Quote:
Originally Posted by Joint heir with jesus
Seeker- I have absolutely no doubts as the to the reality of God. In fact, I find the spiritual realm makes more sense than the physical one!Can I respectfully ask you a personal question?Why did you once but now no longer believe in God?This is a personal question and if you don't wish to divulge I'll certainly understand.
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No problems, I was a seeker of truth and as you may have read, I do tend to hold the bar higher for god than theists do. IOW, the claims in the bible, if true should be demonstrable, healings by the mere laying on of hands should always happen and so on.
Why did this not happen as claimed? Well I had to find out and no one really had answers in the church. Hell was antithetical to a loving god and was the easiest of doctrines to dismiss. As such I hovered in Universalism for awhile but even they had no answers to the bigger questions. They tend to be simply fundies w/o a hell doctrine.
The deeper I dug into origins the more it became clear that all of it was and is man made. In fact quite a few of the current popular memes in xianity are not much older than say 150 years. Even the sect I grew up in laid claim to be descendant direct from the church of acts. Turns out some Irish dude who had many mistresses and illegitimate children started the dang thing. It is a small but world wide sect known as the two by twos, workers, the way, church with no name and for all intents and purposes did in fact appear on the surface to be as claimed. No church buildings, no paid for pastors and the workers who were/are celibate go out in pairs forsaking all worldly things like jobs, homes etc.
In that discovery, many other sects also found their origins more or less the same time like the JWs, Mennonites, Amish and these also somehow link back to the Mormons. (a library of sorts)
There are very few sects I did not explore and when all of them claim to represent the truth from the same book yet have varying doctrines, it is not too hard to fathom, these were simply a reformation2.0.
I dug deeper and went all the way back to the council of Nicea and beyond that (~325CE) the trail runs cold. The origins of the type of christianity we see today and doctrines predates Jesus and ultimately, it is clear ALL of it are inventions of man. Hellenistic thought also infiltrated Judaism and we all now reject the Greek pantheon as myths. Yet so much of their ideas are in fact found in the bible.
Digging deeper into the origins of Judaism, it is also not as old as reported. What you are left with is myths based on earlier myths and assimilation of a myriad of beliefs and invented gods.
Not even the best apologists out there can negate my findings. They simply are only good for preaching to the choir and even my last pastor admitted my biblical knowledge was better than his. You see, I actually read ALL of it numerous times. When something does not gel, you seek answers that will make sense and sadly no one can make sense of them. All xians claim to be led by the HS yet come away with a diversity of conclusions most of them driven by emotional bias and not backed by anything more than hearsay or anecdotal "evidence". I was asking theological questions that he with a doctorate could not answer.
I even toyed with the bible code for awhile but that was really only conjecture and not backed by anything empirical.
The only way god gets me to believe in him again is by a physical 3D appearance in front of two sober witnesses and allows me an interview recorded in HD format for at least one hour. 10+ years on and still no appearance.
How many different churches/denominations have you visited/explored? Well I have since my youth sampled almost every available variety on offer here in Africa barring the old and new apostles, they are just too crazy to even consider.
I have thus come to the conclusion, all god beliefs are true but only to the individual. It is a projection or extension of their own ego and/or personality. IOW god only exists in your head and this is WHY god is unable to do anything as claimed (unless you get off your butt) and even then, it is simply YOU doing it and not you as some extension of this made up god. (the old "we are his hands and feet")
The dichotomy of chistendom is a perfect set up, god gets credit for the good stuff happening and the devil is the go to guy for the rest. Yet in all of this, bible god whom you THINK you serve, the creator of all by mere speech utterance is incapable to address anything but mere coincidental issues like finding lost keys, engineering the winning touch down or helping you pass a test that YOU studied for.
Meanwhile back in Africa, a kid dies every six seconds from starvation.
Captain Sulley lands a plane on the Hudson river and everyone praises gawd for a miracle who ironically was unable to divert the birds that caused the accident. Two days later a plane falls on its way to Alaska no survivors and the same crowd are now silent who praised gawd instead of Capt. Sulley's training and years of experience plus the designers of an aircraft superior to those made in the USA.
This is how pathetic and puny your god has become. If you do not believe me, read up the comments on media pages. But I guess these are not true christians™
until you need to include them in an
ad populum census then they count...
I do not think any of our atheist expectations of your god are unreasonable hence our higher expectation for such an entity.
It really does not matter from which angle you explore it, I have exhausted them all and still the real god is MIA.
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