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Old 06-21-2016, 03:07 AM
 
9,678 posts, read 9,973,716 times
Reputation: 1921

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Yes there was a man Mark Twain who lived a old man who seen almost all his children and his wife pass away and he turned from God and died lost to God be cause be blamed God for taking them , and would not forgive Him ................ Where Jesus said what we forgive not will not be forgiven , and is a iniquity of forgiveness which people will be under the curse , which Only Jesus can break with forgiveness and repentance , so then faith will come back .................See lost faith can be a grave error if left unchallenged
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Old 06-21-2016, 05:07 AM
 
261 posts, read 156,152 times
Reputation: 79
I lost my childhood Christian faith by the time I was 19 when I realised it had no credibility.
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Old 06-21-2016, 06:15 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
Reputation: 5927
Quote:
Originally Posted by hljc View Post
Yes there was a man Mark Twain who lived a old man who seen almost all his children and his wife pass away and he turned from God and died lost to God be cause be blamed God for taking them , and would not forgive Him ................ Where Jesus said what we forgive not will not be forgiven , and is a iniquity of forgiveness which people will be under the curse , which Only Jesus can break with forgiveness and repentance , so then faith will come back .................See lost faith can be a grave error if left unchallenged
Such mean -spirited denigration of Mark Twain convinces me that atheism is very often morally far superior to the moral mindset of some who profess to be Christians.
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Old 06-21-2016, 06:23 AM
 
5,912 posts, read 2,591,198 times
Reputation: 1049
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej View Post
We're all defective, in some way.
What do you expect from an incompetent designer jimmiej?
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Old 06-21-2016, 07:26 AM
 
5,912 posts, read 2,591,198 times
Reputation: 1049
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
You remind me of the story about a man sitting on top of his house during rising flood waters asking God to save him. Three times people came to help him in different ways and he refused them all waiting for God to do it. Ultimately he drowned. Your expectations about HOW God is supposed to reach out to you is causing you to miss any and all ways he might be reaching out to you through others, Thrill. Your expectations are the problem. It is NOT God.

Didn't god created and directed the flood to begin with?
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Old 06-21-2016, 07:41 AM
 
Location: New York City
5,553 posts, read 7,988,776 times
Reputation: 1362
Thrill, there is this saying that all that one needs to become an atheist is to read the bible. That was not the case with me, per se. What did it for me was reading a popular CHRISTIAN book. The book, "Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud" was written by popular Christian author Philip Yancey and it was written to tackle those tough secret questions so many Christians have but too afraid to ask or ask out loud:

Is God unfair?
Is he silent?
Is he hidden?

What was interesting was that I stumbled into the book while shopping for something to give to my best friends who had lost their mother to cancer. As is often the case with many of us, I had no what to say so I tried to find a card to sum up my feelings and express my condolences. Instead, I came across the book.

At first, I was afraid to even touch it because the "fundie" in me was taught to NEVER question God. It was a sign of spiritual weakness and questions and doubts were tools of the devil, but in seeking answers for my friends, I let my curiosity get the better of me so I began reading the book and could not put it down.

The book began with even questions I had, but what I did not know was that after actually buying the book in 1996 was that there was a part of the book that would give me a whole new perspective on a well known biblical story; one I am sure Mr. Yancey never intended readers to have.

The story about Job came up in the book, but it came up after a young seminarian sent Yancey his thesis on the book of Job which impressed the author. The young man simply wanted to get Yancey's blessing on it and to perhaps get it published. But while the thesis was still in Yancey's hands, the young man was going through some turmoil in his personal life that began at a tent meeting where there was s service of praises for God, supposedly sparing the lives of a few missionaries in an Amazon plane crash while the majority of them died. It disturbed the young man because he wondered about the others that died. Where was God in THEIR life and death moment?

That question began a series of events in his life and before Yancey could get back to him, he rushed to the author's door to ask him NOT to publish the thesis because he no longer believed in what he wrote. What the young man found out after looking a little closer at the story of Job was that the story, IF true, did not exactly paint God in a great light. It showed him as an egotistical maniac, who essentially waged a bet with his so-called enemy to see who could get the last praise out of Job. In other words, Job was a pawn in some cosmic game.

It was right there, I myself saw things with the story I never saw before. For years, all I heard was the story was about God's faithfulness to Job and Job's faithfulness to God, despite the odds. It was supposed to be a "feel good" story, but I noticed no one ever mentioned ow the whole saga got started and it was God who supposedly orchestrated the whole thing to squeeze some praise out of a human. From there, the wheels off my wagon to heaven started to fall off until I just called the BS for what it was and have NOT looked back since.

If the story of Job, to a former literalist like me, could be a sham OR more of a story about some sadistic God, then that God was not for me. I mean, I now know that the story NEVER happened in the way the author wrote (there could have been a man by the name of Job who suffered and recovered, yes), but the whole cosmic element is a pile of crock, as the author included the spiritual trappings to give human existence some kind of meaning ESPECIALLY when dealing with the age old question of why good people suffer or why there is evil in the world. This does not or did not make God any more real to me.
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Old 06-21-2016, 09:06 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,083 posts, read 20,582,163 times
Reputation: 5927
Cracking post. One of my childhood loves (still is) was the Peanuts comic strip and I am amazed at how many important points Schultz deals with. It was being a Peanuts fan rather than Christianity fan made me buy 'The Gospel according to Peanuts', but I still recall how astonished I was at how poor it was in its arguments. I not know it is the "Keyword exegesis" (1) method of explanation, which is really a way of avoiding it. The cartoon has some keynote remark and the writer took it and built a little sermon on it which didn't really answer the question.

I had no religion or Faith to lose, but encounters with this, the Screwtape letters and "Who moved the stone?" rather increased by doubts about the Christian claims - not to mention intellectual honesty - than answered hem.

(1) I saw this method and coined the term in a later examination of the Gospels, where his reply would skitter over the point I was making and instead base an irrelevant little sermon on a word that popped up in my question. It was effectively a smokescreen for changing the subject.
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Old 06-21-2016, 09:13 AM
 
Location: USA
17,156 posts, read 11,350,636 times
Reputation: 2376
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane View Post
Thrill, there is this saying that all that one needs to become an atheist is to read the bible. That was not the case with me, per se. What did it for me was reading a popular CHRISTIAN book. The book, "Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud" was written by popular Christian author Philip Yancey and it was written to tackle those tough secret questions so many Christians have but too afraid to ask or ask out loud:

Is God unfair?
Is he silent?
Is he hidden?

What was interesting was that I stumbled into the book while shopping for something to give to my best friends who had lost their mother to cancer. As is often the case with many of us, I had no what to say so I tried to find a card to sum up my feelings and express my condolences. Instead, I came across the book.

At first, I was afraid to even touch it because the "fundie" in me was taught to NEVER question God. It was a sign of spiritual weakness and questions and doubts were tools of the devil, but in seeking answers for my friends, I let my curiosity get the better of me so I began reading the book and could not put it down.

The book began with even questions I had, but what I did not know was that after actually buying the book in 1996 was that there was a part of the book that would give me a whole new perspective on a well known biblical story; one I am sure Mr. Yancey never intended readers to have.

The story about Job came up in the book, but it came up after a young seminarian sent Yancey his thesis on the book of Job which impressed the author. The young man simply wanted to get Yancey's blessing on it and to perhaps get it published. But while the thesis was still in Yancey's hands, the young man was going through some turmoil in his personal life that began at a tent meeting where there was s service of praises for God, supposedly sparing the lives of a few missionaries in an Amazon plane crash while the majority of them died. It disturbed the young man because he wondered about the others that died. Where was God in THEIR life and death moment?

That question began a series of events in his life and before Yancey could get back to him, he rushed to the author's door to ask him NOT to publish the thesis because he no longer believed in what he wrote. What the young man found out after looking a little closer at the story of Job was that the story, IF true, did not exactly paint God in a great light. It showed him as an egotistical maniac, who essentially waged a bet with his so-called enemy to see who could get the last praise out of Job. In other words, Job was a pawn in some cosmic game.

It was right there, I myself saw things with the story I never saw before. For years, all I heard was the story was about God's faithfulness to Job and Job's faithfulness to God, despite the odds. It was supposed to be a "feel good" story, but I noticed no one ever mentioned ow the whole saga got started and it was God who supposedly orchestrated the whole thing to squeeze some praise out of a human. From there, the wheels off my wagon to heaven started to fall off until I just called the BS for what it was and have NOT looked back since.

If the story of Job, to a former literalist like me, could be a sham OR more of a story about some sadistic God, then that God was not for me. I mean, I now know that the story NEVER happened in the way the author wrote (there could have been a man by the name of Job who suffered and recovered, yes), but the whole cosmic element is a pile of crock, as the author included the spiritual trappings to give human existence some kind of meaning ESPECIALLY when dealing with the age old question of why good people suffer or why there is evil in the world. This does not or did not make God any more real to me.
May I ask how you made the leap from realizing that the way God was portrayed in much of the bible, if true, would make God "not for me" (and I feel the same way) ... to deciding that meant there is no God (or no God worthy of your attention)? Was it the "age old question" that determined that for you?
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Old 06-21-2016, 09:49 AM
 
Location: Hong Kong
689 posts, read 547,867 times
Reputation: 92
It's never a surprise for God not to contact (in the past) someone openly admitted (right now) that he has little faith.

It is the saying that "all are invited but only a few are chosen".
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Old 06-21-2016, 09:52 AM
 
Location: Valencia, Spain
16,155 posts, read 12,822,485 times
Reputation: 2879
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkins View Post
It's never a surprise for God not to contact (in the past) someone openly admitted (right now) that he has little faith.
Why do you think 'faith' is something to be applauded?
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