Actually, MRAP, you aren't a lunatic because you don't take the OT at face value. This is why I say this: You are still very busy trying to view it through some sort of lens that helps it make sense.
I am going to derail this topic for a moment. I don't attack people. I attack ideas. If someone thought I was going after an individual when it came to me calling people lunatics, I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I don't do passive/aggressive. So unless I address you directly, it's safer to assume that I'm not talking about you.
I sincerely do not believe that 99.9999% of people who believe the bible take the OT at face value, even when they think they do. One who would take it at face value would resemble a salafi purity police on a mission more than even an ultra-orthodox jew. As comical as I find the ultra orthodox in their need to avoid me to maintain purity, I don't consider them lunatics. However, lunacy is readily apparent when one is a true believer muslim. Engage even the so-called "moderate" in a discussion of the practical application of their religion and just behold the lunacy. Same with the TV preacher. Dial into the Daystar channel and the likes of Pat Robertson and even Joel Osteen and tell me there's no lunacy going on there. I would beg to differ.
I spent years as a proudly fundamentalist christian, but I have never been particularly religious. I am really uncomfortable with the religion aspect of it. In 2005 I returned to school full time a few months after CES and I parted ways. That's when I started really looking into critical thinking. While I use critical thinking and problem solving continually in my profession (I am a computer person), I kept that separate from being a christian. In 2008, that changed. I read a number of Brian McLaren's books, one being "A New Kind of Christianity". I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember walking away no longer a fundamentalist and no longer willing to overlook the havoc that religion causes. Since then I've found myself becoming increasingly cynical and simply not caring about what it means to be a good christian. I have found that I am a kinder person as a result of not needing to run everything through the christian filter to gauge the rightness of something. To top it off, instead of feeling bad, all I've felt is relief.
I've always known why I'm not a Mormon (although no one does families better); why I'm not a Scientologist; why I'm not a Jehovah's Witness; why I'm not a Muslim; why I'm not a trinitarian, but I never really considered why I was ever a christian. Some people seemed at peace being a christian, but that was never me. I fought too much with the text. It just never sat well with me. For years I blamed me. Then it dawned on me that the reason why I struggled so much with it is because it never put me in a win/win situation. It's fine if all you do is hang out with the "like minded", but there is always that tension when you are not. Are they saved? Am I acting christian enough?
It was when I applied the "outsider test" to what I believed that I moved on from Christianity.
I started by questioning what Martindale was peddling in WayAP; comparing what he was saying to existing Way doctrine
That led me to questioning what Wierwille taught; comparing what he taught to his own "keys to the Word's interpretation
That led me to look at the various offshoots, all teaching different things, all based supposedly on the same "keys"
That led me to question whether there even could be a right dividing of the boble
Which led me to ask myself why I thought there was a good reason to believe that the bible was any truer than anything else
For a long time I maintained an agnostic position about the bible, reasoning that it might be true, but did not see any evidence to support that position
Eventually I came to believe that it definitely wasn't handed down by any deity and that it contained a lot of factual errors
More recently I have formed the opinion that the bible is not only not God-inspired, but on the whole is a pretty immoral book (especially the OT)
This all took years...
See the part I put in bold? That's where the Outsider Test comes in. It's the point where we don't give the Bible a boost, but we in fact put it on a level playing field with every other book claiming to be divinely inspired. Once you do that, it becomes impossible to defend. BEFORE you do that, you have to contort yourself to accept what would otherwise be unacceptable. Slavery isn't so bad... at least it wasn't American slavery! Forcing a woman to marry her rapist beat the alternative! (Never mind that God, if he were moral, could have mandated a more moral alternative!). We HAD to stone sabbath breakers to death. Otherwise, people would disobey God left and right! Which... they... did... anyway. We dismiss the atrocity of the Old Testament by patting God on the back for having the wisdom to do away with it in the New Testament (which Jesus explicitly says he did not do, but that's okay because Paul, who never met Jesus, said otherwise). We would never accept these contortions coming in defense of the Q'uran. But in defense of Leviticus and Deuteronomy? Well, you have to understand the culture of the time...
The only thing you have to understand is that the Bible never rose above the morality of the people who wrote it.
You can see how the morality thread is a logical extension of this one: just more targeted and specific.
Hey gang! It has been forever since I've stopped in here. (Only here after discovering LCM had a Twitter page!). Was I not paying attention or has this been a fairly recent evolution for you, Raf?
It was essentially the outsider test that brought me to drop religion, and it began with trying to figure out how exactly I was supposed to convert people to the TWI if they didn't already have the basic Christian beliefs. It seems that most people that make that conversion make it after some kind of perceived miraculous event... which is still pretty rare.
This is some great stuff here, Raf! I'll have to poke around a little more :)
It's kind of a long story. I came to a series of realizations step by step before deciding to chuck it all in August 2012. I went on to retrace some of those steps here without explicitly revealing my change of heart. Then I unmasked in the interest of full disclosure. I believe you can still be a Christian and doubt the legitimacy of modern SIT (I was and I did). I believe you can still be a Christian and recognize that the Bible contains actual errors and contradictions (I was and I did). But after a while, positing those theses without disclosing that I had abandoned "faith" felt more dishonest than academic, so I chose to come clean. That was a few months ago.
One of the things that I try to apply the "outsider test" to is prayer
I'm not talking about the kind of prayer where you talk to God, or praise God, or anything other than asking God to do something, or provide something
I know a lot of people who are sure that "prayer works", and are vocal about providing examples of the many times where prayer "worked", i.e. they asked God for something and they received it, or it came to pass
My outsider test in regards to prayer is that even a superficial look at the track record of prayer "working" would likely result in a very low success rate
I understand that I am not proving anything - maybe your individual experience is that you receive 100% of what you pray for 100% of the time, but it has been my observation that people who make this claim employ rationales or weasel words to explain why not receiving what was prayed for: God answered, but he said "no"; the ever-popular "God works in mysterious ways"; "God gives you what you need, not what you want"...the list goes on and on
Confirmation bias, selective reporting, rationalizing lack of success all serve to explain away the times when prayer doesn't "work"
My own favorite reason for disbelieving in the effectiveness of prayer: disasters, either natural or man-made, when the survivors claim God's blessing for sparing them when many others were killed, or lost their homes
Applying the same standard that is applied to psychics, fortune tellers and predictors-of-the-end-of-the-world to prayer and you'll get the same results
It's kind of a long story. I came to a series of realizations step by step before deciding to chuck it all in August 2012. I went on to retrace some of those steps here without explicitly revealing my change of heart. Then I unmasked in the interest of full disclosure. I believe you can still be a Christian and doubt the legitimacy of modern SIT (I was and I did). I believe you can still be a Christian and recognize that the Bible contains actual errors and contradictions (I was and I did). But after a while, positing those theses without disclosing that I had abandoned "faith" felt more dishonest than academic, so I chose to come clean. That was a few months ago.
I've scanned through this forum but couldn't find a link to your story on why you decided to give up your christian faith. It would be an interesting read given all that you have contributed here regarding the christian faith as from a perspective of one who believes in god. A bit surprised to hear you eventually lost your faith. Theres clearly no need for shame if you don't really believe the bible or in God, I'd just like to hear what happened to make this drastic change and why.
Yep. It seems you gave up the faith because you no longer found the bible,God compelling. And came to the conclusion there really was no evidence for God. I would give up the faith too if I believed that. Its just amazing the jump you made but its just when someone says they were faking speaking in tongues what else were they faking? Were they faking their faith too? Not claiming you were but its just odd that someone who knew the bible as well as you did and apparently believed it was true, suddenly had a change of heart. For good reasons I'm sure however do you think these reasons would be convincing to other people if not why not?
Well I guess it took some time to be official but I'm sure you knew you didn't believe a lot quicker than you were willing to admit it was true to yourself. Perhaps you could describe that moment where you had the aha moment that God and the bible were just nonsense. Perhaps it was a gradual process I really don't know what goes on in the minds of people who admit to faking tongues then claim that means others were faking as well.
I'm trying not to post across threads on the same topic, but please... if you want ME to believe you don't fake tongues, then get a disinterested third party to authenticate your language. Otherwise, let's agree that we don't agree on this and just address different topics instead.
It was actually a class on the OT that led me to throw my 'research' books in the trash. It was through Restoration Fellowship and covered the first half of the OT. About the time I got to the dismembered concubine in Judges, I'd had enough. Upon further reflection, I realized that after years of trying, none of the so-called "promises" had come to pass anywhere around me. I tossed the research books and discovered Bart Ehrman.
None of that is to say the Bible hasn't had a huge impact on Western Civilization. There might not be evidence of the Exodus but the story has had a wide ranging, and I would argue positive, impact on the world.
It's those kind of things I look into now, i.e., the principles discussed in the Bible and how they have been implemented and their impact on humanity.
We seem to be creatures with leanings towards religion. Somehow it seems to provide comfort in a remarkably screwed up world.
The Bible is an especially helpful guide to the moral development of Western civilization. But (as we are exploring in another thread) it is not as much a source of objective morality as it is a reflection of the subjective morality of its day. It's got plenty of noble precepts that are not bound by the times in which they were written, along with some horrible stuff that is absolutely bound by its time.
Outsider test: If I came to you tomorrow and said because I believe in the teachings of Buddha, I can do nine magic tricks, would you believe me?
I guess I couldn't do your outsider test.
I've read and also heard recited some of Buddha's teachings. Most of what I know of that religion involves self improvement through self reflection. This is not contradictory to Christianity, and actually is a viewpoint or at least practice that many Christians could profit from but would never consider.
People say it is "worshipping yourself" or "worshipping the creation", but then again people are idiots.
They will build a KKK perception and then go home in their prosperity gospel new Cadillac Escalade.
The Bible is an especially helpful guide to the moral development of Western civilization. But (as we are exploring in another thread) it is not as much a source of objective morality as it is a reflection of the subjective morality of its day. It's got plenty of noble precepts that are not bound by the times in which they were written, along with some horrible stuff that is absolutely bound by its time.
When I look at modern Sharia law and the cultural history of the OT, it's like the same almost. Pretty degrading to women, very nationalistic, and closed minded.
From a certain perspective I actually agree with what you wrote here.
My point, by the way, was not to make an accurate statement about Buddhism but to demonstrate that we tend to treat the claims of other religions with more skepticism than the claims of our own.
My point, by the way, was not to make an accurate statement about Buddhism but to demonstrate that we tend to treat the claims of other religions with more skepticism than the claims of our own.
Elijah ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Jesus ascended with no vehicle at all.
Mohammed ascended to heaven on a winged horse.
Well, that third claim is just silly.
It's a valid point.
People have their own "personal Jesus".
It could turn them into a hypocrite rejecting their human Muslim brother who lives a more virtuous and moral life than they do and that God will reward justly at the Great White Throne judgment.
Too many elitist Christians in this world looking down their nose at others, rejecting others, and living 100% selfishness. And like the Way, teaching doctrines of devils like "the household" taking the behavior of Christians back two millennium on progress towards being actual human beings with compassion towards their neighbors.
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Tzaia
Actually, MRAP, you aren't a lunatic because you don't take the OT at face value. This is why I say this: You are still very busy trying to view it through some sort of lens that helps it make sense.
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Raf
I meant what she said.
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Tzaia
I am going to derail this topic for a moment. I don't attack people. I attack ideas. If someone thought I was going after an individual when it came to me calling people lunatics, I'm sorry, you're mistaken. I don't do passive/aggressive. So unless I address you directly, it's safer to assume that I'm not talking about you.
I sincerely do not believe that 99.9999% of people who believe the bible take the OT at face value, even when they think they do. One who would take it at face value would resemble a salafi purity police on a mission more than even an ultra-orthodox jew. As comical as I find the ultra orthodox in their need to avoid me to maintain purity, I don't consider them lunatics. However, lunacy is readily apparent when one is a true believer muslim. Engage even the so-called "moderate" in a discussion of the practical application of their religion and just behold the lunacy. Same with the TV preacher. Dial into the Daystar channel and the likes of Pat Robertson and even Joel Osteen and tell me there's no lunacy going on there. I would beg to differ.
I spent years as a proudly fundamentalist christian, but I have never been particularly religious. I am really uncomfortable with the religion aspect of it. In 2005 I returned to school full time a few months after CES and I parted ways. That's when I started really looking into critical thinking. While I use critical thinking and problem solving continually in my profession (I am a computer person), I kept that separate from being a christian. In 2008, that changed. I read a number of Brian McLaren's books, one being "A New Kind of Christianity". I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember walking away no longer a fundamentalist and no longer willing to overlook the havoc that religion causes. Since then I've found myself becoming increasingly cynical and simply not caring about what it means to be a good christian. I have found that I am a kinder person as a result of not needing to run everything through the christian filter to gauge the rightness of something. To top it off, instead of feeling bad, all I've felt is relief.
I've always known why I'm not a Mormon (although no one does families better); why I'm not a Scientologist; why I'm not a Jehovah's Witness; why I'm not a Muslim; why I'm not a trinitarian, but I never really considered why I was ever a christian. Some people seemed at peace being a christian, but that was never me. I fought too much with the text. It just never sat well with me. For years I blamed me. Then it dawned on me that the reason why I struggled so much with it is because it never put me in a win/win situation. It's fine if all you do is hang out with the "like minded", but there is always that tension when you are not. Are they saved? Am I acting christian enough?
Now I really do not care and it is such a relief.
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Raf
That was not a derail. Just saying.
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Raf
See the part I put in bold? That's where the Outsider Test comes in. It's the point where we don't give the Bible a boost, but we in fact put it on a level playing field with every other book claiming to be divinely inspired. Once you do that, it becomes impossible to defend. BEFORE you do that, you have to contort yourself to accept what would otherwise be unacceptable. Slavery isn't so bad... at least it wasn't American slavery! Forcing a woman to marry her rapist beat the alternative! (Never mind that God, if he were moral, could have mandated a more moral alternative!). We HAD to stone sabbath breakers to death. Otherwise, people would disobey God left and right! Which... they... did... anyway. We dismiss the atrocity of the Old Testament by patting God on the back for having the wisdom to do away with it in the New Testament (which Jesus explicitly says he did not do, but that's okay because Paul, who never met Jesus, said otherwise). We would never accept these contortions coming in defense of the Q'uran. But in defense of Leviticus and Deuteronomy? Well, you have to understand the culture of the time...
The only thing you have to understand is that the Bible never rose above the morality of the people who wrote it.
You can see how the morality thread is a logical extension of this one: just more targeted and specific.
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Tzaia
It also never went beyond the science or the imagery of the people who wrote it.
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lindyhopper
Hey gang! It has been forever since I've stopped in here. (Only here after discovering LCM had a Twitter page!). Was I not paying attention or has this been a fairly recent evolution for you, Raf?
It was essentially the outsider test that brought me to drop religion, and it began with trying to figure out how exactly I was supposed to convert people to the TWI if they didn't already have the basic Christian beliefs. It seems that most people that make that conversion make it after some kind of perceived miraculous event... which is still pretty rare.
This is some great stuff here, Raf! I'll have to poke around a little more :)
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Raf
Welcome back, lindyhopper!
It's kind of a long story. I came to a series of realizations step by step before deciding to chuck it all in August 2012. I went on to retrace some of those steps here without explicitly revealing my change of heart. Then I unmasked in the interest of full disclosure. I believe you can still be a Christian and doubt the legitimacy of modern SIT (I was and I did). I believe you can still be a Christian and recognize that the Bible contains actual errors and contradictions (I was and I did). But after a while, positing those theses without disclosing that I had abandoned "faith" felt more dishonest than academic, so I chose to come clean. That was a few months ago.
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Oakspear
One of the things that I try to apply the "outsider test" to is prayer
I'm not talking about the kind of prayer where you talk to God, or praise God, or anything other than asking God to do something, or provide something
I know a lot of people who are sure that "prayer works", and are vocal about providing examples of the many times where prayer "worked", i.e. they asked God for something and they received it, or it came to pass
My outsider test in regards to prayer is that even a superficial look at the track record of prayer "working" would likely result in a very low success rate
I understand that I am not proving anything - maybe your individual experience is that you receive 100% of what you pray for 100% of the time, but it has been my observation that people who make this claim employ rationales or weasel words to explain why not receiving what was prayed for: God answered, but he said "no"; the ever-popular "God works in mysterious ways"; "God gives you what you need, not what you want"...the list goes on and on
Confirmation bias, selective reporting, rationalizing lack of success all serve to explain away the times when prayer doesn't "work"
My own favorite reason for disbelieving in the effectiveness of prayer: disasters, either natural or man-made, when the survivors claim God's blessing for sparing them when many others were killed, or lost their homes
Applying the same standard that is applied to psychics, fortune tellers and predictors-of-the-end-of-the-world to prayer and you'll get the same results
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ImLikeSoConfused
I've scanned through this forum but couldn't find a link to your story on why you decided to give up your christian faith. It would be an interesting read given all that you have contributed here regarding the christian faith as from a perspective of one who believes in god. A bit surprised to hear you eventually lost your faith. Theres clearly no need for shame if you don't really believe the bible or in God, I'd just like to hear what happened to make this drastic change and why.
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Raf
So did you find it?
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ImLikeSoConfused
Yep. It seems you gave up the faith because you no longer found the bible,God compelling. And came to the conclusion there really was no evidence for God. I would give up the faith too if I believed that. Its just amazing the jump you made but its just when someone says they were faking speaking in tongues what else were they faking? Were they faking their faith too? Not claiming you were but its just odd that someone who knew the bible as well as you did and apparently believed it was true, suddenly had a change of heart. For good reasons I'm sure however do you think these reasons would be convincing to other people if not why not?
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Raf
Who said anything about it being sudden?
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ImLikeSoConfused
Well I guess it took some time to be official but I'm sure you knew you didn't believe a lot quicker than you were willing to admit it was true to yourself. Perhaps you could describe that moment where you had the aha moment that God and the bible were just nonsense. Perhaps it was a gradual process I really don't know what goes on in the minds of people who admit to faking tongues then claim that means others were faking as well.
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Raf
I'm trying not to post across threads on the same topic, but please... if you want ME to believe you don't fake tongues, then get a disinterested third party to authenticate your language. Otherwise, let's agree that we don't agree on this and just address different topics instead.
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Raf
Outsider test: If I came to you tomorrow and said because I believe in the teachings of Buddha, I can do nine magic tricks, would you believe me?
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JumpinJive
It was actually a class on the OT that led me to throw my 'research' books in the trash. It was through Restoration Fellowship and covered the first half of the OT. About the time I got to the dismembered concubine in Judges, I'd had enough. Upon further reflection, I realized that after years of trying, none of the so-called "promises" had come to pass anywhere around me. I tossed the research books and discovered Bart Ehrman.
None of that is to say the Bible hasn't had a huge impact on Western Civilization. There might not be evidence of the Exodus but the story has had a wide ranging, and I would argue positive, impact on the world.
It's those kind of things I look into now, i.e., the principles discussed in the Bible and how they have been implemented and their impact on humanity.
We seem to be creatures with leanings towards religion. Somehow it seems to provide comfort in a remarkably screwed up world.
-JJ
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Raf
The Bible is an especially helpful guide to the moral development of Western civilization. But (as we are exploring in another thread) it is not as much a source of objective morality as it is a reflection of the subjective morality of its day. It's got plenty of noble precepts that are not bound by the times in which they were written, along with some horrible stuff that is absolutely bound by its time.
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chockfull
I guess I couldn't do your outsider test.
I've read and also heard recited some of Buddha's teachings. Most of what I know of that religion involves self improvement through self reflection. This is not contradictory to Christianity, and actually is a viewpoint or at least practice that many Christians could profit from but would never consider.
People say it is "worshipping yourself" or "worshipping the creation", but then again people are idiots.
They will build a KKK perception and then go home in their prosperity gospel new Cadillac Escalade.
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chockfull
When I look at modern Sharia law and the cultural history of the OT, it's like the same almost. Pretty degrading to women, very nationalistic, and closed minded.
From a certain perspective I actually agree with what you wrote here.
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Raf
Hang on. I think I just had a stroke. j/k
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Raf
My point, by the way, was not to make an accurate statement about Buddhism but to demonstrate that we tend to treat the claims of other religions with more skepticism than the claims of our own.
Elijah ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Jesus ascended with no vehicle at all.
Mohammed ascended to heaven on a winged horse.
Well, that third claim is just silly.
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chockfull
It's a valid point.
People have their own "personal Jesus".
It could turn them into a hypocrite rejecting their human Muslim brother who lives a more virtuous and moral life than they do and that God will reward justly at the Great White Throne judgment.
Too many elitist Christians in this world looking down their nose at others, rejecting others, and living 100% selfishness. And like the Way, teaching doctrines of devils like "the household" taking the behavior of Christians back two millennium on progress towards being actual human beings with compassion towards their neighbors.
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