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Goodbye Jesus

De-Conversion, Part 6: Spiritual Limbo Pt. 1


SkepticalDaniel

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Senior year came, I was 18 years old at the time, and in a state of confusion. Was the King James Bible really the only Bible? Was a really saved? Could I be able to lead my fellow classmates towards Christ? These thoughts tore at my conscience. I'd already failed the previous year, and I was so determined not to fail again; I couldn't fail this time!

 

It was time to do some more KJV Bible studying, so that I could truly understand what was in there, and I started with the Old Testament. I was on the 11th chapter of the book of Leviticus, at the point where the Israelites where given a list of fowls that they couldn't eat (for those who might be interested, a fowl is a term for a bird for human consumption, the word in the original Hebrew is Strong's H5775 which means "a bird (as covered with feathers, or rather as covering with wings)", bare this in mind):

 

Leviticus 11:13-19 "And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they arean abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat."

 

Deuteronomy 14:11-18 "Of all clean birds ye shall eat. But these are they of which ye shall not eat: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind, And every raven after his kind, And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, The little owl, and the great owl, and the swan, And the pelican, and the gier eagle, and the cormorant, And the stork, and the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat."

 

Yes, that's right! Both those passages classify the bat as being a bird. But how could this be? The Bible was the inspired, inerrant, non-contradictory Word of the Living God. Surely the God who inspired this would've known that the bat - a creature that he created - is a flying mammal, would we? I was panicked. There had to be some explanation for this... and I thought of one, the ancient Hebrews simply didn't have the classification system that we have no in the modern world, so it was correct for them to say that the bat was a bird - No! That was ridiculous. I simply decided to let that one go and study even further, this time in the latter book of Deuteronomy, because the 22nd chapter dealt with a topic of female modesty, which was a huge OCD topic.

 

Deuteronomy 22:5 "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so areabomination unto the LORD thy God."

 

This verse above was typically used by the IFB to condemn women wearing pants to Hell. In fact, I'd recently read an article on the subject during my senior year that had caused a great amount of distress, as I knew many professed Christian girls at my high school who wore pants and were "immodest" who would most certainly be going to Hell. I had to do something! I prayed constantly, but to no avail. Nevertheless, I continued to explore the 22nd chapter, and it got stranger.

 

Deuteronomy 22:6-11 "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days. When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled. Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together."

 

These laws seemed absurd! Why would a God care about people wearing diverse fabrics? "This is only Mosaic Law," I told myself, "everything God says has its place!" So, I continued reading the chapter, and it went from silly, to downright disturbing...

 

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 "If a man find a damsel that isa virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."

 

I couldn't believe what I'd just read. "Maybe it was just talking about consensual sex," I told myself, so like the other parts, I just let it slide. Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst of it:

 

Exodus 21:20-21 "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."

 

Leviticus 25:44-46 "Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour."

 

It was like a stab in the chest! The Bible, the very book that I loved and cherished, actually condoned slavery. This couldn't be possible! Even worse, it also supported rape-marriages:

 

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 "If a man find a damsel that isa virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."

 

I didn't want to believe it. "Maybe it was consensual sex, maybe it was indentured servitude, and maybe Exodus 21 was talking about an accidental death!" I rationalized, and moved on. The only thing that I wanted to focus on was studying the Bible and learning new ways to save souls, as I had the basic Soul-Winning outline figured out:

 

1. The wages of Sin is Death (Ezekiel 18:20, Romans 6:23)

2. The price of Sin is Hell (Revelation 21:8)

3. Christ died for those who believe in him (John 3:16)

4. Believe in Jesus and you'll be saved (Romans 10:9)

 

Easy plan... I suppose, all I simply needed to do in my spare time was knock on as many doors as I could and share the gospel. Another serious issue was the issue of contemporary Christian music, which I at first, didn't really seem to mind, but after being naively suckered into the KJV-only mindset, began to fear. I certainly couldn't trust the Methodist church I was going to, since they didn't use the KJV and had "worldly" music. My life was in absolute chaos. At some point during my senior year, a thought entered my head: Are you really doing this because you love God, or are you doing this because you're afraid of being punished? "Oh crap," I said to myself, "talk about hitting me where it hurts!" So, I asked God to examine me (Psalm 26:2), but with no avail. The year continued, with me constantly browsing those websites, and me getting even sicker and sicker, until I eventually came across compelling evidence that the one man who ran that site that is discovered was a sex offender: http://davidjstewartexposed.blogspot.com/?m=1

 

My world fell apart again. If I couldn't trust David J. Stewart, then who could I trust? The Apostle Peter said in Acts 5:29 that we ought to obey God rather than men, but how could I obey a God when I couldn't understand what he wanted? Could it be possible that I couldn't understand because I was a natural man laking discernment (1 Corinthians 2:14)? The prospect was becoming too frightening to stand. I was broken and no use to the body of Christ at that point, and Jesus did say that he would spit lukewarm believers out of his mouth (Revelation 3:16), and I was certain he was going to do the same to me, and worst of all, I'd be given over to what the Bible calls a "reprobate mind".

 

Romans 1:28-32 "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

 

Was that going to happen to me? I prayed for it not to, but it soon felt hopeless, since God doesn't hear sinners (John 9:31).

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All I can send is my love. I hope that you aren't feeling so helpless anymore.

Oh, I'm not feeling too hopeless anymore. In fact, I think I'm feeling much better.

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I remember all of those feelings and thoughts. I think there are those people like you and I who always expected that...if this is true and real...then it should work. We should be able to pray and see results. If we can raise the dead by the power of Christ...then why don't we? If we can lay hands on the sick and have them recover...then why is it that the percentage of recoveries is the same with or without prayer?

 

Of course the majority of those believers around me were perfectly content to accept the explanations that I myself found to be completely lacking. Maybe it wasn't His will...they would say. But it IS...it says do in my Bible. It doesn't say they MIGHT recover...it says they WILL. If Gods will is carved in stone and unshakable, then the act of praying for things to be different seems ludicrous.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My conclusion is that all God care is himself, his own glory, his satisfaction, his ego - at the expense of the immense suffering of his so called " children".  How can a loving father can stand by while his children is being tortured, murdered and worst all through the history of mankind. I can never reconcile of the blood thirsty God in OT to the loving Jesus in NT.  One incident that make me so mad for being so naïve for so long for looking up Moses as role model can be found in Numbers 31 - Moses is a war criminal of the worst kind. Not only he ordered the wholesale slaughter of the men, but later he was so upset with his commander for sparing the women and children. 

 

Moses rushed out from his camp and demanded all the women and boys be slaughtered and saved the virgin girls that his commanders (aka God's might warrior) so they can spoiled them.  What kind of God is this ?  Moses as God's best friend.

 

And God's favorite reset button is whole sale slaughter such as the big flood because he mess up in his creation of mankind, blaming human that we sinned and should be terminated by flooding everyone except Noah's family which in my view is just as faulted as the thousands (or may be millions) of people drowned. And the history repeat again.  Where is the Holy Spirit then (one that is so powerful in the NT that converted thousands in the Pentecostal in the book of the apostles.)  Why kill us when God you can save us.

 

Book of Job used to inspire me as Job endure the suffering as every good Christian should. Now when I look at this book it just re-inforce my belief God care only about himself. He used Job's incredible suffering (lost your health and lost your children) to show off how faithful a man Job is. Is this what you call a loving father ?

 

For me to continue as Christian is to shut down half of my brain and trust God as loving, and faithful and just that I no longer can believe in - even after 40 years of following him. Now I am just so angry, so angry of those the Christian groups (Campus crusade now called CRU, and cult like Navigators) who so ruthless intruded into people's lives many years ago. 

 

My limbo is that I believe the God of the Bible. I will never be able to be atheist. Nature speaks for itself the existence of God. But how can I trust this God as loving when everything I saw in the world and experience the contrary.  I think God should be very proud of Donald Trump, like father like son because Trump  is such a narcissistic sociopath. I felt so guilty for dissing God this way. I want to love him and give him praise, like I have doing in the past many years.

 

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and these things you need in your life shall be added unto you" - Matthew 6:33

" Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and rely not in your own understanding, in all your way you acknowledge him, and he will straighten your path " - Proverbs 3:5-6

 

On and on, all these wonderful promises so comforting, what I memorized.  I just feel so very very angry at a God who betrayed me. 

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