"Rejoice and be glad" you apologists facing skepti

[Jagella]

The outrage some Christian apologists might be feeling these days debating skeptics is nothing new. It goes all the way back to "Bible days." We read in Matthew 5:11-13 English Standard Version (ESV):

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I don't see much rejoicing and gladness on the part of believers. In fact, many of them will "smash on the cheek those whom they feel smite them on their cheeks." So...

Question For Debate: Why are so many of you hurt, angry, and hostile while Jesus commanded you to be glad?

[Divine Insight]

It is indeed an extremely dangerous religion. I personally think it should be outlawed.

I don't see why we should support freedom of religion when religions clearly teach such obvious violence.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Christianity should be outlawed, but some of its more dangerous practices should be outlawed. Faith healing, for example, is a dangerous scam that should not be allowed.

Actually, what I would propose as meaningful legislation would be that "Jealous-God religions" should be outlawed. Those are the religions that cause animosity toward people who don't believe in them.

Religions that don't have a jealous God typically aren't socially disruptive.

[Jagella]

Why shouldn't the religion be outlawed? Aetixintro is correct. The religion truly does teach that God has commanded that his followers should kill heathens. This is true.

If you outlaw a religion, then you'll probably do more harm than good. History teaches us that lesson. Persecuting a religion will hurt people more than the religion does. Besides, you may end up strengthening the religion as the faithful go into "martyr mode" seeing their persecution as coming from Satan and/or that it's a sign the world is coming to an end.

Freedom of Religion can be very dangerous. How do we ultimately decide what should or shouldn't be considered to be a valid "religion"?

We as a society don't decide the validity of any religion, or at least we shouldn't. If we did so, then what's to keep society from deciding that atheism is "invalid"?

So the best way to deal with religion is to educate people. Religion tends to thrive on ignorance. Wipe out ignorance, and you'll cut out religion's legs from underneath it.