I think that sometimes non-believers think that all Christians are judgmental. It isn't hard to see why they would think this when groups like the Westboro Baptist Church spout out hateful and hurtful words. They do not represent Christ.
Jesus wants to have a relationship with everyone. It is our responsibility, as Christians, to show s love to those who don't know m- not to pass judgement. God is love, not hate.
When some people view me as a Christian, against all the other things that I could be........
They tend to assume that my life has been one free of error , failure, and personal tragedy and cost.
They, tend to think that I was " born happy".
I have paid the price of learning, I know the cost of success, as it is measured in a monetary society.
It is not obvious to others, the troubled, doubted, mistrusting road, that I once walked on my way to find peace.
This peace of mind, was not written on MY terms!
I believe some non-Christians believe a Christian leads a perfect live without any problems. That is far from the truth. I found after becoming a Christian that life can seem to get harder.
You are fighting with your past, not wanting to do some of the things you did before knowing it is wrong, but yet still wanting to do it.
When your current friends actually see you change as your walk with God progresses, and you start talking more about God especially when he becomes your main focus they start to not want to hang around you any longer. Eventually they drift away, unless they want the change they see in you.
Sometimes it seems trouble finds you easier. You have more problems after you become a real Christian. I mean truly following Christ, getting into the Bible, and not just acting out the part by going to Church on Sunday only thinking everything is fine.
In some ways it can just be easier to slip back into who you use to be, forget about Jesus, or just be a Christian in name only. Non-Christians tend to view Christians in name only as real Christians, and judge the rest of us on them. Christians in name only say they are Christians, but don't act like it or talk like URL1 matter of fact nothing in their life has changed.
Many times they don't really believe in the Bible or Jesus, buy they have their reasons to want to try to make others think they do.
What is hard to understand for a non-believer is that trials are brought into your life to help you progress in your walk with God. Sometimes attacks are made in your life to make you loose faith, and/or so you don't influence the people around you.
A christian life is really a bed of roses. It looks and smells pretty, but they still have thorns. If you want the roses, you have to be willing to take the thorns also.In handling the roses, you protect yourself and watch out for the thorns, and most of them will not bother you.
Every once in awhile one will snag you or even get embedded. Painful, but take care of the wound, and then go back to handling the roses again with better knowledge than you had before.
The common misconception that non-believers have is that Christians claim to have the true religion and that Christ is the only way to heaven, when in fact, what we Christians are really trying to do is what Jesus had told us to do: to spread the gospel so thay people may be saved. Along with it, of course, would be the claim for having the truth for how can you make people believe without telling them it's true.
They see the preaching of the gospel itself is judgmental.
A lot of non-christians think that christians are good people always. We both know that's not even close to the truth.
I would say that they are judgemental (which all true christians are not! ). Also, that they are boring, which is no more true for christians as non-christians.
I get tired of attempts to convert me. It's not so much a misconception because it happens all too often. I've called myself a Green Witch for many years.
This year, after many conversations with a Christian woman who wanted to convert me to her church/ religion, I decided I am also an atheist. Anyway, based on recent events I think most Christians are out to convert anyone who doesn't agree with them. Why can't they just let people believe what feels right to themselves.(That wasn't really a question).
In my opinion, they would regard Christians as following the wrong kind of faith or belief.
That Christians are too exclusive when it comes to salvation. As they say, "outside the Church, there is no salvation. " But in fact, it's way too clear that Christians uphold reaching out to those who are actually lost.
Jesus Christ who Christians follow preaches inclusiveness and the whole aspect of love - total giving of oneself to another regardless of color, race and religion.
Non-christians do not believe in God or Christ. They think that when they die it is the end and they will never live again, or see their love ones again. Their think that christians are living in an imagination not the real world.
They ascribe to Darwin's theory, we evolved, and that God did not create man. They think that heaven and hell is right here on earth.
I think one of the common responses will be that christians do not care about what non-christians think or believe and have no respect for anyone that does not believe in the christian world view. This observation, however, would not be a misconception because, at the very least, this can be inferred through the manor in which you posed your question (disregarding the actual thoughts of non-christians and instead asking people to guess what non-christians think) and through the responses from the christians who are all too willing to place thoughts in the heads of people whom they lack the capacity to understand. I also might point out that the world is not merely christian and non-christian.
The two thirds of the worlds population that comprise the "non-christian" world view are actually comprised of a large number of religions, many of which are not in the least bit related to one another. The diversity of opinions about christians will be amplified by the diversity of world views (not just simply "non-christian") present within the other two-thirds of the world's population. I hope this also makes clear that non-christian is only in the very least bit comprised of non-religious, non-god believing, non-afterlife believing, non-deist, non-pantheist peoples--contrary to what at least one of your respondents has implied.
Also, it is necessary to point out that "christian" is not a catch-all description for a large group of people who all believe the same thing. The christian religion is comprised of a large number of sects, and beliefs within those sects--including what constitutes the most important tenets of faith--vary widely between the sects. In fact, the one sect that represents 50% of christians worldwide holds the official view that other christian faiths are not true churches because they lack apostolic succession, and, because of this, their followers are not saved (meaning everyone not Catholic is going to hell)--that's the view of the church that represents 50% of the world's christians.It seems christians have misconceptions about christians...even differing views on who and what is christian.
With all of the problems mentioned above, what is even the point of asking your question--a question that when answered can only reflect the most extreme biases of the respondent since the form of the question necessitates pure conjecture on the part of respondent?
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.