You know Kathy, we’ve been fairly blunt with you today. Flippant, too. And it’s tough when people talk to/about you that way. I’m sorry for that.
If we could cut through all the rhetoric for a second, I’d like to commiserate with you. A little over 4 years ago, I was a very dedicated Christian. I had some doubts, but they weren’t about the Christian faith, just my understanding of it.
I felt like there were problems in my beliefs about the gospel. I believed in a literal Hell, and I believed a lot of people would be going there. But I had a very hard time squaring that with a loving God. I had matured enough to realize that most people were pretty decent. Not perfect, certainly, but good people who cared about others and typically wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t think such people deserved Hell. In fact, like Paul, I often thought that if God would accept it, I’d gladly go to Hell myself, if it would save my friends and family. And if everyone else could be added into that deal too, even better.
So if I felt that way, could I be more compassionate than God? Of course not. But I had a very hard time finding anything in the Bible that backed up an idea that most people, regardless of creed or belief would be saved.
I didn’t give up though. I knew about Universalists, so I decided to read up on their reasons for thinking everyone went to Heaven. It sounded good, but I just wasn’t convinced by their arguments. I just didn’t see the Bible teaching such a doctrine, and I still believed the Bible was the inerrant word of God.
I was in a state of flux.
And that’s the position I was in when I first ran across articles that pointed out flaws in the Bible. I was shocked by what the articles said, but since I didn’t have any answers against them at the moment, I got busy with research. I didn’t even comment on the articles — I just went to work. It wasn’t about winning any arguments; it was simply a search for answers.
I think that frame of mind I was in made all the difference for me. Deep down, I was already struggling. The doctrines I had long believed in, and even taught to others, didn’t fit together in my mind as well as they once had.
That’s probably the difference between you and me. I get the feeling that you question nothing about your faith. Not trying to put you down about that; just making an observation.
For me, discovering that the Bible was not the perfect book I had always thought it to be, and finding out that some of these church leaders I had always admired knew of these problems but never spoke of them, helped me make sense of a lot of things. It took time, and it wasn’t easy to come to the realizations, but everything finally fell into place for me when I realized Christianity was just another religion. For the first time, I finally understood the sentiment of that line from “Amazing Grace,” I once was blind, but now I see…
I don’t know if that’s helpful to you at all. Maybe one day it will be. Maybe one day, something will make you ask a few questions, and you’ll think back to those non- believers who were so insistent that Christianity was certainly not the only way. If that day comes, I hope you’ll find this exchange helpful and realize you’re not alone.
Finding Truth 
Kathy – sorry i couldn’t stay up and play with you, but I have a long day ahead.
This is in response to your comment https://findingtruth.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/letter-to-kathy-part-2/#comment-13881, in case there are others – sorry the comments don’t line up under each other, so you can tell which one I’m responding to.
I asked who created your god, you answered with my own question, as to why anyone NEEDS to know the answer to that, then defeated your own response by asking what need had to do with anything, which brings us back to square one:
“And please explain how ‘NEED has ANY bearing on TRUTH.”
So how about explaining what created him?”
“Arch, here’s a question I really want an answer to.. please explain HOW scientific knowledge disproves a Creator.
I could ask the same question of unicorns or leprechauns, or a teacup orbiting Mars. It’s impossible to disprove a negative – I can ask you to disprove any number of things that don’t exist, and you can’t, which is why, when someone makes a claim that something DOES exist, we expect proof that it does, THAT, if it exists, can be proven.
“So, since you don’t understand His motives or His emotions, that means you get a ‘pass’ and don’t have to believe in Him or worship Him?”
No, Kathy, it means I don’t have to believe in him/her/it until someone provides me with irrefutable evidence that he/she/it exists, and it would appear you’re getting irritable again —
“How do you think He’s going to react to that?”
A non-existing entity cannot react, so I’m not expecting much.
“I never said this.. anywhere..”
Yes, you did, Kathy – “That’s what the universe was meant for.. to help man see how great God is..” Do you sometimes get so irritated that others don’t see things your way, that you forget what you said?
Maybe if you prayed about that temper – or more realistically, saw a therapist —
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I believe you forgot China, Mike. Mustn’t forget the Chinese.
As I said, all countries go through a religious phase and a lot more religions have come and gone than miracles Yeshua performed.
The US is still going through its dumb as dog-do phase regarding religion.
It’ll come right, have no fear.
Your religion will eventually see its arse. Science has proved the death knell of so many religious cults there is no reason at all to believe yours will be any different.
Time, Mike…just time.
Ah, yes, one does forget how you do try to educate us, Mike.
Every ”intelligent” person can see why your god insisted having part of his foreskin removed.
A no brainer really, right?
Note the relieved and gleeful smiles?
BTW, are there any serious questions you wish me to answer?
You did make mention that I hadn’t done so, I believe?
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Carmen, RE: “I’d also like to know what you consider talking dirty.” – Good luck with that. I asked the same question, got no answer.
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I knew SOMEONE else had asked; I was just too lazy to go through the comment thread to find out. . thanks!
As my little grandchildren chuckle in the background to cartoons they are watching on TV, I’m chuckling at the verbal antics being played out on this Blog. . .some of you are GOOD! 😉
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RE: “Keep trying Arch. You may yet make a good point” – Sober up, Mike – that wasn’t me. Try some coffee.
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I guess I haven’t met you before, Carmen – what’s that they say – “Come here often?”
(And no, I won’t ask, “What’s your sign?”)
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“I believe you forgot China, Mike. Mustn’t forget the Chinese.”
Nope I didn’t poor ark. Read er and weep
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html
The gospel marches on 🙂 🙂
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“Sober up, Mike – that wasn’t me.”
Arch….. Ark. I mean whats the difference? slightly different DNA same drool and foam.
Make distinctions with merit. lol
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“THAT is where I see the contradictions and failed prophecies as problematic. If our Creator chose to communicate with us (and there’s nothing that says he HAD to do so), then we should be able to definitively determine which communication is from the divine as opposed to being from man.”
Thats where the whole discussion became and becomes problematic. Kathy does not accept those premises because they are unproven and this blog’s position is that the the assertions and arguments that there are contradictions and failed prophecies is enough to establish them as having been proven.
Thats the great divide.
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Nope…no need to shed ne’er a tear, Mike. As I said, all nations go through a religious phase. Belief and eventual rejection of supernatural belief It is all part of growing up.
Look at the most socially developed nations, Mike. This is the way things will eventually go.
Such countries are NOT moving back toward religion, although the world is replete with evangelical idiots trying their best to hold back kids and abuse them with this hate and fear filled nonsense. ( such as in the video, Ron posted)
But this behavior is regressive, Mike. Hence the reason why the more socially developed an individual/ country and eventually, the world will reject such nonsense.
You can bleat all you like, it makes not one iota of difference. It is already happening.
It may take a few hundred years. So what?
It’s un the wane, Mike. You will just have to get used to it.
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“You can bleat all you like, it makes not one iota of difference. It is already happening.
It may take a few hundred years. So what?”
🙂 🙂 reduced to prophecying events hundreds of years into the future? Say it aint so Ark. lol
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Who says God can’t have emotions?? Who made this “rule”??
Kathy, as already explained here, logic itself dictates it. Rage, anger, hatred, jealousy, vengefulness, grief and remorse betray a lack of control—the exact opposite of what it means to be an all-perfect, all-poweful and all-knowing being.
Unless, of course, you wish to argue that your god doesn’t need to follow the rules of logic.
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How many people wake up in a cold sweat at night worrying about how the universe started?
Could it have been done by a god? Sure. But why stop there? Why not two, or three, or a dozen, or a thousand? Or why not magic pixies, or sprites, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the great pumpkin? To date, I see no convincing evidence to conclude any of these.
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OK, Heyden – I leaped to my feet a little earlier than expected (actually, I drug myself off the wrong side of the floor), now to wade through your comment.
Even with your expositional comments, Heyden, I have some issues with your explanation of the following, in terms of matching it up with actual events:
As you can see by the illustration, the early universe was composed entirely of a quark–gluon plasma – heat so intense that not even atoms could form. Had you explained that from about 180,000 years to 800,000 years, the photons in the plasma were interacting with protons and electrons, and that as a consequence, the universe was opaque or “foggy” – there was light but not light we can now observe through telescopes (the baryonic matter in the universe consisted of ionized plasma, and it only became neutral when it gained free electrons during “recombination”, thereby releasing the photons to shine out as light). SO, during that period, it was known as the universe’s “Dark Ages,” i.e., – had there been a place to stand, and a person to stand there, he, she, or it, could not have seen light emerging from the evolving universe during that time period. For what that’s worth.
Bear in mind, I’m not correcting you, as my opinion is that the Bible is 90% made-up goat-herder crap, and if anyone wants to believe it, why should I care, until they start trying to make me believe it too, which you haven’t done.
If you have a blog, could you give me your URL? You seem like an interesting person.
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“Unless, of course, you wish to argue that your god doesn’t need to follow the rules of logic.”
No we can just dispense with the idea of you possessing any logic (as I have demonstrated countless times of you) or knowing its definition. Emotion does not have to betray logic or control. One can be angry and in complete control despite your beg. Most married people have a problem with their spouses sleeping with someone else. thats jealousy but it hardly means that they are out of control. Are they supposed to be happy about it? and if grief/being sad means someone is out of control then empathy is being out of control which is just a silly conclusion
Your points are almost always just the silliest on here to be honest.
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Wrong again, weren’t you? Considering the rate at which that keeps happening, at least we now understand why you prefer not to commit to anything – how can you be wrong, when all you do is heckle? You should probably wipe the drool off your own keyboard before you worry about mine.
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Do married couples have complete knowledge or exercise complete control over their spouse’s actions? No, they usually do not.
But an all-knowing all-powerful being that’s created everything from scratch in accordance with its own design would have complete and utter control over what transpires. To get angry when things go exactly as you planned them would be illogical. But then again, the people who invented Yahweh weren’t exactly the sharpest people on earth.
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Ron, RE: “Unless, of course, you wish to argue that your god doesn’t need to follow the rules of logic.” – wouldn’t that imply a degree of madness? That would certainly explain a lot – a god exists, but he’s insane – I like that!
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@ kathy
Here’s a few of the questions that I asked you on the last thread:
1) how many religions have you rally researched, and have you done so fairly?
2) if you researched other religions, were you trying to prove them right, as you do the bible, or were you trying to find their errors?
3) what evidences lend credit to the bible, that also do not take credit from it? (history, archaeology, science – all discredit the bible as much as it may credit it, and many other religions claim the same, so how is the bible better, how do the claims in the bible trump the claims of other religions?).
4) Have you read these passages?
John: 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14, 31, 42 (before passover)
Mark: 14:12 (passover)
Matthew: 26:17 (passover)
Luke: 22:7 (passover)
after reading these, never mind telling me which day he was crucified on, just tell me whether or not you can at least understand where some people would be confused by this.
There are more, but so that none are overlooked, we can start here and add more later.
thanks,
William
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Nate, it’s always refreshing to see a genuinely nice person engage others and without flamethrowing. I thought I would just make a comment about the Christian scheme that you alluded to when you were first questioning your faith.
One of the problems with the standard evangelical schemes are that they leave out several important biblical concepts. The first is the idea that we must believe a particular doctrine to be saved. This idea undercuts all of the prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul saying clearly that we will be judged based on our deeds. This is the great equalizer: the human conscience. Paul states in Romans 2 that the Gentiles will be judged by their conscience. That does not mean that believing and faith are unimportant for those who have been called to believe which brings us to our second point.
Second, is the idea of calling. God calls certain people to be part of the church and they may accept or reject this call. Let’s take some extreme examples to understand this. If God puts someone (i.e., the consciousness or soul) in an isolated culture, how can God expect them to become a Christian? It’s clear that by placing them in the isolated culture God does not expect them to believe unless God sends missionaries. On the other end, if God puts someone in a culture where they are presented the gospel and understand the content, that’s God calling them. It’s like informed consent, they can reject this or accept it or be ambivalent or whatever. And, being studied and reciting scripture is not the same as understanding content.
Third, the idea of relative judgment. Judgment will be relative to the individual’s situation. A stagnant selfish Christian who refuses to repent will be judged harsher than a charitable Buddhist who has not been called to be in the church. Jesus said to whom much is given much is expected. Jesus also said that the towns that rejected him during his ministry will be judged harsher than Sodom and Gomorrah which is the idea of relative judgment.
Here’s the problem. As humans we want to make a scheme so that we know who is on track to salvation and who is on track to damnation. We want to be able to say that this group is saved and this group is damned. But, we should be extremely careful not least because this can lead to tribalism. For everyone comes from a different starting point with different struggles and abilities. To see past behavior and spoken confessions, to get the heart of the person, is impossible for humans because it requires omniscience.
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“Do married couples have complete knowledge or exercise complete control over their spouse’s actions? No, they usually do not.
But an all-knowing all-powerful being that’s created everything from scratch in accordance with its own design would have complete and utter control over what transpires.”
Crack open a bible kid. Nowhere does it say that God controls all of people’s actions. Your point got busted. Move on.
“But then again, the people who invented Yahweh weren’t exactly the sharpest people on earth.”
apparently still sharper than you.
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“Jesus also said that the towns that rejected him during his ministry will be judged harsher than Sodom and Gomorrah which is the idea of relative judgment.”
Yet another point against your buddy, Yeshua – clearly, as the son of your god, he was a bit short on geological information. Sodom and Gomorrah were located at the southern end of the Dead Sea, through which runs a geological fault that originates south of the Olduvai Gorge in Africa, and goes all the way to deep in the Levant. The area near the Dead sea is rich in bitumen, a tar-like substance halfway between oil and it’s ultimate by-product, coal. Egyptians used to travel there to mine it, for use in mummification. It is quite flammable. When the earthquake hit, it tossed bitumen into the air, which caught fire, and rained down. Kathy will still claim that “goddidit,” but it was a perfectly natural phenomenon.
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@archaeopteryx1: Jesus was talking about eschatological judgment which has not occurred yet. But, your point is still very interesting. Why can’t natural phenomena come about as an act of God? I mean why would it be logically impossible? Or, if you can’t prove that (which I’m certain you can’t), why is it more reasonable to conclude that natural phenomena cannot be an act of God?
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” It is quite flammable. When the earthquake hit, it tossed bitumen into the air, which caught fire, and rained down. Kathy will still claim that “goddidit,” but it was a perfectly natural phenomenon.”
Yet another point against you buddy. You don’t understand theology. God uses natural phenomenons all the time cause ummm he’s the God of nature
“clearly, as the son of your god, he was a bit short on geological information…..The area near the Dead sea is rich in bitumen, a tar-like substance halfway between oil and it’s ultimate by-product, coal”
Nah you are just short on BIble Knowledge. Yeshua already knew because the Bible already covers your little geology lesson if you had cracked it open
Gen 14:10 Now the Valley of Siddim was full of asphalt pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled; some fell there, and the remainder fled to the mountains.
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“@archaeopteryx1: Jesus was talking about eschatological judgment which has not occurred yet. But, your point is still very interesting. Why can’t natural phenomena come about as an act of God? I mean why would it be logically impossible? Or, if you can’t prove that (which I’m certain you can’t), why is it more reasonable to conclude that natural phenomena cannot be an act of God?”
This is interesting to me, so I hope you dont me chiming in. Maybe everything is under god’s control, or maybe somethings are under god’s control, and maybe nothing is.
But if god is behind natural disasters, this is almost cruel. why would a perfect and just being send nondiscriminatory and widespread destruction and death? Couldn’t god send natural disasters and spare the lives of innocents and children? yet he does not.
And if god only works through natural, physical laws (like those that create natural disasters) why get upset if people think they’re only natural (without god’s finger in the mix)?
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