Questions from a former Christian

Criada said:

I completely agree with this!
So many of us are not living as He wants us to.
And that is a very sad thing! He gave up everything, was tortured and killed for me. And what do I do with the incredible gift that He has given me?
That is something I am coming to realize more and more in my own life - and I am, with His help, making changes. The Christian life should be one of complete surrender. But I have been a Christian for twenty years, and I am only just beginning to understand what it truly means. And how hard it is. But also, how wonderful!
We are not perfect - very far from it.
But that does not mean that God does not exist - just that humans are weak!

Click to expand...

God may exist, I don't deny it. Is he the one described in the books of the Bible? That is the question.

Criada said:

As to the latter - all I can say is, I am sorry!
As to the Bible - there are things I do not understand.
There are things I do not believe I will ever understand in this life.
I have, as I said previously, many more questions than answers.

But - there is always Jesus.
And I cannot ignore who He is and what He has done.
And what He asks of me.
And ,in the end, nothing matters beside that.

God bless you.

Click to expand...

We learn about Jesus from the Bible and from Christians. I don't trust both of the sources, so how can I know for sure who he really was and what he did?

MelissaShae said:

I can not make someone become a christian no more that I can make money grow on trees or pigs fly. What I can do is tell them what I know about Jesus and his love for us and after that it is their decision. I will go whereever God sends me and do as he wants me to do and preach the gospel to those who God sends me to, but I can't turn them into Christians and I can't make them follow Jesus as much as I want them to be saved that is their decision to make with the help of Jesus Christ.

If God wanted me to give up all my material things and live in a hut somewhere then that is what I would do. But God has not called me to do that. I am for now where he wants me to be and I will go where he wants me to go. But just because we don't give up all of our worldly goods as they did in the days of Jesus does not mean that we lack faith it simply means that we live in a different time and God will put us where he wants us and we are not to challenge or to guess what that place may be.

I base my faith on what God wants from me not what others think God wants.

Click to expand...

I'm no one to judge you. I was sharing my thoughts in general, not addressing to you personally.

Just one comment: one can make money grow on trees (grow apples and sell them) and pigs fly (take a pig on an airplane)...

Wish you all the best.

Dear everyone who posted here,

Thank you guys very much for listening to me and spending your time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

Work won't allow me to spend much time on the net anymore, so maybe will come by once a week or so.

All of you gave me much food for thought, it has been VERY helpful.

I wish you guys all very best.

Zamanbek.

AformerChristian said:

You say that inconsistencies/contradictions/errors are due to our misunderstanding of the complex multi-layer nature of the Bible, imperfection of its media (human authors and the languages), culture context. You claim that if one overcomes all that, they will come to the real essence of the Bible--the only and final truth about God. I understand such approach, I see how it could have developed and how some people use it as a way to accept the Bible. Nevertheles, I personally can't adopt such approach..

Click to expand...

a: why?
b: given that, what do you hope to gain here? If you've decided that the bible must be inerrant, infallible, and simple to undertand or it's uselss. You have also decided that it's full of errors, fallible, and hard to make sense of. Unless you are willing to let us at least try to challenge those assumptions what question is left open?

ebia said:

a: why?
b: given that, what do you hope to gain here? If you've decided that the bible must be inerrant, infallible, and simple to undertand or it's uselss. You have also decided that it's full of errors, fallible, and hard to make sense of. Unless you are willing to let us at least try to challenge those assumptions what question is left open?

Click to expand...

a: I can't change my views overnight.

b:My conclustions after talking to you and other posters here are that I need to learn more and to generalize less. What I realized, I don't know or understand about Christianity as much as I had thought and that there are people who take the Bible in a very diferent way, or deeper, than I or people who taught me did. The time here has been a great learning experience.

AformerChristian said:

God may exist, I don't deny it. Is he the one described in the books of the Bible? That is the question.

We learn about Jesus from the Bible and from Christians. I don't trust both of the sources, so how can I know for sure who he really was and what he did?

Click to expand...

I think you are going at this backwards!
I love Jesus because of who He is - which I see every day in my own life and those of others.
Before I knew Him, I found the bible very confusing.
It is only through the Holy Spirit within us that God reveals Himself through the Bible.

What brought me to God was a dep conviction that I could not be who I wanted to be, could not live a 'good' or moral life on my own.
Learning more of Him through the bible only came after that surrender.

I am glad you feel that your time here has been positive - I will be praying for you as you continue your search for truth.
God bless you.

Criada said:

I will be praying for you as you continue your search for truth.
God bless you.

Click to expand...

Thank you.

AformerChristian said:

I hope so. Most importantly for me, I've found here what I needed - people who would understand me and listen to me, share their views. I didn't say it in my first post, maybe I should have, but Christianity was almost all I had in my life. It's not anymore. It feels like starting my life over. It's not easy... I expect to loose some of my Christian friends when I profess my unbelief to them... The people here at CF are nice so they don't talk about satan deceiving me, but I'm sure I'm going to hear that a lot later, especially from behind my back... I only want that people understand what really happened. But I need to understand it myself, first.

Click to expand...

It's nothing really, CF here has a vast and many layered culture of Christians, I feel that every Christian finds there own path and progress to the Lord, and that is never more evident then here at CF.

I know. But I've seen enough of those efforts. They are in no comparison to the teaching of the Bible. Oftentimes it seems to me that they don't really believe in what they say the believe in. It's my opinion.

Click to expand...

If every person only saved their own family and the person next door, the whole world would be Christian, not because we go out and try to shove the bible down peoples throat, but because we spread the word with love and living the life.

But that is where the Human factor sets in again, and we discover that not everyone that claims to be a Christian... is one.

It is in my mind the difference between everyone that claims to be a football player, and those that have won the super bowl. They are different, sure, anyone that has played football (professional or recreational) can claim to be a football player, but there is a massive difference between all of them. The level by which they play and what they do with their game.

Christains are no Different. Between you and me, if I based my faith on People, I would never believe in Jesus.

"I like your Christ, but you Christians are so unlike your Christ" ... care to take a guess who said that?

Do you believe in a literal hell?

Click to expand...

Huh?

There is no "Literal Hell"

Jesus touches on it, only a little bit, mostly only saying "Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth" and how that became "Fire and Brimstone, with daemons being poked and prodded and tortured for your sins" I have no idea.

Some believe in Fire and Brimstone, others believe in Annihilation, others believe in Separation from God, and still others think that a Satire comedy written by a priest defines hell.

In the end, yah, there is a "Hell" of sorts, if you want to consider it deeply, but any way you slice it, it end up the same, it's called "Not making it to Heaven" notice Jesus does not say "All have sinned and should go to Hell" he says "All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of Heaven"

We're humans, we're sinful, we're weak, we're only flesh, we're nothing compared to God and so on... What about the indwelling holy Spirit, about renewal of the mind? What about the new creature, about child of God? What about the 'saints', about the selected, the priests, the saved? What about all that other stuff the Bible and the Christians are talking about? Why is it that the Christians just live like everybody else (or worse), conform to "this secular world", are more hypocritical, self-righteous and judging than non-Christians, do very little or nothing about saving others AND at the same time claim they're different? Claim that they hold THE ABSOLUTE truth??? I expect at least some proof of that. If there's none, I doubt all of their claims...

Click to expand...

Knowing what to do, and doing it... have nothing in common.

and, why people are people?... I hate to say this, but I would say, because they are people.

Sure, people are weak, corrupt, and all that jazz, but what about God? What about the Spirit?... well what about them?

Look at this way, of all the teams that play football, only one is going to the win the super bowl this year... so what about the other teams... well they all share something in common.. they are losers.

Life is really no different, and neither is the after life when you think about it. Some will make it to Heaven and win the Super Bowl, but not everyone that "Plays" will be winning.

Sorry is my analogies are really poor, or off mark.

Okay, I've heard such doctrine before. When I was a Christian, most of the time I believed similarly. I have a big problem with it now. Why then Jesus Christ came?

Click to expand...

Jesus came to bring the Glory of Heaven to the Gentiles.

It seems, if such interpretation is true, that he came only to save those who will hear about him, for the others his salvation work has no effect whatsoever because they will be judged NOT according to their faith/rejection of Jesus Christ.

Click to expand...

Again, I am not sure, but all those that came before Christ, as far as I could figure out, Jesus went into "The Holding Tank" (we like to call Hell or some such) and preached the salvation to them, and opened the Gates of Heaven to any and all that might come to him.

In other words, then Jesus' gospel has very little, if any, value to most people who ever lived (will live) and did not (will not) hear the gospel. That is, his death/resurrection is just for a very few.

Click to expand...

When you think about it, around 70% of the world knows directly of Jesus as a great prophet, savor, or heretic (depending on who you ask).

So a great portion of the world knows of Jesus.

How that really works out, well, again.. here comes a football analogy.

Not every one that knows football, plays it. Not everyone that plays it, plays professional. Not all professionals win the Super Bowl. Not sure if you get this point. But I trying.

I Trust that God has a plan, and that God knows what God is doing, after all, if I did not, then I would not Believe in God.

I guess, when I stopped trying to fit God, into something so small as my Imagination, God became... well.... God.

Thank you, really.

Click to expand...

I wish you the best, may what you believe bring you peace.

God Bless

Key

AformerChristian said:

I'm no one to judge you. I was sharing my thoughts in general, not addressing to you personally.

Just one comment: one can make money grow on trees (grow apples and sell them) and pigs fly (take a pig on an airplane)...

Wish you all the best.

Click to expand...

In a round about way yes you cam make those things happen if you take the sentences out of context but if you take them literally as growing actual crisp dollars on a tree and pigs sprouting wings then no it can't happen.

Same with the bible. Many people take the verses out of context and twist them to fit their own needs in stead of seeing the truth of God's words. You have to take the bible as literal because those things did happen and Jesus did exist and our future is also told.

God bless you!!

AformerChristian said:

a: I can't change my views overnight.

b:My conclustions after talking to you and other posters here are that I need to learn more and to generalize less. What I realized, I don't know or understand about Christianity as much as I had thought and that there are people who take the Bible in a very diferent way, or deeper, than I or people who taught me did. The time here has been a great learning experience.

Click to expand...

ok