Being friends with a Christian is much like trying to trust a wolf who happens to be wearing a sheep's skin, and one knows about this. Sure, the now sheepish wolf may seem amiable enough, but he is, nevertheless, a wolf - and one knows it.
Sometimes I wonder if you've had very many Christian friends who let their hair down in friendly chats. There is a wide spectrum of Christendom. Many people who identify themselves as Christians and are also accepted as Christians by other Christians are more into the sense of community than the dogma. From this perspective it's probably not quite correct to contrast atheism with Christianity. Atheists are defined by our stand on one issue. Christians are defined by their aggregate rating on a dozen or more traits, which include behavior as well as belief. If you press them they'll say, "Sure, I believe in God and Jesus," but when you leave they may never think about God or Jesus until the next time some uppity stranger causes them to. See below for my comment on the Jews, for whom this point goes even further.
Religion does not necessarily = theism. Your OP asked specifically about theists and we all went along with it, but it's time to recognize the fact that very few people identify themselves as theists, the way we all identify ourselves as atheists. When we encounter someone who says he is a Christian (the religion we're most likely to encounter in the USA), we have not plumbed his depths to find out what he thinks about theism, or even
if he thinks about it.
If one is coming from the position of strong atheism, then it's easy enough to dismiss other people's religion as simply "myth," "superstition," "tradition;" and then conclude that since everyone, theist or not, probably believes some nonsense, the theists are not special. And then it is easy enough to be friends with pretty much anyone. But I'm not taking the position of strong atheism, so that option of simply dismissing the other person's religiousness is not open to me.
Sorry, I didn't understand that at all. What exactly is "strong atheism?" Semantically it seems like it would be the most aggressive kind. So why then would a "strong atheist" find it easier to socialize with a Christian than a weak one???
I'm sure they say they love you ...
Pardon me for pointing out the obvious fact that I know my friends much better than you do. We're all entitled to use our own criteria in deciding whether to trust people, based on how well we know them. I know religious people whose loyalty I trust as much as I trust my dogs, and dogs are the most loyal creatures most of us will ever meet.
Christians breathe to live for Jesus. Others breathe for other reasons.
You're making a cartoon out of them. As I said, you don't seem to have gotten to know very many Christians very well. By now millions of Christians have been exposed to Maslow's Hierarchy and many of them have no problem admitting that the reason they breathe is that it's programmed into their CNS--just as many of them have no problem admitting that the world is more than 6,000 years old.
Gee, Balerion, tell us - what do you have in common with theists?
All of his DNA, his instincts, his national culture, his educational background, probably a good portion of his hobbies and entertainment... do I need to keep going?
Non-theist Jews who still identify themselves as Jewish come to mind, although probably not a fully applicable analogy. . . .
Judaism is a religion of laws, not doctrine. Particularly in the Reform congregations which probably dominate American Jewry, they want their members to be good spouses, parents, friends and citizens, and they don't even care about keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath. If you live a good life, then your views on the supernatural aspects of the faith are ancillary, so long as you're not a putz who argues them in the synagogue on Friday night. Judaism does not have priests; every man (and today in the more progressive communities every woman too) is urged to read the Torah for himself and
argue over what it says with the other Jews. This requires learning Hebrew, and being able to recite it and talk about it is the central thesis of a
bar mitzvah ceremony (and now the
bat mitzvah for girls). Yet they are also required to have
done charitable work to prove that they're good citizens.
So yes, there are atheists in Jewish congregations.
A belief that doesn't somehow translate into actions isn't a belief at all.
But the route from belief to action is a long and circuitous one. Most people are not as articulate as our little community here who spend half of our lives arguing with each other. I don't think the average person--theist or not--could tell you how some, many or all of his beliefs have manifested themselves in actions. I suspect that many people couldn't even state many of their beliefs articulately.
I disagree - a theist is merely someone who believes in the existence of God.
And that is an atheistic definition.
Huh??? Are you suggesting that Dictionary.com is a subersive atheist organization?
Theism: 1. the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation (distinguished from deism) -- 2. belief in the existence of a god or gods (opposed to atheism).