Understanding the bible

[FallentoReason]

OK enough of that, here's the way I see things when it comes to those who eventually leave Christianity. I do believe there are those who leave and were Christians, however I can not see that they can deny God, Satan does not deny God, these that leave, reject God and His plan for mankind.

I don't think it's possible for someone to deconvert while still accepting that God is real. I'm not saying that they go from believing to claiming that he, a deity, doesn't exist at all, but rather that the Christian deity can't be shown to be real.

I don't know of any cases myself where the unbeliever still holds the belief that a particular deity is real. That's an oxymoron.

Those who leave and deny God's existence never really believed, and as you stated, actually had an experience with the Holy Spirit. When one has experienced the Holy Spirit working in their lives it is something unforgettable and undeniable. Now I'm not talking about a lightning strike kind of moment, but a peaceful experience of revelation.

This is what I meant by subjective. Your experience will be different to mine. Not only that, but only you know what you have experienced and how you experienced it, no one else. So with that being said, how can we even begin to establish a way of knowing if someone was ever (or even is) a Christian? My experience was unforgettable because literature has never made me weep before, yet there I was Bible in one hand and wiping tears with the other. But as I said, it's all subjective so there's no concrete way of knowing for sure if e.g. I was a Christian. Isn't it most logical to just leave it up to the individual to determine that?

The scripture come alive and you see truths revealed that only Christians can understand, unbelievers can not, you understand things which happen in your life are not coincidental, they are God lead. When active in the church one will find God puts one into positions that are not necessarily comfortable, so God can show one that He is working in one's life. God will show one that He can work His will through one, and that person reaps the joy of what is done. People who experience the Holy Spirit can see God and His wonders through the scriptures, and things He does in their lives

I can see why believers would testify to all this, but I guess my problem with it all (or rather the unsolved problem within Christians themselves) is the never ending debates over the right interpretation. This is definitely a problem because in the eyes of some Christians certain experiences of other Christians have to be discredited as being from God and therefore it's mere nonsense, or as my church calls it 'religious baggage'. A big one of these is speaking in tongues. I've had Christians friends persuade me either for or against speaking in tongues as being 'legit'.

So I guess the greater picture here is that if we don't have a crystal clear definition of Christianity itself, then people's claims of God working through them can go either way as being genuine or false, because there's no real way of comparing it to the Bible.