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May I ask you a question? I understand if you choose not to answer. Was there ever a time that you were a believer? If so, did something happen, or was it simply a conclusion you came to. Someone else, in another post, made a good point. Many people are turned off from Christianity due to things other Christians say or do. I’ve seen that first hand. People can be very cruel, even those who claim to be Christians.
I don’t view God in the same way you do. I don’t believe He will squash me like a bug whenever I sin against Him. I believe He is a very loving and forgiving God. All that He requires is that we confess our wrongdoings to Him and stop sinning. I believe God is a just, fair and righteous God. He hates sin and cannot be in its presence.
I actually do love Him. I fear Him only in the sense that I see Him as very powerful being who is able to destroy me if He chose to, but to be honest, I rarely, if ever, think of Him in that way. I think a lot about Jesus. When I read the gospels, I see so much love there. Even if you don’t believe He is who He says He is, you have to admit, He was the greatest man ever to walk this earth. Even Muslims believe He was a great man. Anyway, I serve Him because I love Him, not because I fear Him.
Am I okay with some people being condemned by Jesus to eternal punishment? I’d be a liar if I said no. I guess I’m one of those people who thinks that those who rape and beat little children deserve to suffer. I have a hard time sympathizing with people like those who brought down the trade towers and killed thousands of innocents. Imho, there must be justice whether in this life or in the next for the unrepentant. Does that make me a bad Christian? Maybe. I don’t know.
This caught my eye, bolded. I am a person who was in the WTC on 9/11. I would not say I sympathize with those who attacked us, but I do not hate them or wish them condemnation to some sort of eternal punishment. At the time the buildings went down, I was in a period when I wanted very much to be an atheist, but then I did find myself in the stairwell that day "praying to a God I don't believe in", to quote The Script--always loved that line. The bad behavior of many Christians post 9/11--though balanced out by some true compassion that came to the 9/11 community from people of all faiths including Christians--didn't do much to draw me closer back to the church.
Shortly after the attacks, I learned from some women who had been seeing a psychic for mental health that this psychic and others in her spook community were offering free sessions to survivors. I took advantage of that, and went to see her. Basically she claimed to read my aura, which I know little about, but she said that mine indicated that I had very little anger toward the attackers. I said, "No, I don't feel anger. They do not understand us, and we do not understand them."
I still feel that way, and ever since then, I have urged others to focus on our commonalities with others rather than our differences. I believe that's the only way.
But no, thinking that way does not make you a bad Christian. It makes you human.
A former fundamentalist Christian poster who became an atheist in her forties (someone who hasn't posted in a while) asked a long-time friend a question along those lines, like, "If you are such a good friend, how will you enjoy heaven if you are convinced I will go to hell because I don't believe?" She said her friend laughed and said, "Oh I won't even remember you. God will wipe the memory of our nonbelieving friends and family from our souls."
Actually, God will wipe every tear away from our eyes; and the glories of heaven will eventually take over in our consciousness so that earth and the former things will no longer be remembered.
It is not that God will wipe away the memory of our loved ones.
It is this,
Isa 65:16, That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.
Isa 65:17, For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isa 65:18, But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
Isa 65:19, And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
I don't believe that we will immediately forget what went on before;
It will be such that the glories of heaven so outweigh the trials of earth that the memory of it will fade away like a bad nightmare that we don't even remember the next day.
But there will be definite weeping for those whom we loved who didn't make it (Revelation 21:4a).
This is a major aspect of my motivation to win as many souls as possible to Jesus Christ.
If I can win all my family and extended family, friends and acquaintances, and those under the scope of my ministry, the only ones whom I will be weeping for will be people that I never really knew.
I can only speak for myself. You probably won’t agree, and that’s ok. My views are based on the Scriptures. Are my interpretations correct? I’d like to think they are, but I also know how easy it is to deceive oneself. All I can do is read, study, and pray for guidance. From what I can tell, God loves all of us. His love is unconditional. But His salvation, according to what I read in His word, is conditional. He says we must believe. We must repent, etc. Others may see it differently. We each must decide for ourselves what or what not we want to believe.
A Christian once pointed out that the Bible contains many voices. I agree with her and I half agree with you. I don't think we get a choice which voice we hear. I also don't think you should go against the one you heard.
In another post you said "you think some people deserve to suffer". I'm more concerned about their victims and keeping them from doing it to anymore kids. The suffering of the people who do these things is on them and God.
A Christian once pointed out that the Bible contains many voices. I agree with her and I half agree with you. I don't think we get a choice which voice we hear. I also don't think you should go against the one you heard.
In another post you said "you think some people deserve to suffer". I'm more concerned about their victims and keeping them from doing it to anymore kids. The suffering of the people who do these things is on them and God.
I, too, am more concerned about their victims and keeping them from doing it to anymore kids. And regardless of how horrific the crime, our God is a forgiving God. When even the worst of humanity repents and asks God to forgive them, He will, and I will follow His example. But for those who don’t, God won’t forgive them. I have no sympathy for them. They get what they deserve. I don’t hate them, but I don’t feel sorry for them either. If that makes me a bad Christian, then so be it. I’m still a work in progress.
I do believe we each have a choice, but I also believe that making the right choice is much more difficult for some than others. I know people who were raised in the best Christian homes. I also know some who were raised in terrible homes. Those raised in the worst homes have a much more difficult time making the right choices.
I just remembered I used to do nuance but they trained it out of me. The JW term for nuance is "wishy-washy". I got in trouble for that several times. Thanks Mordant.
Yes, I can see how nuance has to be trained out of a person, but it cannot be completely banished, because words are part of a family and while words in the same family may have different shades of meaning, they are related through an etymological denotation. The opposite happened to me. I tried to connect words that looked similar in spelling and was told I couldn't do that. I had to go by definitions in a dictionary or by another "authority". This included nuance and was told that I was quite bad at it. Similar to how you mentioned atheists not understanding love. I couldn't have my own understanding of love; I had to have their understanding of it. And I was a believer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8
There is a certain mindset that there are all types of things we atheist can't understand. Such as I've been told I can't understand love because it comes from God. God has to love you first....
Someone telling someone else they need to humble themselves doesn't understand humility IMO.
My understanding of this behavior is that what a person does is not enough. "There's more to it than that." A person has to think like them. As a non-believer, I don't feel special being targeted with those kinds of phrases because I know they use them with declared believers as well.
This caught my eye, bolded. I am a person who was in the WTC on 9/11. I would not say I sympathize with those who attacked us, but I do not hate them or wish them condemnation to some sort of eternal punishment. At the time the buildings went down, I was in a period when I wanted very much to be an atheist, but then I did find myself in the stairwell that day "praying to a God I don't believe in", to quote The Script--always loved that line. The bad behavior of many Christians post 9/11--though balanced out by some true compassion that came to the 9/11 community from people of all faiths including Christians--didn't do much to draw me closer back to the church.
Shortly after the attacks, I learned from some women who had been seeing a psychic for mental health that this psychic and others in her spook community were offering free sessions to survivors. I took advantage of that, and went to see her. Basically she claimed to read my aura, which I know little about, but she said that mine indicated that I had very little anger toward the attackers. I said, "No, I don't feel anger. They do not understand us, and we do not understand them."
I still feel that way, and ever since then, I have urged others to focus on our commonalities with others rather than our differences. I believe that's the only way.
But no, thinking that way does not make you a bad Christian. It makes you human.
Maybe I watch too many episodes of the FBI files. .
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 05-02-2022 at 10:03 AM..
Reason: Oops edited wrong post
Thanks for your response. I can’t speak for others, but I don’t find myself living in fear. I have a healthy reverence for God. I know He has the power to destroy me. But I also know He doesn’t want to. I think He wants to shower me with blessings. In fact, he’s done that so abundantly in my lifetime.
I hope I am never the kind of Christian who wants to instill the fear of God in others. I’d much rather show others His love.
I’m sorry for whatever hardship you went through. I would be interested to hear your story if you care to share it.
You're welcome and thank you for your kind response. I am not a very compelling writer so I won't go into my life story. It is really a story about how I went from feeling incompetent to feeling competent and being raised in a family that couldn't connect me to a world they weren't a part of even if that world was filled with other Christians. So they tried to convince me that I didn't want to be a part of it (shouldn't want to be a part of it) and they did it through religion.
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