Ex Christians

[Shermana]

Deism

I'm not too familiar with Deism, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a common consensus on the issue, and some Deists have believed there's a Divine justice mechanism built into the process.

The rewards that are eternal have been variously placed in heaven, in the stars, in the Elysian fields... Punishment has been thought to lie in metempsychosis, in hell,... or in temporary or everlasting death. But all religion, law, philosophy, and ... conscience, teach openly or implicitly that punishment or reward awaits us after this life. ... [T]here is no nation, however barbarous, which has not and will not recognise the existence of punishments and rewards. That reward and punishment exist is, then, a Common Notion, though there is the greatest difference of opinion as to their nature, quality, extent, and mode. ...

- Lord Herbert of Cherbury

Deism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Me Myself]

Again I do understand. However we're not God.

Jesus disagrees in John, when he quoted the jewish scripture to jstify his (and ours) divinity.

 

[Shermana]

Jesus disagrees in John, when he quoted the jewish scripture to jstify his (and ours) divinity.

He said "You (Israelites) are gods", not the same as being God himself. The word "god" has a different connotation, it is applied to angels and "heavenly beings". It can be interpreted as "power" or "superior/overpowering force" or "superior being".

 

[jasonwill2]

if someone actually wants to ask an ex christian just ask instead of arguing (seems to be that from my skims)

im available

 

[Debater Slayer]

Okay, but everyone doesn't have the same conscience. In fact if we were to all just follow our consciences then the world would be pretty chaotic. In Judges it talks about how the Israelites had every man do"that which was right in his own eyes." It didn't go very well. My conscience might not tell me killing is wrong, while someone elses might say otherwise. Who's to say who's right or who's wrong?

I think there are two possibilities, in this case:

1) The assertion that the Bible is the sole source of all morality is true, and therefore anyone who doesn't follow the Biblical commandments is, by definition, immoral.

This branches off into two sub-scenarios:

a) Someone follows the Biblical commands and upholds them out of conscientious instinct to "do what is right" (according to the Bible), in which case conscience still remains the main factor in determining how moral/immoral a person is.

b) Someone tries to follow the Biblical commands, but doesn't uphold them due to the lack of sufficient conscientious drive to "do what God commands" (according to the Bible), in which case the point is still defeated and conscience is demonstrated to be the main factor in determining how moral/immoral a person is.

Or...

2) The assertion that the Bible is the source of all morality is false, and therefore one doesn't have to follow any Biblical/scriptural commands to be a moral person -- which again branches off into two sub-scenarios:

a) A person doesn't follow the Bible on moral issues, but instead relies on his/her own conscientious instinct to evaluate what actions are moral/immoral, and still be a moral person.

b) A person doesn't follow the Bible on moral issues, but instead relies on his/her own conscientious instinct to evaluate what actions are moral/immoral, but be an immoral person.

In both cases and their subsequent scenarios, the main factor in being a moral person isn't following the Bible/scripture or lack thereof; it is a person's own moral compass and desire to be moral.

 

[waitasec]

I don't know why he allowed this but I do know that the Christian life is filled with tribulations. The only promise God makes is that he'll come along side of us during those times.

Psalm 71:20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.

Psalm 55:22 - Cast Thy Burden Upon The LORD, And He Shall
Sustain Thee.

again, thank you for this sentiment.

you know, i don't blame god. as i can't confirm for myself if there is one or not...i blame the misrepresentation of god.
that is why i don't think god can be represented, as these misrepresentations are problematic.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Deism

If you don't mind, could I hear a little more about the circumstances of your deconversion? As I said in a earlier thread, most people committed to Jesus don't start doubting the character of God unless times are tough. Maybe there wasn't one singular moment which tested your faith but would it be fair to say that your walk with JC was in a bit of a dry spell when you chose to hang it all up? I find it hard to believe that life was going great and you really felt the presence of God in your life when you began to doubt. You must've been feeling very dry and unsatisfied when this all happened

 

[-Peacemaker-]

if someone actually wants to ask an ex christian just ask instead of arguing (seems to be that from my skims)

im available

I do have a question. How has your life improved now that you don't follow Jesus. What has Satan done for you that's made your life so much better?

 

[jasonwill2]

I do have a question. How has your life improved now that you don't follow Jesus. What has Satan done for you that's made your life so much better?

You don't have to be so pretentious in how you ask about my religion...

How did your life improve when you became a Christian, in practical terms, eh?

Satan doesn't "do" anything in the way that Jebus or a similar concept "does" something. Just because I am a Satanist doesn't mean I get a magickal ticket to a better life, well, actually it does but the ticket isn't free because magic is MUCH harder than one would be lead to believe, and at that magic isn't really a ticket... magic has it's limits.

Anything that "Satan" has done for "me" was actually "me" doing it. The idea of Satan doing favors for people or giving them stuff for their soul is false. The Accuser and Tester does not work that way... I must earn, not trade, my growth. This is such an internal and subjective thing that not even a god can "do it" for a person, as we are all autonomous entities. A god can't just take me and then transform me... it's so personal and subjective that the moment of Xeper, becoming, and the reconstruction of the ego must be entirely of the person themselves. Only they can do it because it is about THEM, the practitioner, not the actual god in question that may assist in divination or as a lucifer.

Speaking of lucifers, it seems that Jesus as a lucifer also acts as like a guide... which isn't what Satan is. In a sense the light that a lucifer provides is the goal... the thing of new horizons. Imagine the lucifer as a lit-up tower on a mountain in the Horizon, surrounded by West Virginian forested hills and large streams and rivers winding everywhere... there are so many ways there. Why limit yourself to one path of settlement where someone tells you where to go when their may as well be a better path? Much more so when they lead you not to the tower, but to the valley that hides the answers. The tower on the mountain allows a more open view... and shows you the options of where you will want to settle down.

This light-bearer is both the tower and that voice inside me that says "no don't cross the river here, it doesn't look safe", or " don't go up that hill it's too steep"... I know I am moving up, but like the hills of my home state you need to be smart about your path, it is all rolling hills and you don't want to walk really far with poor footing, or through a bunch of annoying briers... but there is no danger in going off the path often... West Virginia has no predators for the fauna but man other than the occasional black bear, and a couple of rumors about mountain lions that may or may not be true.

So perhaps my parable makes sense to you... or perhaps not, but it's much like that. So far, it has worked to improve me in a number of ways, and I've used it to a degree for self-actualization. Christianity does not allow self-actualization as the things I'm actualizing are "sins" I guess, and some (Charismatics) see the embracement needed to learn to actualize as being oppressed by demons.

If you want something more practical though, Satan has helped me with getting a secondary level education... actually I do not know why I have not done a ritual to help me figure out this college or job stuff. I'll do that tomorrow night I reckon now that I think of it, enough time to perhaps buy some new candles and write the spell's invocation. Also Satan has helped me learn that I need to love myself and helped me become more stable emotionally and spiritually.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

How did your life improve when you became a Christian, in practical terms, eh?

.

My life was a train wreck in almost every way imaginable before I met Jesus. I was about one step away from death. From the moment I put my trust in JC some of the burdens started to be lifted. They didn't go away but I could feel myself being sustained amidst very difficult circumstances. Slowly the broken pieces of my life started getting put back together. Mind you, it's still a work in progress but I finally have hope for the future.

 

[jasonwill2]

My life was a train wreck in almost every way imaginable before I met Jesus. I was about one step away from death. From the moment I put my trust in JC some of the burdens started to be lifted. They didn't go away but I could feel myself being sustained amidst very difficult circumstances. Slowly the broken pieces of my life started getting put back together. Mind you, it's still a work in progress but I finally have hope for the future.

I find it interesting that you ignored the rest of my post, this was actually a rhetorical question. Of course it got better, once you hit rock bottom you have no where to go up unless you die though.

However it was not the path for me, Satan is more nebulous and wider in concept and nature, as well as more inclusive and comprehensive towards the right hemisphere of my brain... Jesus was not consistent with the data I was collecting and observing with the right hemisphere and still doesn't make sense to it when I think about it... it sounds like an incorrectly structured idea of something perhaps more truthful than Christianity.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

You don't have to be so pretentious in how you ask about my religion...

.

Forgive me if I exuded pretentiousness in how I asked. If you're a former Christian then you can probably understand the difficulty a Christian can have in being objective when talking or asking questions about who we call the Devil

 

[Vadergirl123]

Personally, I don’t think it really matters as far as his mission was concerned. Whether he was God Himself or he was just God-enabled-to-the-max, he did what he set out to do, to the point where he evidently found it safe to declare “It is finished”. I do believe that God is able to incarnate from time to time, and that if Jesus was one instance of that, he wasn’t necessarily the first -- or only -- incarnation.

What is it that makes you believe God uses incarnation?

I’m persuaded that Lord Krishna was another, prior incarnation. I could be wrong, but there are things Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that agree with things found in the bible, so it could very well be the same God influencing each of the texts to some degree.

Well there's quite a few documents out there that agree with some of the things that are mentioned in the Bible. Does the Bhagavad describe the same God talked about in the Bible?

I’m not sure it was any single thing that did it. It was more of a progression.

Such diversity makes things more interesting and colorful. It also relieves one of the concern that a wrong belief is going to doom folks eternally; I’m convinced that an all-powerful, all-knowing God -- who is said by scripture to be Love itself -- would not have allowed room for such diversity if the punishment for “getting it wrong” were something as drastic as an eternity in a fiery pit (besides that, when I was still technically Christian, I had become a Christian Universalist, and over the span of four years got quite used to defending -- using Scripture -- the idea that God saves everyone ).

Hmm okay then. You don't believe God will punish sin? Do you not believe salvation is a choice?

Maybe it was Jesus himself who gave me the final shove through the Door, saying “Get moving, girl, God’s waiting!”

Hahaha did you feel like God was talking to you?

 

[Vadergirl123]

with all due respect, isn't that a judgement call on your part?
and to be clear, your answer wasn't sufficient enough for me to buy into it.

Nope, I really did answer your question, but you yourself just said it wasn't sufficient( Is it wrong for me to think you didn't like the answer?)

like i said before there is a big disconnect here...
here's another thing...
when you go somewhere new or fun or exciting, would you enjoy it by your self or would you rather share it with those that mean something special to you? so now put yourself in heaven....

Absolutely, I love God very, very much and I couldn't imagine spending eternity without him.

no we're not and to pretend, for lack of a better word, to even consider we can know god is frivolous and sometimes dangerous.

Yes I agree, and that's why God gives us his word, so that we can know some about him. If we didn't have the Bible we couldn't know who God was or what he was like. We would just have to from ideas of God based on our minds or feelings.

 

[Vadergirl123]

According to the Bible, being a woman AND having authority over men isn't allowed (1 Timothy 2:12).

Yes it does say he doesn't want the women to "usurp authority over the man." However you also have to look at teh context of the verses. Paul's talking about church order.

He is still banning love. What is wrong with it? Who does it harm?

Two people can still love each other in an unsexual way. God wants it to be between a man and a woman. As to the harm I don't know(I could research homosexuality I guess), but I have no problem believing God knows what's best.

You cannot choose what to believe, just as little as you can decide what food you like. I can't decide to suddenly love eating raw onions.

What? People can too chose what to beleive, we're not born with a belief system. That's why people can convert to new beliefs. If they couldn't chose what to beleive that wouldn't be possible.

But isn't it unfair if people who are born in the wrong country are less likely to be Christians?

I really don't see how, again they'll be given the opportunity to chose to acept Christ.

So what would happen to them?

Well when they die, they'll have no reason to go to hell. I dont know where they'll spend eternity though.

What do you count as a valid reason for eternal torture?

Hmm I don't know, I probably wouldn't send someone to eternal torture, although I might do maybe a hundred years in an eternal jail or soemthing like that. Why ask me though? I'm not God. You should look to him for the answer(by reading the Bible)

I don't have a son, but the survival of 2 billion people is more important than the survival of one person. I'd let myself be tortured and killed if it save lots of people too. Both scenarios are very unlikely, though. The point of God is that God didn't need to sacrifice his son, he could just have forgiven the sins of people anyway. He did it to appease himself.

Oh okay so would you let your son be tortured though? Before Christ, God did forgive their sins when they offered sacrifices to the priests. However they had to constantly do this.

There's a wide range of sins. Does committing a single one lead to hell if you don't accept Jesus? I cannot see any sin that would make anyone worthy of eternal torture.

According to God, yes a single sin does. You're also not God.

I believe that it is metaphorical for three reasons:
1. Eternal torture doesn't fit with a loving God. You would never sentence anyone you loved to eternal torture.

I already explained how God's not just a loving God he's also just and the punishment for sin is eternity in hell.

2. There is no hell in Judaism and not a single mentioning of a fiery torture pit in the OT.

Okay

3. Jesus used the words gehenna and sheol, one being a garbage dump and the other being the grave. So for us to have a fiery hell, it would have to be gehenna, but since it's fires are long gone, this cannot be literal either. So the interpretation of hell as a place of eternal torture is unbiblical and has it's root in old pagan beliefs.

Interesting, why can't it be both?

Even if I thought that a literal interpretation was valid, it wouldn't make me feel unconfortable, as I don't believe that the Bible is true.

Yes exactly, and since you've decided that the idea of hell isn't a good one. You then decide that hell can't be real, so you try to find something in the Bible that'll show your right(or just dismiss it altogether). That's how the Bible is misinterpretted. People come in with their own preconceived ideas and try to "fit the Bible" to what they believe.

 

[Vadergirl123]

Jesus disagrees in John, when he quoted the jewish scripture to jstify his (and ours) divinity.

You believe human beings are divine?

 

[Vadergirl123]

I left Roman Catholic church when I was 18 because of the church tax.
In my country, when you are member of the RCC they get 1,1% of your income as soon as you reach legal age.
But since I never believed in Jesus or Mary or the Christian God, this was merly a formal act.

A tax eesh, I might've left too haha gotcha no reason to stay in a religion if you never believed it in the first place.

 

[Sunstone]

If this thread was designed to convince non-Christians like me to remain non-Christians, then it seems to me it must be doing a pretty good job of it.

 

[Vadergirl123]

if someone actually wants to ask an ex christian just ask instead of arguing (seems to be that from my skims)

im available

I have one, yesterday I'm pretty sure I saw that you'd responded to my questions, but I can't find it now. Did you delete it?

 

[Vadergirl123]

Satan doesn't "do" anything in the way that Jebus or a similar concept "does" something. Just because I am a Satanist doesn't mean I get a magickal ticket to a better life, well, actually it does but the ticket isn't free because magic is MUCH harder than one would be lead to believe, and at that magic isn't really a ticket... magic has it's limits.

What's so hard about the magic and where do you believe you'll go when you die?

Only they can do it because it is about THEM, the practitioner, not the actual god in question that may assist in divination or as a lucifer.

Hmmm what is a lucifer exactly?

The tower on the mountain allows a more open view... and shows you the options of where you will want to settle down.
This light-bearer is both the tower and that voice inside me that says "no don't cross the river here, it doesn't look safe", or " don't go up that hill it's too steep"... I know I am moving up, but like the hills of my home state you need to be smart about your path, it is all rolling hills and you don't want to walk really far with poor footing, or through a bunch of annoying briers... but there is no danger in going off the path often... West Virginia has no predators for the fauna but man other than the occasional black bear, and a couple of rumors about mountain lions that may or may not be true.

So then you're traveling on a path now and your lucifer is guiding you to protect from dangers? Can a lucifer deceive you into going on the wrong path?

So perhaps my parable makes sense to you... or perhaps not, but it's much like that. So far, it has worked to improve me in a number of ways, and I've used it to a degree for self-actualization. Christianity does not allow self-actualization as the things I'm actualizing are "sins" I guess, and some (Charismatics) see the embracement needed to learn to actualize as being oppressed by demons.

I think I understand it, but I don't get the part in red. What do you mean exactly?

If you want something more practical though, Satan has helped me with getting a secondary level education... actually I do not know why I have not done a ritual to help me figure out this college or job stuff. I'll do that tomorrow night I reckon now that I think of it, enough time to perhaps buy some new candles and write the spell's invocation. Also Satan has helped me learn that I need to love myself and helped me become more stable emotionally and spiritually.

How does a ritual help you with college? So then by earning your own way you've found that you're able to love yourself?