Johnny Skeptic

I do not wish to lead you back to Christian fundamentalism, but William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas have basically stated that the best evidence for them is the Holy Spirit, which implies that their position is that the Holy Spirit exists outside of the Bible. In one book, Habermas and co-author Mike Licona basically say that the certainty of the historical record serves only to confirm the evidence of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately for Habermas and Licona, all theists claim that they experience the Holy Spirit.

If a God exists outside of the Bible, he would easily be able to convince more people to believe that he exists. That is what I have been trying to tell you ever since you came to the IIDB. That is not much different from "Of course we know that God exists in the Bible. The question is, does God exist OUTSIDE of the Bible?" since if a God exists outside of the Bible, he would easily be able to convince more people to believe that he exists.

Sheshbazzar

Half-Life, I would like to give your post here the benefit of a doubt, as I myself was a Bible "believer" for many years, and can fully understand how hard it can be to relinquish some of our cherished ideas, and the "insights" that we were formerly convinced of.
In an earlier thread I attempted to explain about "truth", and its power.
Giving up on the Bible as being a factual account, does not require the wholesale rejecting of such things as are actually true, whether written down in the Bible, or being acted out among men.
What is true, will remain true, and what is good, will remain good, and honor is always to them who know and do the right thing.

No one here wants to be your enemy.

Just prior to reading this thread I posted the following in another place, and I believe that it is appropriate to repeat it here.
My sincere hope for you, is that you can successfully "Deconvert", even as I and many others here have.

Harry Bosch

Same thing occured to me when I was a fire-breathing Christian! I'm an Indian. And I wondered one day why god would appear to the Jews and then say nothing to the Indians for another 1500 years! And I started thinking - why take so long in spreading the word to my ancestors! Damn, why can't my ancestors be in heaven. That got me started. Then I started trying to find scientific proof of the flood..... Well - you all know the story from there.

Here's some advice to you. Don't listen to anyone else. Just do some research for yourself. And try to find some evidence for the flood or a young earth. Take it from me - you need to come to the conclusion yourself.

Half-Life

but to me one of the most startling things I thought about WAS the fact that God "didn't exist" on Earth from ages 13-29!

Where does he go?!?! He vanishes! There's no evidence anywhere in the world written down of where he might have been.

So, how can any person say Jesus never sinned?

Heck, the disciples in his story are never portrayed as ever sinning either.

How can anyone claim that this God wanted to save us so bad, but did NOTHING of record from ages 13-29?

What was he doing? Sitting on a rock waiting to "vague preach" for 3 years when he became 30?

Where's his age 5-10 years as well?

We have NOTHING!

Do you guys think this can be used as one of the main evidences AGAINST the God of the bible?

I CAN NOT believe I am thinking like this.

Half-Life

Consider this:

There is no information at all about Jesus life in the Bible. We have accounts of his birth, one little anecdote about preaching as a boy, his ministry after the Sermon on the Mount when he was about 30, and his death shortly after that. Clearly, the gospel writers were not biographers and they likely didn’t have a first hand account of Jesus. The gospels were likely compiled based on oral sources and were written down between 40 & 100 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

These weren’t the only gospels - there were 50 or so gospels written after his death, and only 4 of them made it into the Bible. The Apocryphal gospels don’t shed any light on Jesus life, either. It took 500 years for the church to come to an agreement on who Jesus was.

http://minddance.wordpress.com/2007/...he-lost-years/

Wow! It is almost becoming easier and easier to doubt that a "perfect God" would let his plan go so crazy.

Johnny Skeptic

I am surprised that you know so much about Bible prophecy, but so little about fundamentalist Christianity. I was a fundamentalist Christian for over 30years. You ought to know that fundamentalist Christians believe that might makes right, reference Romans chapter 9, and that God is perfect, for example, reference Deuteronomy 32:4, 2 Samuel 22:31, and Psalms 18:30. Everything that a perfect God does would by definition be right. Of course, there is not any credible evidence that God is perfect, and that any possible God must by necessity be perfect.

Sheshbazzar

A BIG HOLE in the "holey" story, hey?
Very easy for the books to keep his "hands clean" when he didn't have to live and "have a life" like the rest of us, no?

Can this be used as one of the main evidences AGAINST the God of the bible?
If it works for you, Half-Life, then, go for it!

-Jay-

Half-Life -

You seem to be at a very significant cross-roads right now that involves essentially having to redefine your entire worldview.

That's a tough thing. If you're like most folks, you've got a lot invested mentally, emotionally, perhaps physically and financially in your religious foundations, and that investment is hard to walk away from.

It might be useful to give some thought to what defines your sense of self-worth. If you have kids in your life, ask yourself whether they look up to you because of who you are or what you do or don't believe. If you volunteer your time, ask yourself if you're doing it because you're trying to impress God or because it's the right thing to do.

I think if you're honest with yourself, you'll find that there is less of Half-Life that's defined by your religion than you might initially think.

There are many ex-Christians (among others) that post here. There are many deconversion stories that have been posted (just use the search function). The community here is a valuable resource, both in terms of support and information. Don't hesitate to avail yourself of that resource. At the very least, you'll learn things you didn't previously know, and knowledge is never a bad thing.

Good luck.

regards,

NinJay

juergen

Hi Half-Life, it is an interesting question: what exactly is that which still seems to have a hold on a person that finds himself where you find yourself?

About 6 months ago (i can't believe it's been this long), I stepped outside of my normal framework of ideas where all things I believed were inter-related in some way, and looked at it from the outside, and noticed the same thing you did in that moment. I identify pretty strongly with your comment that it makes God seem clumsy, the construct of ideas seems like a human rendition of what the supernatural should be like, but falls short if questions are pressed hard enough.

Even though I suddenly found myself intellectually disagreeing with most of the stuff I previously believed, I was very hesitant to acknowledge that I had begun to deconvert, a denial of sorts, even though I had already adopted an intellectual position against Christianity.

Some days it feels I don't want to let go of what I had, but I think it's understandable because as humans we rely on habits that we develop over long years, and believing in something turns into a mental habit - to go down the same routes of reasoning. I'm truly no expert in anything behavior-related, but it's my uneducated take that once your understanding over certain things changes, and you're still emotionally bound to what you believe, you'll want to go back to what you had (if you had it for many years) even if it doesn't make sense that you should go back.

Clear as mud?

As far as priests in the age of Constantine goes, here's my take: I'd think they sincerely believed, a whole lot of them. I also know from my own experience that interpretation of things that happen has no hard or fast rules, as long as it haphazardly connects with certain points of what is believed.

Constantine showing up and let the end justify the means could possibly have been seen as the right arm of God taking care in defeating his enemies and establishing a place for his people (OT promises for God's people still used in every church that longs to gain areas of influence), backed by the highest earthly protection imaginable at the time. I don't doubt people crave power, but if you believe, you do it for what you believe in. Things that turn out to be more convenient for you are then "blessings."

There might be priests that are in it for the power, but I think a lot of people want to have the power to influence everyone else, because they got it right, as far as how one is supposed to live.

ETA: A couple of posters recommended taking your time in thinking this through, and I second that recommendation. I personally don't have that much patience with the process, but I am reminded again and again, as I think through these things, that a lot of knowledge and good questions that had been intentionally avoided by the community of believers I was a part of, are an excellent use of time taken generously to explore these issues. If processed with care, the benefits will last for years. It's needless to say that it's a complex and difficult process for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean that starting to think outside the box isn't actually very, very enjoyable. It's freeing when you don't have to try to square every inch of reality through a filter that doesn't fit on all of life.

I wish you the best!

juergen

Half-Life

Very nice points to the poster above me.

I have just been doing some more thinking and realized something.

Religious people say we have a soul and this is what makes "us" us and not some other person.

however, when it comes to the subject of mentally handicapped people, no religious person says, "Well God made him with a defective soul." They always cite science and say, "Well his brain is not right."

So in one case it's the brain but in perfectly normal people, it's a soul? :huh: