On 4/27/2024 at 12:36 PM, chockfull said:

 

I would agree that they are human authors.  I differ in viewing them of having a “spark of the divine” in their writings.  

I would contend that scripture is Gods intention for humans to connect with that spark for inspiration but was never designed for Pharisee and Scribe exercises in predicting the future or coming up with unfulfillable levels of detail in laws and customs.  That would be man’s natural proclivity for controlling things and adding to the narrative.

Others views may vary of course

Checking for understanding.  You're saying the spark of the divine in the biblical authors' writings was from God and we can find places where that spark appears because of how they subjectively inspire each of us.  Am I paraphrasing you correctly?   

I think we all could put some inspirational words down on paper?  Some might say they come from meaningful personal experiences, and others may say they were inspired by God - He put the words on their heart to write.

Would the two different origins make any difference to the reader?  Should they?

5 hours ago, oldiesman said:

All spirit beings believed to exist by man.   God, Jesus, Holy, Gabriel, Michael, Lucifer, Watchers, Angels, Demons etc. etc.

There were a few times when I actually thought my non-verbal, autistic grandson may have had a devil spirit(s) because of how physically agitated he would become sometimes and then, especially, when he began to have seizures.  The seizures had become myoclonic in nature where his head would jerk severely downwards and forcibly hit whatever was in front of him.  He had regular black eyes, bruises, cuts and bumps on his forehead and face. 

I've let go of those thoughts since deconverting.  Doing so was like coming out of a freakish h..llhole where I feared not being able to cast out a devil spirit from my own grandson and entering a bright and sane place where such thoughts mean nothing because devil spirits are not real - they don't exist!  (Since then, my grandson's neurologist changed his meds, and he no longer has those extreme jerks.)

During this time, a friend wanted to encourage me to trust God again and shared how their teenage son prayed for God to remove demons from someone appearing to have a heart attack and the person instantly was delivered of their symptoms.  I had no way of knowing if the healing was real or not, but I did know how  off-putting the story was to me.  It only reinforced my determination to never go back to that "world" again.

On 4/27/2024 at 12:36 PM, chockfull said:

I would respond that the authors themselves had no knowledge about how their words would be foreshadowing the Messiah.  If there was any element of inspiration from God in their words (way different from the theopneustos trap of every word being automatic writing from God) then God as the orchestrator could be in charge of the foreshadowing.  Hosea was just writing about a drought and tying it to Israel’s lifestyle.

 

1 hour ago, Raf said:

And I would not argue with that response as far as foreshadowing is concerned. 

I would argue in the sense of fulfilling prophecy, like the verse about the virgin beIng found with child.

I'm a bit confused by your posts.  For there to be any foreshadowing done by God, wouldn't the following ideas have to be taken as truth:

- the God of the bible is true

- the fall of man is true

- the need for a messiah is true

therefore, the foreshadowing of this messiah by the God of the bible is true?

4 hours ago, oldiesman said:

It appears that Brandon very clearly lost the faith he once had.   Am curious what he thinks will happen to him after his death?   I didn't get to that part if he said something about that.   Thx.

Hi Oldiesman, I should rename the title of this thread to "letting go" instead of "losing" one's faith.  I have listened to quite a few interviews on Harmonic Atheist and when this topic comes up, the answer is usually "nothing" happens after death.  Another answer is maybe reincarnation based on research of memories of a past life by some people. 

The pain/fear of letting go of the belief in an afterlife with Christ where there is no more tears, death, sorrow or pain and where one is reunited with loved ones becomes a non-issue when one sees that the Bible was authored by man alone.  What is left is not living a pitiful life but living one with all your heart, strength, mind and soul for the here and now.

15 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

The original was from Oral Roberts, I think. This idea may go back to the early church fathers - Augustine, maybe? Maybe not. I don't know. Someone does.

The gospels deliberately linked their narratives and theologies to the OT (and to Virgil and Homer, according to D.R. MacDonald, et.al.) The writers of the epistles did the same. This is obvious, right? Connect it backwards so you can now connect it forward.

It's an interpretive framework. It's reading into the text something not conceived by the OT authors and editors. It's a theological perspective. It's academic. Pretty neat way of looking at it.

But it doesn't mean God wrote anything. It just means the writers were clever, as was Oral Robert's. I'm not knocking this interpretive perspective. That's just what it looks like to me. Again, it's academic. It's a glove. If it fits, wear it.

12 hours ago, Raf said:

  yu vThe red thread is, um, how to put it politely... Bulls hit.

It's a way for Christians to force their interpretation of scripture onto the O.T. when it's just not there. 

Like that verse about "he shall be called a Nazarene," which had flupall to do with Jesus.

Yeah, the song in Psalm 119:54 his not Christ. 

Neither is Hosea's latter rain

Thanks.  I listened to an interview yesterday about how the verses used in the Gospels to show the fulfillment of OT prophecies about the Messiah are not accurate.  The Rabbi Tovia Singer appears to know the Hebrew bible very well.  He was pretty critical of how NT writers took Hebrew verses out of context as well as misinterpreted and/or changed them so they seemingly look like they've been fulfilled in Jesus.  This makes sense with what you are both saying above.

For anyone interested, the website is below.  (I have only listened to the video - I have not studied it yet.)

20 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Like the Oral Robert's sermon?

Yes, but I heard it taught in twi without, I think, any mention of Oral Robert.  The thought just came to me that this topic was discussed on GSC and with a search, it shows 160 places where it has. 

So, my question was how did the continuity of this idea make its way all through the OT.  This is one of the points that was used to show God had to have been its author.

1 hour ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Yes

8 minutes ago, Rocky said:

It is a STORY.

Yes, I also see that Genesis 3 is a story and a lot more than just that one chapter as well.  What I still wonder about is how the man-made story called the "red thread" of the messiah was kept going through all the years of the OT writings.  Any comments or suggestions?

18 hours ago, Charity said:

Even though I used to believe this, I am so tired now of hearing how sin and death came into the world because God so loved mankind that he gave them free will, and since man chose to disobey God, what happened as a result is totally their fault. 

 

To clarify, it is obvious that we have free will.  My point for the above statement is that Adam and Eve had a perfect and loving relationship with God until Lucifer entered into the picture.  Then, they were tempted by the great and cunning tempter and chose the fruit over God.  The issue for me is why in this biblical record was there even a need for Adam and Eve to make a choice. 

More precisely, why did God need to put the forbidden-to-eat tree in the garden in the first place?  In a perfect world like the garden of Eden, would needing to obey someone be a necessary part of proving your love for that someone?  If so, that would make the definition of love obedience. 

I ask these questions because of the firm belief Christians have to argue that Adam and Eve chose to disobey God thereby putting the focus for the corruption of the world on them and not on God who designed the whole scenario to be set up this way in the first place.  Mankind became nothing but degenerate sinners, impure and evil instead of imperfect (to varying degrees) human beings, and God became their glowing necessary savior.

IMO, Genesis 3 is either a true record of a god which continues to demand obedience to this day, or it is a story that ancient mankind came up with to explain the pain and suffering in the world. 

On 9/12/2022 at 1:38 PM, Raf said:

I think one of the things people don't understand about losing faith is that it's not a decision. It's never one thing. It's a realization. Over a great deal of time I realized I was not praying the way I used to. Years of asking for something and getting nothing taught me to ask for nothing. The long, slow realization about the nature of the Bible could not be overcome. And, as a straw that broke the camel's back, my search for evidence that first century believers in a position to know for a fact that Jesus was raised went to their deaths rather than renounce that faith... turned up not a solitary shred of supporting evidence.

Raf, below is a website on the death of Stephen in the book of Acts.  It’s from the website called Vridar.  It references quite a bit the book “Acts and Christian Beginnings: The Acts Seminar Report Paperback – Sept. 23 2013”

https://vridar.org/2013/11/26/the-fiction-of-stephen-the-first-martyr/

Was there one or two resources you looked at when researching this topic?

2 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Like beating your slave to within  an inch of her life is righteous, as long as that inch carries her life through day two post beating. Let her die from her wounds on day five. 

I haven't found scripture that mentions 5 days yet, but here's one that mentions 2.

Exodus 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

I have skimmed through 6 commentaries on these verses; 3 of them only talked about verse 20 and the other three had different "justifiable" explanations for verse 21.  It's too much to stomach.

4 hours ago, Raf said:

When I first came out as atheist, I started a thread you can probably still find here called "Are you more moral than Yahweh?" It took a look at a number of questionable OT positions (and I think one or two NT, but mostly OT) that are inconsistent with a God who is the author of morality. But if you are to take the position that morality is objective (spoiler alert, it's not) and that certain moral standards are absolute (like rape among humans is always wrong and the victim is the person who was raped), then you have to conclude that the God of the Old Testament is frankly not moral.

Is it moral to prescribe the death penalty for picking up sticks between dusk Friday and dusk Saturday? No. Of course not. But Yahweh (allegedly) did that. It's sociopathic! "But it was another time." SO WHAT!?!?!

So what you're describing here is a clash between what the Bible actually says about Yahweh (and by extension Jesus) and your own understanding of what actual morality is. And then you have to defend your own morality against the (absolutely and demonstrably false) premise that there is no such thing as morality without Yahweh because he is where we get morality from. HE MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT.

Morality does not come from religion. Religion comes from morality. And it is not "objective," which is why our culture rejects a slew of Old Testament pronouncements as immoral. We may have once thought, incorrectly, that eating shellfish or mixing fabrics was immoral. We know better today.

Wow - I found your thread from 2014 which garnered over 600 replies.  I'll check it out.  I also found your thread "Ten Years of Unbelief" which I plan to read after replying.

As horrible as the curses listed in Deuteronomy 28 are, the support of them by apologists is just as disgusting.  

I think verse 63 in that chapter says a lot:  "And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goes to possess it. 

It's not that I think as a mere mortal that I have the right to criticize a biblical almighty and creator God, it's that I no longer believe that such a horrible god truly exists.

8 minutes ago, cman said:

The knowledge of good and evil is the knowledge of God 

Probably why he told em not to eat it. The devil was not supposed to be referenced. 

That's interesting cman because God could have locked Lucifer and the fallen angels in chains forever at the time of their rebellion just like Revelation says he will do for a thousand years. 

What was God's reason for letting Lucifer remain free?  The bible doesn't give one, but here's the thing. 

Adam and Eve didn't turn their backs on God's goodness and disobey him all on their own?  They had no "sin nature" and did not know evil so they would have no reason to do so.  They, and all of their descendants, could have known and loved God as well as enjoyed God's blessings. God could have delighted in them just as we delight in our children. (And no, they would not have been robots, otherwise those with eternal life in a future place where there is no more sin would also be robots.)    

But that apparently wasn't good enough for God.  He needed and therefore demanded their obedience and that's where Lucifer comes in.  Only when the serpent deceived Eve (which he was very "gifted" at according to Gen 3:1) did his temptation result in their sin.

Even though I used to believe this, I am so tired now of hearing how sin and death came into the world because God so loved mankind that he gave them free will, and since man chose to disobey God, what happened as a result is totally their fault. 

On 4/18/2024 at 12:18 PM, TLC said:

If you can find anything else specifically written to "the body of Christ" (which we are part of) that tells us what God has promised or will or will not do for us in this day and time... well, maybe I haven't seen it. 

How many of the promises that Paul has written of speak of things that are heavenly in nature (and perhaps is yet to come), rather than things which are earthly?

How about these:

Phil 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform (complete) it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Phil 2:13 For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Phil 4: 19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

And because of the above promises, here is my favorite:  Eph 1:19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.

Here is something written recently by someone who believes in this verse and says they have seen this power in their life.  It is part of a prophecy they are giving from the Lord.  Oh, to have the faith of this person.  (Btw, what is spoken about faith is according to scripture.)

"But if you have faith in God, you will command the impossible, and you will need to do just that in the work I am sending you. I am sending you my Children to gather the sheep that remain, for many will come to me in these last minutes and I will not deny them, but I passionately search for them still. Open your mouths in faith and stand for me and minister to my Children. I have told you how to wield my power, but you refuse my instruction, so I will tell the forgetful among you once again. Why do you sheepishly ask a spirit to leave its host with stuttering lips and using my name Jesus Christ in a faithless manner? Do not use my name in vain! Command the spirits in my name with great faith and have faith in the words that I will give you, and the evil spirits will depart by my power through you! Why do you timidly ask sickness to leave when you should speak to the sickness in confidence in my name and command the impossible in my name and heal the sick.

Warning: Getting personal here

Although I have been feeling relief from not having to please a god anymore so he would answer prayers, I woke up this morning feeling an emptiness knowing that he was no longer my source of love. 

Not wanting to get up, I laid there and came to realize that the only option left was to love myself – not love me because God loved me, but to love me as in “it's all up to me now” and surprisingly, this was okay with me.  My core belief of being unlovable since childhood was always the reoccurring great need in my life for seeking after God's acceptance and love.  Now, accepting that I am the sole person responsible for loving who I am seems to have come with an unforeseen benefit.  The emotional connection I had to my childhood pain is no longer there.

Here is why I think this happened .

For a while now (and for periods over the years), I felt guilty for not trusting God enough, not walking by the spirit or power of God enough, not speaking his word boldly enough, etc., and all of this meant, according to Paul's epistles, I was not being "enough" for God .  It was the exact same guilt I had as a kid for not being "enough" to make my dad want to stop drinking.  I realize now that my two reasons for guilt had melded together in that the spiritual guilt reinforced my childhood guilt.  Pretty deep, eh .

Coming to believe recently that the epistles, with all the hype of what we are called to be and to do, were not inspired by God but written by a man.  This blew up my spiritual belief of not being enough.  Being free of that guilt allowed me to see there was actually nothing left of the self blame I carried as a child.   

Thankfully, freedom is no longer needing to .  (I'm also thankful for the little emoji guys to help me tell my story.)

29 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

All I know is that he was sent by God.

How do I know this? Paul himself says so of himself. He said it, that settles it, I believe it. 

You're saying then that because the bible says he was sent by God means he was a manipulator just as God was.  Cool - I can definitely see this.

I've been listening to videos about how much Paul included teachings of Plato almost word for word in his writings which contradicts his saying that what he taught was not of men but by revelation from Jesus Christ.  It's called "Paul or Plato? The Bible's Shady Origins" by Justin Best.  I don't want to spend a lot of time researching whether the many examples shown on the video are accurate, but other videos have also focused on issues with his writings.  A deconstruction of Paul's epistles is one way to see how the bible is not valid as a source of truth. 

Justin Best begins talking about Paul at 60 minutes into the video.  He credits his deconstruction of Paul with his eventual deconversion. He also talks about the following people whose works he studied and some of whom he has had conversations. Has anyone come across these names in their research?

Dr. Richard Carrier: wrote Jesus from Outer Space and On the Historicity of Jesus

Tovia Singer: an American Orthodox rabbi who teaches how Jesus could not have been the Messiah

Dr. Dennis MacDonald: proposes a theory wherein the earliest books of the New Testament were responses to the Homeric Epics, including the Gospel of Mark and the Acts of the Apostles

Homer’s Odyssey, inspiration for book of Mark, Paul copied Aristotle, Plato 1:40:00

Thersites the Historian: a youtube channel connecting Jesus with Thersites

On 4/19/2024 at 11:35 AM, Nathan_Jr said:

Horrendous. Yes, indeed.

I'm not a Jew. I'm not subject the wrath of the Jewish god. (Nor are they.) Nor will I be manipulated by a Pharisee like Paul that simply beleeeving what he says will save me from the  horrendous acts of the god of Abram.

I've heard a few different people take issues with Paul's epistles.  Have you learned something about him or his writings that makes him out to be a manipulator? 

19 hours ago, Raf said:

Not interested in the video, but interested in sharing my thoughts on any questions you have about your journey. For instance, I would caution very much against allowing your faith to be undermined by whatever challenges your children or grandchildren are facing. My journey from faith coincided with the autism diagnosis of my son and the illness and death of my sister from ALS. To this day I struggle to explain to people that the coincidence of timing was just that, a coincidence. They think I'm angry at God for allowing my son to have autism or my sister to die. The truth is my rejection of faith had a lot more to do with the paucity of evidence for the claims of and about the first century church. 

Gonna stop here because I see a lot of posts have gone up since I started replying to the thread, so let me read them before I answer.

But you are far from alone, Charity. I've walked this walk. Happy to discuss.

Thanks Raf.  Two events were happening at the same time that caused me to look into the Bible's reliability and validity.  My grandson's health issues which were getting worse didn't make me angry - I was more hurt and definitely wondering how does God answer prayers. Plus, the recent solar eclipse with all the "prophesies" and warnings about the end times attached to it made me seriously question the wrath of God shown in the Bible. 

So, I began watching some videos by Bart Ehrman about problems in the text which included Paul's writings, as well as MindShift which dealt more with the negative characteristics of God shown in the Bible.  With the former, I had problems with some of what he said and with the latter, it's clear that believers/apologists have answers to justify everything God or Jesus did.  I also began reading threads on this particular forum, and I remember one where you shared about the history of what was known about Jesus in the first century.  I want to go back and read through it again.

I'm sure it took time from beginning to end where you were became certain about things.  How did you handle the "what-if-I'm-wrong" worries during that time, if you had any?  

14 hours ago, cman said:

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

I'm not really shouting, couldn't adjust the font thingy

Your second sentence is funny cman - thanks for laugh!

I used to love that verse.

Without getting into Bible verses, the violence in the Old Testament (“crimes” for which God prescribes the death penalty, God’s anger and wrath in punishing his people, and God’s command to the Israelites to commit genocide), as well as God’s need for Christ to suffer and be crucified to save us from the sin He made to pass unto all mankind, and the concept of the lake of fire (whatever that is) in Revelation are so way over the top, I don’t want to believe any of it is true. 

Since the first 2 have already happened, that leaves the final one to have to consider.  The fact that so many Christians justify God’s judgments in Revelation and therefore are intent on scaring people into accepting Christ to avoid these judgments is disturbing in and of itself.  Plus, I’m hearing more and more that “once saved, always saved” is a false doctrine which means even more people will be added to the lake of fire.

Is the moral objection to the terror depicted in the great tribulation as well as the final judgments enough to say Revelation had to have been conceived by men and not inspired by God? 

2 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

I know she doesn’t believe in hell. Not sure what she thinks about heaven other than she doesn’t see it as a geographical destination. I know she believes life is eternal and death is powerless and Christ Jesus proved it.
 

She doesn’t feel obligated to witness. Maybe she sees her life as a witness. I don't think she believes she can make anyone see what she sees. Again, she sees it as a personal journey for each and everyone. But she’s a universalist, so she believes everyone, eventually, will come to the truth. 
 

I thought Matthew was Old Testament written TO the Jews, according to TWI. How could the Great Commission apply to anyone other than the eleven disciples, who were dirty Judeans, according to TWI?

There’s probably a glove for that. 

Since following the exposure of clergy abuse and sexual abuse in the International House of Prayer Kansas City, I have discovered how important the great commission is to many protestant churches, especially the evangelical ones.

4 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

I missed this part.

No. I don’t think she is striving to believe anything. I don’t think she sees God as being displeased.

Again, for her, it goes back to Genesis chapter 1 as foundational. God saw everything that he had made. And it was very good.

 

Again, I find this fascinating because when I began to deconvert, I did not want to give up on the idea that the world was created by a powerful being leaving evolution as the only other option. The beauty of nature and the incredible way our bodies work and the order of the universe are all realities I marvel at - thinking that it all evolved on its own seems too incredulous.  (I admit though, I have not studied the theory of evolution.)  

Thanks Nathan for sharing about your mother. 

27 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

She's not at all burdened by sin. Church? Not really. I'm sure she would be considered a heretic or something like that by some here. She doesn't talk about her faith unless asked, even then, sparingly. She doesn't evangelize. She doesn't talk about or judge others’ religious beliefs, even when she disagrees. She sees it all as very personal and private.

She has two best friends since childhood. She talks to them daily. Amazing love and loyalty among them. One is Methodist, the other Episcopalian. 

I find this all so amazing.  I hope you don't mind if I ask another question.  Has she shared with you whether she believes in heaven or hell?  Witnessing was such an obligation in twi, although I don't think it was ever called evangelism.  The focus was on moving the word over the world via selling the class to people, not on God's commandment to go out and make disciples (i.e., the great commission of Matt 28:19-10).  Feeling the need to get those you care for to accept Christ and be born again can be very stressful when they are not interested in doing so.  Your mother seems free from the anxiety that burden brings.

I never believed a Christian like your mother could ever exist, but as I walk away from more of the teachings of the Bible, I can see now how it's possible. 

On 4/12/2024 at 4:23 AM, WordWolf said:

One of the great things about life post-twi is the options to look at different points of view, consider them in a healthy fashion, and form an opinion rather than have one handed to you.

There's a number of thoughts on different positions with this, and many of them, IMHO, take cheap shots at opposing points of view.  I'm not going to pronounce the absolute truth on the matter, but I feel free to outline the major positions and why they're held.

 

I admit that one of the hardest thing for me to let go of from twi is that there is only one "truth" which meant you are right and everyone else is wrong.  This is why I appreciate what you wrote above about having opinions.  One definition of opinion is "a judgment based on facts, an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence."  The same website defines belief as "Unlike an opinion, a belief is a conviction based on cultural or personal faith, morality, or values."

If belief is a personal conviction one holds about an issue, does it then become an opinion when discussing the issue with others who think differently? 

5 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

My mother is a devout Christian. She walks with tremendous peace, compassion, grace and power. I've witnessed her receive countless healings and revelations. She is not a proseltizer/evangelizer. She is not a fundamentalist inerrantist. She knows God isn't in the publishing business and didn't write the books of the Bible. Genesis chapter one is foundational to her theology/philosophy. Chapter 2 on, not so much.

It sounds like she's not burdened down with the issue of "sin" or striving to believe enough to please God.  That would make a difference.  I find it hard for her to be like this though if she goes to a church.  Does she?