I like Larry's answer.


Having hung out with some such people from time to time.
If these Christians are from the Armenian side of Christianity, they believe that God knows all of us and that at sometime in a person's life they will have an encounter with God because God is actively reaching out to them. I don't think it was meant to be offensive. I think it was more like a "Come on in the water's fine and if you try it you'll like it even if you "think" you don't believe in God because God knows You and wants to have a relationship with you!"

Their intention is not malicious because in their minds they can't comprehend the mind of anyone who does not think and feel like they do. They can't imagine how they would get through life if they didn't have God to rely on and they assume everyone else is like them.

It's kind of like in the Lord of the Rings. Sauron can't imagine that anyone would possess the ring and not use it. He measures everyone else by the way he would think and feel in the same circumstances. He never imagines there could be an option number two should anyone else have the chance to posses the ring and destroy it. However, I'm not comparing those people to Sauron saying they have evil intent. Though it's been heard to be said in amongst our selves that the army of God is the only one that shoots their wounded.

If this church is from the Calvinist side of Christianity they believe that only those who God chooses will be "saved" and that who ever He chooses doesn't really have a say in the matter. God will turn their hearts to Him. It's referred to as Predestination. The bad new is, not everyone who wants to be "saved" will be. It's like, "Because God IS God He can play God and who are we to question Him, the creator of all the universe." So they pray and hope, but some also don't worry much after they have gone down to the alter about their behavior because if they are chosen they are already in and if not it won't matter anyway.

In any of these cases most people from this world view wouldn't know that was offensive. Their world is too small.

I must say that in the 90's really hated it when it became trendy to change a church's name. It was like a competition to see which church could come up with the trendiest, coolest church name. All it really did was make it so that no one could know if a church group was creepy or weird unless you attended one of their services first. Since I won't go to a church that doesn't say who or what they are up front. I'm not going to one right now at all. There are some other reasons besides the fact that they may have meaningless names. But I won't bore you with all that


Love and Peace,
Primula Brandybuck

Made in the image us. Who are us? The garden was a parable of Eden. We are only here to save ourselves. Who was the us? We were only told a foundation... which could not be revealed... until the Moody Blues.

I totally dig that answer the most!

Justin Hayward wise prophet.

GOD DOESN'T BELIEVE IN ATHEISTS

SO THEY DON'T EXIST

means that their god is a believer - a sort of decider who believes in some things and not other things. This is a different God than the All Knowing God we are taught about in many traditions. This is actually a fairly dumb God, but look on the bright side - There's a God for everyone! Thank God for that.

adg

Good God adg, I think you've got it!
That's why I was so shocked because for years the sign seemed like the work of those who followed the All Knowing type of God I was taught about back in Sunday School, but all of a sudden their God seemed a little UNknowing!

Their god is "Dubya"? No wonder things are so screwed up!

I've almost always thought of orginized religion more of man trying to define and speak for god rather than god speaking to us.

Well, to be serious for a minute (Ouch! It hurts!), I believe that religion is what some body tells you to believe and spirituality is what you find within yourself (an admitted over simplification). The way I see it, you can be an atheist and still be a very spiritual person. Can you dig it?

Wake up dead.

The sign sounds as if they are trying to be cute or funny but missed on that one. We have churches with "sayings" signs out front around here too.

I'm thinking that God believes in atheists because they exist, however because atheists do not believe that God exists, they shouldn't be offended by the sign. Does that make sense?

The part in the Bible about humans being created in the image of God-I do not think that it refers to looks. I think it means that, unlike all other living things, humans have the ability to think, know right from wrong, to create and invent. In that way, humans are made in God's image-although most of us fall far short of what's possible. I seriously doubt that God has a shape or look at all, or a gender.

No, it doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

No it doesn't make sense cos it's PEOPLE (speaking for whatever God they believe in) who wrote the sign and that's what worried me!

Like today, on the way home from work they have a new one (the sign has two sides so I read one side on the way to work and the other on the way home)

WHAT'S MISSING FROM

CH--RCH?

UR

Now I think that's clever and most of them are like this so I get a little smile on my face when I read them as they are not offensive, tho will not entice me in. So that's why the other one kinda made me look twice! And I got an uneasy feeling from it. Of course it could have just been an innocent mistake and they really (want to) believe that Atheists don't exist
and if they could just get any Atheists thru their doors they could save 'em from hell and damnation.

They might even believe this could even be done for other people who are believers but just don't believe in who THEY believe in! I'd like to see them face up to someone from say The Flying Spagettii Monster Church, that would be interesting eh? (actually I'd have a few bones to pick with the Pastafarians myself but we won't go there)


P.S. I dig it Zap, that's kinda how I feel about it.

It's the people who are offensive, not their god. Gods are what/whoever people make the out to be .... or not to be. (Apologies to Bill Shakespeare.)

Zap, you put it very well for many of us.

No, no, no. You can't pick bones with the Pastafarians. They don't have or believe in them. That would be the Flying Pizza Monster Church (FPMC)--they split from the Pastafarians about a hundred years ago because they believe in the Great Pizza and everyone knows that pizza has bones (crusts that go to the canine kids) but pasta does not. So you can pick pizza bones with the FPMC but not with the Pastafarians. They say the FPMC has a big compound in the Outback where they pick each others' bones. Texas Governor Rick Perry is considering going Down Under to raid the FPMC compound with a bunch of Texas Rangers, hoping it will enhance his SA and help him get chosen to run with McSame. But then what would they do with all those personal-size pizzas they breed there?