If on the Island is one man and one woman then no one really care about religion because they want to be alive together.
If he's a genuine Christian now, and if my other choice is a genuine atheist who I know nothing else about. The logic is not hard here, the first choice is already made, really, it's a self-selection for "goodness" or "safeness", while the second choice is for "don't know".
Sure you should be intellectually honest. If you have come to the conclusion that Christ did not rise from the dead you should be honest and admit that you're not a Christian. Which was my point. The Christian church has an obligation to teach what they believe to be true. But the truth is not determined by majority vote so Christians are not obligated to be convinced by the biblical scholars.
you are allowing yourself the luxury of manufacturing an idealistic view of what a genuine christian is. according to the bible genuine christians are commanded to kill non believers. i assume you dont want one quite that genuine? one saving grace in america is that most christians are not genuine enough to follow the mandates in the bible. they mostly ignore the unpleasnt stuff. They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB) Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
Paul: And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. If by 'sincere Christian' you mean a person who believes in a God that loves and who follows the Christain code of charity and goodwill to others then I would agree with you. The problem is in identifying the Christian as a sincere Christian. There's nothing in atheism that makes the atheist inclined to selfishness or immorality and we have countless examples of Christians behaving contrary to the Christian code. It may be just as hard to identify the good Christian as to identify the bad atheist.
It's a thought experiment, Hansel, there will be no quiz (or questionnaire). : ) But if you yourself administered the survey and got two front-runners, a guy who really, really practices charity, love, hope and faith, and a guy who really, really believes there is no God, who would your choice be?
even thought experiments should be balanced. you are adding qualifiers to the christian. to make it a fair comparison you need to rephrase it: "But if you yourself administered the survey and got two front-runners, a guy who really, really believes there is a god, and a guy who really, really believes there is no God, who would your choice be?" not so simple now. hitler believed there was a god.
Ironically, even though this is a strong response to Ricter's post it actually tends to reinforce his argument. If I were given the choice as you present it I think I'd go with the guy who believes in God because believing in God carries with it an established moral code whereas believing in no-God does not imply any moral code; it doesn't provide licence for immorality, of course, but neither does it prohibit immorality where belief in God does. Hitler was nominally catholic but there was absolutely nothing in his conduct that indicated that Christian values meant anything to him.
? you cant be serious. i will chalk it up to posting in haste before thinking. hitler believed in god, priests who rape boys believe in god, ted haggard belived in god, the 80% of the prision population who are christians believe in god. care to rephrase what you said?