Facing the Morally Bad Future

[FallentoReason]

If you think it all comes down to perspective then I can't honestly say how you got your interpretation. Actually I can only guess from my experience. The church says things and no one questions it. A good example is the supposed authors of the Gospels... '...and this is the Word, according to the Gospel of St. Mark'.

The 'traditional' view of the Bible has more questions than answers if one sees it historically. The amount of mental backflips that one has to perform to vaguely see a historical Jesus is astounding. Now that I don't have any agenda but am merely guided by evidence and reason I think the interpretation that resolves everything is allegorical Gospels and Paul preaching anything but a supposed historical Jesus that miraculously was never seen by someone literate, despite his celebrity status wherever he went.

What is Christianity? How can you be so sure you're not a heretic?

Revelation through scripture, a revelation that comes from the Holy Spirit, asking for answers to things I do not understand and receiving them, very distinct and clear. I do not know who taught you while you were in church, but Christians know far more about the history of scriptures than you think we do, and we are encouraged to ask questions.

I decided to see what happened if I asked our ex youth pastor a serious question. I asked him how we knew for sure that Matthew, Mark, Luke & John wrote their Gospels. After 10 minutes of discussing in a very laid back manner he concluded with "I really don't think it matters what the Apostles' names were'. He changed the question from 'what was the identity of the authors' to 'what were the names of the Apostles who wrote the Gospels'. Of course, after much discussion on here I've trained myself up to be able to think very critically and I was able to see what he was doing during the conversation from a mile away. But I just pretended that we came to a 'satisfactory' conclusion and said 'yeah better not to worry about. Thanks for that!'

After that, I realised questions are encouraged at my church, but not the type that deal with objective evidence as opposed to theology where half the time you're talking about warm fuzzy feelings.