Question for Christians Only - Where's Emmanuel?

[solarwave]

I have not found faith in Christianity aiding in understanding scripture. It creates a bias that hinders our ability to let the scriptures tell us what they are saying. If we approach scripture with this prejudice, we tend to insist on telling the scriptures what they are saying, instead of letting them tell us.

For example: If you knew nothing of Christian dogma... and studied the Bible objectively from cover to cover, what beliefs would you have by the time you finished? Well, probably your knee jerk reaction would be to say that you would have the exact same faith that you have now. But, I submit to you that is not the case.

One of the greatest obstacles we have to overcome in searching for the truth is that we have allowed others to manipulate the way we read and understand scripture. This is done in order to nurture a bias in us so we will never interpret scripture any other way. (Thus, Baptists will not get out of scripture what a Pentecostal would. And the theist does not get out of scripture what a atheist would.)

Truth seekers must be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking... "My truth is inerrant. Therefore, even if there looks like there might be a problem, there cannot be a problem with my truth. And since there is no problem with my truth, my truth is inerrant." or

"This prophecy cannot have a problem even if it looks problematic, because other prophecies do not have a problem. Therefore, no prophecy can have a problem."

I think its a nice idea to try to read the bible without using what the church has taught us, but I think that has problems since the knowledge of the church is greater than my own. I can read the bible and understand it so far, but I don't know hebrew or greek, I havn't studies theology my self fully and Im not an expert on hebrew history/culture. I can read books on these of course, but it would take a long time to build up that sort of knowledge. I know you may think this an easy way out but for practical purposes (especially for those of lower intelligence) to assume that the better informed preist or pastor knows better generally than you is a fair bet. From there one can tackle the issues one most cares about (ie: I disagree with most people in my church on creationism). I accept that I may be wrong about a number of things, but I will find that out in time.

Actually not. My agenda in raising this one question was hopefully to find a Christian willing to have a reasonable dialogue. Once found, it was my intent to simply encourage them to take a well thought out approach in the way they handle problems, interpretations and beliefs.

You and I both agree that this one scripture is not a reason to abandon your faith in Jesus. But, after this dialogue is finished, I hope to point out other issues with respect to Jesus that are far more problematic and compelling. And I hope you will approach them objectively.

Well I'll carry on with this discussion and see where it goes.

You are correct in asking yourself this important question. I could very well be attempting to deceive you with flim-flam. And sadly, as a Christian, I had a long history of deceiving people with flim-flam. Nobody likes to lose arguments... so we all have a tendency to try to prop up our bad arguments, especially when it might prove embarrassing. So, it is prudent of you to not automatically assume that my intentions are honest. And likewise, I hope you do not assume the many Christian peddlers of truth are any better.

So, that leaves us with a bit of a problem. No one can be trusted to help us ferret out the truth. About the only person we can trust is ourselves and that won't be true either, especially if we don't have critical thinking skills, don't have objectivity, but do have a bias.

It's not that I dont think you are honest, its just that your arguements may just not be very good. I've also learnt that obviously christians get it wrong even if I like the sound of what they are saying.

That depends on the problem. I didn't lose all my beliefs the first time a problem came up either. It took a long time and a lot of soul-searching (so to speak). But it wasn't one problem. The moment I made up my mind to get objective in my handling of problems, I stopped being dismissive of them and started taking them seriously. And the more I admitted there were real problems, the more real problems I discovered.

If our conversation continues, you may discover that I have no agenda to convince you to believe as I do. Instead, you will find that my emphasis will be on the credibility of the analysis rather than on the conclusion.

Let me ask you something then. When you were being objective did you also stop having a relationship with God and turned Him more into an idea than a person? (Assuming you knew Him personally before).

Also, would you say wanting escape from the christian morals had something to do with your losing faith? I mean you may have good reason to reject God, but do you think wanting moral freedom could have driven it more? Thats a test of objective openess about yourself

Just wondering[/quote]

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