Why I'm Still a Christian

[The Reality Salesman01]

There should really be a Bullshit Buzzer going off in Lek's mind as those words were read...

[Esquilax]

During their lifetimes, most christians go through the process of sanctification, during which they grow in their faith and service. I started out being raised as a catholic and have gone through numerous transformations since then. These transformations are natural to a christian's growth and have brought me closer to Christ, rather than drawing me away.

Yeah, and plenty of those people ended that process of sanctification as atheists. It's a well traveled road, taken by a number of the more prominent atheists out there; Matt Dillahunty being the prime example that springs to my mind, as he was studying to become a minister before that same study led him eventually to hosting an atheist TV show.

My point is that you seem to be doing the intellectual honesty thing now, and that's great, but a part of that is not locking off any possibilities based on what your beliefs are now. Always be prepared for new evidence to overturn everything you hold dear.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I would invite you to challenge all of the things in your life that you attribute to God. Your belief in God is a structure that is supported by individual columns. Each column is different for different people. For you, it might be a prayer that was answered, the truth you find in the bible, a fear of hell, a lesson that you learned, some fortunate turn of events, perhaps a much needed boost of emotional strength at a time where you needed it most. There's a good chance that at this point in your life, there is probably very little you hold to be true that hasn't been wedged under the weight of your belief in God. These are all examples of the types of things that could be supporting your God belief, and the entire structure is buried behind walls of emotional blockage. Each time you start to prod at them, you can expect an alarm to trigger in the form of guilt and fear. But if you are honest with yourself in your pursuit of truth, you'll notice that a few of those pillars will begin to crumble. You listed a couple examples in the OP. Each time one falls, you'll notice that everything is still fine. Eventually, there will be nothing left that you need God to explain, and the guilt and fear will crumble away with all of the other things that turned out to be artificial. It's not easy to take that challenge, but in the end, it's the most rewarding experience you can imagine. It will drive you crazy to imagine how that belief got buried so deep. The reality of it is, it's not your choice to believe in God. You don't believe in God because you want to, you believe because you think it's true. If you are honest in your inquiry, the belief in God will vanish. The only choice you have is whether or not you will challenge your belief and be honest about what you discover, the rest will just happen on its own.

[Lek]

I would invite you to challenge all of the things in your life that you attribute to God. Your belief in God is a structure that is supported by individual columns. Each column is different for different people. For you, it might be a prayer that was answered, the truth you find in the bible, a fear of hell, a lesson that you learned, some fortunate turn of events, perhaps a much needed boost of emotional strength at a time where you needed it most. There's a good chance that at this point in your life, there is probably very little you hold to be true that hasn't been wedged under the weight of your belief in God. These are all examples of the types of things that could be supporting your God belief, and the entire structure is buried behind walls of emotional blockage. Each time you start to prod at them, you can expect an alarm to trigger in the form of guilt and fear. But if you are honest with yourself in your pursuit of truth, you'll notice that a few of those pillars will begin to crumble. You listed a couple examples in the OP. Each time one falls, you'll notice that everything is still fine. Eventually, there will be nothing left that you need God to explain, and the guilt and fear will crumble away with all of the other things that turned out to be artificial. It's not easy to take that challenge, but in the end, it's the most rewarding experience you can imagine. It will drive you crazy to imagine how that belief got buried so deep. The reality of it is, it's not your choice to believe in God. You don't believe in God because you want to, you believe because you think it's true. If you are honest in your inquiry, the belief in God will vanish. The only choice you have is whether or not you will challenge your belief and be honest about what you discover, the rest will just happen on its own.

You're speaking from your own experience and that of other atheists that you know of. The thing is that many more christians have re-examined their views and have come out of it as stronger christians. It's also true that many atheists have re-examined their beliefs and have become christians. I think a christian who goes through his whole life without modifying his views isn't really seeking to know God more fully. The more we seek him, the more we grow and mature in the faith.

[Whateverist]

There should really be a Bullshit Buzzer going off in Lek's mind as those words were read...

Maybe he broke it?

[Chas]

Government has the business of ensuring peoples' rights are upheld. I believe if you give certain legal rights to one type of adult couple that right should be available to other types of adult couples, whether they are married or not.

Under the law, marriage is a contract, and government has been involved in marriage for centuries because of that. The laws provide protections for property rights, inheritance, and more.

I can be married without the government's consent and with no legal contract just by my wife and me pledging ourselves to each other.

But that is not legal marriage, protected by law. You are conflating terms.

The government deciding to change the meaning of marriage to encompass two people of the same sex is akin to a college declaring that fraternities now consist of men and women. They would be redefining an institution that is dear to many. Fraternities were established first, and then when women wanted a similar organization, they didn't proceed to change the definition of fraternities to include women, but rather established a similar organization for women.

Except there are women's fraternities and coed fraternities.

"Fraternity is usually understood to mean a social organization composed only of men, and sorority one of women, although many women's organizations also refer to themselves as fraternities."

[Pizza]

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/pages/marr...rships-etc

Civil union and domestic partnerships are a second-class status, and when people take on all the commitments and responsibilities of marriage they should not be treated like second-class citizens. While these legal mechanisms provide a measure of protections to same-sex couples and their families, they are no substitute for the full measure of respect, clarity, security and responsibilities of marriage itself. They exclude people from marriage and create an unfair system that often does not work in emergency situations when people need it most......
CIVIL UNION: Civil union exists in three states: New Jersey, Illinois, and Hawaii. Civil union was first created in Vermont, in 2000, to provide some legal protections and responsibilities to gay and lesbian couples at the state level, but in 2009 the state legislature ended gay couples exclusion from marriage after realizing civil union created a second class citizenship.

Cobbled together as both the state and the nation were just beginning to engage in a conversation about the inherent unfairness of legal discrimination in marriage, civil unions have since proven to be ineffective, a separate but unequal status (pdf) that often heightens the need for access to both the tangible and intangible protections that only marriage can afford. The protections and responsibilities do not extend beyond the border of the states in which the civil union was entered, offer murky access to separation laws, and no federal protections are included with a civil union.

DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP: Domestic partnerships are a form of union under which gay (and sometimes non-gay) couples in some states or regions can formalize their partnerships. Oregon's domestic partnership law went into effect in February 2008. However, as with civil union the status remains a separate and unequal legal compromise which does not apply when a couple travels out of state, and offers no federal protections. Aside from Oregon, a hodge-podge of domestic partnership laws (statewide/district-wide in Nevada) and registries offer a wildly varying selection of protections and responsibilities which can change from zip code to zip code. Many domestic partnership registries offer no rights or protections at all and simply serve as a written acknowledgment of a couple's commitment to each other.

[The Reality Salesman01]

The thing is that many more christians have re-examined their views and have come out of it as stronger christians.

They weren't trained properly in the habit of critical thought. God beliefs are logically impossible, and logically impossible ideas do not hold up under proper critical scrutiny. If they became stronger Christians, it's because they either did not know what it meant to examine their views critically, or they were prevented from noticing the flaws by the biases that safeguard them. Outside of a mental condition (GC), there's no third possibility that leads to stronger faith.

It's also true that many atheists have re-examined their beliefs and have become christians.

Definitions alone make that true. A person who has never believed in God is an Atheist. But just knowing that they didn't believe in God and now do, tells us nothing about how reliable their reasoning was. These people are just as likely to be duped by the same fantastical stories as children are. Christians who claim to evaluate their beliefs only to find them strengthened and previous non-believers seeing the light are both evidence for the importance of understanding what constitutes truth and what cannot be known.

It's quite another thing to point out a devout anesthetized Christian who later discovers their ability to deconstruct faith based ideas using the tools of critical thought, who later realizes they've been very mistaken their entire life as a result. I've never met one of these. Once you get out of the trees, there's no way you can forget seeing the entire forest. It just doesn't work that way.

With regards to Christians who stay Christians and Non-believers who adopt a belief, a quick scan around this site will demonstrate that in either case, If their faith was strengthened, there was at least a fallacy or two in their reasoning.

---

Once you see how the Magic trick is done, no matter what your attitude was toward Magic before, you won't be able to believe it really happened the way it once appeared to.

[robvalue]

If you were born in an Islamic country, you would almost certainly be a Muslim, saying all these exact things about how Islam is absolutely totally true and Christianity is false. Does that bother you?

Yeah. I have thought about that and about all the other religions in the world. But none of them have the continuing revelation through different authors over many centuries that christianity has. Also, neither Mohammad nor any of the other instituters of other faiths have claimed to be God in the flesh or have risen from the dead. I view all those who are searching for God as searching for the same God, of which there is only one. That doesn't mean that I think all religions are equal paths to God, or even that their vision of who he is the same, but rather they contain some elements of truth. I believe that if a person is truly searching for God and he is of a non-christian religion, but has not had the opportunity to know of Christ, then God will judge him based on his heart. But if anyone knows of Christ and rejects him for the "god" of another faith, then he doesn't have salvation.

Sure, you may have what you consider reasons for "knowing" Christianity is right and other religions are false. (Let's face it, according to Christianity, muslims are not going to heaven). But, if you were born in an islam country, the reasons you state would mean nothing to you. You'd find other reasons for "knowing" that islam is true and christianity is false (this time, christians not going to heaven). Or are you saying you still think you'd end up christian? Statistically that's incredibly unlikely.

So what I'm saying is, at least one of these religions is wrong. How can you be sure yours is the right one, when it's an accident of birth that put you into Christianity and not Islam? To me, the only honest response is that you simply cannot know if you are right or wrong. Because they both require faith, and not evidence, there is no way to actually discover which is true and if you are part of the right one.

---

There are only three interpretations here, as far as I can see:

1) Islam or Christianity is correct, but not both. Those who happen to be born in the "correct" country go to heaven, those in "wrong" countries do not. Is that a fair system? Statistically people follow the local religion, that's just a hard fact. God would be expecting them to reject the religion they have been indoctrinated in since birth and somehow convert to a different religion based in a whole other country based on... what? Based on them saying they are right instead?

2) Islam and Christianity are both correct; followers of both religions go to heaven. The differences between them are not important to god / gods.

3) God doesn't mind what religion you follow, as long as you don't hear about jesus and then still follow another religion. In that case, you must convert or you don't go to heaven, regardless of how good your actions are and how much you are devoted to your religion.

4) Both of them are wrong and no one goes to heaven.

Which do you think is the case? You seem to be saying it's 3. Is there an option I have missed? You seem to be saying that if a Muslim ever hears about jesus but remains a Muslim, then they don't go to heaven. If you were born into an Islam country, and you happened to hear about "jesus" do you think you'd abandon Islam for Christianity? I think that is wishful thinking. Muslims are as serious about being right beyond all doubt as you are. This is why I say that claiming you could never be wrong about something it dangerous. Expecting someone to abandon their childhood indoctrination is far fetched... considering you have said you are never going to abandon yours. Why should they feel any different about their religion?

---

Please give it some thought. But consider this:

You can't convince us atheists to "accept jesus as god", and you've been talking to us in detail for months.. So how do you expect a Muslim, who is as sure in his faith as you are in yours, to drop their religion and accept jesus? It's not like anyone around him will be giving him that option. And they can't accept jesus and stay a Muslim. So I think this idea that if they hear of jesus (which they almost certainly will) but don't convert they lose, is rather an unfair system as that's almost every Muslim scuppered.

[JesusHChrist]

Jesus never stated that he believed that all the science and historical events were literally true. He referred to Adam as the first man and spoke of Moses and the prophets as real live persons., which they are.

Stop right there. Now that you accept evolution as a scientific fact, you should learn why there is no such concept as "first man". No such thing. Species are a spectrum of change over time, which I mentioned before, but I don't think you grasp the implications.

We *very very gradually* evolved into homo sapiens. From the DNA evidence, it appears there were never less than 7000 members at any given moment. I'm not a geneticist, but the information is available to be read and researched.

As our species made micro-changes over a large geography and time scale we gradually, via multiple members became what we define today as homo sapiens. There was no boom! Man exists!

That is just a requirement of the fairy tale creation story, without a shred of scientific support.

Lastly, several of us have asked, but I might have missed your response: how do you reconcile evolution with original sin?

Since the sin of Adam, we have all inherited a tendency to sin. Adam and Eve were the first man and woman. When a fetus develops in the womb, it develops pretty much like any other mammal. This is a process that has come about as a result of evolution. I believe that is the way God intended it to happen. What separates humans from every other creature on earth is that we are made in the image of God. This image is reflected in our souls, and we are the only creatures to be able to possess everlasting life. This soul doesn't come about as a result of natural evolution, but rather as a special creation of God, given directly to us by God. I don't claim to know exactly when and how God created Adam and Eve, but they were the first humanoids to be created in the image of God. They were given eternal life in the image of God and lost it due to their disobedience to him. All other humans from that point forward were born with a God given soul, but a propensity to sin. It's just a thought, but this event could have taken place 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. It seems that up to that time, there was very slow development in humanoids and then an explosion of development after that time in history. While all other creatures go on pretty much as always, man has gone on to accomplish greater and greater things. We are light years different than any other creature on earth and the gap continues to widen.
[/quote]

See previous response. This could not have happened 6 to 8K years ago. We know with a high level of precision when humans appeared (gradually) and it wasn't that recent. We only accomplish "greater things" in our frame of references. Try and see how great humans do 2000 feet under the ocean.

If you really want to know more about reality, check into the evolution/original sin dilemma. Your explanation is weak because you haven't fully researched and understood what evolution implies. Sure, in a work of fiction you can make up anything you want, but I would hope you would want to know what is real.

The Adam/Eve story is completely at odds with everything we know about genetics, population migrations and our history.

This extract *is* from an expert in the field of evolution and genetics and here's what he has to say:

Unfortunately, the scientific evidence shows that Adam and Eve could not have existed, at least in the way they’re portrayed in the Bible. Genetic data show no evidence of any human bottleneck as small as two people: there are simply too many different kinds of genes around for that to be true. There may have been a couple of “bottlenecks” (reduced population sizes) in the history of our species, but the smallest one not involving recent colonization is a bottleneck of roughly 10,000-15,000 individuals that occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. That’s as small a population as our ancestors had, and—note—it’s not two individuals.

Further, looking at different genes, we find that they trace back to different times in our past. Mitochondrial DNA points to the genes in that organelle tracing back to a single female ancestor who lived about 140,000 years ago, but that genes on the Y chromosome trace back to one male who lived about 60,000-90,000 years ago. Further, the bulk of genes in the nucleus all trace back to different times—as far back as two million years. This shows not only that any “Adam” and “Eve” (in the sense of mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA alone) must have lived thousands of years apart, but also that there simply could not have been two individuals who provided the entire genetic ancestry of modern humans. Each of our genes “coalesces” back to a different ancestor, showing that, as expected, our genetic legacy comes from many different individuals. It does not go back to just two individuals, regardless of when they lived.

These are the scientific facts. And, unlike the case of Jesus’s virgin birth and resurrection, we can dismiss a physical Adam and Eve with near scientific certainty.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com...a-contest/