Thought of another thing that makes me question the one way only to God. Beliefs. Or to elaborate, beliefs that one is willing to die for. Why should I think Christianity has the absolute only one way to God thing tied up when there are others willing to die for their beliefs? Muslims. In the past – Jews and Mormons. Just to name some obvious ones.
To put it another way – just because someone believes something and is willing to witness for it, even willing to die for it, doesn’t necessarily make it true. Muslims believe that Allah is the only true god and Mohammed is his prophet. They are more than willing to die for that. There’s about a billion witnesses currently on the globe that say that Islam is the only truth. But does that make it correct? Or at a simpler level, everyone in Texas “knows” that it is illegal to pick our state flower, the bluebonnet. We “know” it. It has to be true. Only problem is – it’s not. It is perfectly legal to pick bluebonnets as long as one doesn’t damage the ROW, park illegally, or trespass on private property.
So all this leads to the question – just because there are a lot of testimonies about what a literal Christ said and did, does that make it true? Just because some guys in the past decided that certain books should be canonical scripture and others not, does that make the bible correct? People lie. They lie out of ignorance to knowing the truth, they lie because they believe the lies they’ve been told, and they lie as a means to an end. For me, there’s were too many opportunities in the early history of Christianity for people to lie to get their version of events to become orthodox. The RC church is a political organization that has lost a lot of its political power. It enforced it’s orthodoxy at the end of a sword and did a pretty good job of wiping out those that disagreed and their writings. No matter if we are Catholics or Protestants, what we have left as “truth” is what the politically motivated Roman Catholic church allowed to survive.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Archeology
Archeology:
A couple of months ago I caught the tail end of a National Geographic special about the archeology of the exodus from Egypt. There is no archeological evidence of the exodus. I thought “What? They’re lying!” Or they haven’t found it yet, or they just deny it.
Then I started reading. The thing is – there is little archeological evidence to support anything being the way it is told in the bible earlier than when Josiah was king, approximately 640 – 609 BCE. Prior to that time, there’s no evidence that there was any literacy in Judah or Israel, and in fact, the bible was not written down until the 7th century BCE. Therefore, Moses did not write the Pentateuch. Moses didn’t exist. The exodus never happened. The Israelites were never in Egypt in the first place. The wonderful, rich, powerful united kingdom under David and Solomon never existed. The walls of Jericho never came tumbling down because Jericho was not a walled city at the time of the nonexistent exodus. The northern kingdom, Israel, and the southern kingdom, Judah, really didn’t exist as anything that would be called a “kingdom” at the same time. Israel arose first and was conquered first, then later, Judah arose and was conquered. The bible was written and it is from the southern perspective and glorifies the southern kingdom’s “history”. It was written in an attempt to unify these two areas and so made up a common past to stir national pride.
Once I started digesting those things, my first thought was – God does not exist. I have to say that as I write this, I still feel that way somewhat, but I’ll go along with the idea of his existence for now. Second thought was – a tremendous sense of a weight, tons of it, being removed. All those years of being taught one thing, only to understand it was not literally true, opened up such a huge freedom, that I felt happy, at ease, relaxed for the first time.
It also gave me true freedom to believe or not. That may not make much sense to some, but it really does. I think that deep in their hearts most people that say they are Christians believe for only one reason, they think it will keep them from going to hell. Or as some put it, they’ve got fire insurance.
A couple of months ago I caught the tail end of a National Geographic special about the archeology of the exodus from Egypt. There is no archeological evidence of the exodus. I thought “What? They’re lying!” Or they haven’t found it yet, or they just deny it.
Then I started reading. The thing is – there is little archeological evidence to support anything being the way it is told in the bible earlier than when Josiah was king, approximately 640 – 609 BCE. Prior to that time, there’s no evidence that there was any literacy in Judah or Israel, and in fact, the bible was not written down until the 7th century BCE. Therefore, Moses did not write the Pentateuch. Moses didn’t exist. The exodus never happened. The Israelites were never in Egypt in the first place. The wonderful, rich, powerful united kingdom under David and Solomon never existed. The walls of Jericho never came tumbling down because Jericho was not a walled city at the time of the nonexistent exodus. The northern kingdom, Israel, and the southern kingdom, Judah, really didn’t exist as anything that would be called a “kingdom” at the same time. Israel arose first and was conquered first, then later, Judah arose and was conquered. The bible was written and it is from the southern perspective and glorifies the southern kingdom’s “history”. It was written in an attempt to unify these two areas and so made up a common past to stir national pride.
Once I started digesting those things, my first thought was – God does not exist. I have to say that as I write this, I still feel that way somewhat, but I’ll go along with the idea of his existence for now. Second thought was – a tremendous sense of a weight, tons of it, being removed. All those years of being taught one thing, only to understand it was not literally true, opened up such a huge freedom, that I felt happy, at ease, relaxed for the first time.
It also gave me true freedom to believe or not. That may not make much sense to some, but it really does. I think that deep in their hearts most people that say they are Christians believe for only one reason, they think it will keep them from going to hell. Or as some put it, they’ve got fire insurance.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Doubts
Written about May 3, 2007
Doubts:
Prove the Bible without using the Bible. I have had this thought for over thirty years.
Is it true because I believe it, or is it true and so I believe it?
Why, if I have been a Christian for over 40 years, has God never answered any of my prayers? Prayers about relationships, where to go to school, what to major in, should I marry this woman or not, should I take this job or not, and so on. There are excuses about why this has happened, but they are just that – excuses.
Why, if God loves me so much that he sent his “only begotten son” to die for me, are answers to prayers obviously not important to him?
If God’s answering depends on the way I ask, or my attitude, then it’s pretty arbitrary. God’s answering is up to me?
The idea that “God can do what he wants because he’s God. He doesn’t answer to me.” That is totally nuts. Sure, He doesn’t answer to me. But the idea that he can do what he wants because he’s God makes him arbitrary in the prayers he answers, capricious, vindictive, malicious, and unreliable.
If it were God’s plan for Jesus to be crucified, why would Judas Iscariot be condemned for carrying out his part in God’s plan?
Did Jesus really exist?
Did God literally, in six twenty-four hour days, create everything? No.
Did Jesus literally die and rise again to be literally alive in a human body? Not.
Was Jesus fully God yet fully human? How could that possibly be? Something cannot be 100% of one thing and 100% of another at the same time. Don't use the old "it's one of God's mysteries" to answer that. If Jesus was fully God, he could not have been tempted as we are since God cannot be tempted. Circle around that one for a while.
We are taught that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in us. If so, we should be able to do, or God do through us, really amazing things. Yet nothing happens. Ah, but the excuse is always, it is something I’m doing wrong. Therefore, puny little me can keep God’s power at bay? That doesn’t make sense at all. So many people, including me think, after salvation, we feel like – nothing happened. Could that be because – nothing happened?
There are inaccuracies, or things that are different from one book to another, in the Bible. In other words – it is not without error. I have noticed this. I am not relying on the scholarship of others to point this out. Different lineage of Jesus in the gospels, same miracle happening at two different times in the narrative of Jesus’ life, errors in the numbers of people in the OT in (I need to look these up again) Numbers vs Chronicles vs Kings, to name a few.
Doubts:
Prove the Bible without using the Bible. I have had this thought for over thirty years.
Is it true because I believe it, or is it true and so I believe it?
Why, if I have been a Christian for over 40 years, has God never answered any of my prayers? Prayers about relationships, where to go to school, what to major in, should I marry this woman or not, should I take this job or not, and so on. There are excuses about why this has happened, but they are just that – excuses.
Why, if God loves me so much that he sent his “only begotten son” to die for me, are answers to prayers obviously not important to him?
If God’s answering depends on the way I ask, or my attitude, then it’s pretty arbitrary. God’s answering is up to me?
The idea that “God can do what he wants because he’s God. He doesn’t answer to me.” That is totally nuts. Sure, He doesn’t answer to me. But the idea that he can do what he wants because he’s God makes him arbitrary in the prayers he answers, capricious, vindictive, malicious, and unreliable.
If it were God’s plan for Jesus to be crucified, why would Judas Iscariot be condemned for carrying out his part in God’s plan?
Did Jesus really exist?
Did God literally, in six twenty-four hour days, create everything? No.
Did Jesus literally die and rise again to be literally alive in a human body? Not.
Was Jesus fully God yet fully human? How could that possibly be? Something cannot be 100% of one thing and 100% of another at the same time. Don't use the old "it's one of God's mysteries" to answer that. If Jesus was fully God, he could not have been tempted as we are since God cannot be tempted. Circle around that one for a while.
We are taught that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in us. If so, we should be able to do, or God do through us, really amazing things. Yet nothing happens. Ah, but the excuse is always, it is something I’m doing wrong. Therefore, puny little me can keep God’s power at bay? That doesn’t make sense at all. So many people, including me think, after salvation, we feel like – nothing happened. Could that be because – nothing happened?
There are inaccuracies, or things that are different from one book to another, in the Bible. In other words – it is not without error. I have noticed this. I am not relying on the scholarship of others to point this out. Different lineage of Jesus in the gospels, same miracle happening at two different times in the narrative of Jesus’ life, errors in the numbers of people in the OT in (I need to look these up again) Numbers vs Chronicles vs Kings, to name a few.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
April 30 journal entry
April 30, 2007.
This is the journal of my seeking to know God. I started to label it “My Doubts” but hopefully it will be the story of my discovery. The thing is, despite my doubts, or skepticism, I want to know God. It started out as the thought of – what was first century Christianity like? How did they worship? What did they believe? It quickly developed into – I want to know God whether that includes Jesus or not.
If you want to know what first century Christianity was like, you’d better prepare yourself and decide, do I really want to know? Why? Because it was a lot different than what we think it was. Not nearly as dogmatic as it became. Nowhere nearly as unified as it has been presented. The NT canon became the NT canon to enforce a political end, not because of the commonly presented idea that all the things left out were heresy. The winners get to write history. The losers are vilified. Witness the demonizing of the CSA, especially during the last 20 to 30 years. Or the rewriting of history by the Soviets. So why do we believe that people 2k years ago were any different than they are today?
This is the journal of my seeking to know God. I started to label it “My Doubts” but hopefully it will be the story of my discovery. The thing is, despite my doubts, or skepticism, I want to know God. It started out as the thought of – what was first century Christianity like? How did they worship? What did they believe? It quickly developed into – I want to know God whether that includes Jesus or not.
If you want to know what first century Christianity was like, you’d better prepare yourself and decide, do I really want to know? Why? Because it was a lot different than what we think it was. Not nearly as dogmatic as it became. Nowhere nearly as unified as it has been presented. The NT canon became the NT canon to enforce a political end, not because of the commonly presented idea that all the things left out were heresy. The winners get to write history. The losers are vilified. Witness the demonizing of the CSA, especially during the last 20 to 30 years. Or the rewriting of history by the Soviets. So why do we believe that people 2k years ago were any different than they are today?
Friday, June 8, 2007
Baptist Atheist
"Baptist Atheist".... an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
I have started this blog to explain how I came to be, or rather came to admit, that I am an atheist. No doubt I will wander off into other subjects from time to time since explaining my atheism could possibly contain only a few posts. Then again, maybe not. As I was "saved" at an early age and I am now 50-ish there have been quite a few experiences along the way that have led me to my current (non) belief.
Thought for this day: How many atheists might be around you right now?
More than you think. For argument's sake I will use a statistic from an online survey that was published in my hometown (Midland, Texas) newspaper. The question was - would you vote for an admitted atheist? 87% said "No" and 13% said "Yes". (This does not answer the question of if the respondants are atheists, but it follows closely other surveys that indicate that about 90% of people believe in a Supreme Being and about 10% do not.) It is therefore reasonable to assume that in Midland, population approximately 100,000, there are about 10,000 atheists!
This brings up something interesting for me. I attend and am a member of Stonegate Fellowship (a Southern Baptist Church) that has a Sunday attendance of roughly 1500 people. Assuming that we have a fairly representative cross section of the population, there are about 150 atheists in my church every Sunday.
Atheists - rejoice! You are not alone!
I suppose Christians can rejoice too because they can smugly think "At least they are there to hear the truth!" and "We can convert them!"
NOT!
David
I have started this blog to explain how I came to be, or rather came to admit, that I am an atheist. No doubt I will wander off into other subjects from time to time since explaining my atheism could possibly contain only a few posts. Then again, maybe not. As I was "saved" at an early age and I am now 50-ish there have been quite a few experiences along the way that have led me to my current (non) belief.
Thought for this day: How many atheists might be around you right now?
More than you think. For argument's sake I will use a statistic from an online survey that was published in my hometown (Midland, Texas) newspaper. The question was - would you vote for an admitted atheist? 87% said "No" and 13% said "Yes". (This does not answer the question of if the respondants are atheists, but it follows closely other surveys that indicate that about 90% of people believe in a Supreme Being and about 10% do not.) It is therefore reasonable to assume that in Midland, population approximately 100,000, there are about 10,000 atheists!
This brings up something interesting for me. I attend and am a member of Stonegate Fellowship (a Southern Baptist Church) that has a Sunday attendance of roughly 1500 people. Assuming that we have a fairly representative cross section of the population, there are about 150 atheists in my church every Sunday.
Atheists - rejoice! You are not alone!
I suppose Christians can rejoice too because they can smugly think "At least they are there to hear the truth!" and "We can convert them!"
NOT!
David
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)