Confessions of a former Apologetist.

[bladevalant546]

I am writing this one for insight and two for any doubting apologetics/debater who are either fearful of de-conversion or feel alone or isolated. I have been a Christian for nearly 23 years and was forged into a sharp and intelligent apologetic for my former religion. However, this intellectual thought process was started years ago by my parents who always taught me to ask questions and explore myself and the world. With that psychological mindset eventually lead to my evolution into agnosticism with slight deistic leanings. So I will write down a few of my hidden thoughts that always plagued me even when I was an apologists.

1. Problem with Evil-Now in most contexts I could explain much of this away thought several logical arguments. However, one of the more powerful conflictions that always plagued me the most was several issues. One being the inconsistent nature of “miracles” and “good deeds/blessings. There always seemed to me anyway strange circumstances that in a wreck a drunk drivers would be saved while an innocent family would be killed save the baby. Now I would everyone would be stating it was a miracle that the baby was saved by God. But then why did god not save them all and save the baby from being orphaned by a negligent murderer? Next one was the passing of credit/blame, usually in my time as a Christian in various theological stances the same unspoken rule was implied. All good deeds are gods work and all bad deeds are either the devils or man’s free will. This seemed odd to me because a lot of good deeds will happen based on a person own merit. These small examples are even more overshadowed by the emotional inflictions I was dealt as a preachers kid. I have seen just as many hypocrites in the church as outside, and I oddly find little difference in the actions of mentality of Christians and non-Christians. I have seen the church behave exactly like a corporation and semantically get out of paying a pastor what he deserves.

2. Science, Miracles, and evidence-while I did for a very brief time looked into Young Earth Creationism. That was overshadows swiftly as I could not match the illogical belief with science. That said I want to make certain my parents never suppressed science or anything of that nature. In fact they encouraged it. While most science it compatible with Christian theology. One was a conflict with me for a long time, while defending against it I could not shake human evolution. The evidence was there and it made sense. This was a rather long ghost that followed my thought process for a while. Miracles just messed with me emotionally. I sat around watching my mother suffer in the hospital off and on for years and saw no “miracle” cures. However, some middle class family child will receive a car out of nowhere or what have ya. I also in my time always “Heard” of healings but never witnessed them…never! Finally it was evidence, in light of my final debates with either atheists or deists. I found the evidence lacking in the supernatural events and some key historical event lacking. While there is a lot of historical evidence for many claims of the bible. I found that a lot of key events for not. For me it was the conquest of Canaan that was a real pivot, there is no evidence of a Hebrew conquest by Joshua. This was a foundational event that through other evidence I found several other foundational events have no archeological backing.

3. Jesus’ world vs reality- Jesus promised a lot of things to the world and warned a lot of things as well. Two key promises are “you will know my followers by the signs that follow them (these signs are later described as prophetic predictions, healings of sick and blind mainly and miracles) and whole faith can move mountains. While I know the context is not literal here and it is a metaphor. The meaning is to vague, it can apply to many aspects of life and it still lacks in the fact that faithful prayer hardly ever affects outcomes of trouble in life.

4. Always a no call no show-After many prayer times, I never heard mentally, physically or “feelinging…ly heard God. Especially in my most dark and depressed periods of my life, god was absent.

These are simple confessions I could think of. The formatting might be odd but I wanted to throw out some thoughts that even as a Christian I struggled with.

[Zen Badger]

According to our resident god botherers that means you were never a Real Christian™

[Consilius]

I say that people are responsible for much of the good and bad in the world, in a plan masterminded by God.

[Walking Void]

According to our resident god botherers that means you were never a Real Christian™

"I have some news for you. You are NOT the father!"

*crowd starts cheering*

[orogenicman]

I am writing this one for insight and two for any doubting apologetics/debater who are either fearful of de-conversion or feel alone or isolated. I have been a Christian for nearly 23 years and was forged into a sharp and intelligent apologetic for my former religion. However, this intellectual thought process was started years ago by my parents who always taught me to ask questions and explore myself and the world. With that psychological mindset eventually lead to my evolution into agnosticism with slight deistic leanings. So I will write down a few of my hidden thoughts that always plagued me even when I was an apologists.

1. Problem with Evil-Now in most contexts I could explain much of this away thought several logical arguments. However, one of the more powerful conflictions that always plagued me the most was several issues. One being the inconsistent nature of “miracles” and “good deeds/blessings. There always seemed to me anyway strange circumstances that in a wreck a drunk drivers would be saved while an innocent family would be killed save the baby. Now I would everyone would be stating it was a miracle that the baby was saved by God. But then why did god not save them all and save the baby from being orphaned by a negligent murderer? Next one was the passing of credit/blame, usually in my time as a Christian in various theological stances the same unspoken rule was implied. All good deeds are gods work and all bad deeds are either the devils or man’s free will. This seemed odd to me because a lot of good deeds will happen based on a person own merit. These small examples are even more overshadowed by the emotional inflictions I was dealt as a preachers kid. I have seen just as many hypocrites in the church as outside, and I oddly find little difference in the actions of mentality of Christians and non-Christians. I have seen the church behave exactly like a corporation and semantically get out of paying a pastor what he deserves.

2. Science, Miracles, and evidence-while I did for a very brief time looked into Young Earth Creationism. That was overshadows swiftly as I could not match the illogical belief with science. That said I want to make certain my parents never suppressed science or anything of that nature. In fact they encouraged it. While most science it compatible with Christian theology. One was a conflict with me for a long time, while defending against it I could not shake human evolution. The evidence was there and it made sense. This was a rather long ghost that followed my thought process for a while. Miracles just messed with me emotionally. I sat around watching my mother suffer in the hospital off and on for years and saw no “miracle” cures. However, some middle class family child will receive a car out of nowhere or what have ya. I also in my time always “Heard” of healings but never witnessed them…never! Finally it was evidence, in light of my final debates with either atheists or deists. I found the evidence lacking in the supernatural events and some key historical event lacking. While there is a lot of historical evidence for many claims of the bible. I found that a lot of key events for not. For me it was the conquest of Canaan that was a real pivot, there is no evidence of a Hebrew conquest by Joshua. This was a foundational event that through other evidence I found several other foundational events have no archeological backing.

3. Jesus’ world vs reality- Jesus promised a lot of things to the world and warned a lot of things as well. Two key promises are “you will know my followers by the signs that follow them (these signs are later described as prophetic predictions, healings of sick and blind mainly and miracles) and whole faith can move mountains. While I know the context is not literal here and it is a metaphor. The meaning is to vague, it can apply to many aspects of life and it still lacks in the fact that faithful prayer hardly ever affects outcomes of trouble in life.

4. Always a no call no show-After many prayer times, I never heard mentally, physically or “feelinging…ly heard God. Especially in my most dark and depressed periods of my life, god was absent.

These are simple confessions I could think of. The formatting might be odd but I wanted to throw out some thoughts that even as a Christian I struggled with.

Thank you for giving us a little of yourself. I know that was not easy. You are not alone.

[Zarith]

I wish I could put on a special pair of glasses that shows me who has the same kind of doubts about their religious beliefs, and then walk into the local Baptist church. I bet it would be interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[bladevalant546]

You will find that most of the intellectually honest has these doubts. A lot of time it is the feeling of losing that hope or losing most of their friends that prevents them from ever really talking about it. I had the same fears that with out god I would have no morals, or no purpose. But with out god my morals are more aligned and they are more true. I follow my morals not based on some kind of punishment tab that is written in a book, or maintain my status in the "book of life". They are genuine because they are part of my character, my personality. Also, I am more myself than ever been, I no longer have to follow a definition of what "is good" now I can follow my own moral compass and my own personal feelings. I really want to go into biology and be a scientist. This was not possible through religion (atleast in my location) because science is met with extreme suspicion and you "always" have to apologize for evolution against ignorant people. I feel religion serves it purpose, but with science, philosophies that are not mixed, and rational thought we do not need religion anymore. I also like to make mention I am more spiritual (I use loosely) than I been.