Charity

For a while, I had been reading and hearing from different sources the shocking belief that Paul's epistles were heretical because they contradicted what Jesus taught in the gospel. I thought this was because these people did not understand the doctrine of the mystery which was hidden in God until it was revealed to Paul and since Jesus was not God, he could not have taught it before his death. Therefore Paul, by revelation from Jesus Christ, was able to teach who we are and what we have in Christ because the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God had since occurred. "Truth" is all so subjective.

Thanks cman for the post. I don't believe that God is always showing everything always. That there are so many denominations teaching totally different things on many different topics is a sign of mass confusion when it comes to understanding God. As for the flesh (meaning the sin nature in everyone) being weak and fearful, I guess it's true if one believes it exists.

You make a good point. There are words of wisdom in the bible amongst the many harmful concepts it proclaims. Some who have deconverted continue to read the bible from a fictional viewpoint and look for what lessons might be hidden in the myths. I'm not at that place though. It's a beautiful quote you shared. Biblically, it would be refuted by Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:" (See also Rom 3:10-18 and Gal 5:19-21) It's a terrible thing to teach children how wicked they are because of having a sin nature. There seems to be little or nothing written in the bible about the goodness of people apart from God being in their lives. We know this is not true! Are humans perfect - no. But it is not because of an "original sin" that was passed on to us because of a mythical Adam and Eve story in Genesis. I think Dyer's quote about the soul directing you in the right direction is wise when you believe in an inherit worth in all people and a desire to see good manifested in your life.

Maybe that's what Christianity is.

The weird and disconcerting thing about deconverting is realizing that one was never born again in the first place. So what was going on then all those years when I believed I was a Christian? The speaking in tongues - it was always the same sounds unless I purposefully "moved my lips" differently as in an excellor session. The love of the word - it was genuine partly because I chose not to focus on the parts that were disturbing or didn't make sense and partly because of the positive parts about love, peace, joy, hope, etc. The fellowship of like-minded people - it was wonderful like it would be for any group which shared the same beliefs or interests. What about the times I believed God did answer my prayers or blessed me - would they have happened even if I didn't believe in God at the time? When each surgery on my grandson was successful, was it solely because of the skilled doctors and nurses? Or when I got a much-needed job, was it solely because I happened to be the best candidate? When my mother, heavily medicated because of her final days of lung cancer, stopped having hallucinations or nightmares during the night so she no longer needed to be restrained, was it solely because I was there holding her hand? For these situations and all the others, they very well could have happened without God's intervention. Good things and bad things happen in life to everyone - believer or non-believer; a fact that has nothing to do with believing God makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. I'm aware of the testimonies of others who believe miracles have happened in their lives, and I am not going to deny they were indeed miracles. I speak only about my life. I also know of verses that contradict my way of thinking as well as condemn them, but they're not holding water for me anymore. However, for those who are hanging onto their Christian beliefs by a thread out of fear, seeing life outside of that religious paradigm can help them let go of that fear and those beliefs.

That's what I kept hearing when I would ask Christians about the trinity. "Farther Along" - sang it all the time in fellowships. Encourages Christians to remain faithful, but it also discourages them from asking questions.

Another aspect of fundamentalism is the belief in the historical accuracy and inerrancy of the Bible. I'm sure vpw had a quote or slogan about this that isn't coming to mind at the moment.

I am sorry Waysider. It took me a while to finish that post, and I had forgotten in the meantime who had sent it. I'll go and edit it now. I remember you sharing about your accident on GSC, and I know it took you a while to be well enough to come back on. Welcome back - I missed your humour.

It's horrible that you had that placed on your shoulders at such a young age. I have listened to other adults share about their lives as kids and living with a deep fear of Satan, not knowing for sure if they're saved or not, being left behind when the rapture occurs, of going to hell. If whatever a parent teaches their child about God causes them to live with such fear, it is a form of child abuse. I think this is an interesting quote from the book "The Argument Against God:" It would, though, be far better if religious doctrines and systems were not taught to people until they had attained maturity. If this were the case, how many would subscribe to a religion? Without being given a predisposition through childhood indoctrination to think there might be something in one of the many and conflicting religious beliefs on offer, the likely answer would surely be: not very many."

Hebrews 11:6 NIV 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. I underlined the words which I believe shows that God expects believers to have absolute certainty in him and in the "word" he has given them. It doesn't matter whether we agree on what this verse is saying. The point of my post was to show the dilemma that bible-believing Christians find themselves in when it comes to God. Unless there is a verse that proves differently, there is no room for uncertainty when it comes to him. Being between a rock and a hard place happens because even when a Christian is certain that God exists and therefore earnestly seeks this all-powerful and all-loving God in a time of need, it is never certain that he will show up and reward you for the trust you placed in him. (Apparently there are legal loopholes attached to his promises.) In other words, God expects certainty from believers when all the while, he is an uncertain God. It's one of the main reason why I think this concept of god as shown in the bible was thought up by men for whatever reason. Here's to peace (an alternative for beer in my case)

I think people always feel guilty when a loved one or someone close to them commits suicide - but to have to carry the additional guilt because of spiritual lies you were taught at the AC shows in my opinion how harmful religion is.

Your statement is true in the sense that no one is all-knowing, so there are many uncertainties in life. But in Christianity, this is not allowed. God expects (actually demands) believers to have absolute certainty in him and in the "word" he has given them (Heb 11:6, James 1:5-6). IMO, this puts believers between a rock and a hard place - not a healthy place to be in. Now why would an all-loving God want to do this to his children?

Deism from the Latin term deus, meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God (often, but not necessarily, a God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it), solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism Any thoughts on this?

OldSkool posted his website in his OP. Here is a more updated one as well as one for his videos of the prophesies. He's up to over 1300 views now. https://www.eyesupandopen.org/index.php/prophecies-from-jesus-christ https://www.youtube.com/@spiritofprophecy777 Sorry, you'll have to copy and paste to see them.

What a horrible thing to have experienced Waysider. It sounds like you were in twi when this happened because you wrote about feeling guilty over not trying to raise your roommate from the dead. You also mentioned about not having the believing to do so which sounds like twi's teaching of the law of believing. We believed in such spiritual abilities as taught by twi, but how many were actually performed by vpw or lcm? Did we even think to wonder about that, or were we too caught up in our own personal call to do them? As you know, I have come to accept that the bible, OT and NT, was written by men, possibly for political reasons (not completely sure of this). So I'm curious to know why the four gospel writers included the miracles that the person named Jesus did like walking on water (along with Peter doing so too), feeding over 5000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, raising the dead, etc. if the truth was they never happened. Was it to make the miracles of this son of a god greater than the works claimed to have been done by other gods believed in at the time? Perhaps John hints at this in chapter 9:32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. 33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. All the earlier gospels recorded Jesus healing the blind, but only in John, which was the last gospel written, was there this record of healing a man born blind.

A drop in the bucket compared to your number and all of the others . It's totally insignificant that the first time I've noticed my number in I don't know how long, it was at 666, or is it ? Have a great day Rocky!

I just noticed I have "666" under my "C." Mmmph Good thing I've deconverted

For decades, I've only had this one disturbing memory of my entire time at the AC, and the posts above have finally put it into context. (Thank you both for writing them.) That context being the focus on the adversary and devil spirits. My memory is vague but I do know I was feeling very bad about myself and so I went into hiding. I don't remember for how long or where I went but I do know it was an intense feeling. I needed to get away from everyone. I no longer believe in devil spirits but at that time I obviously did, and I think now I may have believed I had one. I don't remember finishing the class but when I did and returned home, a lot of activity was going on in my life. I learned right away about a man I had signed up for the class had just died suddenly, and my first reaction was to go and raise him from the dead. Seriously! I was so sure I could do this, I had to be talked out of it by a believer who was with me at the time. She had been my WOW coordinator and was then in the way corps. I also told my fiance that I wanted to go wow - a decision I made during those 2 weeks - and he agreed (reluctantly he later told me). Soon afterward we got married and within a week left for the ROA and went into the wow program. Within the first month of being on the wow field, I had a total breakdown. That intense feeling of self-condemnation that I had at the AC returned, I think because I was finding my wow commitment to be so overwhelming. But quitting the assignment meant we'd be outside of god's protection and therefore open for terrible things to happen to us which included my innocent one-year-old son. My husband and I did leave both the wow program and twi and eventually things settled down in my mind. But all this manic-depressive-like behavior started with that AC - the need to hide from others, deciding to go wow, the conviction I could raise someone from the dead, the rush of the ROA and wow training and finally the crash on the wow field. What insanity! But it didn't stop me from returning to twi a couple of years later.

The part I found most off-putting to the story I shared was the idea that the 16 year old believed the Lord put on his heart that his mother, who appeared to be having a heart attack, actually had devil spirits and so he asked God to take the demons off of her. As I mentioned, she was instantly healed of her symptoms. So while my friend shared this experience to encourage me not to give up on such a faithful and powerful God, it actually made me not want to have anything to do with a god who allows devil spirits to roam freely around to cause such fear and suffering in this woman so he could then be called upon to deliver her from them. I don’t believe my friend thought for a moment that god wouldn’t do a miracle for my grandson’s healing as well. I replied, however, that I had lost my trust in this god who hadn’t showed up for us in quite some time. .

I was thinking of this a couple of days ago when I realized how in the past 2 weeks, quite a few good things had happened. After the latest change to my grandson’s meds by his neurologist, his seizures have become less severe and not as frequent so he was able to return to school part time. Because of his principal’s advocacy, the school board had approved one-to-one support for him. This is a very difficult thing to get. After graduating from college a year ago and many of his job applications being rejected (as well as a few unsuccessful interviews), my oldest grandson who lives with us got a full-time entry job in his field. I finally received a replacement for a medical device I need that was recalled two years ago due to a risk of causing liver damage. As a Christian, I would have believed and been thankful that all these blessings were from God. Since deconverting, I'm now simply thankful for the good things life brings our way, sometimes with the help of other people. And when I learned a couple of days ago I owed over $600.00 in income tax because something I thought I had corrected online apparently didn't go through, once I calmed down, I let it go as .... simply happens in life as well. The point is that it was great not having to concern myself with whether a god was or wasn't looking out for me based on whether I was or wasn't trusting enough in him.

Early blood testing showed my grandson was born with a rare gene deletion which caused him to require life-saving surgery when he was a day old and two subsequent major surgeries to completely correct a physical abnormality. We were told that as he grew older, autism may also be a possibility because of this deletion. Fundamentalist beliefs can cause people to refuse medical intervention for themselves or their children because it meant doubting god's ability to heal. I knew the physical reasons for my grandson's health issues but still fell a few times for the doctrine that certain illnesses can be caused by devil spirits. Not anymore now.

Hi Rocky, I've been thinking a lot about this line you wrote. At first, it seemed as if you misinterpreted what I had said because I've always had great compassion for my grandson's health challenges. But apart from this assumption about you, there was still something really bothering me, and so I googled "is there fear in compassion" and the website below came up. In it, compassion was defined as having two parts: "Sensitivity to the causes of suffering in one’s self and others” (Part A), combined with the “commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it” (Part B)." It also said: "However, when there are FBRs (Fears, Blocks & Resistances) regarding giving Compassion to Others, this is often due to fears such as: “I will lose something” / “Others will take advantage of me” / “I cannot tolerate others’ distress”. And this was exactly the thing that was bothering me. During those times when I thought my grandson might have had a devil spirit, it was very frightening because I didn't "belieeeve" I could cast one out and in that sense, I could not tolerate (handle, help with) his distress. And that's when, I realize now, that although I was with him physically, mentally I was on some fricking Luciferian planet far removed from the earthly reality that a sudden electric surge had disrupted neurons in his brain causing him to have a seizure. With that kind of delusional mindset, I wasn't as effective with the second part of being compassionate as I could have been. It is very distressing to admit this, but it's important because it's one way that the bible, which teaches there are devil spirits, is harmful. I'm learning that there are many other biblical teachings that cause harm mentally and emotionally. It isn't just the way twi taught "the word," it was parts of the bible itself. I'm reading a good book right now titled "The God argument : the case against religion and for humanism" by A.C. Grayling. One last thing, I want to share about the joy that my grandson has brought to my life. His way of being is unique to him and I have come to value every part of him - his way of finding pleasure in certain things, his desire to interact with us, his growth and development, how he loves to have his long hair brushed when he used to hate it. There is so much more I could share, but most of all, I love his smiles. The other day he was laughing with his mouth closed which I think was a new experience for him by the look on his face. You could tell he was enjoying doing it and the longer he did it, the more my husband and I began to laugh out loud with him. He actually had us in stitches before he was finished. https://mi-psych.com.au/fears-of-compassion/

You're not alone WordWolf - chockfull mentioned it a few days ago and penworks also brought it up recently. And you're right - a genuine update on DLM is what I thought I'd find when I opened the thread.