My road to unbelief

[Escipión]

All my life a believer, about eight months ago I realized that I had lost all my faith. Today I still hesitate at calling me an atheist. But I cannot deny the truth: I'm no longer a Christian.

For whatever reason it may be, some brains are not made for belief. I really say this sincerely and without conceit. Other young people in my church (which I still attend) never have doubts. If a sudden flash of doubt ever disturbs their peaceful, perfectly coherent vision of the world, they won't insist on it, they will not bother to formulate it and play with it and see how much critic it can resist. In hours they'll have forgotten it. As Nietzsche wrote, the only condition for them to be able to talk and think is precisely that no word is taken literally. They look at the world and they only see symbols, little hints. They hate reality.

All my life till I was 21 -especially from my early teens on-, even though I deeply believed in God and couldn't even imagine myself not doing so, I couldn't refrain myself from raising objections to every single statement made by my pastor or anyone praying. I simply couldn't help it. "Thanks Lord for this new job", "Thank you God for healing me of my cancer", "God, touch his heart and bring him to you", "God, pour you blessings upon us", "God is love". To every single sentence, ten questions, which to me meant a big deal and for others, to my astonishment, absolutely nothing. The two or three times I dared utter some of them, they were able to dismiss them with the most idiotic non-answers or with the most famous and abused wild card in Christianity: we're not prepared to understand it.

Now, nothing in Christianity makes any more sense to me. Everything in it sounds ridiculous. A God who only intervenes in unfalsifiable ways -so many doctors have witnessed miraculous healings and still haven't invaded the churches-, who gives us freedom -to follow him or rot in hell-, who is not sincere -he takes so many pains in hiding: punishing someone for not guessing the right invisible entity is just too much-, who may not even have given us this supposed freedom -according to the doctrine of predestination: salvation is an inner insight, some esoteric knowledge provided by God out of his own initiative; guilt loses its meaning-, a God who is -infinite, brutal, gruesome- love -just take care to be on his side, if you were predestined to know that he is real.

Non-sense.

And despite all I'm still an open mind. If there is this Christian God, I want to be on his side and I'll happily submit myself to him. Who would be so crazy not to do it? That's why it's wrong to say that I've rejected God. I currently think there is no God to reject...

 

[bluelime2]

If scripture didn't say, 'those who seek God will find him, if they search for him with all their heart', I'd feel sorry for you.
Since I've been a christian long enough to know that this is true (from my own, and the experiences of others) and since I know that God isn't a respecter of persons (from my own experiences and the experiences of others) I know that people who choose to walk away do exactly that. Choose to walk away.

 

[Notedstrangeperson]

I doubt merely questioning Christianity should be sinful, or automatically lead one to become an atheist. If anything I would suggest you keep asking questions, and hopefully find some decent answers rather than the same old babble. I will say however that you are acting in the manner of many non-believers: namely that you say there is no God to reject, and yet your view on God is negative. Non-believers often describe God as brutal, illogical and invisible. It's easy to reject such a diety. Those who believe God to be loving and a part of their life however tend to be theists. It may sound cliched, but this gives the impression atheists/non-believers dislike God, rather than disbelief in him.

 

[Escipión]

If scripture didn't say, 'those who seek God will find him, if they search for him with all their heart', I'd feel sorry for you.
Since I've been a christian long enough to know that this is true (from my own, and the experiences of others) and since I know that God isn't a respecter of persons (from my own experiences and the experiences of others) I know that people who choose to walk away do exactly that. Choose to walk away.

The Bible says whatever you want it to say. It just depends on the passage you pick up. Other passages talk quite clearly about predestination, in saying that the names of those who will be saved were already written on some book of life even before the creation of the universe, or that we can't credit ourselves for our own salvation given that it comes from God's grace. The doctrine of predestination always seemed wicked and inconceivable to me, until I realized that the Bible postulates it quite directly.

You have no right to suggest that I still believe in God and have simply rejected him, or that it's a question of likes and dislikes. If you ask me, I'd like there to be a God thanks to whom I could live eternally, who would be so kind as to save me from his own wrath (quite ironical). I sincerely would. But I just don't buy it anymore, I don't believe there is a God to reject, nothing in Christianity makes any more sense to me (I guess the difference is that you don't demand from it that it makes sense), and of course I didn't choose this to be this way. Nobody has the power to choose to believe or stop believing in anything (Santa Claus, Allah, God, Zeus, you name it).

If you're gonna deny my own version of the facts... well, as we say in Spanish, switch the lights off and let's go (apaga y vámonos).

 

[Revived]

Your post mentions Nietzsche, doctors, a doctrine, your pastor and "anyone praying." With each word, it becomes more disheartening.

I apologize if this offends you but your negative, lamenting, "poor me" attitude and your propensity to extract wisdom and discernment from ANY source other than the bible, your disbelief will continue to manifest.

Stop consuming traditions of men and conventional wisdom and start reading your Bible. Stop seeking help from people to overcome your sins and disbelief and start relying on God alone.

Stop reading doctrine and start reading your Bible because the Bible isn't hard to understand when you're empowered by the Holy Spirit. You read it and you get it. It's so simple a child can understand it. And you keep reading it, over and over and over and over again until you inevitably begin to witness God unfold its mysteries to you piece by piece, bit by bit.

If you continue to give credence to all these man-made doctrines you will continue to confuse yourself. Period. Think about this: Who can keep track of stuff like baptism required for salvation vs. baptism not required for salvation? Full immersion baptism vs. sprinkling baptism? Predestination vs. foreordination vs. election?

Stop looking to people for help with belief because it's not something anyone can do for you. We can tell you in a thousand different ways..."BELIEVE!" but until God changes your heart it will not happen.

Read the word and pray. Daily. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8+ hours a day if need be. Keep reading until you know the answers for yourself. Cultivate a relationship with your Father in Heaven and stop trying to cultivate relationships with the doctrines of dead men and the wavering opinions of the living.

 

[Escipión]

Your post mentions Nietzsche, doctors, a doctrine, your pastor and "anyone praying." With each word, it becomes more disheartening.

I apologize if this offends you but your negative, lamenting, "poor me" attitude and your propensity to extract wisdom and discernment from ANY source other than the bible, your disbelief will continue to be manifest.

Stop consuming traditions of men and conventional wisdom and start reading your Bible. Stop seeking help from people to overcome your sins and disbelief and start relying on God alone.

Stop reading doctrine and start reading your Bible because the Bible isn't hard to understand when you're empowered by the Holy Spirit. You read it and you get it. It's so simple a child can understand it. And you keep reading it, over and over and over and over again until you inevitably begin to witness God unfold its mysteries to you piece by piece, bit by bit.

If you continue to give credence to all these man-made doctrines you will continue to confuse yourself. Period. Think about this: Who can keep track of stuff like baptism required for salvation vs. baptism not required for salvation? Full immersion baptism vs. sprinkling baptism? Predestination vs. foreordination vs. election?

Stop looking to people for help with belief because it's not something anyone can do for you. We can tell you in a thousand different ways..."BELIEVE!" but until God changes your heart it will not happen.

Read the word and pray. Daily. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8+ hours a day if need be. Keep reading until you know the answers for yourself. Cultivate a relationship with your Father in Heaven and stop trying to cultivate relationships with the doctrines of dead men and the wavering opinions of the living.

This all sounds very nice. But let me point out that reading the Bible or knowing it better doesn't necessarily lead to belief. People like Bart Ehrman or Antonio Piñero (famous Spanish scholar on the history of Christianity), know every single corner of the Bible, have studied all the traditions contained in it and would embarrass any Flanders out there... and yet they don't believe.

It takes FAITH to believe what you read, it takes FAITH to pray eight hours a day to a supposed God you don't believe in anymore.

Doctrines like predestination emanate from the Bible. And yes, I have read the Bible. And I have investigated. You say I shouldn't worry about doctrines... Well, maybe the debate baptism by immersion vs by sprinkling is a waste of time, but not that of predestination.

 

[Revived]

Repetition creates persuasion...the road you choose is entirely up to you.

 

[deathduck]

This is the same road I went down OP, I was a believer when I was very young, as I got older I had more and more questions. Instead of turning to fallacies within the bible for truth, I went to science and history. It seems science has no evidence for physical events in the bible (great flood, any public university geology professor will tell you it never happened), and history does not describe any large scale things god did (wiping out civilizations and such). After I let my mind un-attach itself from Christianity it is easy to see how silly all religions are. The general rule of thumb which I have found to be true over and over is: The more religious someone is, the more outrageous things they believe are true. My uncle, who is a very smart guy, is 100% sure that the earth is less than 20,000 years old! No amount of evidence would change his mind either, it would just make him mad.

 

[Van]

Hi Escipion, I am sorry no one bothered to answer your questions. It does not appear to me that you know very much about the Bible, dismissing it as something that says whatever you want it to say. If a person is using that approach, then they are not really trying to find out what it actually says.

Do Christians have doubts? Yes. One of my favorite old songs is "Blessed Assurance". Ask yourself why Christians would like that song if they did not ever look for assurance.

We are trying to communicate, but if I use the dictionary meaning of words, and you make up meanings to fit your agenda, then neither of us can glimpse reality from each other.

Let's take the idea of thanking God when good things happen. The Bible says good things come from God. So if God is sovereign, and either causes or allows whatever happens, then, if God exists, you should not object to recognizing His sovereignty.

What does it mean to say "God is Love?" Does it mean God takes care of everyone so nothing bad happens to anyone? Nope. Such a god is a fiction, but the Christian God does not make that claim. Now love (commitment to others sufficient to put yourself at risk) is a good thing, and so God sending Jesus (God the Son) demonstrates His love for us, even when we are sinners. What is the promise to those who love God? That all things will work together for good. But does that mean Christians do not die in floods or plane crashes? Nope. It means since we have an inheritance of eternal life, no matter what happens in this life, it will work together for good because the result is eternal life. To put some other meaning on it does not reflect reality.

Can you have questions that we (Christians) cannot answer because they are a mystery? Yes. But to go to that well too often simply demonstrates the views expressed run counter to reason. God gave us a mind, and His revelation, if He exists, should provide a "reasonable" presentation of His purpose and plan.

A God that intervenes in only un-falsifiable ways? The Bible records three times in history where God intervened such that witnesses had to accept the existence of God. The time of Moses, the time of Elijah, and the time of Jesus. To make claims of God intervened and caused the tornado to miss the church, has no basis in the Bible. On the other hand, we are to make our petitions known, via prayer, and I do not think the Bible would tell us this if God did not sometimes intervene in the unfixed future and bring about a blessing for us. But again, to claim God supernaturally did this, that or the other, does not advance real Christianity. Now some other Christians will disagree with me (Pentecostals) but what I am saying seems consistent with the Bible and reality.

Next, our freedom to choose to trust in Jesus or not. We are free to chose, and our decision has not be foreordained by God. And again, other Christians (Calvinists) would object to that, but what I am saying seems consistent with the Bible and reality. The Bible says God sets before us the choice of life or death, and if only one alternative was actually available to us for choice (being predestined) then it would not be a choice as the dictionary defines choice. So they redefine the meaning of choice to include non-choice. Anytime a doctrine requires redefining the meanings of words, a red flag should go up in your mind.

Predestination, does the the Bible really say names were written in the Book of life before creation? Nope. What the Bible actually says is names are entered "from" the time of creation, not before. So the time period is during the lifetimes of all people. Predestination is actually refuted by those passages. You say the doctrine is wicked and I say it is false, so your argument is not with the Bible, but with what I believe is a false doctrine.

You say nobody has the chance to choose to believe but that is not true by your own testamony. You believed, and then because it did not make sense, you chose to reject the view of Christianity that you had been taught. Since we are not certain about anything, we choose to trust in what seems likely and reasonable. If you thought God's existence was likely, you could chose to trust in Him.

May God Bless

 

[nhisname]

All my life a believer, about eight months ago I realized that I had lost all my faith. Today I still hesitate at calling me an atheist. But I cannot deny the truth: I'm no longer a Christian.

For whatever reason it may be, some brains are not made for belief. I really say this sincerely and without conceit. Other young people in my church (which I still attend) never have doubts. If a sudden flash of doubt ever disturbs their peaceful, perfectly coherent vision of the world, they won't insist on it, they will not bother to formulate it and play with it and see how much critic it can resist. In hours they'll have forgotten it. As Nietzsche wrote, the only condition for them to be able to talk and think is precisely that no word is taken literally. They look at the world and they only see symbols, little hints. They hate reality.

All my life till I was 21 -especially from my early teens on-, even though I deeply believed in God and couldn't even imagine myself not doing so, I couldn't refrain myself from raising objections to every single statement made by my pastor or anyone praying. I simply couldn't help it. "Thanks Lord for this new job", "Thank you God for healing me of my cancer", "God, touch his heart and bring him to you", "God, pour you blessings upon us", "God is love". To every single sentence, ten questions, which to me meant a big deal and for others, to my astonishment, absolutely nothing. The two or three times I dared utter some of them, they were able to dismiss them with the most idiotic non-answers or with the most famous and abused wild card in Christianity: we're not prepared to understand it.

Now, nothing in Christianity makes any more sense to me. Everything in it sounds ridiculous. A God who only intervenes in unfalsifiable ways -so many doctors have witnessed miraculous healings and still haven't invaded the churches-, who gives us freedom -to follow him or rot in hell-, who is not sincere -he takes so many pains in hiding: punishing someone for not guessing the right invisible entity is just too much-, who may not even have given us this supposed freedom -according to the doctrine of predestination: salvation is an inner insight, some esoteric knowledge provided by God out of his own initiative; guilt loses its meaning-, a God who is -infinite, brutal, gruesome- love -just take care to be on his side, if you were predestined to know that he is real.

Non-sense.

And despite all I'm still an open mind. If there is this Christian God, I want to be on his side and I'll happily submit myself to him. Who would be so crazy not to do it? That's why it's wrong to say that I've rejected God. I currently think there is no God to reject...

Why do you still attend church? Have you actually tried seeking God for yourself?

 

[nhisname]

This all sounds very nice. But let me point out that reading the Bible or knowing it better doesn't necessarily lead to belief. People like Bart Ehrman or Antonio Piñero (famous Spanish scholar on the history of Christianity), know every single corner of the Bible, have studied all the traditions contained in it and would embarrass any Flanders out there... and yet they don't believe.

It takes FAITH to believe what you read, it takes FAITH to pray eight hours a day to a supposed God you don't believe in anymore.

Doctrines like predestination emanate from the Bible. And yes, I have read the Bible. And I have investigated. You say I shouldn't worry about doctrines... Well, maybe the debate baptism by immersion vs by sprinkling is a waste of time, but not that of predestination.

It takes more than knowledge of the Bible to understand its meaning. It takes knowing God first, period. We have to know who God is first in order to have the knowledge to be able to read and understand its meaning. To know God you have to sincerely seek him.

 

[Escipión]

It takes more than knowledge of the Bible to understand its meaning. It takes knowing God first, period. We have to know who God is first in order to have the knowledge to be able to read and understand its meaning. To know God you have to sincerely seek him.

"To know God you have to sincerely seek him". I'm not talking about knowing, I'm talking about believing, which is a different concept. You cannot expect from a non-believer to make a huge effort to know someone whose existence he denies in the first place -or rather, whose existence he doesn't affirm. This knowledge, this thin beam of light, that is: the confidence in that there is a Christian God, precedes all further knowledge acquirable through study or whatever.

Would it be fair for me to blame you for not believing in Zeus, saying that it's your fault since you haven't striven to know him?

 

[Revived]

Here's the way I see it bro. When can impart our wisdom and testimony all day long but until you stop this internal struggle, you'll continue to carry these feelings and the inevitable uncertainty. To me, it's obvious there's a struggle otherwise you wouldn't log back in, check the replies and respond. I realize you stated in your original post that you're open-minded, if you're TRULY convicted in the desire to believe, you must step back and look at where you've been and where you want to be.

I found myself in a similar mindset about two years ago. Personally, I had to dig deep and make a concerted effort to examine every aspect of my life to that point. With a steadfast belief that your past is your past and should only be used as a compass pointing forward, I began by recollecting every big decision I had made and the outcome of those decisions with no regard to how they were impacted (by my childhood, parenting, peer pressure, previous church experience, whatever). It's done and over with. Forget it.

The irony was that, when I put an end to this inner facade and allowed genuine honesty with myself, the simple fact was that I had been overwhelmingly indecisive throughout my life. I had become adept at somehow convincing myself, as well as others around me, that my decisions and actions were carefully planned, meticulously researched, based on past experiences. That I was organized, thorough, confident and trustworthy. It was an absolute masquerade...all of it. I had walked through life with minimal responsibility and even less accountability. Morally, I wasn't mean-spirited in any way and I felt genuine remorse as a result of decisions gone awry but at the end of each day, I was an absolute fraud that lied on a daily basis and meandered through life on the fence with no solid convictions or foundation.

Feeling a tad crushed and slightly lost, I gathered myself and found the wherewithal and the strength to make just one decision at that point -- that my days on the fence were over. I chose Christ and even though I had many bouts in the beginning of this new phase with disbelief, backsliding, the whole deal -- I persevered by breaking it down to this simple fact. I WILL NOT go back to that life. Period. I had to repeat this to myself numerous times along the way (remember, repetition created persuasion) but when I reached the point in which I could say it and live it with absolute conviction, I began to see the small victories that had somehow gone unnoticed. In retrospect, God knew exactly how to handle it. I was the greyhound and he dangled the treat just far enough ahead. I had sprinted out of the gate and by the time I looked back, I was amazed at how far I had come. The best part? I'm still on the track taking victory laps.

 

[catzrfluffy]

OK, I almost became an apostate, by the grace of God, God brought me back.
Last ditch attempt?:
By Solomon Benjamin Shaw
By Solomon Benjamin Shaw
By Solomon Benjamin Shaw
Why not pray to God to restore your faith, since He grants it to us?

 

[Escipión]

Hi Escipión, I am sorry no one bothered to answer your questions. It does not appear to me that you know very much about the Bible, dismissing it as something that says whatever you want it to say. If a person is using that approach, then they are not really trying to find out what it actually says.

The Bible really says whatever you want it to say, for the simple reason that it's not a homogeneous book. In many aspects it's quite incoherent, since it reflects many different traditions and interests at the same time. Mathew insists on Jesus' Jewishness and cares to clear out that he did not come to abolish the law, but to obey it; Paul, who preaches to people -the gentiles- who probably have no interest in all those weird Jewish laws and much less in mutilating their own genitals, dismisses it and announces that we walk, not under the law, but under God's grace. These little details start making a lot of sense once you get rid of all the fancy exegesis and study the Bible historically. But... this is not a debate about the Bible.

Do Christians have doubts? Yes. One of my favorite old songs is "Blessed Assurance". Ask yourself why Christians would like that song if they did not ever look for assurance.

But they have not reached the point where they aren't able anymore to impose their will to believe onto themselves, where they can't hide anymore from themselves that they have stopped to believe.

Let's take the idea of thanking God when good things happen. The Bible says good things come from God. So if God is sovereign, and either causes or allows whatever happens, then, if God exists, you should not object to recognizing His sovereignty.

Ok. But, first off, how can you distinguish causality from mere "allowance"? If I get a new job, how can you prove that God manipulated, say the owner of some enterprise to give it to me? And is that a nice world to live in? One where God is fine-tuning in real time every single event that occurs? The truth is that the world that some Christians envision, one constantly intervened by a God always busy in curing internal illnesses in unfalsifiable ways and helping his worshipers find their car keys or get over some cold, is an absurd and illogical one. It does not make sense.

What does it mean to say "God is Love?" Does it mean God takes care of everyone so nothing bad happens to anyone? Nope. Such a god is a fiction, but the Christian God does not make that claim. Now love (commitment to others sufficient to put yourself at risk) is a good thing, and so God sending Jesus (God the Son) demonstrates His love for us, even when we are sinners. What is the promise to those who love God? That all things will work together for good. But does that mean Christians do not die in floods or plane crashes? Nope. It means since we have an inheritance of eternal life, no matter what happens in this life, it will work together for good because the result is eternal life. To put some other meaning on it does not reflect reality.

The sentence God is love is a fallacy. Because you could say that he is wrath or vengeance and you'd be equally right. God, it there is one, is what he wants to be. And in fact the Christian one is: he is love towards the chosen; but beware those who dare not follow him. I myself am not exactly pure, distilled love, and you can be sure that I couldn't send 90% of this planet to a torture facility for the rest of eternity. It takes to be a ruthless tyrant to do that. If you can be love and hate at the same time, there's not point in emphasizing one of the two. Any true God should be (and the Bible presents God as being) above good and evil.

Remember that condemnation is not some circumstance alien to God which made him have to come up with a plan to save us from it. God is the architect of condemnation. God is at the same time prosecutor and lawyer; those who he saves, he saves from himself.

Can you have questions that we (Christians) cannot answer because they are a mystery? Yes. But to go to that well too often simply demonstrates the views expressed run counter to reason. God gave us a mind, and His revelation, if He exists, should provide a "reasonable" presentation of His purpose and plan.

Well, is that a critic to Christians?

A God that intervenes in only un-falsifiable ways? The Bible records three times in history where God intervened such that witnesses had to accept the existence of God. The time of Moses, the time of Elijah, and the time of Jesus. To make claims of God intervened and caused the tornado to miss the church, has no basis in the Bible. On the other hand, we are to make our petitions known, via prayer, and I do not think the Bible would tell us this if God did not sometimes intervene in the unfixed future and bring about a blessing for us. But again, to claim God supernaturally did this, that or the other, does not advance real Christianity. Now some other Christians will disagree with me (Pentecostals) but what I am saying seems consistent with the Bible and reality.

Note the difference between intervenES and intervenED. The latter is a claim written on a book.

The claim about the tornado has no basis, not only in the Bible, but also in the real world.

Predestination, does the the Bible really say names were written in the Book of life before creation? Nope. What the Bible actually says is names are entered "from" the time of creation, not before. So the time period is during the lifetimes of all people. Predestination is actually refuted by those passages. You say the doctrine is wicked and I say it is false, so your argument is not with the Bible, but with what I believe is a false doctrine.

Exegesis: the art of making a text say exactly the contrary of what any mortal would get out of it.

You say nobody has the chance to choose to believe but that is not true by your own testamony. You believed, and then because it did not make sense, you chose to reject the view of Christianity that you had been taught. Since we are not certain about anything, we choose to trust in what seems likely and reasonable. If you thought God's existence was likely, you could chose to trust in Him.

May God Bless

That I chose not to believe? Wow. So now you can choose to believe and stop believing in things. I have a unicorn. Can you please choose to believe it?

Read what you yourself wrote:

If you thought God's existence was likely, you could choose to trust in Him.

The first half of the sentence (if you thought...), which is the condition that you set for the second half to be possible, is actually where the "believe" part is. Curiously enough you prove me right in this short sentence. Let me translate it for you:

If you believed in God, you could choose to trust him.

Evidently. But let me go further: if you believed in God, you would choose to trust him -who wouldn't, given the consequences of not doing so? I can not carry the burden of having made the wrong choice if the case is that I don't even meet the precondition to be able to make that choice consciously: to believe that you have to make a choice.

Thanks.

 

[nhisname]

"To know God you have to sincerely seek him". I'm not talking about knowing, I'm talking about believing, which is a different concept. You cannot expect from a non-believer to make a huge effort to know someone whose existence he denies in the first place -or rather, whose existence he doesn't affirm. This knowledge, this thin beam of light, that is: the confidence in that there is a Christian God, precedes all further knowledge acquirable through study or whatever.

Would it be fair for me to blame you for not believing in Zeus, saying that it's your fault since you haven't striven to know him?

Why do you still go to church?

 

[Revived]

That I chose not to believe? Wow. So now you can choose to believe and stop believing in things. I have a unicorn. Can you please choose to believe it?

All truth is relative, it just depends on what you believe. If someone says:

"There's absolutely no way to know for sure who God is or what's really true."
​

That means they believe their own statement; that there's no way to know what's really true. The problem with that? They're saying that that statement is true.

So using that logic, if what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me, what if my truth says yours is a lie? Is it still true?

 

[Escipión]

Why do you still go to church?

For many reasons. Because there I know formidable people who I've grown up with. Because my church has been my second home since I was born, and is still a place where I'll always be welcomed with arms wide open. Secondly, because I don't want to make my parents sad. Sounds pathetic, but well... I'm not having to renounce to anything (just a couple of hours on Sunday mornings) or to humiliate myself.

That church, and protestantism, are part of what I am. I have no intention of wiping that off of my life.

 

[Escipión]

All truth is relative, it just depends on what you believe. If someone says:

"There's absolutely no way to know for sure who God is or what's really true."
​

That means they believe their own statement; that there's no way to know what's really true. The problem with that? They're saying that that statement is true.

So using that logic, if what's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me, what if my truth says yours is a lie? Is it still true?

You wrote that sentence, not me. I'd rather say: probably all the people that claim to know God are deluded by their own imaginations.

I cannot know it for sure, but as the romans said: affirmanti incumbit probatio. The burden of the proof lies upon him who asserts it. Being skeptical and not betting for any particular God frees me from having to prove my stance, which is actually a non-stance, if you can say that.

As for the last sentence... Truth doesn't care about what two little human beings think about it. There is either a God (or Gods) or there isn't, that's for sure.

 

[Van]

Hi Escipion, yes we do agree on some things. But lets go over our disagreements.

Any person can twist scripture to make it say whatever they want. That is true. But they must invent new meanings for words, where it means this in this verse, but this other thing in another verse. What I am saying is if you try to understand what it actually says, taking the ordinary meaning for words, it says stuff that is profitable to you. So the question is, do you submit to the authority of scripture, or do you make scripture submit to the authority of some doctrine invented by men?

Have Christians in general stopped believing, and they are just going through the motions, just being hypocrites? No. But we do question what we hear and learn, and sometimes doubt the truth of some assertions.

I did not say we can distinguish causality, I said the opposite! I said because God causes or allows everything, and good comes from God, then we can thank God for the good things in our life. To restate it, if God caused a good thing, thank Him. If God allowed a good thing, thank Him.

Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17). The "Law and the Prophets" refers in a general way to Old Testament scripture. It promised the Messiah, and Jesus fulfilled that promise.

Did I say God is fine-tuning every single event? Nope. Again I said the opposite. God intervenes. Ask yourself what happens when God does not intervene? He is not fine-tuning then is He. Again, your argument, Escipion is with Calvinism, not the Bible.
What I am saying is you are rejecting a doctrine that has been "read into" scripture, but if you just read it, it does not say "God ordains (deterministically causes) whatsoever comes to pass."

The fact that God is love is not a fallacy. But some interpretations of what that means are of course fallacy. So you do not believe a person can love something and hate that same something at the same time? I am going to assume you are a sinner, and you sin, but you rather not sin. So you hate the sin, but at the same time, you love the sin.

For another example of an interpretation of God is love, is that God is not also just and will punish the unjust. He is both.

Does God send 90% of mankind to a torture chamber for the rest of eternity? Nope. Again, the doctrine of "Eternal Torment" is something folks have "inferred" from the Bible. But the inference is unnecessary. So again, you are objecting to questionable doctrine, not actually what the Bible says. What if when folks are thrown into the "Lake of Fire" they are punished for their misdeeds, and then they are destroyed. So they are eternally punished in that they are eternally separated from God, but they do not suffer for eternity. I think what you need to do is develop your own beliefs, based on scripture, rather than object to God based on man made doctrine.

The Bible does not represent God as being "above" good and evil. He causes or allows all things. But what you might call evil, God might see as necessary. For example, God created the weather machine. So when a hurricane hits a home, the calamity which the home owner would call evil, from God's perspective is just part of the harsh environment of His creation.

Yes we do agree that when God saves someone, He saves them from receiving the justice they deserve. Mercy rather than justice. And we also agree that God's revelation should provide a reasonable presentation of His purpose and plan.

And we agree that the exegesis that supposedly supports the Calvinist view of predestination makes scripture say the opposite of what it actually says.

You seem to be going out of your way to disagree with me. I said we can choose to believe in what seems reasonable to us, and you ask if I can believe you have a unicorn? That would be unreasonable. Next you do not seem to see that believing that God's existence is likely would come before believing God exists.

Last point, do you have to make a choice? Nope. You do not believe and you can remain in that condition. The Bible says you will be punished for your misdeeds. So be the best you can be, and minimize the wrath you are piling up for yourself.

May God Bless.