Thanks for a thoughtful reply. Those are rare enough!
Not central here, but id be interested in what in the bible
lines up with science. I dont see anything.
The connection with the Acacia bush and Moses is really compelling, especially when you consider the reading of the Bible done by Professor Jordan Peterson from his perspective as a psychologist and highlighting the parable nature of the story as well as its psychological truth which presents as more advanced than modern psychology until recently. It's worth researching the details and figuring out how they are connected to the Acacia, but I don' think I'm even allowed to hand hold people down that line, just suggest they look into it.
Things I've been looking in to most is how taking into account the perspective of the author you can get a clearer picture of what is being described, and this more closely lines up with evidenced history than with the Christian narative which is placed on top of the Bible.
I'll take the Great Flood as my favourite example currently because it's so dramatic, and well evidenced, to the point that it's only not mainstream because the "Christian Scientists" insist on 4500bc as the flood date, and keep looking on top of mountains instead of on the rocky coast of Armenia which is what the Bible says.
12,600BC at the end of the Ice Age. As evidenced: The north American ice cap was hit by a comet, the ice was converted instantly and a large portion of this flooded out of a crack in the ice wall in Washington State: this water flow left vast geological scars on the landscape which are so huge we didn't fully recognise them until Satellite imagery (Washington to California, stripped to bedrock, with beach runoff scaring spreading out as far as Arkaskas to the east). This also presented with a month of rainfall, and in North America especially unflooded areas show evidence of vast forest fires.
The 100+ metre permanent sea level rise caused by this event is still in place today, and it changed the world from a place where everywhere on earth was reachable by coastal shipping, and the climate was regulated by large icecaps, to a world which seems to be self-regulating to the point it has been unusually stable since the comet hit. This is shown in ice core samples studying the probable climate back 110,000 years or so.
This event in 12,600BC was also the final straw for the 'megafauna' which were humanity's primary source of food before that point.
The culture at Gobeklitepe in Turkey, which presented with a sort of 'godking' culture like the ancient Egyptians, making a lot of statues to tall individuals with big chins and long heads, and had a similar technological decline from a mysterious start, before the site and others like it were deliberately buried.
From there we get to the Bible, where it describes a man getting into a very large boat with all his animals, family and provisions to re-start. The boat only had one window and he kept it firmly shut until he was totally sure things had calmed down, by his own words (or by Moses telling the story from Noah's perspective). He might have spent 150 days out of sight of land in his boat which had no method of propulsion, or he might simply have not even looked. Either way, considering he gives his landing place as Armenia, and the height of the mountains in his area as 15 cubits, then it looks like he's describing being from the area of the Black Sea which was not underwater before the end of the ice age.
I do agree the bible was written by men, from their perspective-
which to me is saying no god had any part.
Personally I see this as a non-sequitur. I used to believe similar things, but it seems to be based on the perception of a Pagan God, who is a person living on a cloud, as far as I can tell.
I used to also believe that understanding any scientific concept gave me power over it, and understanding beyond the creation of the thing.
Was your family atheist? Thats kind of an important detail.
One seldom finds an " atheist turned to god" who was not a
theist who dabbled with disbelief.
Many of them act like ex smokers, so militant against
the church. And then flip and go all militant
against atheism, with a dollop of " I was there but now...".
My family were practicing nihilists who presented as Mormons in order to try look better in public, at least that's a summary I built from growing up with them. Deeply narcissistic people, who were different in public than they were in private. I was the scapegoat, blamed for everything that ever went wrong, and constantly berated and bullied through childhood, and told I was a freak and an evil person. At the same time we had to be a perfect christian family in public.
My introduction to Religion was as a tool of control and to manipulate to perceptions of others, a cynical tool for narcissists to hide their evil deeds behind a façade of allegiance to good. I remember playing along for a while in my young years, but by the time I was 8 years old I had written off the idea of God as a fantasy created by evil people.
I'm not sure how that experience fits in. I know exactly the type you are talking about. I have been loudly prayed over in public by people shouting at me to accept Jesus into my heart, and seen how they scatter when I pull my copy of the King James out of my tracksuit hoody.
There's a lot of shouting about turning away from former sin, insistence on believing in Jesus to make your sins go away. Every preacher of that movement seems to be an ex inappropriate contentographer or an ex burglar or an ex addict. I don't really fit into that crowd.
I have known one man who even tried to use the thumb-to-the-forehead trick on me, which is a known tactic of cult leaders to induce a mystical experience in the person which is then falsely attributed to the leader.
I know the people who spend their mid 20s angry at God and then go back to a life of condemning others for the same. Getting shouted at about sins I'm assumed to have engaged in strikes me as odd.
Maybe it's because I'm British and was relatively calm and boring my whole life, but there's something quite annoying about being accosted in public to asked about my sexual history, and be told things like "Remember all the times you've stolen from people." I won't claim to be perfect, but I'm not as imperfect as the apparent intended audience of such public displays. My biggest problem is swearing like a trooper, and getting through a lot of cigarettes, but God is working on me in those areas already.
I think I'm just sort of rambling here though because I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say, except that I understand the people you're talking about.
Sorry you experienced nihilism. Its an extreme and
unhealthy mental state.
To the extent I experienced it, it was amidst the devastation
from a a sadistic rape.
Im glad you found a way out, whatever it was that precipitated
such alienation in the first place.
Many find a revelation (real or otherwise )
comes after a period of deep stress- a very
understandable device the mind uses!
None of this is to say the Christian way at its best
is anything but noble and prriseworthy.
Its not for me, but then we are all different.
Im glad it works for you.
I can relate to that sort of thing.
I was raised in an abusive home, and by the time I was 5 I was utterly terrified and hated my mother, though I didn't know it wasn't normal at the time. It's only since I found God that I started to really unpack those things. The worst of the abuse happened when I was a very small child, so I have quite a few unusual memories from before you're supposed to remember, when the memory is retained in dreams, and I had to deal with those nightmares for all of my childhood.
I avoid calling myself a Christian generally, because I think it would be just as accurate to call me a Muslim, or a Jew. Or at least what those three things should be.
It is a shame, that few follow the book, and few worship God without shirk. Muslims pray to rocks as Pagans do, and enforce ritual and torture. Jews curse chickens as Pagans do, and enforce ritual and torture. Christians bow to statues as Pagans do, and enforce ritual and torture.
The Muslims have their Hadiths, the Jews have their Talmud, and Christianity has the animated cartoons.
The Truth which is the spirit which Jesus taught of, is rejected in favour of authorities on earth, as Jesus warned.
