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, Ruth is exactly right.
For example, do you go around with garlic and a crucifix? You should — I mean, how else will you defend yourself when you’re attacked by a vampire?
You see? There’s no point in being afraid of something that’s imaginary. That’s how we feel about the Christian god and his place of torment.
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“Are you referring to the alleged martyrdom of the apostles here? If so, what is your source for this?” – I’d love to hear her answer to that, but I’ll bet you never get it.
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Kathy, you are getting boringly predictable. All else has failed, so you take the parting shot of every fundagelical I have ever witnessed. It goes like this:
Na, na, na, na nah – you’re going to Helllll, and I i. i yam no-ot! I mean, REALLY. C’mon. Surely you can do better than that.
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kathy, yeah, there’s a lot of good stuff in the bible, but there is still nothing that makes me think it’s from god.
So like the others have said, i’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of allah or of Thor or of Zeus…
to me, they’re all alike in that they arent real.
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“It makes no sense.. and this choice is nothing more than a result of pride and ego.. a complete lack of humility.”
Kathy, neurological research shows that when people are in love, whether that be a lover or their god — neural circuitry to parts of their brain associated with critical assessment deactivates. You justify the unspeakable horrors your god has committed and you justify people going to hell because they didn’t bow down, submit and obey a jealous mass murderer. Now, I ask, who is really thinking critically here?
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“It’s much better to accept the terms and make an HONEST effort to understand God and His reasons.” – I’m still waiting for you to provide evidence that there even IS a god, and if so, that he/she/it is the god of your Bible – I think we all are.
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Arch, she can’t. The only prerequisite is faith. That’s what makes this religion so brilliant, strategy wise, and why it’s been so effective and enduring. “Except you become like little children”.
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“The 3rd man KNEW how hard the Master was.. and STILL chose to spite Him.. he had to know that there would be consequences to pay and yet he still chose to judge instead of obey. It makes no sense.. and this choice is nothing more than a result of pride and ego.. a complete lack of humility.”
okay, but I’m not like any of the guys in jesus parable, because the master never came to me or spoke to me.
My relationship with jesus was more like this:
A boy was told that he was betrothed from birth and had to marry a woman in a far away land. He received letters from her, but they were dictated by a servant – she didnt even sign them. HE was allowed to speak to her on the phone, but due to their customs, she was not allowed to speak back through the phone.
The boy read her letters (which werent written by her hand) and emptied his heart to her over the phone – and he agreed to marry her. after their marriage, he was still not allowed to move to her or her to him. She send no more letters, but he could still speak to her on the phone, although she was still not permitted – but he was told that he had the perfect marriage.
one day he wondered if was even really married. He went looking for her – where he was told she lived… and found no one. he searched other places to see if maybe he understood the location wrong, etc… but still nothing.. he came away feeling stupid, thinking that he had been fooled.
But some in his family kept reminding him about the letters she sent or the phone calls they shared, and the wedding ring – and urged him not to get a divorce.
But he realized that those things werent really evidences of a wife, they were evidences in what he had done or what he had, but not in a person. he realized that the reason no one ever spoke back to him over the phone was becuase no one was there. He realized that he had never recieved a letter written by her own hand was because she wasnt real.
I think this is parable that more accurately portrays me.
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Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists. Hebrews 11:1
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William, that’s a perfect illustration!
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@William,
I think that parable more accurately portrays a lot of us.
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Ahhh. .William. Lovely parable. As a Gr. 9 English teacher, I might even use it. Peace to you.
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““Except you become like little children”” – And sheep – don’t forget the sheep —
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Carmen, had I known a teacher was among us I would have even proof read and edited some – my apologies to you, madam.
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William, if you’re cool with it, I’m going to give that parable its own post in the next day or two (with attribution, of course).
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You know what’s more important to me, William – VOICE. Your writing has that. Plus, the most important part – heart. 🙂
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“Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists. Hebrews 11:1”
“Faith is believin’ what you know ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain ~
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Ron posted this excerpt on my blog about a young man’s painful deconversion journey.
“If an idea can’t stand on its own truthfulness, it has to find another way to survive. And often the way that happens is by the gradual, unintentional, or intentional refinement of the highjacking of our emotional architecture. Possibly the most effective, most powerful way a belief could do this would be to devalue or eliminate all other sources of self-affirmation— which Christianity does with devastating efficacy—so that there is no hope, or beauty, or meaning, and more importantly, no integrity of the self without it.
If a belief can do this to you, you will have almost no chance of being able to critically evaluate its truthfulness. Christianity alters your identity to ensure the survival of itself. And the ones who are the most vulnerable to this message are the ones who already deal with the insecurity of feeling like they are not good enough: young people who want to understand love and truth, and what it means to be good, which is the very nature of being an adolescent. And to them, as the adults they trust and look up to, while believing we are doing what is loving, we tell them that you can never be good enough—unless you accept this: this is what love is, this is what you deserve for your flaws. That is the Gospel—the death of Jesus has no meaning unless you first believe that it should have been you.”
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Hmmm, for some reason the video didn’t post in my last comment.
Deconversion part 6: What is Supposed to Be
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Deep down inside, they know it ain’t so.
“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” ~Mark Twain
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William, I think that analogy was very helpful to explain the perspective non-believers have.
To continue along with that analogy:
Some in his family kept at him saying “why did you decide to divorce your wife?”, and the boy kept replying: “what divorce? There was no divorce because I no longer believe that I was ever married. I used to believe all of you that the wife you told me about actually existed, but I don’t believe that anymore after these new experiences I’ve had and the new things I have learned.”
At which point the family members said “your wife still loves you more than anyone can love you, and she contains all goodness and no evil, but if you persist in your divorce until you die then you will be thrown into a place of eternal torment.” At which point the boy goes “huh?, loves me? all goodness? no evil? eternal torment? Invisible and undetectable until I die, and at that point she will become completely visible and recognizable right before the torment begins? Something doesn’t add up here.”
And then several different packs of distant cousins who the boy never really got to know too well began to tell the boy that the version of this wife that his close family members had told him about was actually the wrong version, and that if he did not marry the correct version of their group then that would be the cause of the realization of that torment.
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“William, if you’re cool with it, I’m going to give that parable its own post in the next day or two (with attribution, of course).” – nate
thanks, nate, I’m flattered… and i assume you’ll tweak it where necessary. Now go. Feed my sheep.
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Howie, good addition. thanks.
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Nice addendum, Howie.
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Thank you for that info, NeuroNotes. Perhaps it helps explain why I had such an emotional reaction to that nasty, hateful video that was on here. I work with young people (Junior High/High School) and I know how fragile their sense of self is. I value their spontaneity, their unabashed enthusiasm for life, their working out of who they are how they fit into their world with all the information they’re being bombarded with. I appreciate that they need positive people in their lives, people who affirm their uniqueness.
Here’s something someone put on Dan Fincke’s site (Noseybook)-
“Evangelists work overtime to make believers feel like there is no viable alternative, that leaving the faith is akin to jumping off the edge of the world into a void.” – Alessia Voltaire (I believe she’s a friend of Dan’s)
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