Admitting You're a Sinner

[drfuzzy]

 
You're talking to someone who was raised Pentecostal and graduated from a Protestant school.  Someone who was made to memorize a Bible passage every day and recite it before the "blessing" at dinner.  Someone who had to write papers on "Biblical History" and "Bible Interpretation" for class.  Someone who claimed to be xtian until past the age of 40.

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My - problem, as you might choose to oh-so-ignorantly and judgmentally frame it - is that I took classes in cosmology and other sciences, comparative religion, and philosophy, and then I actually READ the book (that I still have mostly memorized) WITHOUT the mindset that "ooh, god wrote this for humanity and it's special!".

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Being a Pentecostal would have prepared you to become an atheist, because  the churches are run by Satan, and most people who attend don't know it.

Ah, yes, another one of "oh but you are the wrong BRAND of Christian, they are deluded, and MY sect has all of the right answers!" False prophets!  Impostors!  Oh the horror! Oh, they insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible, they are SO wrong!"   -- I actually agree with that part.  A literal interpretation of the Bible is completely insane.  

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The essentials of being able to connect with God to have a living experience, are not there, because their doctrines have shut God out, and their use of the Bible is dishonest and ritualistic.
But now evolution removes God altogether, and the third phase of deception is yet to come, where supernatural wonders, convince people to turn to God again, except it won't be God but an impostor of one kind or another.
The Pentecostals would have taught you something along that line about the Antichrist, but what they taught had enough errors to turn the mind off.

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Anyone who has the Bible, is able to find the truth, however, the majority do not make the effort to test what is taught in the churches.

Yes, exactly.  Anyone who actually reads the bible without the rose-colored glasses of brainwashing knows that it's ignorant, evil fiction.

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Another class of people, know what the Bible teaches, but have idols in their heart which end up blinding them to the truth.

The god of the churches in general is manipulating and self interested, to say the least.  

In the mix of truth and error, the churches hold on to people that are sincere as well as those who are unconverted.

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Your escape may be fortunate.

  I definitely agree.  Thank you.