Those who have left the Church

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: cardw

I have a life pretty much free from fear once I left Christianity.

I have a life As a Christian pretty much free from fear.

[debbym]

Rich,

the evidence is in. it seems you are missing the love, the faith, and so right now it seems as though you cannot see.... and it is saddening. You are greatly loved, and perfectly understood, and the living God of love and mercy is all over you to bless you every moment, whether you ever know Him or love Him or understand or not.

deb

"New International Version (©1984)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

New Living Translation (©2007)

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

English Standard Version (©2001)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

International Standard Version (©2012)

Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

[JoeMo]

I just started reading the book "Jerusalem - the Biography" by Simon Sebag Monifiore. He speaks of the archeological discoveries in and around Jesusalem that verifiy a lot of the history in the Bible. He also speaks of the history in the bible biasing the archeological record. That being said, he states that there is empirical evidence of King David, the wealth of King Solomon. King Nebachadnezzar (sp?) Darius, Cyrus, Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa, and the origins of the Christian church. Of course, that doesn't address the accuracy of the theology; but it does verify that a lot of the stories at least have their origins in reality.

[cardw]

Rich,

the evidence is in. it seems you are missing the love, the faith, and so right now it seems as though you cannot see.... and it is saddening. You are greatly loved, and perfectly understood, and the living God of love and mercy is all over you to bless you every moment, whether you ever know Him or love Him or understand or not.

deb

If Christianity was simply that god loves and blesses us we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[cardw]

I just started reading the book "Jerusalem - the Biography" by Simon Sebag Monifiore. He speaks of the archeological discoveries in and around Jesusalem that verifiy a lot of the history in the Bible. He also speaks of the history in the bible biasing the archeological record. That being said, he states that there is empirical evidence of King David, the wealth of King Solomon. King Nebachadnezzar (sp?) Darius, Cyrus, Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa, and the origins of the Christian church. Of course, that doesn't address the accuracy of the theology; but it does verify that a lot of the stories at least have their origins in reality.

I'm not so concerned with the archeology. The history of how the Bible was assembled is really where the problems get acute. The process of making the present version of the Bible we have today was much like congress passes a bill. It is a political process, not a spiritual one.

Predictably the Roman church, which was the most influential and held the most power determined what books made it into the Bible from hundreds of gospels. Once the Bible was stabilized there was concerted effort to destroy all these other gospels. As we dig up manuscripts that were either archived or placed in graves we have quite a different picture of early Christianity.

And the most influential men, such as Augustine, who were involved in this process of putting the Bible together were far more influenced by Greek philosophy than any understanding of Jewish beliefs. They also employed some rather horrendous methods to gain their way. These included murder, bribery, and torture. When you read about the church fathers you will find that some of them would have been thrown in jail today. They would be classified closer to Charles Manson than to Jesus.

All of this is largely unknown by most Christians or is so highly sanitized one wouldn't recognize the history at all.

[Stan]

Rich....

My own experience was this.

Knew I needed to get spiritual (we are all wired for that, no matter how much we fight it off at times)

Had to ask myself this.

Is the only reason why I am looking at Christianity is because where I live?

Did God not respond to the prayers of people that had never heard of Christ?

Is there anyway to get 'the rest of story?" in some of the 'strange' bible comments?

Token answers from Christians just irritated me.

I found Adventist, but thought they had touch with reality and lived in a pretend world

I was blessed by peoples spiritual experiences no matter what the background was.

I read the Kingdom of the Cults my Walter Martin, one of the editions he spoofed EGW as she talked about God's connection with other than christians, saying he had studied various religions, and they were not at all similar to Christianity, I ended up concluding he did not understand Biblical Christianity. (In my opinion)

I can say this, becoming an Adventist or even a Christian was a struggle, yet it is the single best thing I have done in my life.

[JoeMo]

Quote:

I'm not so concerned with the archeology. The history of how the Bible was assembled is really where the problems get acute. The process of making the present version of the Bible we have today was much like congress passes a bill. It is a political process, not a spiritual one.

To be quite honest (now that you mention it), I've always had a problem with that, too.

[cardw]

I read the Kingdom of the Cults my Walter Martin, one of the editions he spoofed EGW as she talked about God's connection with other than christians, saying he had studied various religions, and they were not at all similar to Christianity, I ended up concluding he did not understand Biblical Christianity. (In my opinion)

[JoeMo]

Quote:

And for those of us who understand the methods of modern science and reason, it is becoming apparent that humans have motivations for good naturally built in. When you remove religion, people don't become raving amoral savages. These come from a much different cause.

Interesting. My daughter is actually writing her thesis on the genetics and physiological brain functions involved in altuism and morality common to all people groups. Her premise is that doing good was originally/evolutionarily "hard-wired" into the brain and the human genome; and that it is genetic or brain-function damage (in addition to social upbringing) that drives people to asocial or antisocial behavior.

[Jeannieb43]

Very interesting, JoeMo.

You must have a very intelligent daughter. She seems to be "onto something" with that thesis.

[phkrause]

Quote:

And for those of us who understand the methods of modern science and reason, it is becoming apparent that humans have motivations for good naturally built in. When you remove religion, people don't become raving amoral savages. These come from a much different cause.

Interesting. My daughter is actually writing her thesis on the genetics and physiological brain functions involved in altuism and morality common to all people groups. Her premise is that doing good was originally/evolutionarily "hard-wired" into the brain and the human genome; and that it is genetic or brain-function damage (in addition to social upbringing) that drives people to asocial or antisocial behavior.

I agree, even though we are all born sinners, we still are hard-wired with moral instincts. Just my opinion at this point.

[cardw]

I agree, even though we are all born sinners, we still are hard-wired with moral instincts. Just my opinion at this point.

This illustrates the problem with Christian belief. We can be good people, but we are born "sinners." This is a default we are given simply for being born. And this is called "just." As a Christian I am required to hold this illogical tension because I to be saved I have to turn off my reason because the Bible knows better than I do. And one simply has to repeat this "sound byte" and all thought simply ends. This is classic operant conditioning.

No one really knows what this means other than we now need a savior. And the pragmatic side effect of this is that Christianity becomes a moral olympics. Because of this need to define every human as a sinner, the bar for being good is continually raised because no one will ever be "good enough." This creates a lifetime of feeling "not good enough." And the "cure" is a continual need to praise god for covering up for my inadequacy. And I have to say that Jesus is the solution for this even though my subconscious knows that its illogical and unjust.

I have discovered that the tension goes away as soon as I acknowledge the idea that I'm born a sinner is made up. It has no authority over me because I no longer believe it to be true. And Christians then accuse me of being arrogant.

They miss the fact that my lack of belief in being born a sinner does not mean I think I'm perfect. I'm not concerned with rating my moral performance at all. And, to me, that is true humbleness.

[JoeMo]

Quote:

I'm not concerned with rating my moral performance at all. And, to me, that is true humbleness.

As a Christian, I agree with you completely. Anyone (Christian or not) who thinks that they have any impact on their salvation (or whatever the atheist equivalent is) is simply prideful or arrogant.

That's not saying that we are under no obligation to follow our personal moral compass (which I think everyone has); but I do believe that people who purposefully break their personal moral codes or that purposely do that which is harmful to themselves or others are somehow broken.

[Stan]

There are a number of creative historical revisions that Ellen White used which I believe Walter Martin is referring to.

Historically it was religion that motivated some of the most brutal and cruel acts committed by humans to each other. Religious wars weren't simply content with killing their enemies. They used methods to increase the suffering to sickening levels. I am not lumping everyone who is religious in this category, but the quest for spirituality, when it is removed from reason, produces the same type of behavior as insanity.

I have always believed these were power hungry politicians manipulating people in the name of religion.

It is hard to respond to all what you replied to as it covers a vast amount of subjects.

AND each statement is not clearly defined. ie EGW, a lot of that would be on what you viewed as inspired. There are reasons why their were multiple revisons to things she wrote, and that had to do with her increased of knowledge as well. Nothing was downloaded in her brain like we download info to our Computers.

Walter Martin was talking about her saying God was leading other people. More on that later.

[cardw]

I agree, even though we are all born sinners, we still are hard-wired with moral instincts. Just my opinion at this point.

Here is a quote the expresses what I have experienced with religion.

"Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right."

[phkrause]

Here is a quote the expresses what I have experienced with religion.

"Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told regardless of what is right."

That's your experience with religion, but for me its not. I personally don't like the word "religion." There are so many that claim to have it but really don't. Jesus is my example to follow as to what morality should be, not what what so called religious people call morality, or even non-religious people.

[Stan]

It is not my 'religion' it is my life.

I don't put on religion, there is just one of me.

[JoeMo]

Having read through this thread has caused me to do some serious thinking about how my Christianity has influenced my world view and behavior. Cardw brings up some very stimulating concepts and reminds me of mamy of my experiences with "religion". I'm with phkrause when he says he doesn't like the word "religion" I'm not even sure I like the word "Christian" because it seems like the more loudly a person proclaims that they are a Christian, the less they actually portray the biblical character of Christ in their lives.

This and a couple other threads have got me thinking alot recently about re-defining a few aspects of my spiritual and scientific world view.

[JoeMo]

I could not edit my previous post. I wanted to say that my comment on "Christians" was not aimed at anyone on this thread (or at anyone in CA). It has just been my general experience all my life with extremely "religious Christians".

[Stan]

Joe, can you please try to edit another post on here? Trying to fix that problem.

[JoeMo]

I will be trying to edit this post ...

It worked! Thanks, Stan!

[cardw]

AND each statement is not clearly defined. ie EGW, a lot of that would be on what you viewed as inspired. There are reasons why their were multiple revisons to things she wrote, and that had to do with her increased of knowledge as well. Nothing was downloaded in her brain like we download info to our Computers.

This basically is saying that Ellen White is just like every one of us. We correct our views as we get better information. How would I know she was specially inspired with this set of conditions?

As soon as she is wrong all I have to do is say, well that wasn't god telling her that, it was her own opinion.

I mention this because this is what religion does. It forces us to reject rational proof because we are taught to do what we are told by revelation instead of investigation.

This is very well presented by Neil deGrassi Tyson in this short video. He shows how Fundamentalistic Islam destroyed the enlightenment period of Arabic culture and contrasts that with the rejection of scientific truth in America today. I think this will help you understand why so many scientifically informed people today find religion dangerous and offensive.

[JoeMo]

Cardw,

Very interesting and insightful video. Although most of the video addressed the demise of Islamic genius is tied directly to fundamental religious fanaticism,the same thing can likely by said of Christian moralism and dogmatism.

I had a hard time with the quantum jump he made with religious fanaticism interfering with science and musing about why 15% of the scientific community still believes in God. It wasn't God that screwed everything up, it was organized religion. Not just Christian, but Islam, Babylon, Hindu - all of them have their zealot factions that seek the destruction of science and technology.

[cardw]

Cardw,

Very interesting and insightful video. Although most of the video addressed the demise of Islamic genius is tied directly to fundamental religious fanaticism,the same thing can likely by said of Christian moralism and dogmatism.

I had a hard time with the quantum jump he made with religious fanaticism interfering with science and musing about why 15% of the scientific community still believes in God.

This is the question. I have talked with very intelligent Christians and they have not come up with a rational explanation of why they believe in the Christian god. All their belief is based on a "sense" that god is there or some variation on that idea. I have no problem with this as a private belief, but when it is used to set policy I do have a problem with it.

The problem is that these moderates give credibility to the fundamentalists. Moderates don't, as a general rule, condemn very loudly the fundamentalistic ideas of the great masses of Christians. And these ideas are already attempting to set educational policy in the United States.

This is the reason that those of us who don't hold that belief system don't want it setting educational policy on the sciences. Religion has a terrible record when it comes to this and moderates continue to give religious belief traction in setting educational policy based on revelation, not investigation.

[JoeMo]

Quote:

Religion has a terrible record when it comes to this and moderates continue to give religious belief traction in setting educational policy based on revelation, not investigation.

I don't have a problem with schools offering an option for a class on intelligent design; but it would have to fall under "religion" or "philosophy"; not "science". Whether people accept evolution or not, kids need to learn evolutionary theory in school if they ever want to get into bioscience, biotech, or the medical field.