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 
Sure, Nate.
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@ Josh,
Thanks for those links. I’ll take a look at them later when I have the time. I think because I came from that fundamentalist inerrancy mindset it’s hard for me to read the Bible any other way. I know – that’s not very objective. 😉
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Hey Ruth-
No problem! I didn’t come from a fundamentalist background. I went to church, but my parents certainly didn’t pressure belief or adherence to anything in particular. I believed what I believed, and that was that. It wasn’t until college, when I started doubting and talking with people who poked holes in the Scriptures, that I really took a look at what I believed. I’ve gone through phases of very fundamentalist thinking, but that only led to frustration. Through the entire journey my faith has remained, and gotten stronger in some ways. However, I see there is a lot more mystery involved in God’s revelation than I used to believe. Oddly, that’s kind of where I was when I was younger anyway :). I’ve decided I’m cool with that. Hope the articles are interesting to you!
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I liked being religious when i thought it was real. Once I realized the problems, i’m fine being moral regardless.
things are what they are. If the bible is untrue (which is what i believe), then it’s just untrue and I saw no more reason to pine over that than I would pine over blue a sky or a wet ocean.
same if it were true… I just dont think it is
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Based on what we know regarding Christianity, and what we don’t know: evidence and, notably, lack of evidence, the foundational claims of Christianity can be summarized in a single word.
Lies.
Is there really anything to add?
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Christianity can be summarized in a single word.
Lies.
Is there really anything to add?”
This</a.
"Religion has amazing powers. It can unite people by the millions and turn sadness into joy.
It can sooth the shattered heart and triumph over mountains of contradictory evidence and inspire rapturous belief where none seemed possible before.
Unfortunately, you can say the same thing about lying.
Lies, like salesmen, like gods, need us to believe in them.
But there is always a price.
Religious explanation by necessity maligns us to the truth, until we can't recognize ourselves as beings that took 14 billion years to open our eyes."
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@Neuro
Your post, akin to religious folks who accuse nonbelievers of being dishonest or insincere or unwilling to face the facts, seems to elevate your position to a place of exhaustive knowledge and understanding. There are plenty of very intelligent people who are religious, even after much research. I think, instead of basically calling people in the other camp stupid or unenlightened, which I believe is what your comment does, it might be better to acknowledge that we are all on a journey and are in different places in that journey. It really doesn’t do any good to throw mud – just creates the feeling for the other person that they need to go either on the offensive or defensive. Don’t you think? None of us, at least as far as I’ve been able to tell in many conversations I’ve had, can really say we ‘know’ what is the truth on these subjects. We all go with the best we’ve got based on what we’ve looked at. Putting people down doesn’t help.
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@Josh
Sorry, this is incorrect.
Such folk as you label intelligent have likely been indoctrinated from an early age and can’t see the wood for the trees.
True critical thought makes a believer an atheist. Period. There is no middle ground.
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“That’s fine, Mike. I think William is right that such a standard means that almost nothing counts as a contradiction. Even your suggestion about the women seeing the stone rolled away could be reinterpreted, as William showed. But again, if this is your standard, then okay.”
lol…..Its not my standard Nate its the standard of any genuinely honest human beings. if you wish to exclude yourself then thats fine with me. Generally if you accuse someone of lying and there is a rational explanation for why thy are not then I think most civil reasonable people would say okay I can’t continue to claim you are lying. Its the same standard with contradictions
and please skip trying the spin what I said – this is not about “reinterpreting” this is about what is said in the text and what is not said in the text along with taking into account textual and social context. You had and have nowhere in ANY gospel text where mary or any of the women are said to have seen the stone being rolled away. You assumed it and rather than be honest enough to admit that you instead continue to claim the assumptions stands as valid to the text. So his is not about reinterpreting the text this is about REAL facts about the text and its context, culturally and otherwise that go into properly interpreting an ancient text to begin with.
“My standard is slightly different. For instance, when John 18:28 says the Jews had not yet eaten the Passover, I take that to mean the Passover seder, of which there is one per year.”
It says simply the passover not passover seder and there really nothing you can do about it – the term passover was used for the entire feast. Its exactly as John uses it himself
John 6:4 (KJV)
4 And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.
Further eating the feast is historical to the old testament and referenced to the unleavened bread feast. That conflated passover included all of its meals. You can take it any way you wish but the conflations is well known in and outside of the Bible. Can you beg with any authority that John could not have been conflating the term as he does everywhere else? Sure but it has no weight.
“You said it could have been in reference to the Chagigah. I disagree, as I think it would have then said “Chagigah” instead of “Passover,” but this is just where we disagree.”
It Doesn’t say eat the passover “seder” either so your disagreement means little. You either don’t know or you are pretending that the Chagigah was not part of the passover festival. Fact is it could refer to any main meal or even a reference to not being able to eat any of the passover feast over the 7 days left if you go off Williams contact with the dead angle (if not your point would be even more dead since no other defilement would keep them from eating the passover seder since the defilement would expire at evening ). What tops it off is that John uses the word “preparation day” more times without reference to the passover at all. So the whole case is just weak.
At this point without the wrong idea that the passover was a sabbath you are just begging that because eat is paired with passover it must mean the passover seder and not what we all know to be true – that the passover was the entire feast of 8 days.
Its a beg that just does not work as proof. However I do think I understand your position better now – if you object to my previously stated objective standard. You seem to believe a contradiction is a contradiction based upon what you think/agree on and not upon meeting a standard of proof.
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Hey Ark-
If this is true, then how are we to blame? If indoctrination plus our genetic makeup truly renders some of us incapable of seeing the ‘truth’, then what is to be done about these religious folks you think are so dangerous?
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Look at Nate and any other deconvertee.
Eventually there is only one way to go. Science has been the undoing of myriad religions in the past and will be the undoing of every other …..in time.
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Josh,
Try not to perceive this through your own filter. Did you even watch the video? I’ve been where you are now. You couldn’t have found a more devoted believer. But don’t you think enough is enough? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; having a belief in god is not so much the problem as it is organized religion, and people are trusting and easily programmed (usually during childhood) by their own culture’s religion. Organized religion (authoritarian style) wants you loyal for filthy lucre’s sake. You are only fooling yourself if you think otherwise.
We would not be having this conversation if Christianity, in particular, fundamentalism (Southern Baptist) and the RCC, the two largest Christian denominations in America, were not so hell bent on taking other peoples rights away based on their own interpretation of an ancient book. They can’t leave well enough alone. They can’t keep their beliefs to themselves. They want to cast their seed globally, and have. They want to abuse children by teaching them that genocide is justified if their god did it, and that eternal punishment and hell awaits them them if they don’t obey.
If you are a Christian, why are you not doing something about this? Do you think it’s OK to teach these things? If you believe in the god of the Bible then you are inadvertently supporting these teachings. Now as a nonbeliever, I can create those very cushy, kumbayah feelings you get with belief — as a believer. And I do not need a religion to be a responsible, compassionate, and empathic citizen of this planet.
I understand that some do need to go to church every week, and read the same stuff in their bible over and over, and hear the same sermons on the same subjects for years on end to learn how to behave. I do not. You either get it or you don’t. And if they don’t then there is something neurologically wrong with that person. If they are gathering for the sake of fellowship — fine. We are social creatures. All I ask is this:
Stop lying.
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.
Is that so hard to ask?
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So, are you saying Nate wasn’t actually or fully indoctrinated? Or, that he overcame his indoctrination? How do you suppose it is that some people can research for many years, sometimes their whole lives, and not come to the conclusion that you have? Is it that they aren’t smart enough? Is it that the indoctrination is too strong? And, again, if there really are some people who are incapable of coming the right conclusion, and these people are, as you say, so dangerous, then what is to be done about them?
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“There are plenty of very intelligent people who are religious,….
Sorry, this is incorrect.” -Ark
I actually disagree as well. I do agree that they’ve been indoctrinated in some way, but I think intelligence is often more than simply “is” or “isnt.”
the ability to read well is a sign of intelligence, yet if someone cannot read well doesn’t mean that they are necessarily unintelligent. They could be gifted in math, or whatever…
Plus, being intelligent doesnt imply all knowledge either – so they may be at the beginning of an intellectual journey.
now, i will say that after many of the issues are pointed out, that i cannot understand why people still believe, but even so, a christian engineer may still be a brilliant engineer… no?
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Gary, you said:
“You mentioned that Christianity has more evidence than other religions, but the only evidence you listed was:
“I “know” God is our Creator because of my relationship with Him, because of answered prayers and other ways He has revealed Himself to me in my life.”
Is that the only evidence? Since your relationship is with a Being that you cannot see, touch, or hear speak to you in an audible voice that I too could hear, aren’t you asking me to trust your feelings and intuition as evidence for your God? ”
Gary, you’re picking and choosing which comments of mine to use and respond to.. read all of my comments.
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“This is certainly where I fall, Nate. There are certainly things that don’t match up, and not only in the Gospels or the NT. Here are a couple articles, maybe mostly for Kathy and Mike’s benefit, detailing some ways of understanding the Scriptures in a way that is different than our modern,”
Since you seem to be at least half way reasonable I would be curious to know what you find so compelling against the Bible being what it claims. I have read some of your link and will read more of it but upon looking around its nothing much that I have not seen before. After over a decade and a half of study I have not found anything compelling against the Bible. I think perhaps the only real difficulty would be the genealogies of Jesus and since I never was a Bishop ussher kind of guy and I think they were more for the people of that day it really hasn’t bothered me much.
Besides that most of what these guys have brought up have been pretty lightweight.
What I think most people do not realize is how unique the situation of the Bible is. We have to come into fairly modern times to find four writers talking about one person’s life. So not only do we have a gap in time, language and culture we have a gap in understanding how multiple accounts of a story lead to different perspectives which though different do not contradict.
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Arch said:
“You’re just lucky, Kathy, that that mean, horrible, lying, liberal atheist like Nate, was kind enough to give you as forum to rant on for the past couple of weeks, allowing you to vomit your bile and vehemence. And when you’re gone, the only thing anyone will remember about you will be your abrasive personality – everything you’ve said will be dismissed, because it wasn’t backed with evidence. And yet you fancy yourself quite the debater, clearly you don’t know the difference between a debate and an argument.”
Liberal translation: “WAAAAH!” Hilarious.
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“Try not to perceive this through your own filter. Did you even watch the video? I’ve been where you are now. You couldn’t have found a more devoted believer. ”
ROFL> 🙂 🙂
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“Liberal translation: “WAAAAH!”
LOL….stop…. I was just laughing at Neuro and now you are making my sides hurt.
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Neuro-
It could be that you and Ark and William are right – maybe I simply don’t have what it takes, either intellectually or because of heavy indoctrination, to see the truth. My question to Ark is, what is to be done about me then? If I am one of those unfortunate few who cannot be shown the truth, how does one deal with me then? It seems, from that perspective, it’s unfair for me to indoctrinate my children the same way. But, if effort upon effort to show me the truth fails, then where do we go?
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TBlacks-
I don’t want to assume what you mean here. What is it the Bible claims to be, and where does it claim to be that?
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“ROFL> 🙂 🙂 ”
Why am I not surprised at your response. You seem to think that people in the bible never heard voices from their god. Gee, I wonder how all those manuscripts were written? Who were they taking instructions from, Mike, if it wasn’t the voices in their head?
Ezekiel 37:1-28 ESV
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
Mike — do you hear voices, too?
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Mike, i think you’re not quite right regarding contradictions. The way you’re describing it, a true contradiction is only ever present if every little detail is explicitly described.
And then to say that if there is any conceivable way for it to be true, then you must concede that what you thought was a contradiction or a lie is really the truth. you’ve called a lot of people liars here… but many of those are just you talking and then even if the person you called a liar was incorrect, doesnt necessarily mean they were intentionally incorrect – so shouldnt you refrain from calling people liars?
The context in matthew makes it seem like the women saw the stone rolled away even though there is nothing that specific that literally states that they saw it rolled away with their eyes, although the context seems to imply it.
And I believe that the only reason you claim otherwise is in light of the other gospel accounts, not because of how matthew was written.
But even so, what about the location of the angels at the tomb? Is there no contradiction there, and if not how do you reconcile it? Was it that the angels appeared multiple times and each gospel records a single but separate account? or is that god bent space and time so that the angles and women could be on the rock outside the tomb while they were also off the rock inside the tomb? Since nothing would be impossible for god, then I guess we must accept it as true according your standard?
and could you or Kathy provide what a true contradiction looks like?
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Ruth,
me: “Arch.. WHY would I waste my time looking at your “information” when you can’t even defend the claims you’ve already put forth?? I have no reason to believe your “information” is anything more than a waste of time because you obviously aren’t applying objectivity.. I’ve asked you SEVERAL times now what your explanation is for our existence if not a Supreme Being.. you have not answered this.. so whatever you put forth is just basically a bunch of crap.. same old stuff that I’ve seen/ read / heard before. I have zero confidence in your opinions and judgments due to your lack of objectivity. And I have zero desire to waste so much time reading the endless atheist propaganda. Convince me it won’t be a waste of time.. THEN I’ll consider your recommendations.”
you: “You claim that we all have bias and that we are without objectivity because, even though we’ve read your claims and the miniscule sources you’ve given, we disagree. Yet, out of hand, without even reading the sources you’ve been provided you dismiss it as being “atheist propaganda”. We didn’t even call what you were providing “Christian propaganda”. This does not bode well for your claims of objectivity. ”
Ruth, you are having trouble understanding my comment. Your comment shows this.
You said: “You claim that we all have bias and that we are without objectivity because, even though we’ve read your claims and the miniscule sources you’ve given, we disagree.”
This is factually wrong and supported by my very own words in my comments. I’ve given DETAILED reasons, using the words of those I’ve accused, to back up my accusations. What evidence did you give to back up your claim up above? My words that do NOT support your claim.
What you and others are failing to grasp about my comment is that I CAN’T read everyone’s links and long winded words that make claims WITHOUT giving their sources..(I’m just supposed to take their word for it).. it’s too much and I’ve actually got other things to do.. you know, those things that sustain life and living requirements.
As I pointed out to Nate, if I give you all 2 pages or 10 pages of links that I claim support my view, and you don’t read them, then that means YOU lack objectivity. This is a simple issue of discretion that you are having trouble with. When or IF Arch gives me reason to believe he is applying objectivity.. OR if he AT LEAST provides his sources to I can have SOME kind of confidence that I’m not wasting my time reading leftist propaganda, then it’s VERY reasonable to expect me to take it into consideration.
Ruth, I GAVE an example of Arch’s lack of objectivity.. right in my comment that YOU quoted!
I asked him time and time again to give a better explanation for our existence since he continuously ridicules my explanation.. he hasn’t given me ANY answer.. nothing but crickets! If he doesn’t have an answer.. FINE.. that’s OK! Yes.. read that AGAIN.. THAT’S OK!
Just ADMIT it and then we can move on.. a lack of admission or an answer DEMONSTRATES A LACK OF OBJECTIVITY.
Sorry for the all caps.. I’m not yelling.. I’m emphasizing because the first hundred times I’ve made the point.. it went in one ear and out the other. 😦
So, bottom line, I’ve given evidence to support my claims.. over and over. I can’t force you all to “drink” the water.. sooner or later, I’ve got to walk away and leave you to die of thirst.. there’s nothing else I can do.
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Neuro-
I think I missed something. I didn’t know there was a video. I was responding to what you wrote. Maybe this just goes to prove the point about my intelligence 🙂
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