Yes, I believe that all Christians are supposed to be Born-Again. The Bible says that you must be born again to get into heaven, although I don't know the exact passage... can someone clarify this for me?

Yeah, it's confusing... but then again, what part of religion does make sense?

If there is a God, he would LOVE atheists.

Atheists are good people who are good just for the sake of being good.

Atheists use reason and logic to understand the world, and are never suckered into faith like weak fools.

If there's a God, he gave us our minds for a reason: To use them. NO GOD would EVER hold "faith" high. No God would think blind stupidity is a virtue. I am not worried at all.

I'm very sure there is no God, and in the very very VERY unlikely case that there is, he would never punish good, rational people just because they refused to be idiots. We're in the RIGHT, no matter if there is a God or not. Don't fret.

Today I installed a starter on my car and before I started it, I thought please GOD I hope this works.hahaha I am perty darn sure there's no invisible Jolly Green Giant in the sky but I still think like that. I'm also pretty sure it's because I was raised in a very xtian household.

i got my cellphone taken away for two weeks by saying "Jesus Christ!"... well, first of all, so frickin what if i said the name. Secondly, what the hell did the cell phone have to do with it?!?! what kind of punishment is that?!?! hahahaha

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
3:4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Those are very important verses because they actually determine denomination.
If you are baptized in the name of jesus then you might not be saved according to your hardline pentecostals, apostolics, wesleyans, and some plain ole christian churches.
The catholics cover it all with the trinity.
Baptists vary greatly in their spirit terminology.

It is equivalent to shaving yourself if you're a muslim.

The idea is that one cannot be unclean with the filth of the earthly sin in the presence of god when they die. You are baptized because of the 'born of water' part. At birth you are sinless, so when you emerge from the water cleansed of your sins then you are sinless once more and the preacher and congregation tell you to 'go and sin no more.' Water in the womb and water at re-birth.

One more way to indoctrinate the stupid. See 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou' and wait until the congregation moves into the water. Delmar practically breaks his friggin' neck to get the salvation and Pete follows suit. I have seen that look upon the faces of the stupid guilty masses in a church and let me tell you, it's very scary when you are not one of them crawling to the baptismal font to be dunked.

After baptism, you need only repent to christ for your wrongs. Some must do it on an hourly basis in order to forgive their humanity. Stare at a chick, sorry jesus. Stare at a new car, sorry jesus. They spend their entire lives regretting their human emotions and motivations that they punish themselves within when they excel or fail. The absolute ridiculousness is that they derive pleasure from feeling bad and knowing in their 'hearts' that they are forgiven every time.

Interesting to note that, more often than not, you can be re-born even if you have blasphemed the holy spirit. It's like a do-over.

I know someone that took it to a new level a few years ago and has declared that she is allowed to FORGET past transgressions because of her re-birth citing that she knew nothing at birth and became as a child in the presence of jesus. he gave her not only redemption but regression.
Powerful stuff. Irrational stuff. Nevertheless, it's stuff like this that makes it difficult to take away from someone. I struggle all of the time with trying to find replacement 'comfort' for people when they finally get to that point of rational thought where they realize that it's all a lie.

I sincerely apologize for the run-ons and any spelling errors.. I am getting ready to go to sleep to dream of a world without theism. There is no need to repent for sins, only a need to make reparations to the sinned against.
Umm. "What' s a sin?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Why do people worry about it so?"
"Their other worries overwhelm them."
"Oh. Poor them."

I agree with this, darth_josh wrote an excellent post. I, too, grew up in a christian household, went to church a couple times a week, attended youth group, got baptized when I was 10 after attending a class to truly know what it was all about. Having grown up in a baptist church and migrated to a southern baptist denom church, it seemed logical to keep going into the realm of extreme fundamentalism and mid-acts dispensationalism of C.F. Baker. If anybody wants to see an excellent attempt to use reason to figure out the bible, look up his stuff. It's all interpretive of course, but pretty interesting nonetheless.

Anyway, piggy-backing off darth's point of being scary not running up to get baptized with the rest of the lost souls, there's a point here about the elitism that this type of thinking in christian (though it is true in all paradigms that hold to absolutism) groups breeds. Being "born again" seems to point back to that moment of birth in which we became no longer beholden completely to our mother and started life as a separate organism. The thinking is that only in denying all that has come before and, essentially, our humanity, are we capable of being more and hence being "born again" into a new life. We cannot enter into heaven except we be born again, as if to point to perfection being capable only if the shackles of this material reality are cast aside in our spiritual union with the almighty.

It is little wonder that religion has often been used to justify atrocities and that fundamentalist christianity is being used to supplement the fascism that the republican party is promoting. When one begins to believe themselves separate from humanity and hence becomes in-human, it is not a difficult step to take then to believe any doctrine, no matter how absurd. In fact, it would almost seem self-fulfilling that with every thign believed that the rest of "fallen" humanity doesn't, it solidifies to them their rightness with god.

Elitism and persecution go hand in hand to produce a truly terrifying mentality. For example, there is a new video game coming out from a christian group about the time after the rapture. The premise is that those who are left behind and then believe will have to battle satan's hordes, i.e. the rest of humanity. The game shows believers slaughtering civilians in the streets and praying for healing. Here's the future.

There are eight things Jesus said you had to do to have eternal life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r-kIBARMpM

Being born again was just one of these eight.

I love that video presentation. I've been to godisimaginary.com.
Good stuff.