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 
“Geez, someone was up late last night. . . same old sh*t, different pile. .. (head shake)”
You are so deep Carmen. takes me minutes to figure your posts out 🙂
2 seconds to think – so thats it?
and 118 seconds thinking – not that can’t be all there is
lol
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“Mike, I didn’t expect you would be able to comprehend.”
Thats right my dear. My degree was not in Hogwash so you were right to expect I wouldn’t. I’m sure if you go to a psych ward the patients will nod approvingly for you to see. 🙂
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“Thats easy. If any of the Gospels had said point blank that the women actually saw the stone being rolled away by the angel then you would have had your contradiction there. Instead nate had to fudge and assume things into the passage when it never says that .” – mike
or kind of like John saying that jesus was crucified before passover and everyone else saying it was during?
But why would that (the watching the stone rolled away) be a contradiction in your mind? you’d just say that it didnt say “all” women saw it, so the ones who didn’t know about it were looking elsewhere or behind the pack who did see it…
maybe you can give a better example?
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“or kind of like John saying that jesus was crucified before passover and everyone else saying it was during?”
Sorry sparky that one was busted up by the fact that the whole feast was called the passover and by fact there was complete agreement between all gospels that the preparation day was the day before a sabbath. So you and Nate swore the passover was a high sabbath? So what? When have you two ever had all the facts?
Like I said always some huge blunder or omission to make your alleged contradictions stick. What else is new?
“But why would that (the watching the stone rolled away) be a contradiction in your mind? you’d just say that it didnt say “all” women saw it, ”
Okay then then thats your example. if it said Mary had seen the stone rolled away? You got that verse sparky? 🙂
My example is fine. Your evidence is just lacking.
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Mike, did you get your degree in the Holy Ghost Academy? 😉 I should note that my late husband would be alive today were it not for fundamentalist who claimed to be special, chosen, and “in-the-know”. My daughter will never know her father because of people who’ve been deeply indoctrinated are driven by fear and taught that demons and Satan are real.
Yet, regardless of how I’ve been affected by people driven by fear, I have compassion for them, which is why I spend a good bit of my spare time involved in subjects like this. I first got involved on forums because there were so many Christians who had an intense fear of Satan and demons, much like Gary did. Were it not for the very negative side-effects of Christian doctrine, there would be no need for debating this subject. Believe in god, if that is what you need to cope with the realities you find hard to face. But —
as Phil Hellenes says, all you have to do is not lie. Don’t say you know its name. Don’t say it told you to tell people what to do with their lives. Don’t say that those who believe otherwise must be punished. Don’t say it sends earthquakes and tsunamis. Don’t say it ever hurts anyone for any reason because that’s sick.
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“Don’t say it ever hurts anyone form any reason because that’s sick.” So is Mike, Victoria.
So is Mike.
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“So, you refuse to give your source… I wonder why..” – I’ll play “Kathy” here for a moment ( because that’s about all the longer I can stand it) – “THAT’S just like you LIBERALS, LYING and DECEIVING – SHOW me where I said I refused to give my source. Be SPECIFIC! And I’ll keep asking this question in case you forget to answer..” (Whew, that was a horrible feeling, I think I need to lie down! Do you feel this badly all the time? Yeah, I guess you do –)
I’ll be happy to give you the source, Kathy, knowing that whomever it is, you’ll scream “Liberal,” but not until you give me your word AS A CHRISTIAN, that you read each segment.
Tell me something, Kathy – do you wear your skirts and dresses floor-length, or do you show any leg skin? I ask, because if you’d lived a couple of years ago and showed leg-skin, you’d have been run out of town on a rail – as a Liberal. Times change, opinions change, and most people are able to change with the times.
Know the real reason your Yeshua was crucified (if he ever existed)? Because to the Jewish religious authorities, he was a Liberal, trying to infuse a millennia-old religion with new, subversive ideas. And guess what? They felt exactly as you do about circumstantial evidence. Conservatives tend to refuse to look beyond the traditional, they’re uncomfortable with new ideas. “Come back, Little Opie – where ARE you?!”
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“Sorry sparky that one was busted up by the fact that the whole feast was called the passover and by fact there was complete agreement between all gospels that the preparation day was the day before a sabbath. So you and Nate swore the passover was a high sabbath? So what? When have you two ever had all the facts?” _ mike
I forgive you.
BuT I dont know what you’re talking about.
You can reference these passages: Lev 23: 1-8, Numbers 9: 6-13
but so what? If you’re asking, then i dont think you’ve read all the passages I listed and nate quoted for john.
They say different days, clearly. Again mark, matthew and Luke say it was passover, during passover, and John says it was before passover… Not just the feast they observed or a conversation they had, but the actual crucifixion – you should really read the passages.
I never saw you address this, or all of John’s passages.
you busted that contradiction up good by saying “nuh-uh”, but sadly, the contradiction still remains. Your “patch” may hide it for you, but it’s there all the same. You may as well just claim that god was so powerful that he crucified jesus on both days, at the same time, just reinforce his merciful nature.
I cannot tell if you think your arguments are really making me think you’re right, or if you’re really only concerned with convincing yourself.
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Sorry, meant, “if you’d lived a couple of HUNDRED years ago”
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yeah, jesus was the liberal of his day.
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Oops, I had a Rick Perry moment —
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“I should note that my late husband would be alive today were it not for fundamentalist who claimed to be special, chosen, and “in-the-know”. My daughter will never know her father because of people who’ve been deeply indoctrinated are driven by fear and taught that demons and Satan are real. ”
Take your seat in the recliner and tell me more Neuro. The session will be free. It would seem to me that you exhibit a classic response to grief – the coping mechanism of looking for a scapegoat. I think I read something about a suicide but you are talking in tones of a homicide
How long ago was this? If recently then I will not bother debating with you as to who was responsible because if it is still fresh you may need to believe it for awhile longer.
” I first got involved on forums because there were so many Christians who had an intense fear of Satan and demons, much like Gary did.”
Of course there are people who go off the deep end and theres no doubt about it – any position of power is subject to people manipulating it. haven’t you noticed the zeal in which even this thread has gone on to talk poltics? Power corrupts and people who want it will subvert anything that has sway over people. So do you have some people that go off on Hell preaching damnation and destruction at every drop of the hat? Sure.
Does that give you intellectual license to use (what you consider to be) fictitious characters, circular logic and personal analogy to indict all Christianity? Nope not even if this is how you have chosen to cope
Its still illogical and its not going to bring anybody back or help your daughter.
MY sincere condolences to you though.
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Carmencita – mi muñeca no se llama Bianca, pero es un nombre muy bonita – posiblimente puedo cambiarlo (primero, necesito preguntarla) —
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Mike, thanks for your condolences. I bought into the hell hype, myself. I was indoctrinated with it as a child. But I didn’t believe in the Christian god (to my consciousness knowledge) because I feared going to hell. And I didn’t leave Christianity for many years after my partner’s death. It wasn’t until I because a serious student of the bible that I started to question my cultural religion. Deconversion is not for the faint at heart — and many people are simply not willing to go deep enough — for it often comes at a great cost.
You have not gone deep enough. It is quite evident in your comments. I dare you to find the courage to look into the abyss. 🙂
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Correction: It wasn’t until I became a serious student of the bible
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“BuT I dont know what you’re talking about.”
You never do sparky. You never do know much about anything you talk about.
“I cannot tell if you think your arguments are really making me think you’re right,”
and why would I care? slipping back into the delusion that I have appointed you some arbiter of whats right? lol………You the person who barfed that you don’t have to look at the language of the NT because you don’t have the time but want to critique it. 🙂
The passover was an entire feast of eight days in Jesus’ time Sparky not merely one meal. the “preparation day” was a one word noun in greek referring to a day before a sabbath. the second big offering and meal of the passover feast was due on the second day.
your unawareness of how those FACTS destroys your proof of a contradiction doesn’t matter squat to me – only the reality that those facts exist.
they do and so…..
The end to your latest claims.
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“Hope you didn’t snort coffee all over your keyboard!” – Coffee? No. Vodka? Little bit. (Carmen: “THAT explains a lot!)
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arch, that took me awhile – I haven’t looked at any Spanish since I was in Cuba (Feb/13) I knew it would be another guffaw, though!! You do make me laugh!!
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“You have not gone deep enough. It is quite evident in your comments. I dare you to find the courage to look into the abyss.”
Oh please Neuro. I am reminded of Jabba the hut saying – do not try those weak Jedi mind tricks on me.
lol……. Its obvious to me that you hide out on blogs and can’t take serious criticisms of your pretense at being some kind of expert on psychiatry. It doesn’t matter how many years it took your narrative is an excuse to blame Christianity for a dark moment in your life when in a suicide its one person’s decision that is the most critical.
Nothing bails you out of the silliness of your circular logic and the vast emptiness of appealing to characters one place as fictional and at another point taking them as real in order to draw a conclusion
It is the usual psychological ploy of this blog to claim that if you really really studied like we did then you would be on our side. Peddle those wares to someone who has not studied the issues and debated skeptics like yourself for a decade and a half. If anything you have demonstrated how empty and desperate your claims are by appealing to an alleged psycho analysis of an alleged fictional character. Nate almost never writes a post without a huge blunder. William cries and whines like a baby when a fact doesn’t go his way and Arch is mostly too busy genuflecting to the white fairy everything out of nothing to be coherent
You however are in love with your half baked ideas and the dopamine rush from that love has dulled your intellectual capacity. I dare you to find the courage to look into the abyss of your own reasoning processes.
But now I must leave you again to your online world. 🙂
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Carmen, RE: “(Computer dunce just raised her hand)” – scroll down near the bottom of any of Nate’s pages, and click on “How To Format Comments” – at my request, he was kind enough to post how to create various things on a WordPress page. (a couple of them don’t work – loading images and underlining (because Nate’s a LYING, DECEIVING LIBERAL!) – but the rest do, including how to create links to other pages or sites. Good luck!
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Mike, say what ever you will, but the bottom line is that your god didn’t know chit about its creation — not a thing about the brain or biology, or the causes of antisocial behavior — zip, notta. The more I delved into studying the scriptures and science books, the more apparent it became to me of the Bronze Age mentality in the Yahweh god.
I will repeat — you have not gone deep enough. Most likely because you are afraid of what you will find.
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“Kathy (and hundreds just like her) are walking examples of how complete gullibility has somehow become a virtue.” – I think it’s called, “Reverse Ignorance” —
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Thanks for pointing that out, arch. I meant to, but it slipped my mind.
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“You the person who barfed that you don’t have to look at the language of the NT because you don’t have the time but want to critique it.” – mike
no, I do look consult linear translations, but even so, the definitions are provided by scholars. I’m not a scholar of greek or hebrew – I dont think that being a scholar of hebrew or greek is necessary.
Further, whenever you’ve criticized me for not knowing ancient greek or hebrew, i’ve asked you to provide a better translation so that I may correct my error – yet you do not.
Of course, we’ve gone over this numerous times before, but you continue to ignore that and post what amount to lies. Regardless, it seems to me that this line of argumentation is only “noise” you create to try and sidetrack the issues. It’s essentially an admission that the english transliterations we have today say something that you dont like,and so you say they shoudnt trusted, inadvertently creating more issues for your “loving” god who doesnt want any soul to perish.
You’d have us believe that god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, but only provided his corrupted word in greek and hebrew.
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“The passover was an entire feast of eight days in Jesus’ time Sparky not merely one meal. the “preparation day” was a one word noun in greek referring to a day before a sabbath. the second big offering and meal of the passover feast was due on the second day.
your unawareness of how those FACTS destroys your proof of a contradiction doesn’t matter squat to me – only the reality that those facts exist.” – mike
I admit, this is news to me. I still dont think you read all of John. The day of preparation in John is the day before passover – if read John, you’d know that. I suggest that it’s wise to read the entire chapters, it helps you get a sense of the context. Read chapters 13 – 19, then comment, because I think you’re very confused.
AnD I dont think you’re reading anything carefully, as you’re telling me something that I’ve already said addressed, that the passover was basically the start of the feast of unleavened bread.
But what you’re saying doesnt make sense for several reasons, but look at John 19:31, where the men want to take jesus body then, so that they may observe the sabbath. Now you’re saying that this sabbath, was simply saturday and that the current was actually passover…
But Numbers 9 shows that the jews would be unclean and unfit to observe the passover (what you say was this sabbath’s day of preparation) if they handled a dead body. Yet you’re suggesting that since they wanted to be clean for Saturday they were willing to be unclean on an annual feast day?
Brilliant.
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