de-conversion

9 Comments Add your own

• 1. Brian  |  March 14, 2007 at 4:01 pm

  I agree with this post. I think many Christians ignore the elements of the Bible that make them uncomfortable, such as demon possession, sexual bias, violence, etc. It’s convenient, but confusing.

  There are things in the Bible, such as the views on women, that were probably related with the culture of the day. Does that mean that they still apply 2000 years later? I’m not sure. I guess that all depends on the individual’s beliefs about the inerrancy of the Bible, literalism, and legalism.

• 2. The God of Christianity i&hellip  |  March 19, 2007 at 6:48 pm

  [...] Related Post: Christians do not believe in the God of the Bible [...]

• 3. Mike  |  March 22, 2007 at 3:17 pm

  I the past couple of months I have realized how nuts this God really is. I have been a evangelical for 8 years and now I’ve had enough…Christianity is one of the most unintelligable religions in the world and the sad thing is that I’ve known this deep down all along…uggh

  The thing that makes me most uncomfortable about the Bible ironically is the resurrection stories - I just don’t see how people can say they all fit together - THEY DON’T and people still believe this madness…anyway, thanks for letting me vent

• 4. agnosticatheist  |  March 22, 2007 at 3:42 pm

  Mike,

  Many of us were duped by this system to which we devoted a large percentage of our lives and time. Of course, it was not all negative and there were good things there.

  The reality is the Bible is inconsistent with the God I believed in and when I figured that one out, I was left to try to find a basis for the God I believed in… and could not… hence my agnostic atheism. I would love to believe that there is a loving, compassionate, caring God in heaven but evidence does not support this belief.

  aA

• 5. Patrick  |  March 31, 2007 at 1:53 pm

  I can understand what you are saying, but I think that you are not considering all of God. Sure, everyone prefers a God that is loving and caring and has no rules. But that’s not the God of the Bible, which you are correct to point out.

  Let me ask you, if you were to invent your own god, what would he be like? Think about it. Most people would automatically say that he would be LOVING. But when thinking about it more, most would also say they want a JUST god. So, LOVING and JUST.

  You seem to think that because God is JUST and has established JUSTICE, then He cannot be the loving, forgiving God so many Christians believe in. I say that with out His Justice, he cannot be considered loving at all.

  Something somewhere must establish right and wrong. Christians believe it is GOD that had done so. We all agree that some things are clearly wrong. We all pretty much agree on the rights and wrongs contained in the Ten Commandments. Don’t steal, don’t lie, etc. Pretty universal. What we don’t agree on is the PENALTIES for these wrongs.

  You think that since you wouldn’t apply the same penalty as the God of the Bible does, then the God of the Bible is cruel and evil. You are passing your own judgement. So you believe that your judgement is correct and you can judge God, but his judgement is NOT correct and he cannot judge you. An Eternal God, the God that created YOU, somehow knows less than you on this subject. When is passes judgement and does not forgive, you say, “I would forgive that” and you believe yourself to be superior to God, at least in the Love department.

  It’s the combination of LOVE and JUSTICE that you don’t seem to understand. Love compels God to maintain perfect Justice. Justice displays Gods perfect Love. One without the other is worthless.

• 6. agnosticatheist  |  March 31, 2007 at 3:48 pm

  Patrick,

  The “JUSTICE” argument can only attempt mask the the atrocities credited to the God of the Bible. There is no way you can view the things God supposed did in the Bible as any form of justice. Killing a man for gathering wood on the Sabbath? Killing people for complaining? Killing old men, women, children, babies and animals during wars? … and I can go on.

  None of that is a display of “perfect Love.” I’m a mere human and I know how to love.

  aA

• 7. Doug  |  May 9, 2007 at 10:38 am

  Here’s what Mark Twain said:

  (God) I am plenty safe enough in his hands; I am not in any danger from that kind of a Diety. The one that I want to keep out of the reach of, is the caricature of him which one finds in the Bible. We (that one and I) could never respect each other, never get along together. I have met his superior a hundred times– in fact I amount to that myself.
  - Letter to Olivia Clemens, 7/17/1889

  …a God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell–mouths mercy, and invented hell–mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
  - No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger

  If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks. He would not stoop to ask for any man’s compliments, praises, flatteries; and He would be far above exacting them. I would have Him as self-respecting as the better sort of man in these regards.
  He would not be a merchant, a trader. He would not buy these things. He would not sell, or offer to sell, temporary benefits of the joys of eternity for the product called worship. I would have Him as dignified as the better sort of man in this regard.
  He would value no love but the love born of kindnesses conferred; not that born of benevolences contracted for. Repentance in a man’s heart for a wrong done would cancel and annul that sin; and no verbal prayers for forgiveness be required or desired or expected of that man.
  In His Bible there would be no Unforgiveable Sin. He would recognize in Himself the Author and Inventor of Sin and Author and Inventor of the Vehicle and Appliances for its commission; and would place the whole responsibility where it would of right belong: upon Himself, the only Sinner.
  He would not be a jealous God–a trait so small that even men despise it in each other.
  He would not boast.
  He would keep private Hs admirations of Himself; He would regard self-praise as unbecoming the dignity of his position.
  He would not have the spirit of vengeance in His heart. Then it would not issue from His lips.
  There would not be any hell–except the one we live in from the cradle to the grave.
  There would not be any heaven–the kind described in the world’s Bibles.
  He would spend some of His eternities in trying to forgive Himself for making man unhappy when he could have made him happy with the same effort and he would spend the rest of them in studying astronomy.
  - Mark Twain’s Notebook

• 8. Calvinism reconciles the &hellip  |  June 29, 2007 at 7:33 am

  [...] discussed Richard’s Dawkins’ discription of God which lines up with my conclusion and one of the catalysts for my de-conversion: “Jealous and [...]

• 9. Matt  |  December 5, 2007 at 4:11 pm

  Hello folks: I am a Christian, but I do not believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God, does the bible itself even say this. If one takes Timothy 3:16 in proper context, Paul was talking about the Torah. Paul was a man too, not perfect.

  At any rate, I believe in this because I want to. I believe in it because it makes me happy, because it is good for me.

  What I don’t believe in is hell, nor do I think Jesus came to “save” people from Hell. He came to institute God’s kingdom on Earth. A kingdom that is universal, seen in ALL religions, and even seen in agnostic / atheism.

  It’s funny because the universalism doctrine that I follow is considered a heresy, but wasn’t so until the Dark Ages. Further research proves the idea of eternal hellfire was created after Christianity intermingled with Greek Mythology and other pagan religions.

  I still believe in Jesus, and I believe that he came to give us all eternal life, and to teach and show humanity a loving God. IS God Just? Certainly, but the Bible says “Mercy triumphs over Justice” therefore - there is no hell, and the early church knew this.

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