zele
A couple of comments. First, keep in mind that no two christians are ever alike, so we often have to go through a vetting process to figure out which parts of the bible a newbie likes, and which parts he or she doesn't like. We're not too structured as we parry and dodge fresh meat, so it may come across as disorganized, which it probably is.
In the meantime, we tend to make assumption based on each of our individual versions of a generic christian. Please be patient. It's not our fault there are so many different kinds of you.
As for the amputee question, please keep in mind that we have had many insightless conversations with theists of all stripes about this particular issue, and it is getting old. Again, we have to contend with a variety of custom christian viewpoints, and we end up spending pages and pages just parsing the claims and taking aspirin to ward off theist-caused headaches. The issue is most certainly not off the table, but please don't expect a plethora of enthusiastic atheists to respond in such a way that you get a good fight out of the deal. You are giving the question more importance than the rest of us. We would change the name of the site if we had a chance, but the owner isn't in any way inclined to do that.
I, for one, am not an atheist because I disbelieve the bible. I am an atheist because I trust that science is on the right track, and so far, science hasn't found any definitive proof of a god. Nor a need for one. Obviously that is in part an opinion, but hey, I'm allowed.
I am not a theist because none of the many religions or many denominations have offered up anything that is the least bit believable to me. And that is key. Because belief is the bottom line for most of them.
I have often asked how a fake religion would differ from one that had a real christian god behind it, and nobody has ever tried to answer. Why a real god would insist on belief, just the way all the fake religions do, is just too weird to me to be believable. And the truth of a true religion should kind of, you know, provide consistency not only within itself but within the reality we all experience. And, unless you count very loose generic descriptions of human foibles, the bible offers up nothing else that aligns with reality, unless wishful thinking is an innate human trait.
We have a term we use around here, SPAG, which means "self projection as god". We tend to start interpreting the individual versions of your religion as the above-mentioned wishful thinking of each believer, who accepts, rejects and invents the type of religion he or she is most comfortable with. And that individual versions tend to be a pretty good mirror of who or what that person is inside. Really, really sweet people who are christians will tell us that we aren't going to hell because their god would never punish anyone for an eternity, and asshole christians will insist we are all going to fry forever because we are worthless crap, unworthy of their venerated savior and/or his daddy.
I know exactly why god doesn't heal amputees. He doesn't exist. That explains everything. And until someone can at least empirically demonstrate that christians have better, happier, healthier lives, that they experience fewer premature deaths, survive natural disasters at a higher rate or otherwise demonstrate that they experience real world advantages, I am not likely to take any variation of the tale seriously.
So while we non-believers here try to figure out which parts of the bible you find convenient, which parts you consider allegory and/or metaphor or fable or just plain right or wrong, we envy you for getting to argue with us, a group that is much more coherent because we don't have to squabble a lot over whether chloroplasts in plants are part of the photosynthetic process or to ward off lightening. We don't have to worry that gravity is only a theory as we aim our spacecraft at Mars and land them there. We don't have to divide physics into two churches because half the parishioners think string theory is correct and the other half don't. We all get to play nice together without building separate buildings to worship our personal take on atmospheric factors and/or fossils. Those doing the science do the best they can with current and new knowledge, while the rest of us, who are cheering them on, do our best not to get suckered into religious silliness which accomplishes nothing, if you don't count jihads and stuff.
If you want to argue, there are plenty of us here who will do that. But you'll be disappointed if you think that you automatically know what our issues are.
Edit: for clarity, next to last paragraph.
