RE: Still a Christian - ask me questions/tell me about yourselves
October 13, 2017 at 10:54 am
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2017 at 11:04 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
To the OP:
As one of the few Christian members of AF I would like to share with you my journey from being a Christian-In-Name-Only to a staunch atheist only to find myself earnestly turning back to faith in Jesus Christ with a renewed understanding of the Truth and Life only He can offer. You can find...My Story Here
It is right and proper to question your faith. Paradoxically, I think that the deeper your faith the more profoundly you question the doctrines. Doubt is not a sign of a lack of faith but rather an indication of your commitment to it.
To address one of your points directly. It does not matter if the Genesis creation story is literally true or whether evolution happened. I am a Christian. I accept evolution in general albeit with allowance for some implicit teleology. All that matters is that we recognize God alone as the Creator and Ground of Being regardless of the how. As far as I am concerned the story begins not at Gen 1:1 but rather at John 1:1.
As for the reliability of the Gospels, I am not an expert or scholar on such matters, although I can read a little bit of Hebrew, and like to follow developments in biblical archaeology.. There is quite a bit of debate, as you can see. If you read the Gospels according to the standards and conventions of classical literature of the time (such as Plutarch's Lives) most of the so-called contradictions becomes insignificant. The writers of the Gospels, like other writers of the time were less interested in factual accuracy than revealing the character and import of Jesus and His ministry. And that is what matters most. His Love and Sacrifice. Not whether a Roman centurion visited Jesus in person or by proxy.
As one of the few Christian members of AF I would like to share with you my journey from being a Christian-In-Name-Only to a staunch atheist only to find myself earnestly turning back to faith in Jesus Christ with a renewed understanding of the Truth and Life only He can offer. You can find...My Story Here
It is right and proper to question your faith. Paradoxically, I think that the deeper your faith the more profoundly you question the doctrines. Doubt is not a sign of a lack of faith but rather an indication of your commitment to it.
To address one of your points directly. It does not matter if the Genesis creation story is literally true or whether evolution happened. I am a Christian. I accept evolution in general albeit with allowance for some implicit teleology. All that matters is that we recognize God alone as the Creator and Ground of Being regardless of the how. As far as I am concerned the story begins not at Gen 1:1 but rather at John 1:1.
As for the reliability of the Gospels, I am not an expert or scholar on such matters, although I can read a little bit of Hebrew, and like to follow developments in biblical archaeology.. There is quite a bit of debate, as you can see. If you read the Gospels according to the standards and conventions of classical literature of the time (such as Plutarch's Lives) most of the so-called contradictions becomes insignificant. The writers of the Gospels, like other writers of the time were less interested in factual accuracy than revealing the character and import of Jesus and His ministry. And that is what matters most. His Love and Sacrifice. Not whether a Roman centurion visited Jesus in person or by proxy.
