Half-Life

I started thinking about this after one of my co-workers asked me a question. I will reveal this question at the end of the post.

Here is why I may be close to deconversion:

OK, picture this.

We have all seen what the view of Earth is like from a plane? Everyone looks like ants. Now, picture our solar system and universe as a wooden board stretching out widely. Now, imagine BEYOND the universe, (or board if you will), we see God in his realm of existence.

Now, in order for me to stay a Christian, this is what I must believe:

God chose one part of the world in about 900 B.C. to start Genesis.

He developed a closeness with Jewish people for some strange reason. He picks Israel as his "favorite nation" for unknown reasons instead of the whole world.

He writes down prophecies in books not labeled "prophecies of the messiah" but instead "hidden" in people's songs to God or ramblings.

God then wants to save everyone, so he comes to earth in early first century to just one place - Jerusalem and a little surrounding areas. He doesn't see a need to have too much of his childhood written about. His birth is there, then a few little childhood stories and that's it.

Then his existence vanishes on earth from ages 13-29 and then his life picks up again at age 30. What was the all important God doing for these missing 17 years? How could he have been so caring and important?

Then at age 30 he says some vague preaching for 3 years to only a select group of people in a select part of the world, gets crucified in only one part of the world, shows up to just a small group of people, then tells these people "Gotta get out of here see ya! Oh preach the Gospel by the way to all the earth."

He then vanishes, leaving hardly any historians writing about all his miraculous deeds, and there's wars in his name for the past 2,000 years and still no sign of him coming back.

Does this make ANY SENSE to ANYONE?

and yet I have been believing this my whole life!!

I see no reason why God couldn't have come to Earth as man in all the nations, be crucified, and then the story would be known throughout all nations, instead of him picking a random little spot to preach to 12 men and gain a little following and hoping they would spread it.

Ask yourself. if ANY of you guys were God, would this be the way you want to save humanity? 3 years of vague teachings with hardly anything about your life growing up? Why couldn't Jesus have been healing as a 5 year old? That would've made for so many more believers.

Now, wanna know the one question my friend asked me that made me think like this?

he said, "Of course we know that god exists.................in the Bible. The question is, does god exist OUTSIDE of the Bible?"

My eyes were opened when he said this and I immediately started thinking of what the Christian God is ACTUALLY portrayed as.

(NOTE: I put this in this forum because it deals with just reading the Bible to come up with this conclusion.)

I don't know if I am fully deconverted yet, but it seems to me that idea of worshipping such a clumsy god makes no sense anymore.

What do you guys think?

Johnny Skeptic

Why have you started so many threads when the same fundamental issues apply regarding all of your threads? Whether there is only one supposedly fulfilled Bible prophecy, or one hundred supposedly fulfilled Bible prophecies, the same fundamental issues still apply.

I think that if a God exists, and wanted to convince people to believe that he exists, he would telepathically or verbally communicate the same messages to everyone in the world, thereby discouraging dissent instead of needlessly inviting dissent with no reasonably provable benefits for himself and for humans.

Why does God predict the future?

The partition of Palestine is a self-fulfilled prophecy. All that it takes to self-fulfill a prophecy is the belief that it is true, and enough military power to make it come true. If the Koran said that a temple would be rebuilt in Mecca, and a temple was rebuilt in Mecca, you certainly would not consider that to be a fulfillment of a legitimate prophecy.

All Bible prophecies are disputable. I wish to distinguish disputable prophecies from false prophecies. A false prophecy is a prophecy that does not come true. A disputable prophecy does not necessarily have to be a false prophecy. Even if all Bible prophecies are true prophecies, they have needlessly failed to convince the majority of the people in the world that they are true prophecies. If Pat Robertson accurately predicted when and where a natural disaster would occur, month, day, and year, that would be far less disputable than any Bible prophecy. In my opinion, no prophecies at all would be much better than 100% disputable prophecies. That is because the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), and yet Bible prophecies have needlessly cause lots of confusion. That is sufficient evidence that the God of the Bible does not exist.

One thing is for certain: If a God inspired the Bible, there are not any doubts whatsoever that he would be able to convince more people to love him and to accept him without unfairly interfering with their free will. It would certainly not have been unfair for Jesus to accurately predict what the names of the Roman emperors would be for the next 200 years, and their dates of birth and death, which would surely have caused more people to become Christians. That is a reasonable assumption since historically, many people have accepted all kinds of outlandish religions based upon much less convincing evidence than that. In addition, Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce attracted a lot of followers based upon a lot less convincing evidence than that.

Since Jesus made some predictions, Christians cannot get away with claiming that he did not want to use prophecy to try to influence people in future generations.

The best evidence is that if a God exists, he is probably not the God of the Bible. If the universe is naturalistic, or if some other God exists who chose to mimic the ways that things would be if the universe is naturalistic, 1) all religions that have books would be spread entirely by word of mouth, which is the case 2) humans would only able to obtain food through human effort no matter what their worldview is, which is the case, 3) it would not be surprising that the percentage of women who are theists is significantly higher than the percentage of men who are theists in every culture, which is the case, 4) it would not be surprising that the percentage of elderly people who change their worldviews is much smaller than the percentage of younger people who change their worldviews, which is the case, 5) hurricanes would kill people, animals, and plants, and destroy property as if there were not any differences between them, which appears to the case, 6) all tangible benefits would be indiscriminately distributed at random according to the laws of physics without any regard for a person's needs, requests, or worldview, and the only benefits that anyone could ask God for and expect to receive would be subjective spiritual/emotional benefits, which appears to be the case, 7) it would not be surprising that fossils and sediments are sorted in ways that are convenient for skeptics, and have convinced some evangelical Christian geologists that a global flood did not occur, which is the case, 8) no religious book would contain any indisputable prophecies, which is the case, and 9) it would not be surprising that 50% of the genome of chimpanzees and humans are identical, which is the case.

What Christians propose is the existence of the following kind of God:

1 - A God whose thoughts and ways are strange, and are different from our own thought and ways, but is frequently predictable, and who frequently mimics a naturalistic universe, or some other God who chose to frequently mimic a naturalist universe.

2 - A God who only wants people to hear the Gospel message if another person tells them about it.

3 - A God who only wants people to have enough food to eat if they are able to obtain it through human effort.

4 - A God who prefers to make 100% disputable prophecies when he could easily make 100% indisputable prophecies. An indisputable prophecy would be an accurate prediction regarding when and where a natural disaster would occur, month, day, and year. No religious book has a fulfilled prophecy of that quality.

5 - A God who needlessly invites dissent when he could easily discourage dissent.

6 - A God who is not able to provide additional evidence that would cause more people to love and accept him without unfairly interfering with their free will.

7 - A merciful God who endorses eternal punishment without parole.

No rational person would believe such things.

Half-Life

Johnny,

did you bother to read EVERYTHING I wrote?

It almost seems identical to your thinking.

however, something is still holding me back from denyign it fully.

What is this?

If you seriously think about it, if I have just stated all these rational reasons for disbelieving, why am I having such a hard time fully denying it?

Religion seems to be a funny thing now, and I do not know why.

chrisengland

[QUOTE=Johnny Skeptic;5187129][quote=Half-Life]




No rational person would believe such things]
Rational people do believe it!!

aa5874

The answer, I think, is very simple. You can't believe that you have been fooled for so long. I was just like you.

If it wasn't for Constantine, I really don't know what would have become of Christianity as we know it today. I think Christians should change their name to the CONSTANTINIANS in honour of the emperor who SAVED them from HELL.

Johnny Skeptic

I only recently became aware of your doubts. I based all of my past posts upon your insistence that the God of the Bible accurately predicts the future. If you no longer insist that the God of the accurately predicts the future, that is fine.

Spent

Congratulations, you're now becoming what is called a free-thinker.

I know of this hold you're speaking of, I had the same feeling for a long time. My conversion from Christian to Atheist was extremely gradual. I think it has something to do with childhood indoctrination. It's like I was literally programmed to accept everything in the Bible as truth with no questioning whatsoever.

Half-Life

This is even leading me to believe that all the priests knew it couldn't possibly be real, but became priests to have power.

Think about it. All the old priests back in the early days lived great and were seen almost in the same way as God.

Does this mean every priest that ever existed disbelieved? No, but you have to wonder if they did it solely for power.

Allied35

Half-life check this out:
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showpos...90&postcount=7

It really shows how absurd it would be for a god to care what we do on Earth.
I suggest that if you have doubts about there being a god or not that you just try looking at things with a totally open mind. When I was about 12 I asked my father if there is a god. I will never forget his answer. Most fathers would tell their sons yes or no depending on their beliefs. My father said "that is something you have to find out for yourself". So I started reading books about evolution and then later about physics and I looked at the evidence and thought about the theories and found them to make sense and ended up thinking that there most likely is no god. And even if there is why would he "send me to hell" when the evidence and the theory of evolution etc show quite convincingly(to someone with an open mind and no fear of hell) that there is no need to invoke a god to explain our world.
I later found out that my father is also an atheist but I will always be grateful to him for telling me to find out for myself whether or not there is a god.

To me, life as an atheist is not pointless or meaningless. In fact the opposite is true. I find that without the threat of hell or the promise of heaven, life seems so much more precious and full of wonder.

Anyway, check out the link above and remember, its ok to be an atheist!

ChristMyth

As an ex-Christian myself, Half-Life, I would like to say "Congratulations" on your new train of thought. It takes a lot of courage to step back from a belief and start to question it, especially when one has a belief that has so much riding on it (in this case, the idea of an eternal afterlife).

All I can say is give yourself time, keep reading and thinking about it. I'm not saying that in the end you will most certainly deconvert. But I will say that by giving yourself the opportunity to question what you have believed for so long will give you the insight as to where you want to go next.

Realize that you are not alone and there are those who have traveled the same road that you have started. I can think of some, even those who have been members of these boards at one time or another, who have started and have ended up with surprising conclusions.

In the end, make sure that the choice you make is the right one for you despite what others might think about it. If deconversion seems to be the right fit, then so be it. If it seems a bit drastic to you, then consider some other version of theism that may be more comfortable. Either way, take your time.

In the end, I'm sure you will consider it time well spent.

Christmyth