Is this the path to faith in Jesus?

[clamflats]

New poster here.

A friend of mine has challenged me to explore Christianity. He is someone I admire for his calm demeanor and cheerfulness. He's always willing and looks out for ways to help me and others. I asked him why he had such an attitude. He told me that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and that had freed him from being concerned about the future or many of the day-to-day problems that arise in life. He said that the Jesus' central message was to see Him in all humans. He says that the only thing he prays for is guidance in how to "see Jesus" in all the humans he meets.
So, as an atheist in good standing, I asked him for evidence that God exists, that there is an afterlife, that there is such a thing as a soul. He kind of laughed at me and said that none of that mattered. He says that he trusts that Jesus was a human and God. He advised me to read the Bible but only the Gospels and concentrate initially on the words of Jesus. He said that the Gospels, along with the rest of the Bible, are human inventions and not to get too hung up on a literal interpretation or to expect that it is historically accurate. "Just read the words of Jesus and remain open to the possibility that He will enter your life."

Any thoughts? As I wrote I am atheist but am always willing to rethink my position. I don't say, "There is no God" rather, I don't see any evidence that the various claims made by Christians (or other deists) are true. I am intrigued by the idea that a faith, like my friend's, could be revealed to me.

 

[golgotha61]

New poster here.

A friend of mine has challenged me to explore Christianity. He is someone I admire for his calm demeanor and cheerfulness. He's always willing and looks out for ways to help me and others. I asked him why he had such an attitude. He told me that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and that had freed him from being concerned about the future or many of the day-to-day problems that arise in life. He said that the Jesus' central message was to see Him in all humans. He says that the only thing he prays for is guidance in how to "see Jesus" in all the humans he meets.
So, as an atheist in good standing, I asked him for evidence that God exists, that there is an afterlife, that there is such a thing as a soul. He kind of laughed at me and said that none of that mattered. He says that he trusts that Jesus was a human and God. He advised me to read the Bible but only the Gospels and concentrate initially on the words of Jesus. He said that the Gospels, along with the rest of the Bible, are human inventions and not to get too hung up on a literal interpretation or to expect that it is historically accurate. "Just read the words of Jesus and remain open to the possibility that He will enter your life.

Any thoughts?

I would suggest starting in the Gospel of John and use a Bible that is easy for you to read. There are many versions: New King James, English Standard Version (this is the one I use mostly), New American Standard, Revised Standard, etc.

As I wrote I am atheist but am always willing to rethink my position. I don't say, "There is no God" rather, I don't see any evidence that the various claims made by Christians (or other deists) are true.

I think perhaps you do see some evidence and it is in the friend of yours. He has given evidence of Christ's love and it has moved you to look closer.

I am intrigued by the idea that a faith, like my friend's, could be revealed to me.

Indeed, this faith can be and will be revealed to you if you are willing to look for it as objectively as you can. Read John first and then come back and ask questions and discuss. The Word of God is the first place to start.

 

[omanid]

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7

 

[omanid]

You seem like an open-minded person; I'm glad for that.

 

[lucaspa]

New poster here.

A friend of mine has challenged me to explore Christianity. He is someone I admire for his calm demeanor and cheerfulness. He's always willing and looks out for ways to help me and others. I asked him why he had such an attitude. He told me that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and that had freed him from being concerned about the future or many of the day-to-day problems that arise in life. He said that the Jesus' central message was to see Him in all humans. He says that the only thing he prays for is guidance in how to "see Jesus" in all the humans he meets.
So, as an atheist in good standing, I asked him for evidence that God exists, that there is an afterlife, that there is such a thing as a soul.

Your friend's personal relationship with God is the evidence! ALL evidence is personal experience: what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, or feel emotionally. BTW, an atheist named David Hume discovered that. Your friend's personal relationship with God is personal experience. Thus, it is evidence.

BUT, it is evidence you don't share. What your friend advised you to do is seek such a personal relationship. He has you do that by reading the Bible to learn a bit about the personal relationships of some other people with God. After all, that is what the Bible is: different people (authors) relating their personal relationships with God. Your friend is asking you to seek God and giving you a starting point.

I don't say, "There is no God" rather, I don't see any evidence that the various claims made by Christians (or other deists) are true. I am intrigued by the idea that a faith, like my friend's, could be revealed to me.

You "don't see any evidence" because you don't have the personal experience. So far, your personal experience has been different: no experience of God.

Read below for how other people have found God. Please notice that they didn't find God in a flash. It was a more subtle process over time:

"Therefore, before proceeding further, we shall give the floor temporarily to those who claim they have experiential evidence of God, and allow them to clarify what they mean by such evidence. ... However, when it comes to the nature of experience of the presence of God, there is an astounding degree of consensus. The following statements, in order to keep us as close to the source as possible, come not from the past but from our contemporaries, from persons with whom I have spoken directly. They are, however, echoed throughout the history and literature of religion.
"The experience is usually not 'spooky'. It sometimes, though definitely not always, might be termed 'mystical'. It doesn't for the most part consist of events which by their nature overturn or challenge the laws of science. (I've heard only one first-hand account of an event which, if it really happened, would be very difficult to explain by any process presently known to science.) The experience doesn't establish a hot-line to God, by which all questions are answered, all doubts set aside, and complete understanding is reached. ... People are quick to point out that, though they think their experience really is of God, it is, even at its clearest and best, only a partial, human, inadequate view of what God really is and what God is really doing. Experiential evidence sometimes comes in a flash, but it's more often the accumulation of more subtle experiences over a period of time.
"John S. Spong .... 'I do not mean to suggest that I have arrived at some mystical plateau where my search has ended, where doubts are no more, or that I now possess some unearthly peace of mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have only arrived at a point where the search has a validity because I have tasted the reality of this presence, if ever so slightly.'
"As to finding God initially, some say they came rather gradually to a realization that the God they'd learned about in books, songs, and from other people, is real. Others on the contrary battered the gates of heaven .. with very sceptical demands for answers, IF such a heaven existed. Their uncompromising intellectuality led them to try to pin God to the wall in ways that might be expected to elicit a lightning bolt rather than blessing. Their requirements for evidence and proofs were seldom met exactly as specified, but there was a moment in the process when they realized to their astonishment that they were wrestling with a real being who couldn't be contained in human descriptions or standards, not a concept or an abstraction. This God was something out of their control, something not fashioned in the image they had formed in their mind ...
"The testimony is of God's leadership being requested and and received at turning points where human foresight and knowledge were inadequate, and of God's leadership turning out to be exactly on target, though perhaps not in the direction one would have preferred. ... God has stopped some persons dead, when they did not want to be stopped, on the brink of serious mistakes. God has changes some in ways human beings can't change themselves even with allthe help of psychotherapy. God has made it possible for them to love the unlovable, forgive the unforgiveable. ... Has all this been 'spritual' help? Not according to these witnesses. God is a powerful and active God, interveining wherever, whenever, and through whatever avenue he pleases. The phrase 'the insidiousness of God' comes from a woman Episcopal priest. God's intervention is not always kind, gentle, or pleasurable. He refuses to play by human rules or indulge our desire to plan ahead. ... God does not always come at our calling, give us what we want, or even shield us from terrible pain or grief ... but God's forgiveness and love know no limits whatsoever.
"Some direct quotes: 'My relationship with God has been by far and away the most demanding relationship in my life." "The Lord has been my strongest support, but also my most frustrating opponent." 'If I didn't absolutely know this is the only game in town, I'd sure as hell get out of it!' "The best evidence isn't some 'wonder' or 'miracle', and it certainly isn't success, happiness, or the peace of having my prayers answered in ways which suit me. It's the extraordinary, topsy-turvy, interesting course my life has taken since I've engaged in this -- once begun, virtually inescapable -- dialogue with God." Kitty Ferguson's The Fire in the Equations, pp 248- 251

 

[bling]

God is Love, so Jesus is Love and what we want to sell you on is this Love and not some book or theology. Once you see, recieve, experience true Godly type Love, you can then decide if you want that type of unselfish Love for others or do not want to have anything to do with it. Lots of times this takes a tragedy or being around a tragdy to even want to make that decision. Just see it as a posibility for now and check it out.

 

[InSpiritInTruth]

New poster here.

A friend of mine has challenged me to explore Christianity. He is someone I admire for his calm demeanor and cheerfulness. He's always willing and looks out for ways to help me and others. I asked him why he had such an attitude. He told me that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and that had freed him from being concerned about the future or many of the day-to-day problems that arise in life. He said that the Jesus' central message was to see Him in all humans. He says that the only thing he prays for is guidance in how to "see Jesus" in all the humans he meets.
So, as an atheist in good standing, I asked him for evidence that God exists, that there is an afterlife, that there is such a thing as a soul. He kind of laughed at me and said that none of that mattered. He says that he trusts that Jesus was a human and God. He advised me to read the Bible but only the Gospels and concentrate initially on the words of Jesus. He said that the Gospels, along with the rest of the Bible, are human inventions and not to get too hung up on a literal interpretation or to expect that it is historically accurate. "Just read the words of Jesus and remain open to the possibility that He will enter your life."

Any thoughts? As I wrote I am atheist but am always willing to rethink my position. I don't say, "There is no God" rather, I don't see any evidence that the various claims made by Christians (or other deists) are true. I am intrigued by the idea that a faith, like my friend's, could be revealed to me.

God's Word is true, but don't look with your eyes, rather with your heart.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If you doubt the Word of God, you shall never see God, but if you believe in the Word of God, then you will also believe in Jesus.

You cannot find God, but rather God will find you, and call you to his Son.

It appears to me that God is calling you right now, saying Come, follow me.

 

[Bear.Fr00t]

Give it a shot. I was like you, and then I read the Bible - the gospels. And the craziest thing happened, completely super-natural. It's hard to explain but I felt my mind changing, supernaturally from that of a hardened unbeliever to now - 100% belief. All I can say is yes it is real, it happens and can happen to you, and if it does it will absolutely blow your mind.

 

[GA777]

Evidence, you can get this by doing one of the following :

-1- Get to know about some people experiences about the supernatural (who witnessed miracles or angels for example). There are lots of them.
-2- Read the old testament and find many fulfilled prophecies which could've not happen by change.
-3- Experience God's presence yourself, by praying and mediating, from you heart, and having good intentions about your future in believing in him and fulfilling his will maybe. God may not interfere if someone doesn't take it too seriously. It would be useless to do so.

I hope I helped

 

[Nails74]

He said that the Gospels, along with the rest of the Bible, are human inventions and not to get too hung up on a literal interpretation or to expect that it is historically accurate. "Just read the words of Jesus and remain open to the possibility that He will enter your life."

I would submit that if this book is not historically accurate, then it is no evidence at all.

 

[ChristianT]

Also, if the Gospels were made up by man, then logically you can't have a relationship with Jesus. And if you can't have a relationship with Jesus, then you either work for salvation (false), there is nothing to be saved from (false), everyone he's saved (false). The key to Christianity is being saved by God and submission to him and continued repentance.

 

[hedrick]

You're going to find that there are lots of different kinds of Christian, just like there are lots of different kinds of people . You're friend's position is similar to mine. I see the Bible as largely a record of experiences of the Jewish people as they were led by God to discover him gradually, and then experiences of the early Church reacting to Jesus. However there are a couple of exceptions: the prophets claimed in many cases to be giving us God's words, and Jesus claimed to be speaking for (or as) God.

[The job of a prophet is not, despite the impression you sometimes get, primarily predicting the future. Rather, their job was to interpret events from God's point of view. Their priorities were worshipping only the one God and social justice. (The speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr, are saturated with quotations from the prophets.) They did their best to move Israel from a concept of God as a tribal war God to a God who saw Israel as a light to the world, but would also hold them accountable for their behavior.]

You'll find a major division among Christians on this. Most Christians reject evidence from science and various kinds of scholarship when it conflicts with their understanding of Scripture. However there are certainly Christians who use all the evidence we can get our hands on. These approaches lead to somewhat different approaches to the Bible. You'll find a mix here, but I'd say that conservative Christians are the majority by a significant margin. You might think that atheists who become Christian would always end up as fairly liberal Christians, but that seems not to be the case.

As one of the more liberal kind, I think the Bible encourages personal reaction, and is not well suited to be used as a textbook, even for theology or morals. This sounds like your friend's view, but many here disagree. I strongly agree with the recommendation to start with one of the Gospels, though I'd tend to start with Matthew, who does the best job of giving us Jesus' teachings (though I'm less convinced by the literal accuracy of his birth story). Note how Jesus teaches, and ask whether he intended to give us a rulebook, or rather was trying to transform our way of thinking.

If you choose to start with John, you'll want to observe something about its structure. It is organized into episodes. Each episode starts with an event in Jesus' life, including something Jesus said. However it moves into a theological reflection. In 1st Cent Greek there were no quotation marks. That means that it is not always clear where the quotation from Jesus ends and the reflection starts. English translations will typically put in the quotations marks, but those are guesses by the translator, and are not part of the original text. I think generally the quotations are relatively brief. I'm not trying to downplay John's reflections, but if you don't realize how much of the book is not Jesus' literal words, you may be concerned with the major difference between Jesus in John and in the other three Gospels. While John is the latest and most theologically sophisticated of the Gospels, he seems to be at least as accurate as the others on purely historical matters. But Matthew probably gives the largest amount of Jesus' actual teachings.

As to translations, I recommend the Common English Bible. It's quote recent. It does the best job I've seen of making something that can be understood by a reader who wasn't brought up with the Bible, while remaining accurate. Of the others mentioned above: New King James explicitly rejects current scholarship about the text, and the others are based on the King James tradition, and will not be all that readable to novices. The standard translation used by scholars is the New Revised Standard Version, but I wouldn't start with it.

Translating the Bible is a complex enterprise, and CF readers disagree strongly on the best way to do it. I'm not going to give you specific reasons that I recommend the CEB and NRSV (for normal reading and detailed study, respectively), because that is likely to divert this thread into something that I think won't help you at the moment. The CEB and NRSV would be normal recommendations from someone who accepts current secular scholarship. But most readers here do not.

 

[razeontherock]

New poster here.

A friend of mine has challenged me to explore Christianity. He is someone I admire for his calm demeanor and cheerfulness. He's always willing and looks out for ways to help me and others. I asked him why he had such an attitude. He told me that he had a personal relationship with Jesus and that had freed him from being concerned about the future or many of the day-to-day problems that arise in life. He said that the Jesus' central message was to see Him in all humans. He says that the only thing he prays for is guidance in how to "see Jesus" in all the humans he meets.
So, as an atheist in good standing, I asked him for evidence that God exists, that there is an afterlife, that there is such a thing as a soul. He kind of laughed at me and said that none of that mattered. He says that he trusts that Jesus was a human and God. He advised me to read the Bible but only the Gospels and concentrate initially on the words of Jesus. He said that the Gospels, along with the rest of the Bible, are human inventions and not to get too hung up on a literal interpretation or to expect that it is historically accurate. "Just read the words of Jesus and remain open to the possibility that He will enter your life."

Any thoughts? As I wrote I am atheist but am always willing to rethink my position. I don't say, "There is no God" rather, I don't see any evidence that the various claims made by Christians (or other deists) are true. I am intrigued by the idea that a faith, like my friend's, could be revealed to me.

I would say this is a good friend to have He has given you good advice. I further suggest trying to just read Jesus' words, to absorb them into your mind, before you try to assign too much meaning to them or even ask the questions that no doubt will arise. When you can no longer reserve judgment, this is but one avenue to pursue understanding, but it is not our intellect that works Salvation. Jesus Himself does that

 

[Chany]

In terms of direct empirical evidence, you can not find God; any miracles that we have today will be dismissed as hoaxes or explained in some other way.

My best answer: Aquinas' five proofs of a uncaused creator (God). Try looking them up in the English translation of the Summa Theologica. You should probably double check with someone else though, because the wording is a little weird. If you need an explanation, I or anybody else would be willing to go over the arguments with you. Through them, I hope you will see the need for a divine creator of our universe.

A message for your friend, as if I were speaking to him: you seem to be walking a fine line when you say the Gospels were human inventions. Yes, the Gospels were written and constructed by men for the purpose of recording the teachings and important events of Christ.

However, (and someone on the site correct me if I'm wrong here) these men were guided by the Holy Spirit in their writings. When I say guided, I do not mean through divine revelation, such as God directly controlling what they said. They were guided like we are today by the Holy Spirit, although their faith and connection to Christ are incredibly strong, much more so than the average Christian. This strong influence of the Holy Spirit is what makes the Gospels sacred.

 

[Emmy]

Dear clamflats. In Matthew, chapter 22, verses 35-40, Jesus tells a Lawyer: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: " Love thy neighbour as thyself." Then Jesus gives us this great truth: " On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
God wants our Love, freely given and no conditions made. A good way to start, (like your friend) is to treat all you know and all you meet, as you would love to be treated: with kindness and helping hands. Jesus will give you His Love and Joy, and the Holy Spirit will give you His Love, also. Jesus told us to "ask and ye will receive," then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with all around us.
God will see our sincere efforts, and God will bless us. We might stumble and forget sometimes, but then we ask God to forgive us, and God will forgive us, as we will forgive others. God is Love, and God wants loving children/sons and daughters. Jesus will always be there to help and guide us, in fact: Jesus is the Way Back to God, where we came from. I say this with love, clamflats. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.