LOL! Oh boy, does that bring back memories.

That gets back to the most basic contradiction of all: When you first get saved you’re told that “all you have to do is believe” and accept god’s free gift of salvation and nothing else is required of you! The yoke is easy, and the burden is light – right?

Then, as you get involved in the life of the church, you find – whoa! The burden is very heavy: Rules of behavior, events you must attend, limits on your speech and ideas, regulations about how you spend your own hard-earned money. It goes on and on, with the yoke getting more and more difficult and shaping more and more of how you live your life.

Pretty far from the “free gift” you originally received.

Good! Keep thinking for yourself and keep thinking “outside the box” – that’s the only way to live, in my book.

Thank you. Although I doubt you’d see any fundamentalist Christians acting like me, for I’m rather heretical in my beliefs.

I can understand why you’d be frustrated, though, and why you’re leaving. I hope you’ll still comment here, or at least find some enjoyment in the posts.

In other words, are we saved by faith, or by works as evidence of our faith? Most Protestants will insist we are saved by faith alone, but the Bible forces the issue to be unsolvable. For instance, James 2:21 says that Abraham was justified by his works in that he offered his son Isaac. But Romans 4:2-3 says the opposite – that Abraham was justified without works, but by faith alone.

OK – which is it?

Christians are forced to harmonize these two concepts together. As a result, church pastors can teach any position, even contradictory positions, and still be backed by Scripture.

I noticed this a long time ago too, neo2. It drove me nuts.

neo2 sez:
“Thirdly, I have seen to many people praise God because of an answer to prayer, that really is not an asnwer to prayer as is being discussed in this blog.”

People tend to remember prayers that seem to be answered, and forget all the prayers that go unanswered.

It sounds like you and I may have similiar stories as to how we left the faith, neo2.

As I have stated before I am leaving the fundie Baptist church after 7 years due to many contradictions in behavior and the zest of taking the Bilbe to be a 100% correct and true.

From what I have seen of my church brethern, they block out anyone that does not completely agree with them eventhough they publicly claim not to do so. If you ask to many of the “wrong type of questions” you can quickly be labeled as never saved, in sin or in the grasp of the devil.

Secondly the messages often times contradict themselves. For example one Sunday the message was about how your relationship with God is not built upon how much money you give or the amount of ministries you are involved in. A month later the message is if you are not serving in ministries or giving enough money than you need to ask your self ” Are you right with God”? Please pick one, which one is it? I have been to 4 different Baptist churchs over 7 years and they are all the same.I refuse to ever step foot into another fundie church.

Thirdly, I have seen to many people praise God because of an answer to prayer, that really is not an asnwer to prayer as is being discussed in this blog. We have even had people tell us that God has shown them through prayer that we are supposed to join their MLM selling club so we can be blessed. By the way that come from the wife of someone on the leadership board. These are just a few of the reasons as to why I left the church.

Well, I don’t need to go into a rant but do I need to apologize to Heather. Heather I am sorry.

Secondly, I always hear about taking bible verses as either literaly or figuratively. My question is on what bases do you decide to take a pariticular verse? Are they based on the logic of whatever suites your needs at the time?

Karen,
“astudent, it has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence. It has to do with thinking for yourself versus indoctrination.”
You couldn’t have missed my character any farther. When I was young I use to admire eccentrics, because they thought for them selves and did not bow to the masses. Then one day I looked into a mirror and there was an eccentric looking right back at me.
I was saved at a Church that was becoming a mega-church and I bugged the pastor with my input until the answers I received back were, shall we say , very short. However, no matter the work load that pastor always answered. I’ve always been a black sheep, rebel, pain the…… Well, you get my point. When I read that a Berean was nobler because they checked what was said I got even worse. Well, if you check my blog “Bible study by a student” you will see that I do not go along with the crowd at all.

“your mind is totally closed to objective thinking, which is a terrible thing, in my opinion. It’s certainly done a lot of harm in this world.”
Done harm? Read my latest post “Atheist, why do you do that”. Then test your own objective thinking.
I totally agree with you that we should think for ourselves.

My tithing post inspired me to browse Creflo Dollar’s website.

Check this out:

http://interactive.creflodollarministries.org/bible/bsc_rdead_t.asp

aA

HIS, your comment reminds me of something similar posted by a friend of mine on the CaTE blog recently. She is a former Christian involved in a newspaper dialog with a Luthern pastor in her community. Here’s her elucidation of the positive side of nonbelief:

http://conversationattheedge.com/2007/05/23/the-heart-of-the-matter/

I thought it was really quite beautiful.