"If You Need Religion, That's Fine, I Don't, So Leave Me Alone!"

 So here's a problem that we run into a lot with atheists. There's a massive misunderstanding of what religion and faith is about.

What it amounts to is the preconception that religion is for people who need some kind of safety blanket to make the world feel more safe and comfortable for them. They need a big daddy in the sky to be watching over them and stopping bad things happening to them.

Christianity isn't that. Book of Job tells us that bad things will happen to good people and there are a lot of reasons why!

So in the mind of the confused atheist, someone who wants a safety blanket can just check out the selection of religions and choose one based on what they fancy.
They can look at Judaism or Islam and decide they don't want to drop everything and pray several times a day. They can look at Hinduism and decide they don't want to give up beefburgers. Christianity is a great religion for safety blanket seekers because it doesn't ask anything except maybe getting dunked in a paddling pool.
But the brave atheist is happy in the world and doesn't need a safety blanket to protect them from harm and to let them survive death. So religion is not for them. Other people can get on with it, but they better not try to share the sheet. (sheet... double entendre? No? Ok...)

Fortunately, here's another quote from a different atheist that actually gets it right!

Thanks Ricky Gervais! That's right. God either exists or he doesn't. If he does then that actually means something in the world.
If there's a message linked to his existence that means there's a heaven and hell, that there's an eternity in paradise or the destruction of your soul at the end of your earthly life, that there are rules that need to be looked at and taken seriously, then thinking of religion as a safety blanket and nothing more is really really dumb.

A lot of atheists think that God is an angry tyrant in the clouds who will smite people who don't believe in him. If that is the truth, then they should be concerned for themselves!
Fortunately Christianity doesn't teach that. Christianity says hell is for people who rebel against God by their own choice, but still if there's truth to this stuff, it's worth taking seriously.

So if God exists, (which he does) then it's important for everyone to figure out who he is and what he wants from us. Everyone needs religion, so everyone should be open-minded about hearing what there is to say about it.