I value open-mindedness over most other things. When I was going through my deconversion and having frequent religious discussions with my family, I often felt that they weren’t being open-minded. I know that it’s hard (perhaps impossible) to judge how open-minded someone else is being, so I hesitate to even pass that kind of judgment. At the same time, it’s not like they were answering the problems I brought up with actual solutions — it mostly centered on how arrogant I was to question “God’s word.” On top of that, they never read any of the books or articles that I asked them to — I don’t think they even read all of the stuff I personally wrote to them.
It was the seeming lack of open-mindedness that shocked me most, in many ways. During my time as a Christian, I tried to be as open-minded as possible. I was part of a strict denomination that thought most other Christians were wrong, so I often had discussions with my Christian friends to try to help them see “the truth.” In those discussions, I often admitted that I could be wrong:
Either I’m wrong, or you’re wrong, or we’re both wrong. We can’t both be right…
I firmly believed (based on Matthew 7) that as long as I was searching for the truth, I would find it. Also, if what I believed about Christianity was true, then more study would only bear that out. In other words, I had nothing to fear by discussing and examining Christianity with those who disagreed with me. If they could show me where I was wrong, then that was good! It would mean that I had believed the wrong thing, but learning that would give me the opportunity to correct it and be more pleasing to God.
Now that I have come out of Christianity, I still feel just as strongly about the merits of open-mindedness. Recently, someone suggested that I read In His Image, by William Jennings Bryan (which I’m now doing), but when he gave me the suggestion, he then backpedaled and said I might not like the book because it supports Christianity. I was disappointed by that statement. I told him that I don’t read things based on whether or not I will agree with them — I take religion very seriously, because all religion is an effort to explain reality. If this book by WJB can provide some arguments I haven’t considered before, or answer some of my questions about Christianity, then I want to know that!
But now for the admission. Now for the part that I haven’t been able to say to my family yet: I don’t see any way that I’ll ever believe Christianity again. On the surface, that may seem like it runs counter toward my goal of being open-minded, but it really doesn’t. The fact is, I’ve just seen too much. “I once was blind, but now I see.” The fact is, the Bible can’t fix its problems because it’s a closed document. No more material is going in or out of it. Nor is God going to speak to me directly or perform some miracle to overcome my skepticism. We’re stuck with what we’ve got.
We’re left with a god that’s supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and loves us all, yet we still have evil in the world. He remains hidden from us, but supposedly wants a relationship with us. He supposedly left us a message, but no one can agree on what it says, and its books look pretty much like all the other things that were being written at the time. As this post said:
Let’s face it – I may still be open to the idea of being convinced on the matter, but this is a genie that’s not going to go back into the bottle easily. I can’t unlearn what I’ve found; I can’t simply deny the truth that I’ve been able to discover without the fear of uprooting my faith. To ask me to believe again would be to take on the herculean task of not only providing sufficient evidence but also dealing with all of the logical and evidential problems or to ask me to knowingly deceive myself – and I’m not sure I’m willing to do that for anyone.
I am still an open-minded person. But I also know enough about Christianity now to know what it is and what it isn’t. I didn’t lose my faith by forgetting things, but by learning things. And if I had known years ago what I know now, I never would have been a Christian in the first place.
Finding Truth 
That’s a fascinating point, archaeopteryx — I wasn’t aware of that.
I have thought about the Nazareth problem before, though. You’re right, the gospels act as though his being from Nazareth is problematic. Could be evidence that he really existed, in some fashion. However, there’s also Matthew’s strange “prophecy” in 2:23:
Trouble is, there’s no such prophecy in the OT. Some have suggested that Matthew may have misunderstood Isaiah 11:1, which says:
Apparently, the Hebrew word for “branch” is something like netzer, which may be what Matthew focused in on. So, since gMatthew was written decades later, when Nazareth was a village, that may be how it was pulled into the stories of Jesus, even if Jesus hadn’t actually lived.
Who knows for sure? When I first heard there were questions about Nazareth being in existence when Jesus lived, I was skeptical. Surely the gospel writers, being closer to the events and familiar with the geography, wouldn’t make a mistake like that. But then I realized that I don’t know many of the small towns around the area that I live, much less when they were established. If the writer of gMatthew had heard of Nazareth, then thought of Isaiah 11:1… who knows?
LikeLike
@Mark, RE: “Som has shown over and over his tree is sprouting huge amounts of enmity, cowardice, and lack of any trace of love.”
Your description makes him sound a lot like the fig tree Yeshua wilted, doesn’t it? If I were Si, and really believed what he claims to believe, I’d be looking over my shoulder about now —
I have to say to everyone that I apologize if I appear to be monopolizing the thread, it’s just that it is easy for Si to say, “It’s true, because the Bible says so,” but to really counter such an “argument,” if you can call it that, requires facts, and those can’t always be clearly understood if presented in a nutshell.
LikeLike
I think what it’s coming down to for me, is that I know if I want to be convinced of either side of the argument, I will be.
However, I am agreeing with Nate 100% that I can never go back to Christianity.
Even if I am convinced that Jesus Christ is true, and that the god of the bible is indeed the one true god, to follow Christianity, only leads people to being like our own version of Son of Sam.
No thanks.
LikeLike
Arch,
Please never feel you need to apologize for sharing your thoughts. Anyone who makes people feel like they shouldn’t speak should be thrown in a cage of a million clones of themselves.
Your words feed my mind and I for one am very grateful for all you’ve invested into these blogs.
Never stop.
LikeLike
Nate, if you’ll recall – and I don’t have book, chapter and verse at my fingertips – at one point, Yeshua revisited Nazareth as an adult, to speak at the temple there, and the townspeople became angry and took him to a cliff, to throw him off – Nazareth is located in a valley (I have a picture I wish I could upload), there are no cliffs and there were never any temples in a small town that would likely not have housed more than a couple of hundred people.
RE: “since Matthew was written decades later, when Nazareth was a village, that may be how it was pulled into the stories of Jesus” – this happened often in the Bible. Abraham was said to have come from “Ur of the Chaldees,” in c2300 BCE, yet the Chaldeans didn’t occupy the area until c700 BCE – the writers, knowing nothing about the history of the land, assumed that since the Chaldeans were there when they wrote, they must have been there earlier. The same is true for domesticated camels (c1000 BCE) and many other anachronisms.
LikeLike
Couple of points to ponder re: Nazareth. Eusebius lived less than 30 miles from the supposed site and never visited.
That’s a bit like me living up the road from where Jimi Hendrix was born( Seattle) and never visiting.
The Nazarenes were apparently an Essene sect and it was the gospel writer that erroneously assumed this meant named after a place. (Such as Bostonian coming from Boston).
Nazareth is referred to as a CITY three times in the gospels. Archaeology has found no traces of even a single building ( And no, the dwelling Pfann etc found is NOT from this era) that can be clearly attested to being from the period Jesus was said to have existed. A city would have a synagogue at least,yes?
Apologists have continually scaled Nazareth down until it has become a single family farm.
Hardly sounds like a place that had a ”multitude” ready to sling out hero off a cliff – and that also highlights the ignorance of the writer of Luke concerning the geography of the area . What cliff?
The list of anomalies is endless.
The place is a fiction.
LikeLike
Did you notice, Ark, that all three of the “Synoptic Gospels,” Mark, Matthew and Luke, tell the “fishers of men” story about Yeshua strolling along the beach near the Sea of Galilee, and spotting Peter and his brother Andrew unloading one fishing boat and James and John, both sons of Zebedee, unloading another, and Yeshua said to follow him and he would make them fishers of men? And they did, leaving poor old Zebedee to try and scrounge up some temps from the Home Depot parking lot?
Well, Matthew, Mark and Luke weren’t there, but if we can believe the Bible (snicker), John was, but in the Gospel of John, son of Zebedee, and the only one of the three who should really know, it didn’t happen that way at all! John and brother James were followers of John the Baptist, until John spotted Yeshua strolling along the banks of the Jordan River, waded across, chatted a bit, then went off to spend the night with Yeshua (leaving me to wonder what he REALLY meant by “fishers of men”), coming back the next day to pick up brother James. Who to believe, who to believe? Hmmmm —
LikeLike
If you were to remove every inharmonious line it would be a very thin book indeed.
They had their chance with Marcion but blew it.
The bible is just one monumental fail.
LikeLike
@Rose Maggio
Sorry I didn’t reply to you sooner, but this comment thread has gone crazy! But I’m glad you’ve run across my blog, and I hope you’ll check it (and comment) as often as you can. Congrats on finding your way out of the “Christian closet”! 🙂
LikeLike
Marcion, according to Ehrman (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture), was a Docetist, believing Yeshua not to be human, but only to appear human, which I suppose also made him a Patripassianist. In other words, he was actually god, come to earth, allowing himself to be born (but only of a virgin, of course), just so he could find out what all the fuss was about. He ate and drank, but only to give the appearance that he was real, so no one would ask too many questions. He then died (but not really), then ressurrected himself and eventually – same day, or 40 days later, depending on which Gospel you buy into – levitated himself back up to the old homestead.
But that leaves one wondering to whom Yeshua was praying in the Garden, and whom he was addressing when he asked, “Why have you forsaken me?”
Not a peep from Si – maybe they haven’t let out yet for recess.
(Now’s the part where we see just how well the HTML formatting works –)
LikeLike
@Nate – I tried the HTML I’ve used successfully elsewhere for underlining, but it doesn’t seem to work here, and you didn’t include it in your “How To Format” instructions —
LikeLike
arch, that’s funny because the first century jews would have understood the HTML formatting perfectly on this site.
LikeLike
Archaeo,
Can you prove atheism?
No, you can’t.
Then by the definition of the word, “faith,” atheism is a faith-based belief.
For the Christian, reason is the doorway to the mansion of God’s Revelation, which we understand through faith.
So, where atheism is a totally faith-based belief (read that, irrational), the foundation of Christianity became reason as the Apostles moved into Greco-Roman culture and started evangelizing.
Is that my opinion? No. You can read about it in the Bible. Saint Paul says it himself.
LikeLike
Arken,
The rise of civilizations does indeed depend upon clever people. But cultural and ethical values form the foundation of any civilization.
Without cultural and ethical values, cleverness gets lost in the violence and the chaos.
And the people who split from the Jews were many and varied and lived all over the Empire. In fact, for the first 500 years, European Christians lived under Roman rule.
And since Western Civilization took 1500 years to come into being, your notion that it was formed by a bunch of wise guys who split from the Jews in the year 0 is just more of your rot gut ignorance and highly refined and distilled single malt stupidity.
Where do you come up with that crap? Who is disseminating all this intellectual sewage?
LikeLike
SOM,
who are you? Your entire statement is difficult to respond to because it’s so far from reality a person is hard pressed to understand where to even begin…
Are you really suggesting that people who do not believe in god a strong in the faith?
“Then by the definition of the word, “faith,” atheism is a faith-based belief.” literally, none of that is true.
Most people dont believe in god due to the lack of evidence – as well as the abundance of evidence that shows the bible is flawed severely. That’s why the bible is so big on faith, because faith exists without evidence.
“Is that my opinion? No. You can read about it in the Bible.” I know. All this really means is that the bible is your starting point. You dont have the courage or the will power to take one extra step back and ask, “is the bible really from god?”
Why do you believe the unsupported claims that the human biblical authors have made? If you can manage that, you would discover that your faith has only ever been in man’s claims, as god has told/given you nothing.
But I doubt you’re a serious christian anyways. You seem more like a recent high school graduate who just wants to hassle people on the net. Dont get me wrong, it’s been entertaining and it’s given me a lot enjoyment and amusement.
LikeLike
What’s odd, William, is that I’m no stranger to at least some HTML formatting, and I have a friend with another WordPress site (one who turned me onto Finding Truth, as a matter of fact), and my HTML over there prints, so I don’t even try to use it. Is it something the site manager can control? Some button to click that says, “Use HTML”?
LikeLike
SOM, there is an abundance of evidence for the jews being heavily uinfluenced religiously by the Sumerians, egyptians, canaanites, baylonians, persiand and greeks.
Those are old valued traditions.
LikeLike
Arch, i have no idea. It just seems that the first century jews understood none-sense.
LikeLike
I just fell out of my chair! 😀
LikeLike
Si, you poor, deluded child – atheism is a faith, like abstinence is a sexual position. Like “Off” is a TV chanel, “a” means “without” theism (a belief).
And here we go back to your old failsafe: “The Bible is true because the Bible says it is!”
LikeLike
SOM,
I’m going out on a limb and assuming that you don’t believe in Santa Claus. How much faith does it take for you to not believe in him?
LikeLike
Archeao,
The meaning of reality is not delusion.
And the reality is that atheism is a faith-based belief.
You can’t prove it, so by definition you believe it through faith. There is no physical evidence of it so you believe it through faith.
That means atheists are big hypocrites because they apply the standard of scientific proof to everything but themselves.
LikeLike
SOM, what do you think atheism means?
LikeLike
sOM,
The meaning of reality is not delusion.
And the reality is that non-belief in santa is a faith-based belief.
You can’t prove it, so by definition you believe it through faith. There is no physical evidence of it so you believe it through faith.
That means non-belief in santa persons are big hypocrites because they apply the standard of scientific proof to everything but themselves.
LikeLike
i cant believe we’re having this kindergarten discussion. is it opposite day?
LikeLike