Well I have no intention of letting this thread become a religious debate so I'm not going to argue with what you say. After all if I tried to force you in to thinking anything I'd be just as wrong the people who tried before and made you resent religion.
I'll just correct one thing (I really don't want to preach), and maybe some Christians don't get this, but they should. Skip it if you must.
We're not saved by our actions, by are intentions or anything at all that we do, we are saved by the love and grace of God. For any one to be considered worthy of heaven on their own merit is ridiculous, no one is good enough, no one is perfect (and what God would expect us to be if he hadn't made us that way), yet we're welcomed nonetheless through the sacrifice of Jesus. So if anyone thinks "we must make good christians of these" or "I'll be all right though I was good." they are wrong, because their aren't any good Christians, only extremely grateful bad ones.
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@apogee - We don't generally get offended, it's really only if we feel like our faith is under attack. If you insult a believer's faith you insult their entire life, what they've dedicated their life to, if you insult an atheist's lack of faith you're insulting something they don't really care about, unless they've dedicated their entire life to their lack of belief, which to me just seems depressing.
Two aid workers fly to Burma to help deliver aid to the hurricane victims, one a Christian, one an atheist. The Christian does it because she knows that God loves all His people and because of that she cannot bare to see them suffer and wants to help them, the atheist goes because she too, cannot bare to see people suffer, for her own reasons. Neither is more noble, neither is more passionate. The difference is is that the Christian goes because she is a Christian, the atheist goes, but she doesn't go because she is an atheist. Your atheism isn't your life, my Christianity is mine.
Don't think I'm naive enough to think it's all good though, no one ever blew up the underground with the cry of "there is no God" either. There is no one the devil likes to trick into doing bad things more than those who think they are doing the right thing.
I hope that kinda helps explain why we take it more personally, not sure though, it's 1 in the morning and I have a killer headache.