Figuring Out Religion

[dualstow]

Ah, Ricky Linderman. That was a great movie, 'My Bodyguard.'

...
I recently watched a fascinating show on Natural Geographic about how there actually is evidence of mass destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah but I think it is a big mistake to conclude that this proves that the Bible story is true. I think it only proves that there was some kind of real mass destruction in those cities that the Biblical legend drew upon.

Right. I've probably posted about it before, but some fellow college-aged students approached me in the 90s about possibly getting together for a Bible talk. One of the selling points was how Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, "and there is evidence that something happenened on that date, like an E-clipse or something."

"Well, maybe the astronomical event happened first and the story of Joshua came later, after people observed it."

"Yes..that would be another way of looking at it."
_____
One theory about Jews (and later, Muslims) not eating pork was due to trichinosis. No better way to get people to behave than to have a holy injunction against it.

[Mountaineer]

Did God unjustly kill (in reference to MT's 20 items from the First Testament)?  Here are a few thoughts on that subject:  http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html

Thanks be to God that Jesus came to forgive ALL our sins, EVERYONE's.  Believers in Jesus' promises do not have to worry about the God of wrath anymore - WE ARE GOOD TO GO!  When we look at the cross, the God of wrath is behind the cross, shielded by Jesus.  When God looks at the cross, he sees Jesus, not we sinful beings on the other side of the cross deserving of His wrath.  I have laid my sins at the foot of the cross, have you or do they still burden you?

On a slightly different subject, Christianity is not for the faint of heart, even though believers will have a wonderful eternity.  We have been promised that we will be persecuted and suffer for Jesus' sake while on this earth.  http://www.openbible.info/topics/persecution

... M

[dualstow]

When we look at the cross, the God of wrath is behind the cross, shielded by Jesus.

You make it sound like he's a vampire.

[Mountaineer]

When we look at the cross, the God of wrath is behind the cross, shielded by Jesus.

You make it sound like he's a vampire.

If you wish to believe that, go for it.  I think God has a great sense of humor, especially when he reads comments like that.  He will definitiely have the last laugh though. 

... M

[dualstow]

  I think God has a great sense of humor, especially when he reads comments like that.  He will definitiely have the last laugh though. 

Perhaps, but I hope not.

[MediumTex]

When we look at the cross, the God of wrath is behind the cross, shielded by Jesus.

You make it sound like he's a vampire.

Or maybe an alcoholic abusive vampire father.

So Jesus is the voice of reason and basically talks his dad down from killing more humans when he gets frustrated with us?

And yet God and Jesus are the same being?

And even though they are the same being, God let Jesus be tortured and murdered and decompose in the the tomb for three days before bringing him back to life?  How do you do that to yourself?  I guess it's not hard if it's the same thing you have been doing to the creatures you created for thousands of years (i.e., torturing and killing them periodically for seemingly no reason).

* NOTE: The list of 20 OT atrocities was just a list I lifted from another website.  I didn't put it together myself (though I might write a rap sometime based on God's violent tendencies).

Mountaineer, how can you say that God's thuggin' days are behind him if the NT opens up for the first time this fiery eternal pit of suffering called Hell?  Isn't the whole concept of eternal suffering far more brutal than simply killing some people here and there when you get mad?  From my perspective, the NT offers a far more severe and totalitarian form of religion than the OT because the NT deals in terms of eternity, whereas humans weren't immortal in the OT and when they died they just got buried, as Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes.

[Mountaineer]

1 - Mountaineer, how can you say that God's thuggin' days are behind him if the NT opens up for the first time this fiery eternal pit of suffering called Hell? 

2 - Isn't the whole concept of eternal suffering far more brutal than simply killing some people here and there when you get mad? 

3 - From my perspective, the NT offers a far more severe and totalitarian form of religion than the OT because the NT deals in terms of eternity, whereas humans weren't immortal in the OT and when they died they just got buried, as Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes.

MT, I'll address your three question, then offer a comment.

1. I do not believe I said that.  I believe I said that Jesus came to forgive all sin from all time for believers.  If you choose to focus on the past instead of the future, so be it.

2. I do not know from God's perspective, I am not God.  From a sinful human's perspective, both sound pretty bad if I were on the receiving end.  Thanks be to God that He is a God of mercy for those He has chosen, the believers, according to His Word - the promises of Jesus.

3. You are certainly entitled to your opinion.  I believe Scripture indicates ALL those who died in the past will rise again on the Last Day, a.k.a. Judgement Day.  Some (perhaps most) will be destined for Hell, some some (i.e. those who enter through the narrow gate?) will be destined for eternal life with God.

My comment.  From my perspective, your questions and comments strongly indicate "you want to be God".  Maybe said another way, you are unwilling for whatever reason to let go and let God be in charge.  I know it will likely sound hollow to you, but I sincerely hope God chooses to open your ears to hear His Word.  You seem like a really nice guy with so much to offer.  I don't know what happened in your life to make you so in tune to only see the God of wrath and so out of tune to seeing the God of mercy.  Whatever it was/is, I really hope you get some peace.

Blessings, Dude! 

... M

[Fred]

Did God unjustly kill (in reference to MT's 20 items from the First Testament)?  Here are a few thoughts on that subject:  http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html

Thanks be to God that Jesus came to forgive ALL our sins, EVERYONE's.  Believers in Jesus' promises do not have to worry about the God of wrath anymore - WE ARE GOOD TO GO!  When we look at the cross, the God of wrath is behind the cross, shielded by Jesus.  When God looks at the cross, he sees Jesus, not we sinful beings on the other side of the cross deserving of His wrath.  I have laid my sins at the foot of the cross, have you or do they still burden you?

On a slightly different subject, Christianity is not for the faint of heart, even though believers will have a wonderful eternity.  We have been promised that we will be persecuted and suffer for Jesus' sake while on this earth.  http://www.openbible.info/topics/persecution

... M

The more I read your posts the more I become convinced that you represent a faction of Christianity that exhibits a form of extreme psychopathology. Instead of anger I'm starting to feel real sympathy for you. Obviously, since I'm not a believer, I can't tell you I'm praying for you but I do hope that some day you will get the professional help you so obviously need and can find some real peace of mind in this world.

[Greg]

Hello all and good evening. I've been reading up on Christian apologetics, and I found this to be an interesting block quote below regarding any/all religions and the spiritual laziness of most of today's people:

http://www.allaboutgod.com/evidential-apologetics.htm

"Because Personal Experience Alone Makes All Religions Equal
In fact, if all that matters in religion is personal experience—"it works for me"—Biblical truth is as irrelevant as political opinions are negotiable. Then any kind of god or religion suffices. Christians can insist that Jesus is the only way to God, but that's no different from the devotees of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism saying the same of their founder. Each finds his leader essential to him; each in high dudgeon disputes any Christian's reference to Jesus Christ as superior to all. In fact, personal experience is useful to discipleship only as kindling to fire. It can strike a spark that begins, but needs logs to build, the blaze. Apologetics provides the logs!

However, even if some Christians admit we cannot build a Biblical faith on personal experience alone, will they turn for ultimate proof to the apologetic that stresses Jesus Christ as the God-Man whose life and ministry Matthew, Mark, Luke and John flawlessly recorded? Not necessarily; and for an obvious reason. As Christian apologists have discovered, the mind-set in many churches, rooted ever-deeper by 40 years of marshmallow preaching—soft, sweet, doctrinally vaporous—has left believers with flabby or atrophied spiritual brain cells. And the mental effort needed to reactivate them as spiritual muscles of the Holy Spirit-generated apologetic proves intimidating. Particularly since their feel-good pabulum has given them more contentment than Carnation's cows; and their feel-good experiences have been so embraceably cost-and effort-free. For why bother with thinking as the basis of our witness when we can merely make a throne room of our heart from which religious feelings can rule us and convince others? "

Also, MediumTex's points the other day hit me pretty hard regarding finding more information on why there wouldn't be more historical non-christian documents for evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. So I've been praying more about finding the answers that I seek and found some more information such as this for now:
http://beginningandend.com/jesus-exist- ... us-christ/
http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient ... an-sources

I'd like to find more that tells about the resurrection because that's one of the if not the most important piece of evidence showing he was much greater than a normal man.

As always, while I may be downtroddened at times as to what I read from others, and the confusion we all have, I appreciate that we're all searching for truth. I thank those again for posting their thoughts as we all try to grow our collective wisdom.

Update: Added another link: http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/his ... surrection

[dualstow]

Christians can insist that Jesus is the only way to God, but that's no different from the devotees of Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism saying the same of their founder.

Herein lies the crux of the problem with Mountaineer telling me that "God will have the last laugh", i.e. people like me are bound for the Lake of Fire.
If you gather together a Mountaineer from each of 7 religions, each with an analagous Jesus and an equally painful Hell, who's to say who's right? "Well, I'm right", Mountaineer might say. "Only the Christian/Jesus door leads to salvation." Open the Jewish or Muslim or Zoroastrian door and you'll be on the staircase to Perdition.
"No, I'm right", says Ahmed. "Christians are unbelievers. Jesus was a prophet but only Mohammed & Allah will get you into Paradise."
<shrug>

I'd like to find more that tells about the resurrection because that's one of the if not the most important piece of evidence showing he was much greater than a normal man.

Have you read about the resurrection of Osiris? It's older than the New Testament and was probably plagiarized. Actually, there are a lot of resurrection stories that predate Christ's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris

[Pointedstick]

I think we can all admit that we choose our beliefs based on what is emotionally appealing to us and then go hunting for evidence. I do it, we all do it.

What I am really interested in knowing is why your brand of Christianity is emotionally appealing to you. You mentioned that you weren't a Christian for two decades, but then changed. I have to think that what changed was that suddenly you were receptive to the message, which is another way of saying that you were emotionally ready to hear it.

I ask because this the emotional appeal of fundamentalist Christianity (as you said, it's all-or-nothing, and I think you're right) is the thing I still feel like I cannot understand. To me, the emotional core of the religion is repulsive, barbaric, and manipulative. It's intensely judgmental, with the punishment being eternal torture--a fate that is currently being suffered by most of the humans who have ever lived. The requirement for total faith and submission to an unknowable, unprovable higher power that has never manifested itself to me is highly unappealing. The central theme of forgiveness rings hollow because what I am being forgiven for is something that I was born with and that in fact the forgiver did to me deliberately, not through any fault of my own, but because of one action taken by one person 5,000 years ago. The notion that doubt is dangerous because it imperils your escape from the aforementioned eternal torment seems like the kind of thing a cult says to scare its members out of leaving.


None of it is in the least bit emotionally appealing to me. Can you help me understand what you see in it?

[Mountaineer]

Pardon the CAPS, but responding in CAPS to all your comments is easier for me than voluminous quotes.  And, pardon me for sharing my comments if you wanted only Desert to respond.  I was not quite sure.

I think we can all admit that we choose our beliefs based on what is emotionally appealing to us and then go hunting for evidence. I do it, we all do it. 

CHRISTIANITY IS, TO ME, IS MUCH MORE INTELLECTUAL THAN EMOTIONAL - IT IS KEY TO REALLY STUDY AND LEARN, NOT JUST HAVE A FEEL GOOD MOMENT LIKE LISTENING TO YOUR FAVORITE SONG.  FOR EXAMPLE, A PASTOR MAY HAVE A HORRIBLY DELIVERED SERMON THAT IS TRUE TO THE WORD THAT I "FEEL" LITTLE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO, BUT THE PROCLAIMED WORD AND THE LITURGY WHICH IS EXTREMELY WELL THOUGHT OUT - DEVELOPED OVER MORE THAN A THOUSAND YEARS - CARRY THE DAY.  IF I GO TO A ROUSING, EMOTIONAL, FEELING GOOD SERMON/SERVICE, WELL, THAT IS JUST ICING ON THE CAKE AND A BONUS.

SOUNDS LIKE THIS IS ADDRESSED TO DESERT - What I am really interested in knowing is why your brand of Christianity is emotionally appealing to you. You mentioned that you weren't a Christian for two decades, but then changed. I have to think that what changed was that suddenly you were receptive to the message, which is another way of saying that you were emotionally ready to hear it.

I ask because this the emotional appeal of fundamentalist Christianity (as you said, its all-or-nothing, and I think you're right) is the thing I still feel like I cannot understand.  CAN'T ADDRESS THIS AS I HAVE RARELY AND NOT RECENTLY ATTENDED A FUNDAMENTALIST SERVICE.

To me, the emotional core of the religion is repulsive, barbaric, and manipulative. It's intensely judgmental, with the punishment being eternal torture--a fate that is currently being suffered by most of the humans who have ever lived. I'M SORRY YOU FEEL THIS WAY, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE GROUNDED WAY MORE IN THE GOD OF WRATH (AS IS MEDIUM TEX),  THE GOD OF MERCY HAS NOT MADE HIMSELF KNOWN TO YOU.  YOUR TAKE ON THE MANIPULATIVE GOD IS NOT LIKE MINE, EVEN WHEN I STUDY THE AWFUL THINGS THE UNBELIVERS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT BROUGHT ON THEMSELVES.

The requirement for total faith and submission to an unknowable, unprovable higher power that has never manifested itself to me is highly unappealing.  WHY DO YOU HAVE THE IDEA IT REQUIRES TOTAL FAITH?  THAT IS SOMETHING THAT DEVELOPS WITH HEARING THE WORD - I DO NOT THINK THE ONLY TWO STATES ARE 0% AND 100% FAITH.  SUBMISSION, WELL, YES, THAT IS DESIRABLE, OTHERWISE IT PROBABLY MEANS YOU WANT TO BE GOD.

The central theme of forgiveness rings hollow because what I am being forgiven for is something that I was born with and that in fact the forgiver did to me deliberately, not through any fault of my own, but because of one action taken by one person 5,000 years ago.  THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF SIN - ORIGINAL SIN IS DUE TO WHAT ADAM AND EVE DID.  ACTUAL SIN IS WHAT YOU DO IN THOUGHT, WORD, AND DEED.  NO ONE IS SINLESS (EXCEPT JESUS) AND THUS ALL ARE IN NEED OF FORGIVENESS, EVEN IF YOU DISCOUNT THE ORIGINAL SIN.  YOU MAY NOT HAVE MURDERED SOMEONE, BUT MY GUESS IS YOU HAVE LOOKED AT A WOMAN LUSTFULLY FOR A SECOND OR TWO, YOU HAVE HAD ROAD RAGE, YOU HAVE OVER EATEN, YOU HAVE SOMEHOW TRASHED GOD'S CREATION OR CREATURES IN SOME WAY, ETC.

The notion that doubt is dangerous because it imperils your escape from the aforementioned eternal torment seems like the kind of thing a cult says to scare its members out of leaving.  PLEASE REFER TO THE COMMENTS I MADE ABOUT DOUBT EARLIER - EVERYONE DOUBTS.  WE ARE BY NATURE BORN TO DESPISE GOD AND REBEL AGAINST HIM - THAT IS SCRIPTURAL.  IN BAPTISM YOU RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT WHOSE JOB IS TO MAKE JESUS KNOWN TO YOU.  HEARING THE WORD REDUCES BUT LIKELY DOES NOT EVER COMPLETELY REMOVE AN OCCASIONAL DOUBT.

None of it is in the least bit emotionally appealing to me. Can you help me understand what you see in it?  DON'T KNOW IF I HELPED OR HURT - I DO TRY. 

2 Peter 1:2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

... M

[Pointedstick]

Thanks Mountaineer, but that's sort of not what I was looking for. As always, you've explained your religion's doctrines faithfully, but I'm afraid you didn't really explain why Christianity is appealing to you. What makes you accept and cherish these doctrines and teachings rather than recoiling from them?

[Pointedstick]

That's for the explanations, Desert. They help me understand a bit, but I have some comments. I hope they don't come off as refutations, because we're talking about feelings here and I really am not trying to say that anything you feel is wrong!

1. Christianity is true.  I used to say, as a non-Christian, that I didn't care what someone believed or had faith in, I only cared about what was true, no matter the consequences.  I think I still feel the same way, though I'm more aware of human biases than maybe I was a couple decades ago.  I think Christianity is true, and since I think it's true, I want to be a part of it.

This makes sense to me, since you're a smart person, and smart people like to believe things that they think are true. I guess I might say the same thing if I believed it was true.

2. Christianity explains everything in the world.  This is hugely important for me.  When I look around at the world and the people in it, it all makes sense to me, in a Christian context.  I do have doubts, and I do struggle with some of the choices God has made.  But in general, when I look around the world at both the good and the bad in it, it makes so much sense to me now.  I hope this doesn't sound prideful ... it's not like I think I have some inside track on wisdom, I just have the Bible, books and people in my life that have given me a new view of the world.

This is interesting to me because I feel like the world is already explicable. I never find myself wondering, "Why did that happen!?!?! What's going on??" Or anything like that. Before you found Christianity, did you have those kinds of thoughts? Did you feel like parts of the world made no sense?

3. I like Christians.  Yes, this is opposite how I used to feel.  But as I meet and befriend more and more Christians, they are making a huge, positive difference in my life.  I was surrounded by a pretty legalistic, even sadistic group as a kid.  I'm not sure why or how that played out that way.  My brother and sister both agree with me on that, so I don't think it's only my opinion.  Unfortunately, there are people who grossly misunderstand and misuse the word of God, and they cause real damage.  Not that I blame my whole period of unbelief on them; I also had some specials sins I wanted to hold onto, and that had a very erosive effect on my belief.

I completely understand this because I like most Christians too. For the most part, I have found them to be hardworking, honest, dependable, and sincere in their personal lives. I still feel like I don't understand how these kinds of traits come from such a blood-soaked religion, because I feel like I have them myself and have had many experiences of religious people (and especially Mormons) sort of not comprehending how I can exist because they are used to people with my traits only being Christians. This has happened many times in my life… but that's another story.

4. I like being a part of the most important mission on earth.  It's an amazing feeling to have the God of the universe reaching down to a puny person like me, and allowing me to be a small part of spreading the gospel on earth.  This is probably #1 in my list, by importance.

I understand that within the bounds of Christianity, this is the most important mission (saving people from Hell), but does it ever bother you that the mission is only important in the first place because God set things up in that way?  It seems sort of like being ordered by your general to defuse a minefield that he had ordered laid and was continuing to spread elsewhere. I feel like I might get pissed with the general for bringing about the negative conditions that necessitated the mission in the first place. Even if I followed his orders and liked him personally, I feel like it would kind of tick me off.

5. I like knowing that God cares about my son, and will be with him when I'm gone from this earth.  Honestly, this played a big part in me being open to Christianity.  It seems so long ago now, but it was huge for me.  At the risk of being hyperbolic, I feel like God sent my son into my life, and used him and the subsequent challenges to open my closed heart.  My son was also the second person I told, when I realized I was a Christian.  It was a huge step for me, maybe the biggest step so far, because I was so against any kind of brainwashing of his developing mind.
6. I like the Bible.  Not all of it, I have to admit.  But I still remember the first time I read it, actually believing it was God's word.  It was amazing.

I'm not sure I really understand this. I mean, I get that as a Christian, you believe that God cares about everyone, but how is your son different or special? Doesn't it bother you how God didn't seem to care at all about the children he killed or ordered killed himself in the Bible? I feel like it would bother me that God had killed millions of children in the past over things like the sins of their parents or accidents of birth. I feel like I would worry that the same thing could happen to my son if I ever strayed from the Christian path. This is where the doubt thing comes in. If I were a Christian, and I started to have doubts, that would probably make me feel like my salvation was in jeopardy, and along with it, the metaphysical protection granted to my dependents--one of those apologetics articles tried to explain how it was merciful of God to kill children after he had killed their parents for their sins, because otherwise they would die of starvation, and a quick death was preferable. Clearly if I ever lost Jesus, then I would be unforgiven, which means that I could be killed at will, which would mean that my children could suffer that fate themselves--including the part about eternal torment--out of mercy.

7. I like the "experts."  Preachers, scientists, apologists, etc.  I have a real hunger to hear from these people.  There are many of them, they're amazingly well-educated, and with the internets and such, it's all at my fingertips.  I'm like a kid in a candy store.

This is one I feel like I do not share or understand. Most of these figures are pretty repulsive to me. They either feel fake, or come off as arrogant in how much faith they have in their own message. I rarely sense any humility in typical apologetics--just zeal to spread the message.

[dualstow]

It is difficult, I agree.  But is the right conclusion to say that they're all wrong?  Or would it be prudent to study in more detail? 

Oh, I wouldn't conclude that they're all wrong, but I would assert that it's impossible for a mere mortal to know which door is the right one.

http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/is ... mythology/

Thanks for that! Will read this evening.

[Mountaineer]

Thanks Mountaineer, but that's sort of not what I was looking for. As always, you've explained your religion's doctrines faithfully, but I'm afraid you didn't really explain why Christianity is appealing to you. What makes you accept and cherish these doctrines and teachings rather than recoiling from them?

PS,

Perhaps this will give you a feel from someone on another forum I read (he gave his name on that forum but I have not asked for his permission to post it - his post below is in the public domain so I think it is OK to use it).  I'll hold my personal comments for now since Desert did a fantastic job of expressing much of what I think.  I think this will reinforce my previous statement about "Christianity is not for the faint of heart".    I think the discussion below may give you insights from a perspective of a declared homosexual on "why Christianity" and a lot of feeling based material in addition to the truth as he states it.  The video he refers to was by a (former Pastor according to another poster who responded but I'm not positive) Pastor who changed his views on homosexuality - not really relevant to your questions but here is the link in case you are interested.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqYvkVqVLFo

... M


I feel kind of embarrassed responding to the video as the amount of overtime I have put in at work the last 2 or 3 months has made it impossible to read, much less respond to, posts I made on another thread about homosexuality and the Gospel.  Kind of feel I should look those up before posting again.  But in any case....

Obviously, I came to different conclusion than Pastor Cortez.  As I said before on the forums, when I realized I was gay as a teen, I looked carefully at the Bible to see what it says about sex and marriage and came to the conclusion that the Bible clearly does not support sexual relations between two guys.  It was, however, not the 6 or 7 "clobber passages" that speak most directly against homosexual sex that led me to that conclusion.  Rather it was the fact that in the thousands of passages regarding marriage and upholding it as a good and wonderful gift of God, not one ever even hinted that a marriage between two guys was intended or blessed by God.  It may have been easier for me to reach that conclusion since I was demanding the sacrifice of loneliness and celibacy for myself rather than requiring it of someone else.

That being said there are three points Pastor Cortez makes that every conservative pastor and church leader should take strongly to heart:

1) He talks about how, when he was dealing with every other counseling situation, he felt he was giving words of life but when he was counseling homosexuals, he felt he was giving a message of dread.  This is absolutely true.  Sorry, but when the Bible speaks of dying to self and rising again, I can only identify with the dying to self.  And I suspect most celibate gay conservative Christians would say much the same thing.  Certainly in the 30 some years and the thousand or more fellow gay people I have spoken to, I have found very few celibate gay people who have felt much joy in their Christian walk.  There is very little sense of "being raised with Christ" and a lot of loneliness and dying to self.

2) He mentions how his gay son said he hated himself. Bingo.  Once again, I hear this over and over from celibate gay Christians, including myself.

3) He talks about how his son said something on his 16th birthday about this being the first birthday he had had in recent years where he had not felt ashamed or had looked forward to or something along that line because many of his previous birthdays had just marked another year in which God had failed to answer his prayer to make him straight.  Wow! can I identify with that.  I hated Christmas and birthdays because my parents asked me what I wanted and I was always caught in a dilemma.  I didn't want to ask for anything too small because that would make them feel they had not given me anything worth while.  But if I asked for anything too big, I felt horribly guilty that they had spent too much money on a fag son.  So every option I considered putting on my list had to be weighed against the amount of guilt I would feel and the number one question on my mind was "can I accept the sense of guilt that will come with this gift?"  I once did ask for a portable stereo like the one they had given my brother and I felt guilty for asking for something so expensive for the next 6 months (it was about $75 and I usually limited my requests to around a third of that).

I disagree with his ultimate conclusion.  But he makes a good point that for the celibate gay Christian there is a sense of dread in being celibate and gay.  There is very little sense of life or joy or belonging in Christianity and what there is tends to be fairly short lived.  In fact, I think I could count on one hand the number of times a celibate gay Christian said they felt loved by God and I could not even begin to count the number of times I have heard one of my friends say as he became gay affirming and left the conservative church for the gay community, "I finally feel like God loves me."  So, pastors, whether you agree with his conclusion or not, at least do not discount what he says about his experience with gay people or his gay son.

So, kind of off topic, but why do I personally stay celibate when it is so miserable for me?  Well, first of all, right is right whether it brings me personal satisfaction or not.  I can't accept the liberal method of looking at Scripture by claiming large portions of it are "culturally biased."  To me that just smacks of taking the easy way out and avoiding dealing with the hard verses of Scripture.

Secondly, I wish I could say that i am celibate out of faith in Christ but the fact is that i don't know and i don't care anymore if Christ loves me, if His death on the cross paid for my sin or if I am going to heaven.  The fact is he certainly did those things for my parents and my brother and sisters and the people I love and for that i owe him obedience and worship regardless of whether I personally gain anything from him or not.  Maybe i have lost my faith since I no longer give a **** whether God loves me or not.  But that I am gay or that I no longer feel that God loves me doesn't change the reality that He is a just, good and holy God who has been merciful to the people i care about - because it doesn't change Him.  He is still who He is regardless of how I feel about him or myself.  He is still a loving God even if I am unable to comprehend that love for myself.  He is still a good God even if I can not see good in myself.  He is still a merciful and forgiving God even if I can no longer feel what it means to be forgiven.  In the end I try to obey (even if my obedience is lousy and a miserable return on His grace) because of who GOD IS, not because of how I feel about Him. His being does not depend on my feelings - never did, never will.  And, in the end, that is really the only hope any of us have, that God continues to love us and want eternal life for us even when we have reached the point we no longer care or desire it for ourselves.

OK, that was more depressing than I meant to be but I guess I am tired of sugar-coated happy testimonies about a Moralistic Therapeutic Deity when the reality is that much of the time Christianity is just ****ing hard and a lot of the time we just have to slog on in spite of our feelings and trust what God says about Himself even when we can not see it.

In the end, just because I'm queer and can never fall in love in a God pleasing way and that I will probably die alone in a house with 15 cats doesn't give me permission to rewrite Scripture or to make God into someone He is not.

[MediumTex]

1. I do not believe I said that.  I believe I said that Jesus came to forgive all sin from all time for believers.  If you choose to focus on the past instead of the future, so be it.

So are you saying that God's thuggin' days are NOT behind him?  My comment was that Mountaineer says God's thuggin' days are behind him.

Do you believe that God needs to be forgiven of anything?  The reason I ask is that much of what God did to people in the OT are things that we say humans today need Jesus to deliver them from--i.e., the need for vengeance, uncontrolled anger, random violence, hurting those we love, raping people, killing people, etc.

2. I do not know from God's perspective, I am not God.  From a sinful human's perspective, both sound pretty bad if I were on the receiving end.  Thanks be to God that He is a God of mercy for those He has chosen, the believers, according to His Word - the promises of Jesus.

Do you think that Job would agree with the statement above?  When I read Job, it's almost like God is trying to say that his wrath isn't reserved just for the bad people--if you catch him on the right day he might be kicking almost anyone's ass, including people he's supposed to "love" like David.  He was even cruel to his own son by letting him suffer on the cross beyond the point that even Jesus thought they had agreed to ("...why have you forsaken me?").

My comment.  From my perspective, your questions and comments strongly indicate "you want to be God".  Maybe said another way, you are unwilling for whatever reason to let go and let God be in charge.  I know it will likely sound hollow to you, but I sincerely hope God chooses to open your ears to hear His Word.  You seem like a really nice guy with so much to offer.  I don't know what happened in your life to make you so in tune to only see the God of wrath and so out of tune to seeing the God of mercy.  Whatever it was/is, I really hope you get some peace.

I don't know what you mean when you say you believe that I want to be God.  I have so much respect for people whose beliefs I don't share, I think that I would be a terrible God.  The very first time that I needed to kill all of the non-believers, I'm pretty sure that I would just walk off the job. 

I rarely get to have these conversations with people, mostly because I am too considerate of others' beliefs and I don't like abstractions like religion undermining real relationships.  I only got this conversation about religion going because I believe that I have enough good will with you guys to engage in this discussion honestly without anyone's feelings getting too hurt.

[MediumTex]

The more I read your posts the more I become convinced that you represent a faction of Christianity that exhibits a form of extreme psychopathology. Instead of anger I'm starting to feel real sympathy for you. Obviously, since I'm not a believer, I can't tell you I'm praying for you but I do hope that some day you will get the professional help you so obviously need and can find some real peace of mind in this world.

If you were a serious Christian for 20 years, I assume you understand where he is coming from.  I don't think that he needs psychiatric help.  He's just completely under the spell of his beliefs, and it is apparently bringing him peace and joy.  The harshness you are seeing isn't something that I think he can see.

[MediumTex]

If the Bible were simply a human-written fictional tale attempting to tell a heroic story about God and his chosen humans, it would have painted the Biblical figures in a much better light.

If you look at the mythological belief systems that Judaism and Christianity competed with thousands of years ago (and more recently as well), they all depicted humans as flawed and frequently petty.  A common literary device of religious belief systems is to portray humanity as weak and flawed, which helps to frame the need for a supernatural heroic force to rescue it.

You need to study prophecy fulfillment more thoroughly.  It's much more complex than that.  There are some details that could be adjusted to fit, yes, but to completely rewrite history in the presence of living eyewitnesses isn't practical.  And again, even if it were possible to completely rewrite history, it wouldn't have been written with so many pathetic human actors playing such critical roles.

Fitting current events to a set of prophecies isn't hard at all.  Just write in some "eyewitness" accounts that support the fulfillment of the prophecies.

The Romans recorded everything, and yet they somehow failed to document one of their executed prisoners coming back to life and flying up into the sky?  That's hard for me to imagine.  A person coming back to life and flying into the sky suggests everything that was previously known about medicine, biology, physics and spirituality may have been wrong.  Wouldn't some secular authority want to write a thing like that down?

You're asking why a statist writer wouldn't lend support to a figure that threatened to destabilize the entire region and undermine Roman authority?

If the events surrounding the resurrection were intentionally purged from the official recorded history, then why were the references to Jesus in Josephus's writing left in place?

I don't think that the rule of law came from Christianity.  There is some good morality in Christianity, even though it conflicts with Jewish morality when it comes to the way God wants you to treat people you disagree with.

The original law is stated clearly in the OT.  It wasn't overturned by the NT.

You mean the law that said being homosexual was a capital offense?  I hope you're not saying that modern democracies with strong respect for the rule of law and religious tolerance are somehow descended from the OT Jewish law because that seems patently false.

And if you really want to try to go as far as to claim that Jesus never lived (I don't think you're quite there yet), you really need to re-think that.

I didn't say that Jesus never lived.  What I said is that it would be very hard to "prove" that the person depicted in the Gospels ever actually lived.  Maybe he did, or maybe there were many Jesus-like country preachers in those days and Jesus is a composite of all of them.  Maybe Jesus was one of those country preachers, but some cool stuff that other country preachers did were attributed to Jesus.  Who knows?  It's all a matter of faith.

Any belief system that involves a God who makes his point by killing children and offering up women to be raped, and then offers his highest truth to mankind in the form of a story in which he supernaturally rapes a virgin, and then allows his half-man/half-God son to be ritualistically slaughtered in the most violent way imaginable is a "mysterious" belief system indeed.

That's a ridiculous claim there, in bold.  I think you know that.... right?  I hate to come across as merely argumentative, but that statement is pretty offensive.

Why is it ridiculous?  There is a long history in mythology of supernatural beings "ravishing" women they find desirable.  Based on the story in the Gospels, God and Mary didn't date and they certainly weren't married before they had intimate relations.  Did Mary consent to being impregnated by God?  It sounds like she had no choice in the matter.  Wherever you want to draw the "rape" line, that sounds pretty close to me.

[MediumTex]

This is going to sound argumentative again, but I feel the need to disagree with one more statement above.  I appreciate the kindness expressed in your first sentence above, but I don't agree with the statement.  My beliefs are only good if the object of my belief is real.  If I'm merely delusional, my beliefs are, in fact, very bad, at least for me.

Why?  If a person chooses to believe in a system with many supernatural elements that are completely inconsistent with the physical world around us and it makes them happy, isn't it obvious that they are exchanging a bit of their rationality for something that they value more (i.e., peace of mind and optimism that they will live forever)?

I'm frequently ridiculed for my beliefs (and not just on this board!).

I hope you don't feel like you are being ridiculed for your beliefs.  I don't want you to feel that way at all. 

If I point out something that I find ridiculous like a God that could kill every person in the world because they displeased him and then his Son comes along and says that the highest expression of godliness is to turn the other cheek when someone wrongs you, that doesn't mean I am ridiculing you.  I'm just pointing out something that makes no sense to me.

I was truly an "enemy of God."  So what bothers me terribly about your situation, MT, is that I know you don't believe the Bible, and yet you subject yourself to an annoying church experience.  You need to get out of that place!

Why were you an enemy of God because you simply followed the truth as you understood it?  Would you have been where you are now if it hadn't been for those 20 years in the wilderness?

As far as me and the Bible, I do believe it.  I believe that the OT is a history of the Jewish people.  I believe that the NT is a description of a fusing of OT Judaism and Greek mythology.  All of that makes perfect sense to me.  Most importantly, I find Jesus to be an endlessly interesting character who had much wisdom to share with humanity.  It's a shame that the Jewish Law required that he be murdered.

I think that the writers of the Bible felt the need to add a lot of supernatural embellishments to make their message seem more powerful, and they also felt the need to add some truly awful consequences for not believing just to seal the deal.  For me, though, I don't need all of that stuff.  You don't need to entice me with promises of immortality and you don't need to scare me with an eternal pit of suffering.  I find the message that Jesus had for humanity to be fully persuasive on its own.  I don't need to be dazzled or threatened to accept its truth.

I feel like I understand Jesus much better today than I did when I was in my Santa Claus stage of religious belief.  I also find it much easier to follow his blueprint for life when I do it because it makes sense to me, rather than simply because I don't want to burn in Hell forever.

[MediumTex]

I do have doubts, and I do struggle with some of the choices God has made.

What type of doubts do you have?

Once you convince yourself that it is true, how can you have any doubts?  Doesn't doubt suggest that it might not be true?

I like Christians.  Yes, this is opposite how I used to feel.  But as I meet and befriend more and more Christians, they are making a huge, positive difference in my life.  I was surrounded by a pretty legalistic, even sadistic group as a kid.  I'm not sure why or how that played out that way.  My brother and sister both agree with me on that, so I don't think it's only my opinion.  Unfortunately, there are people who grossly misunderstand and misuse the word of God, and they cause real damage.  Not that I blame my whole period of unbelief on them; I also had some specials sins I wanted to hold onto, and that had a very erosive effect on my belief.

I like Christians too.  I like them a lot.  Even if I think that some of their beliefs are goofy, it doesn't make me like them less.  I had a long conversation with a guy just last night who is doing some really amazing work as a Christian helping other people, and I found it all very impressive. 

I like knowing that God cares about my son, and will be with him when I'm gone from this earth.  Honestly, this played a big part in me being open to Christianity.  It seems so long ago now, but it was huge for me.  At the risk of being hyperbolic, I feel like God sent my son into my life, and used him and the subsequent challenges to open my closed heart.  My son was also the second person I told, when I realized I was a Christian.  It was a huge step for me, maybe the biggest step so far, because I was so against any kind of brainwashing of his developing mind.

Didn't your dad try to do the same thing for you?  Didn't it end badly (for 20 years anyway)?

I like the Bible.  Not all of it, I have to admit.  But I still remember the first time I read it, actually believing it was God's word.  It was amazing.

Which parts do you not like?  When you read it believing it was God's word, did it bother you that God seemed to do such ungodly things so frequently, and to punish humanity for doing to each other the very same things he was doing to them?

[MediumTex]

7. I like the "experts."  Preachers, scientists, apologists, etc.  I have a real hunger to hear from these people.  There are many of them, they're amazingly well-educated, and with the internets and such, it's all at my fingertips.  I'm like a kid in a candy store.

This is one I feel like I do not share or understand. Most of these figures are pretty repulsive to me. They either feel fake, or come off as arrogant in how much faith they have in their own message. I rarely sense any humility in typical apologetics--just zeal to spread the message.

It sounds like you are saying that you grok wrongness.

[Xan]

I think we can all admit that we choose our beliefs based on what is emotionally appealing to us and then go hunting for evidence. I do it, we all do it.

What I am really interested in knowing is why your brand of Christianity is emotionally appealing to you. You mentioned that you weren't a Christian for two decades, but then changed. I have to think that what changed was that suddenly you were receptive to the message, which is another way of saying that you were emotionally ready to hear it.

I ask because this the emotional appeal of fundamentalist Christianity (as you said, it's all-or-nothing, and I think you're right) is the thing I still feel like I cannot understand. To me, the emotional core of the religion is repulsive, barbaric, and manipulative. It's intensely judgmental, with the punishment being eternal torture--a fate that is currently being suffered by most of the humans who have ever lived. The requirement for total faith and submission to an unknowable, unprovable higher power that has never manifested itself to me is highly unappealing. The central theme of forgiveness rings hollow because what I am being forgiven for is something that I was born with and that in fact the forgiver did to me deliberately, not through any fault of my own, but because of one action taken by one person 5,000 years ago. The notion that doubt is dangerous because it imperils your escape from the aforementioned eternal torment seems like the kind of thing a cult says to scare its members out of leaving.


None of it is in the least bit emotionally appealing to me. Can you help me understand what you see in it?

I don't think I can keep up with the pace of this thread, but I'd like to address this.

PS, you're saying that people choose their beliefs based on what appeals to them.  Along with Desert, I'm not sure that that's true, but let's accept it for the sake of argument.

YOUR belief, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there is no such thing as objective morality.  That things like duties, rights, right & wrong, good & evil, are tribalist constructions.  That there is no purpose, direction, or meaning to the universe.  That everything we consider to be good and beautiful is an accidental collection of atoms.  That everything we consider to be evil and repugnant is no worse or better than anything else.  That one day we will all be dead and nothing that ever happened will have mattered.

This is a philosophy that, with wide agreement on this board and potentially from you (I don't recall specifically) is an extremely difficult one for a person to live with, even though it may be true.  It leads to mental illness, depression, suicide, dysfunction in society, etc.  It's been said that the reality of this situation is the reason that religions exist.

So, assuming that people pick their beliefs based on what's comfortable, you don't get to compare Christianity against some made-up rainbows-and-unicorns caricature of what you think Christianity "should" be like.  You have to compare it against what you have "chosen" to believe, which is the utter abyss of complete meaninglessness and futility.

[Pointedstick]

PS, you're saying that people choose their beliefs based on what appeals to them.  Along with Desert, I'm not sure that that's true, but let's accept it for the sake of argument.

YOUR belief, correct me if I'm wrong, is that there is no such thing as objective morality.  That things like duties, rights, right & wrong, good & evil, are tribalist constructions.  That there is no purpose, direction, or meaning to the universe.  That everything we consider to be good and beautiful is an accidental collection of atoms.  That everything we consider to be evil and repugnant is no worse or better than anything else.  That one day we will all be dead and nothing that ever happened will have mattered.

Not exactly. I do think that there is objective morality, and that it derives from our biology, which dictates that we are sentient creatures with feelings, and those two details inform basically all human morality. All the world's oldest moral codes--most of them codified in religions--largely agree on a set of basics: Don't murder, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, don't do bad sexual stuff to other people; that kind of thing. It all more or less fits under the umbrella of the golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which was articulated more or less that exact way by Confucius 400 years before Christ was born. The concept appears in Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and probably a lot of others too. I also think evil objectively exists--I think it's what you call it when someone derives pleasure from knowingly, callously, and repeatedly violating those moral rules.

That said, I do tend to believe that there is no inherent purpose, direction, or meaning to the universe. I think we humans create those things for ourselves. This notion does not fill me with cosmic dread. Same with duties; those are socially constructed according to various cultures' notions of what maximizes social harmony, productivity, or whatever. That doesn't make them meaningless or non-existent; on the contrary, it's important to fit into what your society expects of you if you expect to be able to fit into your society.

This is a philosophy that, with wide agreement on this board and potentially from you (I don't recall specifically) is an extremely difficult one for a person to live with, even though it may be true.  It leads to mental illness, depression, suicide, dysfunction in society, etc.  It's been said that the reality of this situation is the reason that religions exist.

So, assuming that people pick their beliefs based on what's comfortable, you don't get to compare Christianity against some made-up rainbows-and-unicorns caricature of what you think Christianity "should" be like.  You have to compare it against what you have "chosen" to believe, which is the utter abyss of complete meaninglessness and futility.

You'r right about the potential consequences of nihilism. But that doesn't say anything about Christianity. Christianity doesn't become correct simply because ditching it without replacing it with anything else leads to nihilism. There are hundreds of other religious and philosophical traditions in the world to examine.

[Xan]

You'r right about the potential consequences of nihilism. But that doesn't say anything about Christianity. Christianity doesn't become correct simply because ditching it without replacing it with anything else leads to nihilism. There are hundreds of other religious and philosophical traditions in the world to examine.

That's true, but your argument (in this case) was to look askance at Christianity and say "why would you want to believe in THAT".  I was just holding up a bit of a mirror.  (And I hope it didn't sound like a personal attack!)