and take issue with anyone who attempts to change that.  It's the same with any cult.  That's why families often have to "kidnap" loved ones who have fallen into such a thing, and have a psychiatrist deprogram them.  You don't see this so much for Christianity, because they are the majority (in this country).  And it's hard to tell cult members that you need help rescuing someone from their cult.

And sometimes I feel sorry for them.  But other times, I feel that it's not my responsibility to feel sorry for them.  

I'm just glad I was able to escape the delusion myself.

Answer 6

The idea that some bloke with a beard that lives in the sky needs to send his son/himself in meat/a version of himself that is him and not him at the same time, to die so that he can change his own decision. That, his son/himself in meat/a version of himself that is him and not him at the same time, resurrect, and somehow we are now forgiven and just as long as we say sorry, no matter how bad we are, say a murderer, we will still go to heaven in our own good time.

Answer 7

The entire thing is a myth. So much of it is based on pagan religions.

People might as well sink their faith into a Dr. Seuss book.

Answer 8

If I believed in a creator, I would  think he would expect me to learn from his creation, not a 2000 year old book of questionable authorship.  And the world tells me that s*x is good, and only the strong survive.

Answer 9

To me the most puzzling thing is he insistence that America is a "Judeo-Christian Nation" or is founded on "Judeo-Christian Principles" and therefore should have God woven into everything from the media to the money.

I've studied history and have come to the conclusion that the founders of the United States went to great lengths NOT to include anybody's version of the creator.  They also went to great lengths not to EXCLUDE anybody.  So what makes this generation's blowhards think they know what the founders intended better than the founders did?

As I have heard said, "Ram your religion down my throat and I will ram the Bill of Rights up yours."

Answer 10

It's continued existence in the face of so much contrary evidence.

Answer 11

hard to choose just one, but off the top of my head, the whole concept of "all sins are equal" is just bizarre and repulsive.

Answer 12

that they argue evolution could not have happened from nothing, but then  in the same breath say god appeared from nothing and nowhere

Answer 13

The creation story, as of now. I haven't quite read it all, but I doubt anything gets more bizarre than that.

*EDIT*

Kinda funny all this "They believe without evidence."

What evidence is there for anything other than a "god"creator? Nothing. The only thing they have is speculation just like everyone else.

Answer 14

Inability to count on one self

Answer 15

The fact that you believe hundreds of stories that have no proof of ever happening.

Answer 16

The entire Christian faith is puzzling to me... creation by an invisible man, 2 ppl created who run into a hoard of folks outside the garden, all the inbreeding, the violence, the worship of a man who never claimed to be anything more than a man, the lies and betrayal.  

Answer 17

I don't find any of it puzzling. It is clearly made up by leaders of various groups in order to keep control of that group. It is mostly nonsense with some myths based on half understood historic events  

Answer 18

The fact that people think there is this invisible, magic being that actually watches us and everything we do.

To paraphrase a quote I read in the God Delusion, "the idea that there is a sky fairy up there with a list of ten things he does not want us to do. And if we do any of these ten things, he will send us to h**l to be tortured forever and ever. But don't forget, he loves us!"

The idea that there is a deity that cares about how we think, how we have s*x, whether or not we believe in him.. is silly.

Answer 19

The buy-bull.  How can anyone buy that c**p?  It only takes a little research to see that the buy-bull is all plagiarized from many earlier myths and fables.

Answer 20

That a believer can believe without hard, physical evidence.

Personally, I've always thought that by their brand of logic, unless they've been to Agra, India, they CANNOT believe in the existence of the Taj Mahal. After all, photos can and have been, faked and travelers lie about their adventures and what they've seen all the time.

Answer 21

The inability to question the very origins of their religion. I find this staggering. If somebody presents a 'truth' to me in life. I need ALL the who, what, where, when and why I can drum up.

Answer 22

I don't find any of it puzzling.

I'm less than a semester away from a BA in Biblical Studies with a focus on Christian Apologetics.  It's part of why I'm now an atheist, and why I won't be wasting my time on finishing that degree.

Answer 23

That someone can go through their life not understanding what the word *evidence* actually entails. But at the same time, that person who is intelligent, wouldn't believe any other story, or event without some sort of proof or evidence that it is true. They wouldn't believe their favourite football team had lost unless they saw it happen, they wouldn't believe that Henry VIII had really existed if there were no documentation from a variety of verifiable sources, so on and so forth, so how do you go about completely suspending your disbelief and natural desire for evidence to the extent that you can have complete faith in a contradictory old book, written by a bunch of different people who 'said' god told them what to write?  We can understand why someone would 'want' to do this, but how. It's a psychological puzzle:)

Answer 24

The part where they have faith in Christ. It puzzles me that people will willingly believe in something for which no evidence exists.

Answer 25

the stuff about sin

the lies spread about why diseases exist

the lies, bigotry, hatred and intolerance they promote in the name of love! how they claim they know what love is when they spout hatred and bigotry

how christians live with themselves when they don't listen to others and claim they know more then the people who live those lives

that many don't understand evolution

that many think caps lock and bad grammar is impressive

Answer 26

The notion that the world is only 6000 years old despite massive evidence to the contrary.

Noah's ark is particularly preposterous.

Answer 27

The belief that an imaginary sky fairy actually talked to some people thousands of years ago.

Answer 28

The belief in something for which there is no supporting evidence at all, and the insistence that theirs is a loving god and a religion of hope and tolerance, when even a casual reading of their holy book shows it to be full of (besides absurdities and contradictions) hate and violence.

Answer 29

Believing in the ‘miracles’ kind of ‘virginity of Mary’ and resurrection is (from my point of view) the most evident sign of idiocy. But there are other symptoms as well...  

Answer 30

The part where they place God as a priority over their own family, including children.

The part where they live their life by a book that was written by men, thousands of years ago, under the influence of ancient morals and beliefs.  

Answer 31

The part where you think your idea has some kind of power over physical reality. Also the parts where you try to define God with constant contradictions. The reality and the theory are equally nonsensical to me. A flying unicorn is a much better quantified belief to hold I think.