Facing the Morally Bad Future

[FallentoReason]

Somehow I knew you were going to mention the Pentecostal church. I see this kind of thing a lot from Pentecostalism, as well as the hell fire & brimstone 1950s brand of fundamentalism. This fact alone lends credence to my own view, since the very often manipulative and emotive methods used by the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God denominations often produce deeply emotionally and psychologically powerful attachments to the Church and all the machinations that go along with it. And like you, everyone is totally sincere in their professions, and I certainly take them at their words. They and you were and are quite sincere. On that, we have no disagreement. But whether you were a truly regenerate believer in / follower of Jesus Christ or not, I do not have sufficient reason to affirm in the positive. I can affirm that this is what you truly felt/feel and believe(d), but I cannot go beyond that. Don't let my inability to affirm the reality of your being a Christian be apprehended as any kind of denial as to the strength of your belief or the sincerity with which you held it.

I agree what you say about the Pentecostal church. But see, once again I feel like you're jumping the gun in the hopes of closing me off and leaving me no room in which to show you I was a genuine Christian. Like I've said, you don't know me. I noticed further down you mention tongues. Well I bet you didn't know this about me: I never spoke in tongues. My belief was centred around the Word and a deep understanding of theology, not party tricks like tongues and fainting when the pastor touched your forehead. But, this is actually not my battle. The 'denomination complex' is not my mess to deal with. All you need to know, as much as you wish it was like this, my faith wasn't based on emotions, physical party tricks, a social life, belonging, alterior motives or anything you want to throw at me. I simply wanted to live like Christ and serve but the most noble purpose.

Theologically? Is there a distinction you'd like to make?

You can talk theology with me and I'll know what you mean. Just because I don't currently believe doesn't mean I forgot Christian teachings altogether.

You can feel any way you wish, but I would urge you not to put words in my mouth simply because I cannot affirm the truthfulness of your statement. That doesn't mean what you've said is untrue, but it does mean that I do not have sufficient reason to change my position and affirm your proposition in the positive. With all due respect, seeming sincerety of belief looks exactly the same as genuine sincerity. The distinction between the two is made by perseverence. Do they stay or do they fall away?

Well, there you go. You've not only moved the goalposts but you've removed them from the pitch altogether. Because I don't currently believe it means I was never a Christian. I guess that's ultimately the best way to protect yourself because now it doesn't matter what I say.

Something can be highly intoxicating and deeply satisifying but still not produce a genuine or lasting (persevering) conversion. This is particularly true within Pentecostalism. My wife experienced this kind of thing when she so-called "received the gift of tongues".

Above I've discussed this already. No gimmicks to my faith. Just a desire to walk with Christ.

She has since matured in her understanding and therefore, her faith. I would not call you a fake Christian, but again, all I would say is that I have little reason to believe that you ever were a genuine Christian. I'm not pushing you into any box, and I would urge you not to push me into any box. Only God knows your heart. I cannot hope to judge such a thing rightly.

Then don't. So far all you've tried to do is jump ahead and speculate what my life was mostly like. I'm sorry to say but you're predictions have been off every time.

However, in terms of making my own assessments upon things with which I'm face; I have to make assessments that appear to make sense of the reality before me. What appears to make the msot sense is that you are a person "Hebrews 6:4...who [has] once been enlightened, who [has] tasted the heavenly gift, and [has] shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away...".

Yep, that's a pretty black and white description of me. Note how it explicitly says 'shared in the Holy Spirit'. Yes, I was baptised with the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ.

Who or what is "Drich"??? Faith is not a blind leap, but merely a step of trust on the basis of good reason. This is yet more evidence that tells me there was a significant problem to begin with. What do you mean by a critical view of history?

Drich is one of our resident theists here.

Absolutely not, I agree that faith is not a leap of blind faith but one with good reason. Well, by my screen name you can probably guess what the historical reasons were telling me.

A critical view of history means this: find solid historical reasons to justify your reasoned leap of faith. What are you putting your faith on? A sequence of historical events.

I am not an expert in textual criticism, but just by reading what you've wrote thus far, I can see that there is a woeful lack of information on your part. This isn't surprising, given that you were coming at this from a Pentecostal perspective.

What sort of lack of information?

That's promising. If you're open to the idea that you are suffering from both insufficient information and poor teaching with regard to textual criticism coming from the likes of Ehrman, then I think the broadcast and the books I mentioned can be quite helpful to you. Remember one thing about Ehrman. He studied under and claims to have mentored by none other than Bruce Manning Metzger, perhaps the greatest expert on lower criticism of the Bible to have lived in the 20th century, and yet he came to diametrically opposite conclusions than the ones Ehrman came to. Without deciding who was right or wrong, that by itself should give you pause and reason to look into this much more, far beyond merely the works of Ehrman or others of his ilk. There's nothing wrong with reading his material, so long as you're also open to reading the correctives that debunk and lay waste to his central thesis regarding the corruption of the Bible in transmission to the Church.

You're reading a bit too much into it. My point with Ehrman was simply that he was to me like I am to you. A threat to our faith. But of course, I can see you've already made sure in your mind that Ehrman, like me, is no threat at all, because in a nutshell he wasn't a genuine Christian.

This is not what I was referrring to. I was referring to someone who was self-deceived. They were not someone who was double-minded, but someone who had built up a self-deceptive construct to allow them to more easily maintain a power pretense that was untrue because the emotional and psychological nature of that with which they were involved was so deeply satisfying and in some sense, addictive.

Not me. The Christian life wasn't 'additive' to me. It was the truth, the thing that I would live by because there was no choice. God existing or not isn't based on what I want to be true. It either is or not INDEPENDENT of what I want and thus I wanted to follow Christ because it was what I felt God wanted of me.

From their perspective, they were entirely sincere in every way that they could identify, but unknown to them, they were living in a state of complete denial and self-deception. Is it possible that this could describe you? This kind of stuff happens quite a lot within the Church, though to varying degrees.

No.

I am no expert, but I am certainly willing to entertain any questions or challenges you might have. I wish you well in your journey, and I do hope you will consider the pardon offered by God through Christ as a viable way of escape from your condition and mine.

The day that I am given a reason as to why I can put my faith in the Bible is the day I will accept what Christ has done. This by default has to be through historical means because that is what Christians claim the NT is; literal history. That is a claim that can be tested to an extent. So please, let us talk some history.

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What will shake their faith is why I don't believe anymore.

You're partly right. I think some might keep doing what they're doing but there's definitely others that would look into what I've said and basically start digging their graves. These are the ones that I fear for.

Maybe, maybe not but every Atheist here has been down this road. The subject pops up with a Theist friend or relative, you calmly put across your view and the reasons why.
At first the conversation goes alright but then you come at a juncture where you've pinned them down, they have no room to manuver other than to get frustrated and end the conversation or admit they believe because they believe.
Continuing the conversation at this point rarely ends well and is often met with hostility because once you have reached this point they are no longer making any attempt to take a reasoned approach focusing instead on defending a belief they've followed all their lives at all costs.
The chances it will end better are slim at best.

Yeah this is so true. I'll definitely have to be cautious with how much I say. I really do care about these people so I don't want some discussion to be damaging to our friendship.