Non-Christians: Why Are You Here?

yeshuaslavejeff

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Emotions, feelings, wanted to be or to find 'friends' (though not good reasons / common for men) ..... not knowing where to go , so hopefully seeking , and by God's Grace might some day find the truth, and be set free by the truth.
 
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Shemjaza

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I'm just curious about what draws someone who's not Christian to a website called Christian Forums; share as much or as little as you like! :oldthumbsup:
I was drawn here by some of the more colourful characters of the creation-evolution sub forum.

But two things keep me here. Interesting people with interesting conversations, and some level of enforced politeness that helps the tone.
 
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MehGuy

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Came here as a Christian.. although lost my faith about a year later.

I don't know why I stayed.. becoming an atheist was very hard on me psychologically and religion left me with very deep mental scars. Guess I wanted to continue having the Christian atmosphere somewhat, and I don't know.. just got accustomed to the people here.. honestly I often forget this is even a Christian forum.. just look at is an online social place.
 
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Not David

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Came here as a Christian.. although lost my faith about a year later.

I don't know why I stayed.. becoming an atheist was very hard on me psychologically and religion left me with very deep mental scars. Guess I wanted to continue having the Christian atmosphere somewhat, and I don't know.. just got accustomed to the people here.. honestly I often forget this is even a Christian forum.. just look at is an online social place.
Confiteor: You are my favorite atheist on this forum.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Came here as a Christian.. although lost my faith about a year later.

I don't know why I stayed.. becoming an atheist was very hard on me psychologically and religion left me with very deep mental scars. Guess I wanted to continue having the Christian atmosphere somewhat, and I don't know.. just got accustomed to the people here.. honestly I often forget this is even a Christian forum.. just look at is an online social place.
Others came visiting as a Christian, and left, to remain a Christian. They have posted and/or messaged over the last several years that they were too troubled by the gist of the threads, topics and posts to stick around.
 
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Aryeh Jay

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I was in the Coast Guard and a photographer and took some pictures of a shrine in Cuba dedicated to Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre and looked it up on the internet. This was one of the sites that popped up. There were other reasons why I actually joined but those pictures got me here.
 
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keith99

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Perhaps I am the instrument of your God even though I do not think he exists. But it seems most Christians here will not even entertain the idea that their God might choose to use an unbeliever much as that seems to me to be choking on a gnat after swallowing a camel. If He does exist he can use whatever tools He likes.

That said here is the answer I gave elsewhere recently.

I first came here because of a thread on a bicycling forum. It started with a lot of pretty stupid things said on various Christion websites. I have the nasty habit of checking things. I expected that the posted selected were cherry picking. Sadly in general I was proved wrong. For most sites they were typical. This site was different. There were many insightful posts.

So I joined. It was months before I noticed a high percentage (but far from all) of the insightful posts were from non-Christians.

I listed myself as agnostic when I joined. Over time this site has in general degraded as I see it. But there are also ups and downs. At one point there was a decided downward trend in the areas I frequent where people who identified as atheist were routinely attacked without cause.

Technically the terms atheist and agnostic deal with different things. Agnostic means one does not claim (special) knowledge. Atheist means one does not believe in any god(s). I am an agnostic atheist. I do not believe in any god, but also do not claim certainty or special knowledge.

I've always been willing to step up. I got tired of people being attacked and instead of remaining silent I changed my identification from agnostic to atheist. I started a thread explaining why I did so. Looking back it was quite gratifying because it motivated a lot of decent Christians to post when they had been silent before.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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Perhaps I am the instrument of your God even though I do not think he exists. But it seems most Christians here will not even entertain the idea that their God might choose to use an unbeliever much as that seems to me to be choking on a gnat after swallowing a camel. If He does exist he can use whatever tools He likes.
Who was the king in the OT who Yahweh used even though the king was apparently not one of His Ekklesia ? I forget, but he was posted about in the last week or two, as an example of Yahweh using someone whenever Yahweh chooses to for His Own Good Pleasure.
 
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public hermit

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I've always been willing to step up. I got tired of people being attacked and instead of remaining silent I changed my identification from agnostic to atheist.

I wonder how many have become atheist or agnostic because of these threads.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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I wonder how many have become atheist or agnostic because of these threads.
< shrugs > who knows? For years I posted looking for anyone who became saved because of any forum, and there was only one, and they were saved because they left (another, different) forum seeing the fighting there like on here daily, to look for themselves other places to confirm the truth, and found it, and thus were saved. So far no one claimed to be saved from any forum.
 
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cloudyday2

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When I joined I had just finished a two year period as an Orthodox Christian. I decided I did not want to continue attending that church, but Orthodox Christians prohibit their members from receiving communion in non-Orthodox churches. I was concerned that in a new church I would be expected to receive communion. I had seen a disturbing vision or hallucination during communion at a non-Orthodox church that I didn't understand but made me take this issue very seriously. That was my initial interest when I joined CF.

I was seeing an atheist psychotherapist at the same time who educated me about hallucinations and that was helpful. It was about a 5 year process to truly get back to normal. For example, I was afraid that an old friend was trying to kill me for several years due to lingering delusional thinking. The last several years I have been able to enjoy his company again without those worries. :)

This forum has helped me more than any other, because these problems are not easy to discuss without the anonymity provided. Many of these problems have a religious dimension thus a religious forum is a good fit. Sometimes the process of organizing my thoughts into a written post helps me clear my confusion a little. I have also found this helpful for depression.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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When I joined I had just finished a two year period as an Orthodox Christian. I decided I did not want to continue attending that church, but Orthodox Christians prohibit their members from receiving communion in non-Orthodox churches. I was concerned that in a new church I would be expected to receive communion. I had seen a disturbing vision or hallucination during communion at a non-Orthodox church that I didn't understand but made me take this issue very seriously. That was my initial interest when I joined CF.

I was seeing an atheist psychotherapist at the same time who educated me about hallucinations and that was helpful. It was about a 5 year process to truly get back to normal. For example, I was afraid that an old friend was trying to kill me for several years due to lingering delusional thinking. The last several years I have been able to enjoy his company again without those worries. :)

This forum has helped me more than any other, because these problems are not easy to discuss without the anonymity provided. Many of these problems have a religious dimension thus a religious forum is a good fit. Sometimes the process of organizing my thoughts into a written post helps me clear my confusion a little. I have also found this helpful for depression.
Well, that explains a lot. (a lot that I don't think is going to be discussed nor debated unless you decide to start a thread to do so, and are open to finding Yahweh's Truth, and True Scriptural understanding that is not seen in this explanation so far nor in previous posts)
 
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muichimotsu

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Honestly, I wanted to engage in general discussion and that has remained for the most part, even though I have periods of activity and inactivity depending on how much discussion on any given thread I have before it takes up needless amounts of time that I would be better off directing to something more productive in a direct sense.

Apparently it's gone downhill in some respects, though I can't speak to the truth or falsehood of that, but there have always been those who would prefer to engage in rhetoric rather than a dialogue because of their status as a Christian in a Christian forum, feeling special in some sense, perhaps
 
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Who was the king in the OT who Yahweh used even though the king was apparently not one of His Ekklesia ? I forget, but he was posted about in the last week or two, as an example of Yahweh using someone whenever Yahweh chooses to for His Own Good Pleasure.
Darius
 
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createdtoworship

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I nearly lost my faith on these forums. It's because of one reason. Debate. Debate typically revolves around controversy. And if you take any science, any philosophy, and history and you talk only about the controversies of it, and not the meat of it. You become a poor student of the actual subject. I stopped debating about a few months ago. After being banned for being rude. I noticed it was taking a heavy tole on me. Then I realized it was because of the controversy. So I typically don't debate unless it can remain very very polite. As soon as people toes are stepped on I am out. Which makes most of my debates very short. But in doing this I have also protected myself. I like twitter alot. I see honest christians trying to live out the life, encouraging one another posting bible verses and praying for one another. I hadn't seen that here. It exists but not in the debate sections and theology sections. Those to me are the cemetaries of the forum. If you want the real stuff, go to christian advice area's and prayer threads. But yeah twitter has a huge christian influence. As long as you block the political, and the skeptics and just follow the honest ones. Twitter usually keeps your feed real clean. For new Christians I typically don't even recommend they come here at all. I had gone to Bible college and I almost lost my faith, I was in ministry and taught evangelism and wrote a book on evangelism, and had an apologetics website, called "BibleAnswer.org" That was ten years ago. But I was focussing on evangelism and apologetics and not on Jesus. See again, when you focus on peripherials and not the meat of the message, you really only see the side issues, the implications of the subject and not the real application. As soon as I rededicated my life, financially we started recovering, my blood pressure went down, my allergies got better, my mental health was healed. And I overcame about four addictions in the last five years. I have more joy and meaning than I have had in my entire life. It's about knowing Jesus himself, not debating apologetics. I love this illustration.... "there was a new home being built and the electricians were behind schedule. The owner went on sunday and monday and there was no electricity. The owner called the foreman of the electrical company and said.... there is no power on in the house. Tuesday the owner got there again and there was a note on the door, it said "power on- ted" Ted was the foreman. And when he got in the door he switched the light on and there was power. See the message was validated by the power. We could do all sorts of explaining and defending the post it note on the door, the message. But the best explanation of the power of the gospel is to let people see the power it has. That is the confirmation of the message. I once had a thread were I had ten atheists explain they had left the faith. I asked them... "When you believed in Christ the first time, did you repent of sin?" Not one of them said yes. There may in fact be one that has done so, and later became apostate. But none of them in that thread said "yes I repented of known sin when I became a christian." The Bible talks about the parable of the sower. Sometimes a real seed falls and shallow soil and because it is not rooted the sun becomes a hardship on it, it dries and withers. Other seeds satan or the birds of the air pluck up. Other seeds are planted in rocky soil, no foundation. So there are many reasons why people leave the faith. But if you find Christ, you repent of sin. you allow your faith to change your life. you pray, and read the Bible regularly, and become accountable at a local fellowship. There is really no way to lose faith. As long as you want it, you got it. But sin likes to decieve us. It's funny how the sin that kept us bound, we think is freeing us when we do it when it actually owns us and enslaves us.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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I nearly lost my faith on these forums. It's because of one reason. Debate. Debate typically revolves around controversy. And if you take any science, any philosophy, and history and you talk only about the controversies of it, and not the meat of it. You become a poor student of the actual subject. I stopped debating about a few months ago. After being banned for being rude. I noticed it was taking a heavy tole on me. Then I realized it was because of the controversy. So I typically don't debate unless it can remain very very polite. As soon as people toes are stepped on I am out. Which makes most of my debates very short. But in doing this I have also protected myself. I like twitter alot. I see honest christians trying to live out the life, encouraging one another posting bible verses and praying for one another. I hadn't seen that here. It exists but not in the debate sections and theology sections. Those to me are the cemetaries of the forum. If you want the real stuff, go to christian advice area's and prayer threads. But yeah twitter has a huge christian influence. As long as you block the political, and the skeptics and just follow the honest ones. Twitter usually keeps your feed real clean. For new Christians I typically don't even recommend they come here at all. I had gone to Bible college and I almost lost my faith, I was in ministry and taught evangelism and wrote a book on evangelism, and had an apologetics website, called "BibleAnswer.org" That was ten years ago. But I was focussing on evangelism and apologetics and not on Jesus. See again, when you focus on peripherials and not the meat of the message, you really only see the side issues, the implications of the subject and not the real application. As soon as I rededicated my life, financially we started recovering, my blood pressure went down, my allergies got better, my mental health was healed. And I overcame about four addictions in the last five years. I have more joy and meaning than I have had in my entire life. It's about knowing Jesus himself, not debating apologetics. I love this illustration.... "there was a new home being built and the electricians were behind schedule. The owner went on sunday and monday and there was no electricity. The owner called the foreman of the electrical company and said.... there is no power on in the house. Tuesday the owner got there again and there was a note on the door, it said "power on- ted" Ted was the foreman. And when he got in the door he switched the light on and there was power. See the message was validated by the power. We could do all sorts of explaining and defending the post it note on the door, the message. But the best explanation of the power of the gospel is to let people see the power it has. That is the confirmation of the message. I once had a thread were I had ten atheists explain they had left the faith. I asked them... "When you believed in Christ the first time, did you repent of sin?" Not one of them said yes. There may in fact be one that has done so, and later became apostate. But none of them in that thread said "yes I repented of known sin when I became a christian." The Bible talks about the parable of the sower. Sometimes a real seed falls and shallow soil and because it is not rooted the sun becomes a hardship on it, it dries and withers. Other seeds satan or the birds of the air pluck up. Other seeds are planted in rocky soil, no foundation. So there are many reasons why people leave the faith. But if you find Christ, you repent of sin. you allow your faith to change your life. you pray, and read the Bible regularly, and become accountable at a local fellowship. There is really no way to lose faith. As long as you want it, you got it. But sin likes to decieve us. It's funny how the sin that kept us bound, we think is freeing us when we do it when it actually owns us and enslaves us.
(just from memory, haven't double checked) I thought there was something else that was where your treasure was (you posted in some other thread(s)) .... I'll double check now... and edit this out in a few minutes if appropriate....

p.s. back. Looks like money has taken position ... from posts in other threads...

Naturally not everyone would agree, but Jesus simply says even most gently: wherever someone's treasure is, that is what their heart will follow.
 
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