midniterider Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I can't believe that it's all just over when we die. There are so many absolutely amazing things about the cosmos, too. I've always believed that when the New Heavens and New Earth are created, there will be all the great wonder and beauty we now see around us, only more delightful and glorious. And it all just goes away? Can't have that. .... There may be possible continuation's of life besides the Christian heaven or atheist's non-existence. The life you're living right now may not be the first you've lived. When this body dies, I might rise up into a brand new one and live that life. So, while my previous family puts my ashes on the mantle, I'll be chasing after a ball as a 3 year old somewhere, oblivious to everything else. "For you to be always you would be an insufferable bore" - Alan Watts (lol) We spend time talking about death but we always seem to be alive as we're talking about it. How often are you not-conscious of something? We always seem to find ourselves conscious and aware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobCu Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Interesting story. I rarely read anything that long but this time I read the whole thing. I was a brainwashed Catholic but I was never as religious as you were. "Right now I am on the threshold of walking away. I still believe in god, and really I do believe in the resurrection. But how, if the bible is bunk?" We agree about the Bible. It's fiction. Fiction is OK as long as the reader understands it's not real. The Resurrection thing is a belief in magic. Lots of magic. Lots of throwing out all of reality. The keyword is "reality". Magic is not reality. That should be easy for anyone to figure out. Throwing out the god fantasy is easy. And it's a good idea to throw it out because then for the first time in your life you become a free person. Being free has a lot of benefits as I predict you will soon find out. This is not rocket science. I can explain it with only 16 words. Here it is: God is just another word for magic. Magic is not real. Therefore, magical beings are impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 Welcome Bunzooh. So many of us here experience a "Crack in the dam" that leads to our eventual chucking of the entire Christianity thing. Mine was the "Doctrine of Original Sin". For a lifetime "Fundie", life without God is difficult at first. I was struck by your statement "I'm turning away from a false god, and finding out who God really is." It would be nice to have a God who will coddle you and take care of you but that isn't Bible God; Bible God, as I am sure you are aware, can be pretty vile, bitter and angry (Don't piss off Bible God). So Bible God had to go; he simply does not exist. At this point I look at the Universe with it's vastness, it's structure and it's laws as sort of a force that looks after us. Keep on questioning.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunzooh Posted September 1, 2015 Author Share Posted September 1, 2015 Insightful, if there is one thing I regret about how we lived the Xtian life, it is that we spanked. That is, until my second to youngest kid got his first spanking at about 18 months. I swatted him for something, and within moments, that day, he hit his little sister FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. With that, I stopped spanking. My youngest child has never had a punishing hand laid on her for any reason. Though our spankings were generally moderated (that is, after a period of cooling off, and with a smallish "rod" like a wooden spoon)...there were times when the mindset of violence to control behavior lent itself to downright abusive episodes between us and the oldest...who it turns out, has bipolar disorder and we thought HITTING HIM was the answer? When I think of it, how on earth does my oldest still even speak to me? Interesting, that "If it isn't biblical, it is of no use to anyone" thinking, too (where you rejected psychology and such)...that's such a dangerous place to be. Yet it's all through the reformed community (Yes, I was part of that whole ugliness for a while, too)... presuppositional apologetics, Nuethetic (?) counseling, and all that barf. It's a wonder anyone in that subset of stupidity can even function. Well, I know I wasn't when I and my ex were in it. Thankfully, only for a couple of years, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
readyforchange Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 ... Why I believe in the resurrection. I think it is telling that all four gospels have women (who were utterly discounted at that time and their witness was always invalid) being the first to discover the empty tomb. If the stories were complete fiction, made up by the men who wrote them, I think the details would be more grand, and they would have a credible male leader be the one to first discover the stone rolled away. ... Hi Bunzooh. Welcome, and thanks for your story. I can relate to much of it. In thinking about the aspect of the women being the first to discover the empty tomb, I also wonder about that and have heard the argument that women discovering the tomb goes against the grain and may make the resurrection accounts more credible. Perhaps so. But when I consider the four canonical gospels, a few things come to mind. One is that the earliest manuscripts of Mark end at Mark 16:8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb and saying nothing to anyone, because they were frightened and afraid. I think if taking the original ending of Mark into consideration, it seems that the women let the disciples down, because they did not follow the angel's instructions to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee. Without knowing the full intent of the author for ending the gospel in this way, I could see the author viewing the women as actually failing the men (the disciples) for not relaying the angel's message, inferring that if one of the disciples (a man) was the first to discover the empty tomb, the result would have been different. Although the women were the first to discover the tomb, they were not necessarily believed - their word did not stand on its own, and the other disciples did not believe the women initially (Luke 24:10-11). As an aside, Mark (or the author of Mark) was not there at the tomb with the women, so if the women did not tell anyone what happened, then in order to write his gospel, how did the author of Mark know what happened at the tomb? He could not have gotten the information from an eyewitness or from another human, if the women did not tell anyone else. And if he got the information from God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, then it appears that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit gave the author of Mark an ending that directly contradicts the resurrection accounts of Matthew, Luke, and John, which do have the women telling the disciples about the empty tomb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunzooh Posted September 15, 2015 Author Share Posted September 15, 2015 Right, readyforchange. Contradictions aside, why put an utterly unreliable eyewitness as the first eyewitness, unless it happened that way? If they are just making up the stories, they would have had a disciple finding the tomb first. In their culture, stories must have been told all the time. Wouldn't a storyteller, who was making it up and wanting the most believable story possible, have a more reliable witness at the tomb? anyway...I don't know where I am right now. Today has been rough emotionally. I wish I really knew God was real so I could return to him and be safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlowerDemon Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I loved how it seemed to "match" my circumstances so often, providing comfort and "just what I needed" just when I needed it. I totally agree with that statement. I felt the same way about the pastors giving the sermons, and how every time I went to church, the message was "just what I needed" when I needed it. But the thing is, pastors have a way of delivering a message in a way where it can relate to a lot of people. The Bible is written in a way where if someone reads it, they can relate to parts of it that remind them of what's going on in their life. Thanks for sharing your story. It is very inspiring, and things will get better(: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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