Agnosticism, Atheism, Bible Study, Christianity, Faith, God, Religion, Truth

Letter to Kathy Part 2

Nate

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.

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Published by Nate

2,018 thoughts on “Letter to Kathy Part 2”

  1. With all due respect to your belief system Portal, it was Jesus who brought Hell into the picture.

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  2. Ron, great study. Thank you for sharing. More and more studies are showing similar results — and the more conservative the religion is the greater negative impact on well being and brain function. I was reminded this study:

    ” Significantly greater hippocampal atrophy was observed for participants reporting a life-changing religious experience. Significantly greater hippocampal atrophy was also observed from baseline to final assessment among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation, compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again. These associations were not explained by psychosocial or demographic factors, or baseline cerebral volume. Hippocampal volume has been linked to clinical outcomes, such as depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease. The findings of this study indicate that hippocampal atrophy in late life may be uniquely influenced by certain types of religious factors.”

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017006

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  5. N℮üґ☼N☮☂℮ṧ,

    Yeah I have visited the States 🙂 never went to a church service while I was there, but a friend and I looked for one in NY on Christmas. loved New York, and New Orleans, and San Fran. Amazing how they are almost different countries within themselves.

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  9. Carmen – I had a feeling you’d like it, it just seemed to blend right in with your comment.

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  10. Ryan, I was ‘brought up’ in the Baptist church but switched to a different denomination when I got married. I am presently an Elder and on several other committees within the church. I taught Sunday School for years and was also a Presbytery Representative from our ‘charge’. I was about as involved (and still am, but not to as great an extent) as one person could be. Nothing traumatic happened, I did not get (and am not) ‘mad’ at anything/anyone in the church. I have just changed my mind about religion after much study and consideration.

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  12. @NeuroNotes — thanks for the article excerpt. Yes, I did find that interesting! And I’m very sorry that you’ve had some personal discrimination for your beliefs. That hasn’t happened to me yet (at least, not in any official capacity, like with work, etc). But like you, I don’t bring up my views on it unless asked.

    @Ryan (portal) —

    Jesus brought Hell into the picture, because he’s the first one who talks about it. Well, if we can trust the gospel accounts. Hell is not talked about in the OT. That’s not widely known, because the KJV translated several words as “Hell”: Gehenna, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus

    But the Israelites didn’t have the same notion of afterlife that Christians have. Which is pretty interesting if one tries to maintain that the OT and NT are both true.

    I’ve written about this before, if you’re interested:
    https://findingtruth.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/the-problem-of-hell-part-1-textual-issues/

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  13. Arch, I had read that a couple of years back — but overall, they are shedding faith fast. It’s possible that Islam will get the boot, too.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/dispatch/2012/06/21/australians-lose-their-faith/

    “Proponents of religion frequently promote it as a route to happiness. But in Australia, whose prosperity has soared in recent years thanks to a mining boom fueled by developing Asia, some believe it might be the country’s rising level of contentedness that’s actually driving the decline of religion.”

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  14. “Neuronotes – you have touched on another of the reasons for my deconversion.”

    Carmen, I hear ya. At first I was in denial. But the more involved I got in the infrastructure, the more it became apparent to me that the religious hierarchy were taking advantage of well meaning people — many who were making great sacrifices, both in time and money. Yet they were of the understanding that their financial offerings were being used to help the poor, elderly, and widows. No effing way was that the case.

    I should know. I was widowed with a small child and was never offered a dime when I was going through financially hard times. But they insisted that I tithe and volunteer my time in the church.

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  15. SLEEP?! We don’t need no stinkin’ sleep! But then you “blokes” spend your lives upside down, so I guess we can’t expect too much.

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  16. Nate, you wrote that Jesus brought hell into the picture because he’s the first one who talks about it. Well, yes … and no.

    I actually think Paul was the first one to bring “hell” into the picture when he spoke in Romans 2:7-9 that the “good” will receive eternal life while the “evil” will receive wrath and fury … anguish and distress. As I’m sure you know, his writings were circulated 10-20 years prior to the gospels. Although the gospel authors reported that Jesus talked about hell, could we not speculate the reason for this was due to Paul’s influence?

    Further, wasn’t the Book of Enoch in circulation at about this time? He writes quite extensively about the burning fires of hell, and it’s also addressed in several other Jewish pseudepigrapha.

    I am in total agreement with you that the early Jews had no conception of “hell.”

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  17. I believe, Nate, that the Pharisees accepted an afterlife, while the Saducees rejected one, but I agree that Hell came into being with the NT.

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  18. “Nothing traumatic happened, I did not get (and am not) ‘mad’ at anything/anyone in the church. I have just changed my mind about religion after much study and consideration.”

    Carmen, I did experience trauma which was induced by conservative Christians, and ironically served to drive me deeper in the faith. However, I was so indoctrinated at the time, I thought I was suffering for Christ’s sake, so I took it all on the chin. But like you, I changed my mind after much study and consideration. The more I studied the more my frontal lobes came back online. My disappointment in the Abrahamic religions, and especially the hierarchy, didn’t fully hit me until after my deconversion, when I found large online communities of people recovering from the negative impact of conservative Christianity.

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  19. William:

    “Oh but right, since the bible is true, then the evidence for the bible must be stronger, therefore it’s right and the others wrong…

    you can’t see the flaws in this reasoning? ”

    William, this is YOUR “reasoning” of my reasoning.. it’s incorrect. The comments I’ve
    made here support my reasoning.. and show that your reasoning is based solely on your own
    distortions and perceptions.

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  20. Arch,

    ““Dishonesty and manipulation will only work for so long..” just ask Little George W, Dick Cheney’s hand-puppet, who:
    • After 8 years, couldn’t find Osama Bin Laden

    • Lied about Iraq ’s WMD’s and ties to Al-Qaida, committing America’s resources to pursue his personal vendetta”

    Prove it.. what’s your evidence that Bush lied about Iraq?

    We can take these one at a time.. 😉

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  21. Nan, I agree with you. I almost made the caveat about Paul, since his writings are earlier, but I decided to go with Biblical chronology. Thanks for fleshing out what I was trying to say.

    And yes, there are several earlier works that talk about a Heaven and Hell concept. Even Daniel 12 refers to it, showing that the concept had been added to some sects of Judaism by the Maccabean period. Considering the time that the Jews spent under Persian and Greek rule, I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that their view of the afterlife underwent some evolution. But it was a huge blow to me coming from an inerrancy position.

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  22. My good friend in Sydney wrote me of Muslim demonstrations in the street. She also sent me some links, which I’ve long since tossed.

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  23. Arch said:

    “The only light on the horizon that I can see, Carmen, is that at one point in her conversation to NeuroNotes, she DID say that she had the occasional doubt, though if you’ve read her hate-filled blog, I can’t imagine that doubt lingered long. If you go though life with blinders on, you only see where your head’s pointing.”

    What is the “hate” you’re referring to Arch? And this is a question I will keep asking until
    you answer it.

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  25. “Prove it.. what’s your evidence that Bush lied about Iraq?” – well, I personally watched him say on national TV that the reason we were invading Iraq was that the Iraquis possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now if you believe that was true, you just trot those bad boys out —

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