Well good bye, and don't come back.

Everything has been the cause of death and destruction throughout history.

Welcome

All the evil and moonbattery coming out of so many denominations, and this is what OP is worried about?

Because it is common sense, and not some special religious doctrine to have morals? I have known church goers who had very little morals, or ethics, but went to church every sunday and let everyone know about it.

Wow.

Could God make a rock so big but he couldn’t lift it?

May I ask what is your ancestors faith ?
And I would submit that there is no faith that hasn’t used it’s religion for evil purposes at one point or another and that includes the religion of leftists and communists which has been the most evil of all.

I'll pray for you OP.

The amount of people in this thread that think they can explain God is astounding.

We are on a crash course with revelations.

Prophecies coming true left and right.  

Israel becoming a nation.

Jews returning.

A desert wasteland blossoming with the return.

Red heifers reappearing.

That’s just stuff related to Israel.

How far off are we from needing a “mark” on the forehead or wrist in order to buy or sell?  Two years ago that would’ve been almost unheard of.  Now there’s talk of injecting a chip as a vaccine passport which we will need to go into businesses.  Do you think most people will now accept that?  Absolutely they will.

Because you need to have the intelligence and faith to understand it.

My mom has taken Christianity and turned into an absolute nutcase over it, I'm glad she didn't try to convert me when I was a child like she tries to when I'm an adult.

It's literally impossible for her not to bring up something having to do with religion when we have conversations, it's like speaking to an Atheist or vegan.

I've never really harbored any ill will against any church, but this particular one has absolutely ruined communication between me and my mom. Thankfully my dad actually has other things going on in his life that he understands the words "no thanks, I'm good".

Human interpretation of God is badly flawed.

If you think God is the cause of human suffering, you don’t know God.

this

But the ones used are written or by word from the apostles…

Bring it.

I think this as well, but religions usefulness has reached a point of diminishing returns, and is becoming regressive. Islam, the Catholic faith, and Evangalism are prime examples.                                    As far as morality is concerned, We are going to have to take our religious training wheels off and learn to ride our bikes like big boys and girls.

Well said, sir. I believe many of the people who “outsmarted God”, let their own egos take control. It can be frustrating to come up short on answers, time and again.

If god is the ultimate creator, and knower of all, your statement is false.

I'm Pagan, most specifically, Asatru. I follow the teachings my grandmother handed down to me as a young adult and I've spent a lot of years learning more. It's a faith that doesn't dictate what I "shall not" do, but rather, encourages the respect for all and tells what I should do. It also carries a healthy respect for protecting my own and living a fearless life.

Will it get you to the head of the coolaid line?  

If you don't have a basic understanding of the blood sacrifice traditions of the Hebrews, the significance of the crucifixion will forever elude you.

I’m ok with this, I also had a couple grandparents and one great grandfather who were not necessarily pagans but did teach me about the faith as it was taught to them.

I went to catholic school k-5. I turned away from God and Jesus for quite some time because the bible and organized religion are really pretty absurd.

I've somewhat recently begun praying everyday and just started rereading the bible.

It's tuff to explain my expanded understanding of it all and acceptance of it's imperfections but as an example the story of the genesis of man in the bible and the scientific theory of primordial ooze for biogenesis are nearly identical. The bible just kind of simplifies it all in to something that a child can extract deeper meaning from.

Lets not forget the bible has been translated and edited a million times.  

Ultimately i keep coming back to the episode of firefly. You dont fix faith River. It fixes you.

that is your fantasy, not the truth, lol seek God much?  for your self?  he is out there and wants you to know Him......so all this cry cry God isn't doing this or that....if you didn't believe he exists you wouldn't be so pissed at Him.  fight to know Him or curse Him,  you are made at people and blaming God for their short comings.  you ar'nt a fool.  the fool says in his heart there is no God

... and if the significance of the crucifixion eludes you, you have no hope of understanding the Eucharist. But, I promised myself I'd be good in this thread and not attack my "fundamentalist" brethren's similar... incomplete understanding. But, you are inadvertently touching on the heart of the entirety of Christian theology, even as you try to be dismissive about it.

Troll post. And for what it's worth, because God wants us to CHOOSE him. If you actually read the bible, he told you this was coming. Isn't showing love to someone a choice? It's actually very simple.

Such an inviting faith. Jesus would be proud.

ETA: You know the sad thing is this candid response does more to drive people away from religion than all the trolling and atheist posts.

So Christian
Much gospel
Wow

Da fuck are you on about? I don't blame any god for anything. I blame people for their shortcomings. I'm not pissed at anyone. I do believe that if a faith truly speaks to a person's soul, they easily follow the teachings and feel like they belong. When I see so many people not living congruent with their religion, i have to wonder if it's the people or the faith that's broken.

Because you didn't let your heart grow cold and closed and chose to live life with a thankful attitude, i would presume.

In time our father has given you insight to see how he can take a thread and weave it to produce a wonder that no man or circumstance can explain.

This is how I view apparent contradictions as well: They're a hint that the seemingly contradictory words are meant to apply to different contexts, or that we're taking linguistic absolutes too literally.
It's the process of resolving those passages that helps us draw the contextual boundaries and better understand when the absolutes are literal vs. dramatic or even hyperbolic language used to emphasize the rarity of exceptions [within the appropriate context].

It takes a lot of discernment and good faith effort to reconcile some things, but it's important to remember that God, Jesus, and prophets speak to people in language that was most accessible to its original audience, where emotion and emphasis bore better fruits than legalistic precision.

A good rule of thumb is that we should ease off the strict constructionism when it becomes a stumbling block to understanding and obedience.  If the Bible speaks in terms of some absolute that sounds pathological or insane, we should ask, "Assuming we interpret this in a more sane way, what is God trying to tell us here about His character, especially when I take this passage as part of the greater whole?  What is God trying to communicate about sinful vs. righteous living or our proper eternal focus?  What lesson might Jordan Peterson draw from this, for that matter?"  We're asked to have a faithful, seeking, and obedient heart, and sometimes that requires trusting God on things we don't fully understand, until the time comes when time and perspective lead us to the same view (the hardest for me was understanding why God cares so much about sexual morality, but it's becoming more apparent every day).

We also have to understand that God revealed Himself in baby steps, communicating only what His audience of the time would understand.  God doesn't fundamentally change His nature, but He does change His lesson plan and strategy for what He's trying to teach us at any given stage of our development.

We also can't really hold God to the morality that was given to us for the purpose of defining interpersonal boundaries and glorifying God: Not only does the Lord of Hosts have sovereignty over many (all) souls in a way that we do not, but God also has perspective beyond ours.  We see all the people God slaughters, or has slaughtered, or allows to be slaughtered in the Old Testament, and we're horrified.  Meanwhile, as far as God is concerned, killing them off early might have been the best way to save their more permanent souls from irreparable damage by a degenerate culture, etc.  Humans have no authority or complete perspective to make such presumptions (I'm looking at you, Catholic Church and your Judas Cradles), but God naturally would.  Faith means trusting that God is God and inherently right, and that He will deal fairly and lovingly with the *souls* of those born before Christ, or who were slaughtered collectively, or who were born somewhere even today where they really had no chance, etc.  Faith means coming to a level of comfort with the idea that there are unseen spiritual things happening which, if only we knew them, more of the tragedy and mystery would make sense to us.

Let’s pretend for a moment that God is real, the Bible is 100% true and accurate.

We cannot understand it from God’s perspective. We cannot see as He can see.

We can see yesterday and today and plan for a future we can’t control, that’s all. God can see everything: past present and future.

He allows things, He doesn’t do things, that hurt because He can see how those things will affect His kingdom, His plans, His purpose, not ours.

I saw my best friend from childhood suffer and die a miserable death that spanned 2 years. My dad killed himself. I’ve been sick for years. I watched my granny lose her mind and wither away after her son killed himself and her 1st grandson died. My granddad died horribly of cancer. All these were prayed for daily.

God doesn’t care about how life affects us, He cares about how life affects His purpose. This world is dead already. He’s not trying to fix it or save it. He’s trying to get us out of here alive.

He doesn’t make us suffer. He doesn’t tempt us. He doesn’t torture us. And He doesn’t make all our problems go away unless doing so helps Him get more people out of this life alive,  and He doesn’t have to guess. He can see what will work best. 10,000 years from now, how we suffer in this life won’t matter at all.

What evidence is there that it's true?

@Macchina

References?


Never hear? That's just flat out false.

You've been under a rock:
https://archive.org/details/B-001-014-054
https://www.amazon.com/Alleged-Bible-Contradictions-Explained-George/dp/9992429844
https://www.amazon.com/Alleged-Discrepancies-Bible-John-Haley/dp/0883689855
https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Sayings-Bible-Walter-Kaiser/dp/0830815406
https://carm.org/the-bible/bible-difficulties/

"You have to admit there's a lot wrong with it..."  Ok. You said it. why should *you* believe yourself? Much less anyone else? You're just telling people they have to agree with you ... just ... because.

"different orders of creation" - um ... yes? And? 2:4-25 is another account of the sixth day. If someone explains something again, that means they have to be contradicting what they said before? Because they're explaining it again?


Not sure what the point of this bit is ...?


To martyr themselves?  Did you get that from the meaning of the text or did you add that yourself?  Strikes me as nothing more than a rank insult.


I still don't get what you're on about.


I'm in my fifth decade and was born into church too and that's the exact *opposite* of my personal experience. That's not a christian or biblical thing at all, its just a human weakness. If what you are saying is true, it's sad and wrong to have happened.


No, it's not, and that you can even think this is true enough to post it makes me wonder if this post you've done is just made up. You say you're shocked that you weren't allowed to question. Ok, if you're honest about this bit and are not just using it as an emotional rationalization, give references. If it's true and you think it's bad for people, show your work.



"... not able to defeat some enemies" ... what have you been reading? Did you completely skip revelation (and most of the rest of the book)? God didn't "allow"evil and satan. He planned it all out to work towards the greatest possible good. Did you skip genesis 50:20? Did you ever read about the day of judgement where everyone is given what they deserve according to their words, thoughts, and deeds, and what is wrong with creation is fixed?

As for God speaking clearly or not ... so ... what? How does our liking or not liking that mean anything more than we do or don't like it?


All those decades and you completely missed the Gospel. It's no wonder you are upset.

You can't and couldn't and never could earn your way by doing something right to not end up in hell. God cannot be God and accept less than perfection as being perfection, and perfection is what's required to *earn* your way out of getting justice for what you've done. Again, You can't do that and never could. "Have an experience, get some emotional goosebumps, pray a prayer and than work hard to earn your way into the good place" IS NOT THE GOSPEL!  That results in ... where you are.

Guilt? Fear? Yes, those are good things to have ... about things we are guilt of, and things we should fear. Only an insensate idiot doesn't have fear when they're at the beach watching a 200 ft wave coming inshore faster than they could ever get away from it. But that's only the start. If what you say is true of your experience, you never understood the depth of your guilt - because you thought / acted as if you could earn your way "onto God's good side." You can't and couldn't. If you ever behaved and thought that way, you didn't know your head from a hole in the ground. If you never realize that you can't earn your way into God's good graces than you're hung up on yourself being good enough, somehow, on some tiny island, even if you think (retardedly) God would even say your imperfection is acceptable as perfection.

You've been afraid of hell and the people around you, *not God* who gives what you and I deserve.

God saves his enemies, while they are undeserving and imperfect:



He didn't make us able to earn our way, he didn't make it possible for those he died for to be saved from justice ... he actually SAVED them from justice. Full stop.

And how does one evaluate if something is still a relevant rule or command, or if it is just the way God chose to revealed himself to those people at that time?

Keep us posted.

If faith brought you good things in life, and you enjoyed fellowship with your church, there is no reason to turn away from it.  Maybe a different church, or some time with a pastor you like would help.

I'm an atheist, not an anti-theist, and would hate to see you become unhappy by making a change you had not fully explored.  I'm happy being faithless, because I have been my whole life, but have seen friends with faith lose it, then become unhappy without it.

Good luck to you on your journey.

oh, ok.

i need to familiarize myself with a different book, traditions, and customs to understand this one book and traditions, makes perfect sense

Attached File

You are correct. OP is now part of that movement.

OP I think you need to speak to a Christian counselor or pastor/elder in your church body. I have always believed in once saved always saved as in salvation and redemption.

If you are part of Jesus's flock, he'll never leave or forsake you. I'll pray for you and yours.

These are fingernail marks inside the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

They were made my people who were praying as hard as they could to the same god you pray to.

Do you think they needed to do more? Were they doing it wrong?

If we could bring them back to life in a magic time machine, what do you think they would tell us about the power of prayer?

Correct, we may leave Him but He will never leave us.

Top kek!

Sooner or later...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Attached File

Yeah I don't get the bitter non believers. If you don't belive then WTF are you mad about? I don't belive all the "right" things because I think there are inconsistencies that give me doubts but many Atheists sound to me like children angry at father because things aren't fair.

If you don't believe in God IDK how you're mad that he didn't make life fair.

They probably don't talk much.

People follow their consciences and those who never heard the truth will be judged for violating their consciences.

Humans can be "decent people" without the truth but what they can't do and never will be able to do is have *any* way to coherently and logically answer "but how do you know that's right or wrong?"

People just follow their consciences utterly ignoring this reality and are happily bluepilled.

Without a rational answer for "how do you know that's wrong" it's impossible to condemn the gas chambers at the death camps, the holodomor, or even say that there is such a thing in this world as evil.

“1At that time some of those present told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2To this He replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? 3No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them: Do you think that they were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Jesus prayed that the cup of the crucifixion would pass from Him. Yet it did not. I’m not sure your point. Everyone talks about “magic sky daddy” but outside health and wealth preachers and congregations there’s nothing scriptural to back up everything going out way because we prayed about it.

I have had that thought too and many more over the years. My belief is that they were praying to be saved from death when they were actually saved for eternity starting at the second coming.

I get it that you and a lot of the other people are trying to be kind, but he told you what the problem is:  the actual words in the book that is the foundation of your faith.  If he reads it more, they still remain.

I ran into the same thing in my early twenties.  It started with the realization that for most of my life, I'd being praying and never "hearing" anything back.  Never feeling the "presence" of God.  So I read the bible.  A lot.  And I found many of the same inconsistencies.  It especially bothered me how different the God of the old Testament is, compared to Jesus.

I'm not an atheist, but I do not believe what the Bible says about the creator of the universe is true.  It is words, written by men, and men are frequently full of shit.