MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[Jenny A]

How did either of you become interested enough in either the Bible or Biblical times to spend the time on either what is in the Bible or historical references to the things in it? Self defense or general interest in the time period?

I was trying to meet women.

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I was in my early 30s and unmarried. I had to kiss a lot of proverbial frogs before I finally met my now wife. Perhaps if one of those relationships had panned out, like the one I had with my first fiance when I was in my mid to late 20s, my interest would never have been piqued. She was Catholic, btw, a religion that, in my neck of the woods, nobody in it takes seriously. So I probably would never have developed any interest from her. But I digress.

Having crossed into the 30 something threshold and still unattached, I really began to pull out all the stops and leave no stone unturned. I'd heard a good way to meet someone was to attend a church. So I went to one which supposedly had a good singles mixer program. That was a local mega-church called "Southeast Christian".

At this point, anyone from Louisville is now having to clean off their computer screen, having spit whatever they were drinking at the time they read the name of the church (infamous for being a hard right wing fundy megachurch) and just contemplating my walking into the door would be like.

@Them: You're right, but wait for it.

Anyway, there I was at one Bible study for singles class trying to keep an eye out for any decent female prospects. Yeah, good luck with that at a fundy megachurch but that's another story. This was before I had discovered I was bisexual but I don't think I'd have met any good male prospect there either. I did get a few strange dates out of that project but what was I thinking? But to continue with my story, I should probably tell you what my idea of Christianity was at that time.

My atheist parents had raised me in a sheltered world but I'd heard the basics. Here was my limited understanding: Christianity involved a Son of God named Jesus who preached a gospel of peace and love who somehow "died on the cross for my sins", was raised and flew up into Heaven so we could have chocolate eggs and bunny rabbits. Something about good people going to Heaven and bad people going to Hell as well in that mix. I had until then assumed that Jesus was some religious leader preaching a fairly positive message and they killed him for it and then some of his followers had an Elvis moment and thought he was still alive somewhere.

But back to me standing at one Bible study for singles gathering on my first day in a church aside from someone's wedding. At that point, the prospects weren't looking all that appealing and so I got caught up in a conversation with this one guy who seemed really knowledgeable about the Bible. I told him I didn't know that much about Christianity and could he explain it to me.

I actually said this to a devout fundy Christian.

"Sweet Reason," I say to my younger naive self, "pull that guy's fucking string and watch him go, why don't you?"

I remember listening to him expound upon the explanation of what "sin" was, how it came into the world, how we were all doomed to the Hell we all deserved but then, by the grace of God, Jesus came into the world to save us and how he did it and what we must do to accept it.

I was polite.

I didn't say outloud what I was thinking. I've not been the most socially observant guy in my life but I had enough sense not to say outloud, "So let me see if I got this straight: A woman made from a rib ate a magic fruit after speaking with a talking snake causing sin to enter the world and God's solution to the problem was to send himself down to earth to become his own son so he could sacrifice himself to himself as the only means of appeasing his own wrath and convincing himself to forgive us all for being the sinful beings we are because of a fruit tree he put in the garden in the first place and anyone who doesn't believe this story is going to be eternally tortured by the god who loves us so very much."

George Carlin astutely added the part about "...and he needs money."

So it seemed really strange that anyone EVER believed such nonsense, never mind in today's world. I assumed this church, being composed mostly of religious nuts, had somehow gotten it wrong. After all, how could Christianity be so absurd and yet gain such a following?

At some point between this failed project to meet that special someone at the local nuthouse and the near simultaneous death of both of my parents a few years later, I began to get really interested in finding out what the real story was. Nope, that guy had pretty much gotten it right.

There's something about a dark passage in life can lead to "spiritual" interests and self-discovery. In addition to reading the Bible, I'd also read the works of some skeptics. I'd joined my first freethought forum "Skeptics Annotated Bible" and read other books like Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. It was at this time in my life that I'd "discovered" I was a deist and really had been all along. In an unrelated bit of revelation, it was at this time I'd also discovered I was bisexual and really had been all along. This was between 2003 and 2004, a tough time in red state America to be either non-Christian or have a same-gender lover. But all that's another story.

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The rest, as they say, is history.

Oh my, oh my, oh my! That is the most wonderful story and it gave me more laughter than I've had in months. Yes---I was laughing with you. It's funny, I remember thinking, "and adults believe this?" very early on in my religious education. Let me tell you that really loving your parents and thinking them very bright but very mistaken on one particular issue of grave importance to them, leads to an odd view of your parents and adults in general.