Can I be Christian and Not Believe the Bible?

[Givemeareason]

Hi,
Oh! That is what you mean by third person. Yes, most of us when working are working in the third person as you call that. Once that part of being human was called working in the Adult mode. The other two modes were parental and child mode. The parent takes care of things. The child has fun. It is what was called the adult mode, that displaced feelings to work.
You are in working mode, which is objective.
You have said in your mind. So all of this takes place in your mind? When if ever, have you tried yet, to do all of this from your heart? And yes, I do mean from your heart, exactly the way you are doing things in your mind. I mean staying objective but using your heart, rather than your mind, while doing that.
LOVE,
...Mary., .... .

I am an observer of myself and reality as I determine it to be. I cannot believe the old testament because I know it is wrong
Creationism is also wrong. Creationism is a will full attempt to not see the truth by looking only at the Bible. Which is why I have come to believe that the old testament could not have been intended for us. Neither the world nor myself can reconcile the discrepancies that exist between the old testament and what has become reality today. And if that is a requirement of Christianity then I can only walk with Jesus. And I feel very sad because of that as I think Christianity need only become more than what it is today.

 

[bhsmte]

I am an observer of myself and reality as I determine it to be. I cannot believe the old testament because I know it is wrong
Creationism is also wrong. Creationism is a will full attempt to not see the truth by looking only at the Bible. Which is why I have come to believe that the old testament could not have been intended for us. Neither the world nor myself can reconcile the discrepancies that exist between the old testament and what has become reality today. And if that is a requirement of Christianity then I can only walk with Jesus. And I feel very sad because of that as I think Christianity need only become more than what it is today.

You never answered my question.

How do you verify what reality truly is, outside of your own personal perceptions?

Also, has anyone ever told you, you contradict yourself a lot?

 

[lucaspa]

I am athiest because God has not been revealed to me.

And there is the valid reason to be an atheist. That is it: you do not have personal experience of God. AND, you don't trust the personal experience of others in this regard, including the personal experience in scripture.

For everyone else, ALL evidence is personal experience: what we see, hear, feel, taste, touch, smell, and feel emotionally. (Giveme: that was first stated by David Hume - an atheist). This is the example I use for the graduate students:
What do brussels sprouts taste like?

I get a variety of answers: sweet, bland, bitter, salty, etc. So far, no one has given my personal experience of brussels sprouts -- a taste I cannot describe but is so vile that I immediately vomit.

Each of us has our own "reality" or personal experience of brussels sprouts. Who is right? Who is wrong? The answers are: everyone and no one. There is no way to reconcile our personal experience. I am tolerant that others would have personal experience different from mine, and therefore a different view of the taste of brussels sprouts. But I place my personal experience above everyone else's and thus retain my view of the taste of brussels sprouts. On the flip side, I cannot claim to be in possession of "the" truth of the matter.

The same applies to God. Some people have personal experience of God. At the very least, they trust the personal experience of others (i.e. scripture) is true. That is their evidence and basis of their belief. For others, the personal experience of God is of no experience, and he is going to put his personal experience ahead of everyone else's.

Givemeareason, I submit your name is a misnomer. NO ONE can "give you a reason". I suggest to all the other people on CF to respect Giveme's viewpoint and not deride him with posts like:
"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

- Albert Einstein

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

It is possible (although I don't believe so) that Givemeareason's personal experience is accurate and ours is not.

 

[katerinah1947]

I am athiest because God has not been revealed to me.

Hi,
Some nice person here helped me. Atheist they said is a belief about God or gods. They decided I needed more information. I was told of the terms gnostic and agnostic.
Gnostic they said means knowlege, like I know, and seems to presuppose no arbitrary method is used. So I am a gnostic gravity person for instance. In that instance, first it had to be proven to me. It was. Then it had to be proven to me in science class. That cannot be done. So, I did not really have any knowledge. Others did. I did not.
One day, labs happened. I was forced to to an experiment on Gravity. (I hated it. I hate all labs. However, there is the point of labs, and that point is: Until you do the work yourself, you really know nothing in yourself. You don't know. You only suspect. You only beliive. You see gravity and you suspect it is true, but it does not become a part of you. Labs to that. The proofs do that in Labs. Seeing my numbers from a timed rolling ball down a ramp, with a strobiscopic light setting the timing, allowed me to crunch the numbers. Also doing the work allowed me to experience the ball rolling faster and faster, just like is written in books now. So, labs are to know. Math is the same way. Flying is the same way. Each of those last two is learned by doing. I learned math by working the problems, only, and really. I studied flying for years to lower my costs. It didn't help. Only being in the plane and being taought each lesson, taught me to fly. )
I am gnostic. If you believe that a God exists out there, then you are a theist. You can be not knowing for sure. They told me that is an, agnostic theist. Since I know, they helped me see, that I should write my position down as being a gnostic theist.
Yet, words come later. You seem to believe that Jesus is real. That sounds like you are then and agnostic theist.
LOVE,
...Mary., .... .

 

[single eye]

Because in the 3rd person I am objective and can compare different possible realities and choose between them.

What evidence do you have that your objectivity is absolute rather than partial? What makes you think that the possible realities you are considering are all the ones that exist? Often I have experienced frustration when reaching the end of my known possibilities and am tempted to give up. Another part of me says, there has to be a better option, what must I do to find it? My experience confirms that the second voice always proves the first voice wrong.

 

[bhsmte]

And there is the valid reason to be an atheist. That is it: you do not have personal experience of God. AND, you don't trust the personal experience of others in this regard, including the personal experience in scripture.

For everyone else, ALL evidence is personal experience: what we see, hear, feel, taste, touch, smell, and feel emotionally. (Giveme: that was first stated by David Hume - an atheist). This is the example I use for the graduate students:
What do brussels sprouts taste like?

I get a variety of answers: sweet, bland, bitter, salty, etc. So far, no one has given my personal experience of brussels sprouts -- a taste I cannot describe but is so vile that I immediately vomit.

Each of us has our own "reality" or personal experience of brussels sprouts. Who is right? Who is wrong? The answers are: everyone and no one. There is no way to reconcile our personal experience. I am tolerant that others would have personal experience different from mine, and therefore a different view of the taste of brussels sprouts. But I place my personal experience above everyone else's and thus retain my view of the taste of brussels sprouts. On the flip side, I cannot claim to be in possession of "the" truth of the matter.

The same applies to God. Some people have personal experience of God. At the very least, they trust the personal experience of others (i.e. scripture) is true. That is their evidence and basis of their belief. For others, the personal experience of God is of no experience, and he is going to put his personal experience ahead of everyone else's.

Givemeareason, I submit your name is a misnomer. NO ONE can "give you a reason". I suggest to all the other people on CF to respect Giveme's viewpoint and not deride him with posts like:
"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.

- Albert Einstein

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is."

It is possible (although I don't believe so) that Givemeareason's personal experience is accurate and ours is not.

Do you have a problem with the tagline I use, for all my posts?

 

[Avid]

Because I love Jesus he is within me and becomes the moral standard by which I judge myself and the world. So yes I am already being judged by Jesus. And neither myself nor the world can live up to those standards. Do you now see why I must love Jesus. He is with me and a part of me. To not love Jesus, I could not love myself.

Jesus is God. To think of Him as anything else is to NOT love Him... (Read John 1) To think of yourself as synonymous with Jesus is idolatry. Many these days and in history have been idolators who called themselves Christians.

 

[lucaspa]

I am an observer of myself and reality as I determine it to be. I cannot believe the old testament because I know it is wrong Creationism is also wrong. Creationism is a will full attempt to not see the truth by looking only at the Bible.

WAIT! STOP! You are confusing apples and oranges here. There are many types of truth. Let's take this outside the Bible to look at this. Shakespeare's play Macbeth is totally wrong as Scottish history. BUT, Macbeth continues to be popular because it does contain truths: truths of the human condition.

What do you mean by "wrong"? Yes, creationism is wrong. It is a falsified scientific theory. However, that does not mean the OT is "wrong" in everything it says. It does contain some accurate history, but mostly it is a set of theological books. The book Ezekiel is all about child sacrifice being evil and not something God condones. I bet you don't think that is wrong, do you?

Genesis 1 is all about the Babylonian gods not existing. I know you agree with that, because you are an atheist.

Which is why I have come to believe that the old testament could not have been intended for us.

ALL the books of the Bible were mean for the people of the time! Just like Macbeth was meant for the audiences in that particular time and theater. Putting written works in their proper historical and sociological context is a major part of the Rules of Interpretation.

But just because they were written for the people of the time does not mean they have no messages for us. Genesis 1:1 applies just as much now as when it was written. For that matter, the rest of Genesis 1 also applies: the Babylonian gods still do not exist.

Neither the world nor myself can reconcile the discrepancies that exist between the old testament and what has become reality today.

Speak only for yourself there. There are indeed ways to reconcile the discrepancies between the OT and today. Mostly those reconciliations is to understand what was going on then.

And if that is a requirement of Christianity then I can only walk with Jesus.

But even there the world has changed. Look at Mark 10 and Matthew 19. The Pharisees seek to trap Jesus with Deut 2:4. Jesus happily throws the divine authorship of scripture and scriptural infallibilty under the bus by telling us Moses wrote scripture and Moses got it wrong in this verse. BUT, the replacement Jesus offers is no divorce by either man nor wife. However, our current laws (and morality) allow divorce.

For his time and audience, Jesus was being both radical and just. By Deut 2:4 a husband could divorce his wife for no cause. By the culture, she was thrown out on the street with no way to earn a living. So Jesus' solution was preventing that injustice in the only way that it could be in that society. After all, 1st century Palestinian society was not going to offer honorable, living standard employment to women. Our society is not that society. First, we have courts and a government that can compel a spouse to pay monetary support for the divorced spouse if that is needed. Second, we have a society where women hold jobs, own property, can borrow money, etc. and thus earn a living. So we have divorce. The end result is, I believe, what Jesus wanted, but it is not what Jesus said.

 

[Givemeareason]

You never answered my question.

How do you verify what reality truly is, outside of your own personal perceptions?

Also, has anyone ever told you, you contradict yourself a lot?

Yes, I have been told that but I am unable to see that. I do not feel contradicted within myself. I feel myself becoming more clear than before. So I must just not be expressing myself all that well. Where have I contradicted myself.

 

[Givemeareason]

You never answered my question.

How do you verify what reality truly is, outside of your own personal perceptions?

Also, has anyone ever told you, you contradict yourself a lot?

I cannot verify reality beyond myself other than what I can perceive.

 

[bhsmte]

I cannot verify reality beyond myself other than what I can perceive.

Really? You can think of no methods to increase the chances you are perceiving reality in the correct fashion outside of your own perceptions?

 

[Givemeareason]

Hi,
Some nice person here helped me. Atheist they said is a belief about God or gods. They decided I needed more information. I was told of the terms gnostic and agnostic.
Gnostic they said means knowlege, like I know, and seems to presuppose no arbitrary method is used. So I am a gnostic gravity person for instance. In that instance, first it had to be proven to me. It was. Then it had to be proven to me in science class. That cannot be done. So, I did not really have any knowledge. Others did. I did not.
One day, labs happened. I was forced to to an experiment on Gravity. (I hated it. I hate all labs. However, there is the point of labs, and that point is: Until you do the work yourself, you really know nothing in yourself. You don't know. You only suspect. You only beliive. You see gravity and you suspect it is true, but it does not become a part of you. Labs to that. The proofs do that in Labs. Seeing my numbers from a timed rolling ball down a ramp, with a strobiscopic light setting the timing, allowed me to crunch the numbers. Also doing the work allowed me to experience the ball rolling faster and faster, just like is written in books now. So, labs are to know. Math is the same way. Flying is the same way. Each of those last two is learned by doing. I learned math by working the problems, only, and really. I studied flying for years to lower my costs. It didn't help. Only being in the plane and being taought each lesson, taught me to fly. )
I am gnostic. If you believe that a God exists out there, then you are a theist. You can be not knowing for sure. They told me that is an, agnostic theist. Since I know, they helped me see, that I should write my position down as being a gnostic theist.
Yet, words come later. You seem to believe that Jesus is real. That sounds like you are then and agnostic theist.
LOVE,
...Mary., .... .

Suffice it to say, I don't know what I am and am still struggling with labels. However as I reflect on my life I have observed it to be true that all things become simple once we understand. So I look at life and keep asking myself why I didn't know that before.

 

[Givemeareason]

What evidence do you have that your objectivity is absolute rather than partial? What makes you think that the possible realities you are considering are all the ones that exist? Often I have experienced frustration when reaching the end of my known possibilities and am tempted to give up. Another part of me says, there has to be a better option, what must I do to find it? My experience confirms that the second voice always proves the first voice wrong.

I know my observations to be true when I can tie them to what I have experienced before. And if you become frustrated it is only because your expectations were too high. I have come to realize this is why my Baptism was so disappointing for me.

 

[Colter]

Believing in the whole Bible comes after someone is saved and is born again, because the Holy Spirit leads them to that truth. Not believing is evidence of not being saved. There is no such thing as being a Christian and not believing the whole Bible. Jesus is also known as "The Word of God" (John 1:1, Revelation 11:13), so you can't believe just parts of Him.

John 1:1,That's actually my favorite line in the Bible books, it's shows that Jesus is the Living Word, the bible books are men's writings about what they believed to be the doings of ----->the Word, written by holy men.....some more holy than others.

 

[bhsmte]

Suffice it to say, I don't know what I am and am still struggling with labels. However as I reflect on my life I have observed it to be true that all things become simple once we understand. So I look at life and keep asking myself why I didn't know that before.

For someone who claims to be able to observe themselves from the 3rd person and look at themselves objectively, I am surprised you haven't figured out who you are.

There is one contradiction right there.

 

[Colter]

Actually, that IS to be found in the Bible.


and that doesn't even make sense. Or shall I say that it shows a mistaken understanding about what "idolatry" means.


Not if you put it exactly that way, no. But he did teach that the Bible was to be believed. What's more, it is basically impossible to know or appreciate Jesus without believing the Bible.

Its an interesting practice to look at what Jesus did not say compared to what we just assume. On several occasions he upbraided the apostles in asking them "have you not read the scriptures?" When I here that I think Jesus is saying that if we read the scriptures with spiritual discernment we could understand the spiritual truth content with the understanding that they aren't that accurate in other ways.

But anyhow, we each need to be true to our sincere beliefs, so I don't want to be critical of you if bible perfection is a sincere belief for you.

 

[Givemeareason]

WAIT! STOP! You are confusing apples and oranges here. There are many types of truth. Let's take this outside the Bible to look at this. Shakespeare's play Macbeth is totally wrong as Scottish history. BUT, Macbeth continues to be popular because it does contain truths: truths of the human condition.

What do you mean by "wrong"? Yes, creationism is wrong. It is a falsified scientific theory. However, that does not mean the OT is "wrong" in everything it says. It does contain some accurate history, but mostly it is a set of theological books. The book Ezekiel is all about child sacrifice being evil and not something God condones. I bet you don't think that is wrong, do you?

Genesis 1 is all about the Babylonian gods not existing. I know you agree with that, because you are an atheist.



ALL the books of the Bible were mean for the people of the time! Just like Macbeth was meant for the audiences in that particular time and theater. Putting written works in their proper historical and sociological context is a major part of the Rules of Interpretation.

But just because they were written for the people of the time does not mean they have no messages for us. Genesis 1:1 applies just as much now as when it was written. For that matter, the rest of Genesis 1 also applies: the Babylonian gods still do not exist.


Speak only for yourself there. There are indeed ways to reconcile the discrepancies between the OT and today. Mostly those reconciliations is to understand what was going on then.


But even there the world has changed. Look at Mark 10 and Matthew 19. The Pharisees seek to trap Jesus with Deut 2:4. Jesus happily throws the divine authorship of scripture and scriptural infallibilty under the bus by telling us Moses wrote scripture and Moses got it wrong in this verse. BUT, the replacement Jesus offers is no divorce by either man nor wife. However, our current laws (and morality) allow divorce.

For his time and audience, Jesus was being both radical and just. By Deut 2:4 a husband could divorce his wife for no cause. By the culture, she was thrown out on the street with no way to earn a living. So Jesus' solution was preventing that injustice in the only way that it could be in that society. After all, 1st century Palestinian society was not going to offer honorable, living standard employment to women. Our society is not that society. First, we have courts and a government that can compel a spouse to pay monetary support for the divorced spouse if that is needed. Second, we have a society where women hold jobs, own property, can borrow money, etc. and thus earn a living. So we have divorce. The end result is, I believe, what Jesus wanted, but it is not what Jesus said.

Indeed there is much truth I still hope to gain. Life is but a process of gaining understanding. As I said before I think the old testament should be viewed in historical perspective of the people for which it was intended. I say this because I have come to realize that the old testament was once the truth. Athiests love to point at this to claim that Christianity is immoral. And they are so very wrong. And clinging to the old testament justifies their claims. If Christianity is to survive, it must recognize this as I am sure many have. But since Christianity is not unified it is being pulled back and forth and the message becomes harder to understand. Christianity would do better with a more consistent message and in so doing can alter the course of its own destruction. And prophecy should never be used as a cop out on life as is so often being done today.

 

[Givemeareason]

Really? You can think of no methods to increase the chances you are perceiving reality in the correct fashion outside of your own perceptions?

What would you suggest. I may already be doing it but not aware of it.

 

[Givemeareason]

For someone who claims to be able to observe themselves from the 3rd person and look at themselves objectively, I am surprised you haven't figured out who you are.

There is one contradiction right there.

Seeing yourself does not require that you know who you are.

 

[Givemeareason]

And I don't know anything about Babylon Ian gods.