croweupc

In North Korea they believe in things we consider to be unbelievable things because we didn’t grow up in their culture and under their education system. When we are taught to believe something from an early age it is hard to see the errors. When we are raised in church, taught by the church, only read material produced by the church, it is identical to how North Koreans believe what they believe. 

All Christians say the same thing. My version is right and yours is wrong. Almost all religions use this same argument. There is just one major problem with this, Catholics have left the faith too. I feel sorry for you because nothing will ever change your mind. I will gladly change my mind if evidence were to prove beyond reasonable doubt it’s true. I most certainly have reasonable doubt!

I grew up in the church. I taught Sunday School and Bible Studies for years, even preached. I was 34 when I left the faith. I know what the Bible says. Did you not study the council of Nicea? There has been disagreement in the church since the beginning. Paul even shares his own disagreements in his letters. There has never been a consensus and never will be. 

Religious ideas and deeply held beliefs have a way of blinding people. Think about all of the crazy beliefs people have. Why is it you think you are not prone to the same type of thinking? I know you believe what you are saying, I’ve been there before. My question is this: why do you believe the Bible is God’s word? There is nothing in the Bible ancient humans didn’t know about. If it contained for instance the cure for cancer or the germ theory of disease it would be a little more believable. There is no benefit to humanity in that book, just rules and laws. It contains a lot of answers with no explanations. I encourage you to look at your own faith with the same criticism you view other faiths and ask yourself if yours would hold up under the same level of scrutiny.

God does not need to be a rapist to be clear about who he is and what he wants. You mentioned vanities of this world but ignore the vanities in the Bible and all throughout the history of the church. People have died horribly because they believed something different than the Orthodox Church. I have no problem with the term God depending on how one defines it, but when you say you know what God wants me to do, I’d like to know how. If you suggest that the Bible is God’s word, how could you possibly know that is true, especially in light of history. The NT manuscripts show changes have been made, and the oldest OT is in Greek. We have copies of copies of translations of copies of books long gone from history with no way to verify the accuracy of the content and the validity of the claims.

I grew up in a church that had “the truth”. If you did not follow the plan of salvation as taught in the Bible as they understood it you were not going to heaven. This argument works great on those who accept this position. Arguments are not one size fits all. The point of pointing out the many denominations is this: if the God of the Bible is the one true God, he did a terrible job at explaining exactly what he wanted us to do. It is also confusing why a god would need to use fallible humans to communicate to us what he wants. If God is powerful enough to build Universes, he should be able to communicate in a way that is not subjective to personal opinions. 

You have become the opposite of a Christian or religious person. They believe made up facts and try to convert, you believe made up facts and try to deconvert. Your hate for religion is the same as the hate some religions have for the nonbelievers. It’s toxic. I was religious and I am glad I never met you before my deconversion. I probably would have never left the faith.

You will convince no one with your arguments. What changed my mind was reason and logical arguments, not condescending comments about my beliefs.