About

303 thoughts on “About”

1. hey man, I like the blog. Great first article. I hope this reaches a lot of people.

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2. I love your site, unless you object I’m going to add you to my blog list.

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3. I don’t object at all… Thanks!

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4. I am disappointed and distressed to see that you are spreading your poisonous assumptions and theories as publicly as you can. i am ashamed of you and can only hope that your efforts to lead others away from God will fail.

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5. Perhaps we should hope that we all succeed at recognizing the truth, whether it be found in the bible or elsewhere.

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6. Pingback: Frustrated « Finding Truth

7. I love reading your thoughts as well. I’d like to add you to my blog roll. Keep on seeking and speaking the truth.

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8. I couldn’t figure out how to e-mail you, so I’ll post here. It is awfully nice of you to place Enough Light on your blog roll!! I appreciate it. I am thinking about adding you to mine, but i have a fear that it could send you “embarrassing Christians” that are not kind or diplomatic. Watcha think? Let me know.

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9. Hey thanks! I’m okay with whatever you decide. If you’re comfortable listing my blog, I don’t mind at all. I’m okay with comments from anyone who might come by here from your link. However, I would also understand if you think that what I write here isn’t what your readers would (or should) read. When I was a believer, I was very careful about who I linked to here — I didn’t want to lead people to something that I thought might be bad for them. So if you worry about that at all, I totally understand, and it doesn’t bother me. So really, whatever you’re comfortable with sounds good to me. Thanks again!

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10. I have a question for you – but it’s kind of personal so don’t feel obligated to answer. Another exChristian friend of mine brought up an interesting question. We were talking about personality tests such as Myers-Briggs and the DISC personality profile. He was wondering if people who have deconverted might have similar personality profiles. On the DISC one he and I were quite similar and I was curious if you might be as well. It would certainly be a factor in our discussions with believers if there are very different personality profiles in one group compared to the other. He got me curious about the issue as well so I thought I’d ask 🙂

    Also I just had to share. Over at BitterSweet End – there was a thread where you were discussing whether people like you and I could ever get into heaven (if it existed). Ever since I became an atheist I’ve had this funny image in my head of an atheist heaven where the laughter and discussions are just amazing! When I read that thread the other day I had this image of showing up at heaven’s gate and god says, ‘Ah crap! Traffic was awful! Sorry I didn’t make it down in time! (That might explain his hiddenness – lol!) Then he has me follow him into a bar/restaurant and calls out that there’s one more for the Hitchens’ table 😀 Wouldn’t that be awesome??

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11. Hi Nate 🙂

    Regarding alleged Bible contradictions –

    I’d be interested to know what are your thoughts are to the answers given on this website?

    http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/bible.htm#56

    I find it to be a thorough overview of most if not all

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12. Sorry, I’ll correct that:

    I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are to the answers given on this website

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13. @Brenda
    That’s an interesting point about personality tests — I hadn’t thought about that. I could definitely see it being a factor. I haven’t taken one in a long time, so I’ll see if one of those is online somewhere and let you know.

    @Ryan
    Thanks for the link. I haven’t run across that particular site before, but I’ll check it out and let you know what I think.

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14. @Ryan
    He actually seems to think that this one might be a true contradiction. It’s one I’ve posted about before too. You can find my take on it here.

    In #69, he tackles whether or not the birth narratives of Jesus match up. I disagree with his solution. If he’s right, why doesn’t Luke mention any of that? Luke just says that once they performed everything according to the Law (here, he’s referring to their presentation of Jesus at the temple), they returned to their home in Galilee. Doesn’t match Matthew’s account.

    In #76, he tries to answer the issue of the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. I completely disagree with his assessment of it. It’s just not true that John used Roman time and Mark used Jewish. You can read my problems with it here.

    #79 is about Judas. I disagree with him on this one as well. If you’d like to read my thoughts on it, you can find them here. The same goes for #80.

    I also disagree with his answer in #88. Traveling to Galilee from Jerusalem is not just some quick little jaunt. I still think this passage is problematic. If it were the only issue in the Bible, then I could overlook it, but it’s just one of many.

    Those are just the ones I’ve had time to look at so far. They’re pretty much the same explanations that I’ve seen in apologetic works. Personally, I don’t find them very reasonable. However, I do agree with him that many of the “contradictions” he’s had to write about aren’t true contradictions at all. Many of them are just places where people have taken things out of context in order to create uncertainty about the Bible. I hate that kind of thing — it’s not being fair. The Bible is either true, or it isn’t. We shouldn’t have to resort to misquotes in order to establish it one way or the other. We should take it as it is. If it’s true, then we should all want to know that. If it’s false, then we should want to know that too.

    I appreciate your providing this link. I’ll check it out further when I have more time.

    Thanks!

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15. Thanks

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16. As I’ve expressed on Thebiblereaders blog

    I’ve decided to trust Christ. When the big things happen in life (health,life,death) all rationalising, debates and discussion falls away.

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17. I think I understand where you’re coming from. Do you feel like your position is really one of faith or is it based more on hope? I don’t want that question to sound critical or insensitive, because I don’t mean it that way at all. I’m honestly curious. I’ve been able to tell that you’re a very sincere person, and you’re polite enough, knowledgeable enough, and wise enough to know that there are at least some gray areas where the Bible’s concerned. Your last comment makes it sound like you’ve struggled with some difficult questions and haven’t found satisfactory answers. Is that fairly accurate?

    I really struggled for a while when I went through my deconversion. It’s not easy to question the things you’ve always held as facts about reality. For quite a while, I knew that I had found enough problems with the Bible that I would reject it if it had only been another religion’s holy book. In other words, if I had found the same problems with the Book of Mormon or the Koran, I would have felt that they proved those books were not divine in any way. But it was harder for me to come to that conclusion about the Bible.

    Why? Obviously, the answer is easy: I had never believed the Koran or Book of Mormon anyway, but I had always accepted the Bible as absolute truth. I knew that was inconsistent. Muslims would be able to dismiss the Bible or the Book of Mormon easily — but show them problems with the Koran, and they’ll still find reasons to believe it. I was no different. My natural inclination was to make excuses for the Bible. But I knew deep down that even if I did make excuses, it wouldn’t change the truth — the Bible was just as fallible as those other books. So I could have decided to hold onto Christianity and try to forget about the problems I had found, but what would I really gain by doing that?

    Anyway, that was my experience. Your last comment sounded familiar to me — but I may just be reading too much into it.

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18. Ryan

    I appreciate how you’ve been willing to interact with us and hear us out in a really respectful manner. Many Christians would have been afraid to engage in discussions with us at all.

    It’s interesting that you mentioned life, death, and health because it was the death of someone close to me that drove me into Christianity and then 20 years later the death of someone close to me that started my questioning and eventual exit from Christianity. Big life events certainly do cause us to evaluate life in a whole new light but in my case they sparked discussion and debate for me.

    I wish you the best.

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19. Thanks Nate and Brenda,

    I appreciate you both. Thanks for taking the time to discuss these questions.

    I still plan to post and continue discussions but atm I have a responsibility to finish my uni work off, which I’ve been avoiding J

    In regards to your questions Nate, I admit that it is faith and what I have experienced in my very young life (I’m only 23). But still I don’t think age should be an excuse, and it doesn’t mean a belief or a person’s faith is falsehood.

    I’m not trying to close my eyes to evidence, its just to me it seems that the evidence we have in this world is moved in different directions to justify different speculations. People can claim to prove or deny God with the same evidence. As far as I know I have seen no evidence (evidence that of itself) that denies God.

    I pray that you and your families have happiness and health 🙂

    All the best, I hope we all draw closer to truth

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20. Nate,

    I know I haven’t really answered your questions. Sorry for that. But I need to finish my uni.

    There are still many things I don’t understand regarding The Bible but I have to make a decision, or I won’t be able to move forward. This doesn’t mean I will avoid questions, it just means that I have decided to trust God. I know this may sound like im opting out but I bleive its the exact opposite.

    Thanks again to you both, for your time and openess

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21. ironically, I am avoiding your question you posted above, this is not due to it being too confronting 🙂 its just I need to focus my energy and time on this other work or im going to let myself down.

    If I had more time I would like to answer all your questions (not sure how right I would be 🙂 ) and I would like to think Ill come back and answer them, but I won’t make any promises.

    look forward to continuing to read and discuss things.

    see you on the other side of my assignment 🙂

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22. I did actually pray those things before, I don’t like saying things if I don’t mean them

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23. I wrote this on another blog, but I think it is sums up some thoughts I have

    To be frank I don’t find everything I read in scripture to be comforting, there are times where I actually would be more comforted if I believed that there was no life after this.

    I don’t think I am compromising my reasoning ability, I would actually find it more convenient to believe that there were no eternal consequences to our beliefs. Why Hell?

    I am comforted by Salvation through Christ shedding His Blood, but what about other people? What if people reject God? I personally don’t find this comforting at all. This is actually one of my biggest struggles regarding my understanding of scripture.

    I mean, is it just selfish to walk through a crowd feeling secure and engaging with people, knowing that what they believe according to your understanding puts them in danger of separation from God – lets not tip toe around it: Hell.

    I wasn’t “indoctrinated” into faith, I didn’t grow up in a church. Although I went to a Catholic school, I didn’t fully understand the relevance behind the traditions. I have friends from all sorts of different backgrounds, so this question of belief is a big question for me.

    I’m not exclusively just in a Christian “circle”, although I am part of such communities, but even they are made up of people who don’t necessarily believe in certain parts of scripture.

    One of the things that bothers me is that if your brought up a Christian, and you parents and immediate family are Christian then that can put you in quite a comfortable position (if you don’t think outside your backyard). There might be a few “black sheep” in the family, but if most of your family have accepted and believe in Christ (or you assume they do/have), therefore they are saved and life is great.

    However, what about the hundreds of thousands of people who are born into families of different religions?

    My belief is that God is just, and He will share His message to them somehow, whether it is in this life, or after they have died.

    But it still bothers me.

    So yes I am comforted through Christ,

    But I don’t think I am holding onto a convenient belief

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24. I appreciate your thoughts Ryan. You know, on BibleReader’s blog, I suggested he read The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. I think you might get a lot out of that too. He was a deist (there were very few atheists back then). Much of what you said in your last comment reminded me of the way deists tend to view the world. They do believe there is a god, but all of the revealed religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc) seem problematic to them. I think you would identify with them in many ways. I highly suggest reading Paine’s book, and you can also check out deism.com. There are some great articles there.

    The issues you have with Hell are the same things I struggled with early on. I remember listening to the reports about the tsunami in Myanmar, listening to the horrific death toll, and thinking that on top of all that, I believed most of those people were going to Hell! What a tragedy! Many of the people there lived in poverty and had little education. Why would God strike them with such a terrifying death and then send them to Hell too? If any group of people needed mercy, or more time to “find the truth,” it was them.

    Of course, I finally came to believe that there was no such thing as Hell. The tragedy of that tsunami was still horrible, but at least I wasn’t trying to fit it into a system that was supposed to make sense.

    I understand where you’re coming from. It’s difficult dealing with these big questions, but kudos to you for tackling them.

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25. Thanks, I plan to read it.

    I wouldn’t say I’m a deist, but I think i understand what you mean

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