Charity

Thank you for your post oldiesman. It can happen when someone begins to have questions about God (and consequently his word as well), for whatever reason, decides to look for logical answers both within and outside of the bible and eventually discover those answers give enough reasons for them to permanently change their view that a God exists. I know I've said that my "decision" to no longer believe in God happened one particular evening, but I had been seriously questioning for a while before that night over a couple of issues. I think the fact that I did go back to the bible afterwards to see again what it had to say was a sign of my wanting to confirm that decision. And with time, the confirmation came and continues to come as I learn more.

Chockfull had written, "I had a relative die of MS. Just saw his widow. He was supposedly healed of MS by someone praying years ago. Did that happen? Or did it just go into remission for 20 years? I don’t know." ~~~~~~~ That's the thing oldiesman, why are there these questions? Why can someone not know for sure if God was responsible for Chockfull's relative having 20 years without the symptoms of MS? A Christian might answer, "I know by faith that it was the result of prayer," and this would give enormous comfort to the Christian. When the MS returned and there's medical proof that the person died because of the MS, then the questions return as well - why did it return? If there were prayers said, why were they not answered this time? The faithful Christian will most likely think of a reason that again brings some comfort. An atheist doesn't go through all that. It's simply, we're so relieved the symptoms went into remission. Sadly, the MS returned which is not an uncommon thing to happen. Which scenario is preferable is a personal decision.

Great post Raf about a lot of things. This abridged copy of it is to say thanks a lot for your support (see underlined parts). The video clip above was part of another one called My Top 7 Favorite Hitchslaps. I thought that name was very apropos for what he does in this one. He's so good at not mincing words. I love it. Thanks for sharing it. Your Jonah adaptation was precious. Unfortunate though that your main character drank the Koolaid. You wrote, "As unbelievers, we are not criticizing God in this story, because we are not asked to identify with him." I couldn't get your point at first because even as an unbeliever, I'm thinking h*ll yes, God deserves to be criticized big time. Then I'm pretty sure I got it - it was up to Abraham to tell God what He could do with his insane command. That would make him someone in this story worthy of emulating.

This thread is just over a month old and I wasn’t sure how to navigate the topic when I started it. Even though I have a bit of a better idea now, there are still foggy patches where I don’t know where I’m heading. Sometimes, I’m all over the map going in too many directions. I know there have been some glitches, but I really appreciate what posters have shared. Along with discussing other ideas, discussing scriptures has given me the chance to - see how I think differently about them now - consider how letting go of bible passages make life better, freer - ask questions - find more grounds to support my decision to be an atheist - learn from how different people view them - amend my POV as I gain new insight from others - even notice that I can get angry or judgmental at times. All good stuff so thanks to everyone.

Did you read the whole forward? It was published in 2015 and I did not see who wrote the forward to the book. It doesn't say who published it either. This sums up a lot. It's from page xix: The record of Bishop Pillai’s exposition of Orientalisms in the Bible during his six-week stay with Dr. Wierwille in the summer of 1953, along with other recorded teachings throughout their long association, served as the source for this book. Apart from how vp may have influenced the Bishop, Pillai's source seems to be his culture from living in India.

Live update: The forward brings up vpw on xvi of the forward. He is credited for having a profound impact of the Bishop's life.

I'm reading the forward now to see if it answers the question.

Of the link Waysider put in his post.

Talk of the devil is common in some Pentecostal/Charismatic circles probably because they're heavy into the spiritual gifts, modern day prophets, revivals and other stuff. Casting out devils by preachers on the internet is becoming quite a thing. It's right up there with being slain in the spirit. Just google videos on casting out demons and see how many come up. Greg Locke, a big name preacher, released a movie called "Come Out in Jesus Name" in March of last year. A write up for the movie reads: "Following a startling chain of events, the most controversial pastor in America, Greg Locke, took a 180-degree turn from his mainstream religious traditions and led his church into legitimate revival. He and a diverse group of unconventional preachers then began to spark the most important awakening in the history of the Christian Church - through the most unlikely means - by casting out demons. This fiery film documents the beginnings of their journey. While "Come Out In Jesus Name" is a 90-minute feature length film, it also has a special 2-hour Deliverance Edition that includes (as bonus material) an historic 30-minute invitation prayer and deliverance session led by Pastor Locke during the March 2023 premier that became the largest mass deliverance in Church history... in Jesus name. A Locke Media Film. A Global Vision Bible Church Production." For all the onstage bravado, you can bet there are followers of these preachers living in fear of devil spirits in their own lives.

I hope for her recovery.

Where did the idea of Satan come from in the bible? Apparently, there was no actual Satan in a human or earthly context nor in an otherworldly context in the OT until the 6th century BCE. When the Israelites were freed from Babylonian captivity by Cyrus in 539 BCE, the Judea people returned to Jerusalem and lived for the next 200 years as a Persian-client state. *Bill Zuersher argues that during this time, Judah was influenced by the Persian belief of Zoroastrianism. Under this belief, Ahura Mazda, the god of goodness and Ahriman, the god of evil, are in a struggle against each other. This played out as good vs evil in the lives of humans. It was taught that good will triumph soon and in the meantime, a lot of emphasis was placed on moral teachings. There is an afterlife and a supernatural opponent to the good god. The afterlife includes a resurrection and judgment followed by one going to either paradise or the pit. This mythology appears to show up in the NT where Satan appears as the god of this world (along with his devil spirits) and Jesus teaches in Matthew of "being in danger of hell fire" (chap 5) and being cast "into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth" (chap 13). Is this a mere coincidence? Is this doctrine necessary to explain the evil that is present in the world? *Video: Bill Zuersher - Seeing Through Christianity - A Critique of Beliefs and Evidence

What a great video Rocky. It's funny and it's about atheism, the "miracle" of modern medicine and some good life lessons one of which is how donating blood saves lives. Were you interested in reading the book?

Enough warnings had been given recently about how to respond to each others' posts. My reply simply overlooked the way he chose to address an issue he had with me so instead of dealing with it, I thanked him that his post helped me to remember to use "IMO I think"...instead of telling someone what they ought to do. And I meant it. He was upset that I didn't apologize and let me know this in such a way that required an apology from him. Thanks for the video - I'll watch it in the morning.

I'm very sorry for the loss of your sister and brother. Is your other sister still battling cancer? I appreciate what you said about emotions Raf. But to make myself more clear, I let go of my belief in god that night because in my mind and heart he again proved to be untrustworthy. Like I said, later I did look at what the bible said about prayer to see what I was misunderstanding about it and from what I remember, answers to prayer came with conditions which I saw as convenient loopholes for a "promise" to become a "perhaps" or "maybe." There is no peace that passes understanding with BS like that.

When I came onboard GSC, learning about the "Absent Christ" doctrine and practice that I had grown up spiritually with while in twi changed my life. That was in late 2022. For months, I experienced a new closeness with God and Christ and during that time, I rested in trusting that God would help my grandson to gradually become verbal. I wasn't doing the Law of Believing crap but simply keeping my eyes on God's goodness, love and grace. There was steady improvement in his development in other areas of his life and I was so thankful for this. During that time, I also spent a lot of time in the Word and was repeatedly "blessed" by what I was seeing. Then, the seizures began. I kept asking God for revelation as to what I should do so that He could heal my grandson. Whatever I thought He was showing me and whatever I knew from the word didn't work, and the seizures became more frequent and of a kind that caused him to injure himself. He was missing a lot of school and we didn't feel it was safe to take him swimming anymore. After one horrible experience when my daughter and I took him to the ER because he had been crying for most of the day, I prayed about every obstacle we faced and for God to please calm him of the terror he had of being there and having the tests done. I knew by the time we left 6 hours later that I no longer believed god was real. But I did go back to the word to study what it had to say about prayer. I shared about this at the beginning of this thread. What it boiled down to, apparently, is that it's all according to God's will and timing which he conveniently keeps to himself. Some called that needing to have faith, but I called it a f*cking guessing game and I didn't want to play anymore. You wrote, "I followed the footsteps of people who walked the path long before I did." That's why I came on this forum because I knew you were an atheist. I also began learning from others as well through the internet. The god I thought was real in my first paragraph is not the god I see in the bible anymore because I stopped ignoring the passages I had always found difficult to accept. Doing this opened the floodgate.

Thanks Raf for answering an older question. I'd define your experience as being an "evolution" where it took time for the result to become obvious - a reality. Mine has been more like a "flood" in that I have taken on so much information in a short period of time from books and the internet. A big reason behind this flood is simply due to my personality type - a mixture of perfectionism and OCD. My intellectual binging for the past few weeks has taken up at least 75% of my life. This is a lot considering I'm retired . This morning, I remembered that the number one reason I stopped believing in god a while back ago was because of his undeniably deplorable character (as shown in Revelation) and his habit of going on vacation when I truly needed him. Learning how the bible contains myths, fictional stories, contradictions, etc. has been fascinating but largely academic to this. So today I am putting on some CD's and tackling my long to-do list.

Thanks!

From the 6:00 to 11:00 mark on the video, an explanation is given for the beginning of Proto-life, but the question is how do they know this for sure?

Thank you for your replies. Since I've already come to the conclusion that the bible was written by men, articles giving more evidence to this should not be surprising to me, and yet they still do have an element of shock to them. Go figure. I guess it's like putting another nail in the coffin while knowing there are many more nails out there that I don't know about yet. However, in order to be reasonable, it's possible that a nail or two might be removed from the coffin some where along the line as well. I've read somewhere that the accounts of god's involvement in the biblical wars were written by men for political reasons like you said Raf. The website below seems to give other reasons as well, so I guess I'm delving into this after all. https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/history-bible-origins-who-wrote-when-how-reliable-historical-record/

Because of the discussion here about Abraham and Jephthah, I'm watching a video called "Human Sacrifice In The Bible: What Apologist Won't Tell You," and the topic of Abraham's nonexistence has just come up. I did a quick Google search and a couple of sites say, "Most scholars view the patriarchal age, along with the Exodus and the period of the biblical judges, as a late literary construct that does not relate to any particular historical era, and after a century of exhaustive archaeological investigation, no evidence has been found for a historical Abraham." (Abraham – Wikipedia) "Unglauber shows that there is not a shred of independent evidence for the existence of Abraham, much less for any of the events recorded in Genesis." (Reformed Perspective article “Did Abraham Really Exist?) This sounds pretty conclusive. I don't want to delve into it right now, but I'm wondering what the opinions of posters are concerning this.

Well, I'm contemplating evolution for the first time. Watched a video called "The Whole History of the Earth and Life." It began with how the earth came into being and continues to humans evolving. I could see how it was possible in the way it was explained, but I did have a lot of questions when done. Also looking at books as well. So, we'll see how it goes.

Getting back to the topic of Deconversion: Letting go of ones religion, verses that claim God is light with no darkness in him at all or that he is righteous in all his ways and gracious in all his works causes people to overlook, deny or explain away all the many places which show he's the complete opposite. Giving up critical thinking and avoiding cognitive dissonance do not make for a sound mind.

Last comment for me on this topic (hopefully): For someone who says if God truly wanted the burnt offering, then why did he stop it, I think this only goes to show it was the obedience God was looking for. Obviously, if God let Abraham complete the offering, then he would have had to raise Isaac from the dead in order to carry on the promise He made to Abraham. That would have been quite a miracle though - raising the dead doesn't show up in the OT until later when a prophet does it for a widow woman's son.

If that was the true meaning of a burnt sacrifice in this incident, then where is the account of Abraham getting it right and giving up his son for the greater good after the incident? Seriously, show me. What you are parroting of wierwille simply is not true.