Christians tend to believe that believing matters quite a bit. In fact, they have a tendency to announce how very much their beliefs influence their behaviour for the better. A classic argument against atheism suggest that, if the atheist is wrong, then there will be hell to pay, but if the christian is wrong, it is no big deal. The atheist will have ruined his afterlife, but the christian won't have ruined anything.

Wrong!

There is quite a bit wrong with this argument. If the atheist is wrong, then there will be a need for the Christian god to explain why his message was so muddled that no rational person could possibly comprehend it. However, if the christian is wrong, then they will have completely ruined there only life, as well as the lives of their children and many of those around them.

How will their only lives be ruined? They will have devoted countless man-hours and large portions of their resources to a god who doesn't exist, in the hopes of gaining a portion of a paradisiacal heaven that also doesn't exist. In many cases, this will have meant starving their children in order to give tithes and offering into the couffers of their local churches. Moreover, they will have instructed those around them to do the same. And how many things will they have been able to do in the time that they have been uttering empty prayers and engaging in meaningless ritual?

This life has so much to offer those who are willing to live it. However. the christian suggest that this world is nothing more than a torture that must be endured so that rewards can be reaped afterwards.

Then there is the open hostility that is waged against science and knowledge. Christianity has always held that there is no value into learning about the world and the universe in which we dwell. Technological and scientific advances have always been feared and often held back by Christian beliefs, more so than any other religious system!

What of the blood of those who died at the hands of christian elitists? How many brilliant men and women were killed because they refused to convert? Not only have christians killed people in holy crusades, and actively hunted down women who attempted to help their communities because they considered them to be witches, but many have died just because of the ideals and principles of christianity. Children have committed suicide simply because of the heavy burden of guilt laid on them by their religious values.

Christians are not so ameliorated by their religion as they think they are. In the end, we are all human, and need to find better ways of getting along. Religion will never help us find that, only sound reasoning can.