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Personally, I didn't "leave" Christianity, Christianity left me.
But to answer the question, like the formation of most philosophical positions one generally does not wake up one morning and reject one's indoctrination, it is a gradual and logical progression. For me it was from Christianity, to agnosticism and finally atheism.
Thanks ovcatto for your thoughts.
Did you at one time truly believe Christ died for our sins, was entombed and God roused Him from the dead?
Absolutely they are still saved for eonian life . . . life pertaining to the future eons.
Well of course it is like slavery. But a good slavery!
Rom_1:1 Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, a called apostle, severed for the evangel of God"
1Co_7:22 For, in the Lord, he who is being called a slave, is the Lord's freedman. Likewise, he who is being called, being free, is a slave of Christ."
Gal_1:10 For, at present, am I persuading men or God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I still pleased men, I were not a slave of Christ."
Col_1:7 according as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow slave, who is a faithful dispenser of Christ for us,
Col_4:7 All my affairs shall be made known to you by Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow slave in the Lord,
Col_4:12 Greeting you is Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, always struggling for you in prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God."
Tit_1:1 Paul, a slave of God, yet an apostle of Jesus Christ, in accord with the faith of God's chosen, and a realization of the truth, which accords with devoutness,
Did you at one time truly believe Christ died for our sins, was entombed and God roused Him from the dead?
Short Answer:
Yes I was baptized, I believe more than once. So technically speaking the answer to your question is; yes I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I equally sure that at the time I was most sincere.
But as it states in 1 Corinthians 13:11
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
Long Form:
I believed what all children raised in a religious home believe, that there was this big Daddy of all Daddy white guys in the sky who created the heavens and the earth and that there were these angels who would look over us if we prayed on our needs at bedtime. I believed that god was good and that we had nothing to fear as long as we obeyed god's laws. I believed that god had a son and that this son taught us to love on another and that the mean old Roman's put him on a cross and killed him but on Easter he rose from the grave and would someday come back and take all us good children to heaven.
A Little History
Both of my parents were academicians, one was a United Methodist pastor and theologian, the other a college administrator. They divorced when I was very young but provided a pretty well rounded religious education seeing as I attended Sunday School, was enrolled in a Jewish preschool and would later attend a Catholic High School. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on one's perspective, spending part of my life with my father and part of my life with my mother (I was what could be called bi-coastal) I had the opportunity to continually conduct an A:B comparison of theism with shall we say, a more liberal view of philosophy - not that the United Methodist doctrine of my father was anything approaching the anti-intellectual nonsense of contemporary evangelicals, after all he was the first to reconcile for me the contradictions between Bible mythology and modern science by stressing the fact that the Bible was allegorical, of questionable authorship, and in no way a historical document having been written centuries after the fact (those liberal Christians!).
Anyway, over time the persuasive arguments of scientist and social scientist who my mother's position allowed me to come into contact with taught me lessons about the humanity, earth science, and the Cosmos that were far more complex and awe inspiring than burning bushes, water walking, healing the sick, or virgin births, or any other parochial musings of 3rd century inhabitants of Levant. Coupled with the fact after of many years of sitting in church surrounded by people looking up at the stain glass windows claiming that they saw the light... well who didn't... it was in the morning, and the sun was at an angle that anyone could predict that it would be at that time and date (pesky thing science). So why not just chuck the whole religion thing simply seek to understand those things that we can attempt to know rather than remaining stuck in the same old 3,000 year old ecclesiastical mud. So here we are a damned for eternity but fairly happy and spiritually satisfied atheist.
By the way, dangerously overindulgent drug and alcohol use, severe periods of depression, loss of close friends and relatives, and more near death experiences than I care to think about never sent me scurrying for a Bible - well one time, a brief flirtation with the Catholic Church 10 years ago but the entrance exam was just too hard to pass. I couldn't come up with an answer for the Nabisco is to flesh what Welches grade juice is to blood thing...
I have never been a part of any religion eventhough my mother tried her hardest to include me in the Catholic Church. I could not do it, not even for her. Submission is just not a part of my personality.
No, it is not about feelings. If my dad paid for my credit card bills, it does not depend upon how I feel about it to make it true. It is true whether I feel good or bad about it.
So while you are tying to take the high road, at the same time you are belittling my beliefs. Cute. Typical, but cute also.
It is not about whether Satan would ask anything. The point is that if, like Abraham, you believe God, even if what He says seems impossible at the time, such as having a child (Romans 4), that you also believe God concerning Christ dying for our sins, being entombed and God rousing Him out of death, you are also considered righteous even if you leave the faith later on, stand on your head every day, blow bubbles, shoot up heroin, or whatever, you are sealed by the spirit till the day of deliverance.
Heart-felt is what you said and/or meant, isn't it?
If you feel like your dad didn't pay for your bills, would you believe that he did anyway? It's not about feeling good or bad about it, I was just talking about feeling "it" or "a thing" as so.
I find you cute and typical as well (at least what I remember from your posts), one of the reasons I have been trying to reflect my image of yourself back at you. "Two can play this game" sort of thing.
Why would it not be? Satan would tell you, "believe this, don't question." plain and simple and evil indeed.
That doesn't seem fair or moral, than again, average humans aren't very fair nor moral... So why would average religions be so?
An old thread? Eusebius is long gone. And frankly his methods had become the crudest of denial - plonking Faith -claims, spewing vitriol at anyone who disagreed, and denying anything, no matter how well substantiated.
Such Topics can (let Those To Whom It May Concern hear) be taken too Woodenly; You left Christianity to be Atheist or Agnostic?is a starting point for debate, not a confining parameter. The purpose of the thread was to try to drive a wedge between atheists and agnostics, on the grounds that they accept the possibility of a giod and atheists don't.
It is a false argument factually since the acceptance of the possibility of a god is common to bioth atheism and agnosticism, but belief in a god as a reliable fact is NOT accepted by either, which drives a wedge between Theism and agnosticism.
Well of course, not that either, because an agnostic can believe a god exists, or indeed NOT believe a god exists.
Because theism or atheists is a belief position, and agnosticism is a knowledge position. But Eusebius, the generality of Christians, and indeed the majority people, fail to understand this and think that "agnosticism" is a reasonable position between Total Faith and total denial.
But of course, as had been the case for a LONG time, the Facts, Explanation and argument was the browsers, not for Eusebius, as he had no interest in Facts or explanations and argument was intended to win, or at least scrape a draw or as many cheap points as possible (even irrelevant ones - starting a fight, was a good way of doing that) and never, ever admit you were wrong.
This is the way it has been even since the attempt to make Creationism science with I/D was hung, drawn and quartered at the Dover trial, since when the conspiracy to fiddle Genesis into the science -class has been handed over to the lawyers and politicians, whose stock in trade is not facts, but Rhetoric.
Whether Trump (and Pence for Cripes' sake ) is a Big Win for them remains to be seen.
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) is a Big Win for them remains to be seen.
tough kid, were you? 
