We need to define our terms, Christianity is following Christ. Being a Christian is being Born Again by the spirit of the living God. When you are Born Again the Holy Spirit of God moves into your heart and you become a new creature in Christ Jesus. At that very moment, your sins are completely wiped away, removed, and forgotten by Almighty God. You take on the righteousness of Jesus Christ and God writes your name in the Lambs Book of Life.
This seals your soul for all eternity and you have everlasting life in Heaven after you die or taken up in the rapture when Christ returns- (whichever happens first)

For the Christian, this is an undeniable event, the "old you" has passed away and it is impossible to deny this change. For some, it's dramatic and drastic, for others it's more subtle but for all, it's a noticeable, tangible occurrence that happens once in the lifetime of a Believer.


Being Saved isn't stuff you do or try to earn in order to be made right with God, that's religion-  Christianity is simply trusting and embracing Jesus

This is not something you can leave or would ever want to leave. Your heart has been changed, the scales have been removed from your eyes by Almighty God through Jesus Christ and you know beyond understanding that you're not what you used to be.

I grew up in church as well.  Enough that when I was a young teen I pretty much figured out that 90% of it was internal politics and not God.  If the good folks don't like what the pastor has to say, they just get another pastor.  Sounds like you have just reached a weaning period where you need not depend on a church or others for the answers but seek them out yourself.  Nothing wrong with leaving the church.  I''ve done that too.  I know in my heart that God exists and I will only be judged by Him.  I try to be the best person I can.  Sometimes it's not so good and I know it.  I don't ask God for much.  I don't feel like I deserve even half of how much I have been blessed.  I do ask God for others though.  As much as I can.  I'll ask for you!  Live good. Do right. Be happy.

Don't think too hard bruh; just eat and reproduce.

Try a church with a priest?

I had a very similar experience as you and officially came to the same conclusion around 25 y/o after reading some silly things in the Bible.

I decided that religions try to explain what we don't know.  Where did we come from?  Where are we going?   How do we get there?  Religion is absolutely man-made because nearly every society on Earth came up with their own religion.  Some are more believable than others, and some have far more followers than others.

It's a hard step to make given the scare tactics we've been taught, but good on you for doing you own walk and coming to your own conclusions despite what pressure you may have had around you.

The only reason the Jewish people would try and bring back the sacrificial system is because they don't recognize Jesus and the Messiah, the lamb of God whose sacrifice was the one that ended it for all time. When the angel ripped the curtain in half to expose the arc and the holy of holies, God left the building. I have never seen a scripture about rebuilding a real Temple like the one the Romans destroyed, which ironically, was predicted by the guy they rejected. My belief is the Jewish people have had horrible things happen to them because their ancestors called for Jesus' crucifixion and said, let his blood or basically any curse fall on us and our children. Well, it sure seems they got that. We have pastors today who aren't Jewish predicting the end of the world based on a mis understanding of what temple would  be raised up in three days. They are false prophets. ymmv

edit to say. God still looks out for his chosen people. Israel should have never won a couple of those wars and that was God stepping in.

Holy shit you are setting a bad ass example for Christians everywhere!

Love me or I will burn you up!


If it were a marriage it would be grounds for divorce and/or worse.

It amazes me that people follow a religion that believes like this. I grew up hearing it from the pulpit my entire life. Luckily, preachers have backed off on the hell fire and damnation shtick. I guess that is where people learn abusive relationships are acceptable.

Religious perhaps. Christians who followed the words of Jesus? In no way.

Dupe.

LMFAO

I've always believed the quickest way to convert Christians to atheism is to have them read the Bible all the way through. It reads like a collection of loosely related stories copied down hundreds of years after the events occurred by iron age imbeciles with over-active imaginations and no understanding of the natural universe. SURPRISE! That's exactly what it is. Once I read it I began to seriously doubt everything I'd been told on the matter, all the easily digestible, cherry-picked parts. I began to explore the arguments against it. My favorite book along these lines was Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark". The truth of it was undeniable. It was a major relief to have my blinders lifted.

But that's just me. I don't try to convert anyone. Some of my closest friends are devoutly faithful. I would hate to rob them of that. They are beautiful people comprised of what they believe. If I were to undermine their beliefs I'd alter who they are. I don't want that. And if there's gonna be a culture war in this nation I'm damn sure siding with my religious, conservative patriots. It's that belief structure that layed the foundation for the success of our nation. We need more conservatives these days. If Christianity helps bolster that then Praise Jesus. I'm sharing my ammo stash with Christians. I do believe atheists exist in foxholes. I just hope I'll be the only one.

Are you human?

You seem to forget, the Bible was written by men, and re-translated countless times. You are expecting perfection from a book written by imperfect people. Sometimes people with their own agenda.

I'm failing to see where the imperfections or contradictions made by imperfect men lessens the fact that Father,son and Holy Ghost are not real, unless you doubted your faith to begin with.

I've read some people posit hell is not actually a torture chamber in the way of getting racked and burned, but rather it is a permanence of knowing there is a God and you will not be with him.

The punishment is simply knowing you will not live with God.

Seems odd doesn't it that God offers total forgiveness only during your mortal years when his existence cannot be proven and not during your spiritual existence. But God doesn't play games!

Another way of thinking about this is recognizing there is a law higher than man's law.

This is important stuff here... In my research of the Bible, I learned that important sections of the Bible that Christians claim predict that Jesus Christ is the Messiah (and the son of God, the very idea of which, is heretical to Jews), are very different in the English translation of the Hebrew Tanakh.  The argument that I've gotten back from Christians is that the sneaky Jews went back and CHANGED the Tanakh, after the fact, in order to invalidate their claims about Jesus.  When it comes to these kinds of religious paradoxes, you can always count on Christians to come up with conspiracies by the sneaky J-O-O-S.  (Note:  this is sarcasm, to point out the ridiculousness of anti-Semites, and their conspiracies.)

I recommend that any Christian who strongly believes the words of their Bible, go and look at what the Hebrew version of the Old Testament says, relative to the Messiah.  The bottom line is that either the English translation of the Old Testament is lying, or the English translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is lying.  They can't both be telling the truth, simultaneously.  (Edit to add:  Obviously, they could also both be lying about what is the actual "truth", not specifically who "changed" what, to fit their narrative.)  This is a very good resource for reading an English translation of the Hebrew Bible (The Tanakh):

https://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

All of this proves my point that people involved in writing religious texts are frequently completely full of shit.  Yes, we all have to deal with the fallibility of men and their written texts (for example, history and our Declaration of Independence, etc.).  However, if there is monkey-business in the writing and origins of historical / political texts, the "risk" is quite a bit different than texts regarding the origins of the universe, the creator of that universe, and our relationship with the creator.

I am surprised you came to that conclusion.  The older I get, and the the more I learn, I see a supernatural homogony to His Word not contradictions.  Your kids already have that guilt, as do you, as does all of mankind.  The message of salvation is liberation from sin guilt and the restoration of your relationship with God.  God's creation has freewill.  Our condition is of our own doing.  The evil in the world is a reminder that man is not capable of governing itself, we need God's righteousness in our own lives, and that of our neighbors and our nation.  God is never silent, we just turn a deaf ear.

You're repeating a telephone game version of gossip that you don't understand.

For a bit of backstory, the original Hebrew text was lost, which was the ancestor to the [newer Hebrew] Masoretic Text and the [older Greek translation, the] Septuagint.  The Septuagint was originally translated from Hebrew in B.C. times, and the oldest surviving manuscripts are from B.C. times as well, whereas the oldest surviving full copies are from the 4th and 5th centuries.  The oldest surviving Masoretic manuscripts are from the 9th and 10th centuries, and the entire family post-dates the Septuagint by a thousand years.  (It's worth noting that here are some fairly obvious transcription errors in the newer Masoretic Text line of Hebrew, like missing lines that lead to butchered flow problems.  Also, the Dead Sea scrolls, etc. have reinforced the accuracy of the Septuagint.)

There are some prophecies which differ between the Septuagint and newer Masoretic Text, but at the end of the day, Christianity does not strictly rely on the Septuagint anyway.  The Septuagint provides extra evidence, but almost every Bible translation to English comes directly from the Hebrew Masoretic Text, which is the same authoritative Hebrew used by modern Jews (despite being over 1000 years younger than the Greek Septuagint used by the Jews during the time of Jesus).

A lot of the controversy is in fact about translation choices which can still be made straight from the extant Masoretic Text today .  For instance, Isaiah 7:14 uses the word "`almah" to describe either a young woman or a virgin, giving birth.  There is an ambiguity in the meaning, and Jewish scholars would argue that it would use the word "bethulah" (as in Genesis 24:16) if it really meant virgin.

Their argument sounds reasonable on its face, except Jewish scholars were the ones to translate from earlier [lost] Hebrew to the Greek Septuagint to begin with, and they specifically chose the Greek word "parthenos," which specifically means a virgin.  Jews were happy with this for hundreds of years and treated it as authoritative (and more were literate in Greek).  During Jesus's time, the Jews primarily used the Septuagint as their foundational text, and Jesus and his disciples quote from it so closely in the New Testament that divergence in the [later] Masoretic Text was most likely introduced later.

It was only after Christians had success winning converts that the Jews began to disparage the Septuagint, which had extremely strong multilateral support for Jesus Christ fulfilling messianic prophecy.  They were so motivated to "fix" this problem that they sequentially had two new Greek translations done by Aquila and Theodotion containing the opposite reading, which they maintain today use the corrected understanding.  (Personally, I find it weird and telling that they went with the argument, "Even if Mary was a virgin, that still doesn't prove anything!"  That's borderline unhinged.  Wouldn't reasonably grounded Jews without extraordinary motivation have thought it sufficient to just call Mary a whore?  This wasn't the only textual "problem" they suddenly decided needed to be "fixed" though, so I guess overkill was the order of the day.  The Jewish proselytes of the time plainly went scorched Earth on the Septuagint over Christianity, and yet suggesting that any of these highly motivated rabbis ever "fortified" the Hebrew to prevent any more "incorrect" translations is supposed to make post-WWII'ers clutch our pearls over wild-eyed anti-Semitism.  LOL, whatever.  If you want to understand ancient people through modern day sacred cows, that's on you.  Realistically speaking, they showed so much zeal to "fix the bug" that it's entirely possible that the original lost Hebrew really did read "bethulah" anyway.  That's another can of worms though.)

Which translation of "`almah" is correct here, and was "`almah" even the original Hebrew word?  That's for each person to decide, if they want.  I think I'll go with the older Jewish scholars who translated to the Septuagint the first time around from a better source and without a competition-killing motive, and with all the early Christian eye witnesses who martyred themselves instead of recanting their faith and their testimony.  People who stand to die for their beliefs tend to be more earnest on average than those who stand to personally gain/maintain power and wealth, but that's just my take.  You can still sanely make either translation from the modern Masoretic Text.

Wow, I think this is the one of the most immature things I’ve read from what I would assume is a believer.

It’s people like this, who go unchallenged by other believers, that help reaffirm my views on religion.

OP, thanks for sharing where you’re at.

To all the people who wrote well thought out responses to OP’s situation, thanks for doing so, I enjoy reading them.

I’ve been told consistently over the course of my life that I’m going to hell for my beliefs.

Funny thing is, not a single one of them who acts like the poster you quoted ever figure out there are some people in this world who look at them and ask themselves

“If I join your organization, will I be like you?”

Assholes exist everywhere. Even in religion. How often do unpleasant assholes realize they're being unpleasant assholes, whether they're crossfitters, vegans, Democrats, etc.?

I will say that there are less asshole religious folk who aren't sure it's worth reaching out and saying "sorry about that' because people get soooo assmad over asshole holy rollers they're just as likely to attack the actual non-assholes, and so approaching people who are mad at the assholes isn't worth the squeeze.

It's like on public transit when I watched a probably 17/18 year old getting hit on by an older.... "gentleman". She was clearly not into it, but felt she couldn't say leave me alone as he was encroaching in her space because it would make her racist. I tried to strike up conversation with her while literally staying where I was, "Joys of living in a city and guys who creep right?" and she unloaded on me.

Is it worth attempting to approach someone after they're mad but won't actually strike back at the asshole but will project all their anger onto you?

Your first sentence is incredibly dismissive and exactly wrong relative to the facts of my life.  Over the years, I've found this lack of humility to be common, amongst cocky Christians forcefully telling me how smart they are.  Funny how that works.  So, you can take your insulting characterization of something you don't know anything about, and shove it.  

I read about this stuff years ago.  Then, since I rarely trust what other people say, I personally read the "prophetic" passages in KJV and NIV versions of the Bible, and then at mechrom-momre.org, and compared them all as closely as possible (which hardly fits your dismissive characterization, but I digress.)  What I read in the different sources, confirms the claim of the Jews.

Then to clarify things, I consulted with a Jewish Rabbi on these passages.  He, of course, tells me that your version of history, is wrong, so I guess he must be in on the sneaky conspiracy.  I find it interesting that you focused so incredibly hard on the "virgin" translation issues, but avoid some of the much deeper issues, in particular, the divinity (or lack thereof) of the Messiah.  The Jewish Messiah is just a man.  A great man, but just a man.  There is ZERO room in the Jewish faith for a "son of God" or anything like that, and their version of the translation lacks all of this.  You can read those passages in their version, and you won't see any references to a son of God, divinity or anything like that.  Which all makes perfect sense, because their god is the ONE god.  Not a triune god.  Not a god with sons, etc.

And when it comes to translations of Hebrew, I suppose I'd tend to trust Hebrews, but that's just me.

https://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/mashiach.htm

I wish I still had those emails from the Rabbi.  He was a solid guy.

All of that said, I don't believe the Jewish version of the universe, God, etc., either.  It is also just the words of men.  But, it does appear (and certainly Jews feel this way), that Christianity was built on a corruption of their words, written by their men.  So, to me, it's just BS piled on top of BS, all of equal validity, or rather, lack thereof.

When you see, smell, and touch the evil man does to their fellow man, woman, and child you develop doubts.

We all want to believe, but it is often hard.

After seeing kids stabbed to death, normal people killed, freak accidents, etc I wonder if there's any point other than riding out a biological life cycle.

Sorry for your struggles. I can't make the reality go away, but can point out the good to live for and to make greater. Make your world and people better every bit you can.

Christianity in a nut shell.

If I may present an alternative view to your situation:

It still bothers you. You haven't grown cold to the evil, dismissive of the sorrow or indifferent to the violence.

It still bothers you because "it's not supposed to be this way.

Perhaps your faith is stronger than you think brother.

I didn't say I had something I wanted to discuss with you, I have told you the initial post you started this over was replying to another poster's insult, it clear WASN'T asking for a debate, I've asked if you had something you wanted to discuss and now, your dirty cnn style trick is "sophist, no substance, typical" - that's sleazy.  It also fits the initial post that you are acting butthurt over to a T.

To be clear, because apparently it's too hard for you to comprehend what words mean (aka, read the thread) and correct your blatant mistake: I DIDN'T ASK YOU FOR A DEBATE. I invite you to go back into the thread and use the quote function to prove that wrong.

If you want to debate something, SAY SO and than SAY WHAT and than do so like an adult, or drop the posing.  <---- if that's too hard for you to grasp, that would be me, again, asking you if you want to discuss something, which you seem so deadset to do. Take your pick.
@1paintball

He didn't.

That's a rather old dirty trick you've got going there.

If you see that the vowel points were done differently in the passages referring to the coming messiah in ot than they were elsewhere in the bible - using a different standard and goals - and you know this happened AD and not BC - you can't have realized that for any reason other than you're just a scummy antisemite, so we can completely ignore what you say and handwave it away, because you're a dirty conservative trump supp... oops, wrong group... eh, well, exact same thing.


You do realize that you're writing a text that discusses the origins of the universe and the creator. You just posted that we can't talk about the creator, and the origins of the universe. That's discussion of those things.

Meaning, according to yourself, you're full of it and should be ignored.

Apply your standards equally everywhere they apply.

You're making a mistake of trying to pick apart logical sounding when that has nothing to do with the Jewish faith.  Their understandings of the material is wholly interpreted by the creator (themselves) and they are the original fathers of the religion metaphorically.
So who are you going to believe.  The father of the religion.  Abrahams own people, the chosen people of god.  Or some other  johnny come lately  non-jews who  had some new understanding of the way things work.

The only reason that Christianity became popular was the new johnny come lately who took the Jewish religion,  made it more accommodating to non-jews and spread it far and wide.

As for me I know the creator has the ultimate knowledge, and anyone else trying to decipher it is ignoring the creator.

The Jewish faith has told me everything I need to know about Christianity,  That Jesus was one of many false messiahs.

A Christian trusts in Christ to save them the way one would trust a parachute at 5,000 feet." Religion" hopes that if you flap your arms hard, you can save yourself.

See the difference?

I can understand your point. However if an organization purports to exemplify the ways of God, it should absolutely hold its adherents to those things by which it decrees are their ways. All too often individuals feel themselves to be “Godly” while being nothing but examples of everything wrong and unsavory in the Ego.

Are there “Good Christians”. Yes I’ve met a few. Are these the minority. Absolutely.

They carry the mark of Grace in their life.

Something very few have acquired and even fewer understand.

Those dudes are really impressive though, you gotta admit. They are the pinnacle of western civilization.

They have achieved nothing we can’t. While they have lived a life that is exemplary, there is no reason, we ourselves cannot in some small way follow their examples.

You have to hunt the good stuff in life.  Even in the worst times, and the worst days, there is something beautiful to see, smell, or hear.   If I'm stuck in traffic jams, I'll see wildflowers in the median.  If someone close to me dies, I remember the funniest thing they ever said to me, and it will make me smile.  Death, illness, and misery are everywhere, but they are not everything.  They just make the good more precious, and well worth seeking out.

Very well said

Same page. I'm impressed but it's totally achievable, however with a lot of work. (Which is a good thing.)

If your beef is with religion or what someone who claims to be Christian is doing or not doing, then you've missed the boat altogether. It is likely that you have never had a personal and genuine walk with Jesus Christ ever. You lose biggly and apparently chose poorly. Now you will have to pay and I say this with no malice or ill intent toward you but there it is.

Exactly! You have to earn it. It’s not just “given”. Like so many things in life, working hard for something brings a lot more satisfaction that having it just laid at your feet. The majority focus on the end result, thinking that’s all that matters, and neglect the fact, it’s the journey itself that is more important.

I don't think OP started this thread to say F U to something he's been believing in his whole life.

I think he started it for support and fellowship during a tough trial. I think we could help OP better by being positive with our own experiences and less vitriol towards OP.

Regarding the original hebrew which was sans-vowel points.

The vowels were not written. They were simply inferred from the text by readers, who had to be fluent in the language to figure them out.

For an english example:

IN TH BGINNNG GD CRTD TH HVNS ND TH RTH. NW TH RTH WS FRMLSS ND MPTY, DRKNSS WS OVR TH SURFC OF TH DP ND TH SPRT OF GD WS HVRNG OVR TH WTRS

Which wasn't a real problem when the language was being actively used and spoken on a consistent basis. But biblical hebrew died out as a spoken language and became a liturgical language (some could understand others couldn't, think latin mass for an example) I gather sometime between 400-600 ad.

The masoretes added a system to the biblical texts to indicate the proper vowels some time from the 7th to 10th century and hebrew as a mother tongue/spoken language wasn't revived till after 1881 when the modern hebrew was birthed.

Point being, the masoretes were, with their vowel systems, creating a running commentary on how you should read the hebrew of the OT. Expecting them to do that without any errors AND expecting them to completely ignore the anti-semetic world they lived in is beyond stupid.

So what we have is a case of believing:

People who were attacked constantly for being jews got it completely right AND wouldn't let any anti-christian bias into their *running commentary* on the OT (which,  btw,  if you say can't be done because humans are full of it, means you have to ignore THEM too) and specifically having to do with the predicted messiah - which messiah liars and vicious scumbags had been abusing the name of to attack them for centuries - manged to overcome all of that (this is like asking CNN to not lie about trump)

Why?

Uh ... because christians have to be antisemites in their translations ... just ... because, even though you couldn't learn hebrew in europe in the middle ages safely (IIRC, Reuchlin had to hide the fact that he was studying with a rabbi) and when that bar eventually fell, *everyone that could fluently read the hebrew could check your work and see if you were wrong.*

You make an outstanding point here, and one that is reflected several times over the course of this thread via the nasty comments. It puzzles me why so often the reaction is to demean, chastise, and belittle someone who is having such an experience, as opposed to do just as you explain and help lift your fellow man out of their situation.

I understand there are a few who will openly as well as privately reach out in order to genuinely help, but again those are the few.

That was an act of love, not vengefulness.  It allowed Abraham to test his faith and to prove to God that he was obedient and faithful.  He is now the father of all who are saved by faith.  It also demonstrated what God was going to do save mankind, by sacrificing his son.

There is no equivalent to "Sola Scriptura" in Jewish practice, and it's a relative upstart in Christian circles. The only Abrahamic tradition that has anything remotely similar to it is the current extremist strain of political Islam so popular with groups like Al Qaeda and ISIs, but even they draw heavily from Hadith and such.

The idea that reading the bible outside of any specific tradition will somehow enlighten you about anything related to Judaism of Christianity reflects a profound ignorance of the traditions. Alas, we've seen that a lot in these threads.

A love Sagan's book. It makes a lot of great points about the importance of reason over superstition. It has a flaw that many similar books / arguments have with regard to a fundamental misunderstanding or outright rejection of the idea that there is more to the human experience than material quantifiable reality. In addition, it frequently flirts with a strawman of a particular strain of belief that conflates the supernatural with the natural.

@Macchina

I listened to this talk about Aquinas and Francis a few weeks ago and it did wonders for me. If you have a drive or a workout or something that you can fill with some learning and time, this talk is awesome.

Goes into Theology, Aquinas metaphysics and Francis' takes on nature. There's a lot of parallels with modern stuff you can draw from guys who lived long ago.

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/R9HLP

It's simply historical fact that the current Masoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures is historically newer that the oldest Christian texts of the same books. In addition, the Christian scriptures recorded by Jewish trained and raised men quote from the Jewish texts as was known by them at that time, and those quotes and references are indeed contradicted by the "modern" Masoretic text, with the most famous being the Book of Isaiah reference to a "virgin" versus a "young woman." Both Paul and Matthew would have been very familiar with Isaiah as it was understood by the Jews of their era, as would their often Jewish audiences.

I really should have read further...