I Just Dont Get It!

[Guest kjb]

First a little backround. I was "saved" in 1990 when i was 21. (i am now 38) I was raised in a roman cathlolic home, only mom went to church while dad slept in. My older brother introduced me to the "christian way". That lasted for 1 1/2 years. I always have and supose always will believe in god. That he is the creator.

 

In recent months, my intrest in my faith have led me to this site any many others, watching Joyce Meyer & Joel Olsteen. listening to family radio, reading my bible again.

Only this time i am thinking for myself and doing alot of reading online from different point of views. I must remember to mention to you that when i was saved at age of 21 it was not for the true love of jesus, it was because of the fear of of HELL. Hell was everywere, in all the books i read, near death experiences, preachers on tv, in the music i listened to, in the church, everywere!!!!

 

Now, i dont claim to know it all. In fact, far from it!! But this has been on my chest, HEAVY! My first child, a 2 1/2 year old daughter has been a huge reason for my recent search. I refuse to have her live in fear of some hell of tournment!!

 

I find myself praying, and asking to jesus to come into my heart and life, and at the same time i am saying to myself "there is no god" but i really dont believe that. Confused? I know, tell me about it!!!

 

The bible says that god knew of me before i was born, and knows every hair on my head. He has a devine plan for me, but yet it also says that 2/3 of the humans on earth will go to hell. Why was i born if i am one of those 2/3 under his devine plan to go to hell FOREVER AND EVER.

 

I do believe in a god and a heaven. I just dont understand how an all loving god could do that to 2/3 of his human creation. How is that all loving???

Even though i dont believe in a pugatory, it is starting to sound pretty good. I mean Hitler goes to hell, fine. I go to the same place because i look at a woman with lust.

I throw my hands in the air because i just dont get it!!!!!!!!!!

 

I thought jesus paid for our sins, aparently it wasent enough. We are born, being impossible for us not to sin, is this some kind of sick joke on us?!?!

 

i recently also got very interested in NDE. There are all these people seeing hell, Jesus, demons, ext. at the moment of death. The bible says when we die, our bodies stay asleep in the ground and when jesus returns we will then be risen to either be with christ or to be judged. WHICH ONE IS IT ?

 

I am beyond frustrated and frankly i am sick of these thoughts that wont leave my head. It wont let me live in peace!!!

P.S. I am a bad speller. pls dont waste your time slaming me for my gramer, i have enough problems!!

[Vigile]

Not only do you, the guy who is swimming in the gospel as it surrounds you on the airwaves, on signs as you drive, in church on Sunday, etc..., get to burn in hell for all eternity - infinite time for finite crimes - but so does the poor kid who grew up in Pakistan, Arabia, New Guinea, who may or may not have even heard the name Jesus before.

 

But god is a fair judge so I'm sure he knows what he is doing.

 

Good luck with your search. You are where I was when I first started asking the hard questions. Keep it up.

 

Here's what I did. I determined that if what I had been led to believe was truth, then it would stand the test of my hard questions. If it fell apart under scrutiny, then I'd want to know. I started out asking prayerfully, innocently seeking wisdom. In the end the whole ball of wax burned up as "facts" didn't hold up. You will need to find that out on your own though.

[xandermac]

I think you're on the right track. I was also where you are and not that long ago. I was always taught that you don't question god, so I was afraid for years to even search for the truth. Keep reading and searching. Watch the movie "The god who wasn't there". I predict in the near future it will all become a lot clearer to you. Good luck.

[Japedo]

i recently also got very interested in NDE. There are all these people seeing hell, Jesus, demons, ext. at the moment of death. The bible says when we die, our bodies stay asleep in the ground and when jesus returns we will then be risen to either be with christ or to be judged. WHICH ONE IS IT ?

 

I am beyond frustrated and frankly i am sick of these thoughts that wont leave my head. It wont let me live in peace!!!

P.S. I am a bad speller. pls dont waste your time slaming me for my gramer, i have enough problems!!

 

Hello KJB,

 

I wish you much luck on your search. I've been there and my kids were also a motivating factor in that search for the real truth ™. I wanted to raise them right. So many doctrines and interpretations how is one to possibly know with out looking?

 

I don't know if it will help you as we each have our own paths, but it's advice in any case,you can take it or disregard it. I started going backwards throughout the history of the 'church'. For me I started with the assembly of god, worked my way back all the way to the foundation of the Protestants. Which was broken off of the Catholics by Martin Luther. In doing that.. I was also looking into ancient religions that were around and practiced before Christianity. How odd to find the exact same story's even down to our basic 'Christian' holidays are all redone sun worship. That also includes the underworld, hades and so forth you know as hell.

 

Once I looked at hell as a story the Egyptians held, the fear went away. I relate it to redone ancient myths. Me telling you this of course isn't going to stop the fear, you're going to have to do research yourself in order to deprogram the fear you've been taught to hold as truth.

 

Also, it helped to see God as a whole character. Yes we are told time and time again that god is patient, god is kind, loving, understanding and all those wonderful things. The actual truth of the matter is the god of the bible is nothing we are told if you look at what it says. Use your own measuring stick of Justice. Look at your child and if your child grew up to hate you or doubt you, would you really sentence your child to an eternity of torture? Mere mortals go to jail for less, how can an all just being be so unjust?

 

 

I can go on and on with 'gods love' it's sicking and abusive. It is no more love then a beaten wife receives from her abuser. The church and all its mouth pieces love to tell people they are worthless, lowly beings not worthy of any kindness or love. They love to beat people down in order to control them. This is all as clear to me looking on the outside, when I was in it however... well lets just say Denial is a dangerous thing.

 

It is a hard struggle, The harder of grip of fear on you, the more you're going to have to overcome it, trust me. Once you face it, it will no longer have any sort of power over you. Not in the sense of fear anyway. It might turn to anger that's the road I went down, but everyone's different. But the freedom I found once escaping the brainwashing and indoctrination of fear I've found is indescribable. It was worth every ounce of tears I shed, and struggles I faced and then some.

 

Good luck, and we're here if you need to talk.

[R. S. Martin]

i recently also got very interested in NDE. There are all these people seeing hell, Jesus, demons, ext. at the moment of death. The bible says when we die, our bodies stay asleep in the ground and when jesus returns we will then be risen to either be with christ or to be judged. WHICH ONE IS IT ?

 

I am beyond frustrated and frankly i am sick of these thoughts that wont leave my head. It wont let me live in peace!!!

P.S. I am a bad speller. pls dont waste your time slaming me for my gramer, i have enough problems!!

 

I don't know that I've got that much to add. Just that you come across as a sincere seeker and most of us can identify with that. There was a time when I believe NDEs were indicative of the afterlife, but recently I read that the oxygen-deprived brain sees what it is trained to see, or what it expects to see. This agrees with stories I've read. I read about a North American Native who had converted to Christianity. But he became sick unto death and was dilerious. He dreamed that he saw heaven, but all the footprints he saw were whitemen's boot prints. No Native moccosin footprints. He returned to the religion of his people because he did not want to go to a white man's heaven; he wanted to go to his own people's heaven. Since he was probably not the only Christian Native, it seems rather dubious to think that his dream or NDE was an accurate picture of the afterlife.

[SWIM]

i recently also got very interested in NDE. There are all these people seeing hell, Jesus, demons, ext. at the moment of death. The bible says when we die, our bodies stay asleep in the ground and when jesus returns we will then be risen to either be with christ or to be judged. WHICH ONE IS IT ?

 

I am beyond frustrated and frankly i am sick of these thoughts that wont leave my head. It wont let me live in peace!!!

P.S. I am a bad speller. pls dont waste your time slaming me for my gramer, i have enough problems!!

 

I don't know that I've got that much to add. Just that you come across as a sincere seeker and most of us can identify with that. There was a time when I believe NDEs were indicative of the afterlife, but recently I read that the oxygen-deprived brain sees what it is trained to see, or what it expects to see. This agrees with stories I've read. I read about a North American Native who had converted to Christianity. But he became sick unto death and was dilerious. He dreamed that he saw heaven, but all the footprints he saw were whitemen's boot prints. No Native moccosin footprints. He returned to the religion of his people because he did not want to go to a white man's heaven; he wanted to go to his own people's heaven. Since he was probably not the only Christian Native, it seems rather dubious to think that his dream or NDE was an accurate picture of the afterlife.

 

FYI there is also NDE stories where children come back claiming to have been with cartoon caracters, like TMNTs and the like...

 

Does that give you any idea how credible NDEs are?

[RedPillAddict]

The bible says that god knew of me before i was born, and knows every hair on my head. He has a devine plan for me, but yet it also says that 2/3 of the humans on earth will go to hell. Why was i born if i am one of those 2/3 under his devine plan to go to hell FOREVER AND EVER.

 

The Bible also says the Earth is flat and only 6,000 years old. It says to stone your child to death if he talks back to you. It says murder is ok if it's in God's name and rape is ok as long as the rapist marries his victim.

 

The Bible says a lot of things.

 

The question is: does it really matter what the Bible says?

Who really wrote it and why?

Myths and assumptions aside, isn't it just another book?

[RedPillAddict]

FYI there is also NDE stories where children come back claiming to have been with cartoon caracters, like TMNTs and the like...

 

Does that give you any idea how credible NDEs are?

 

No, but it finally validates the credibility of the freaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, baby!!!!!!

 

There is an afterlife, and that afterlife will be spent with turtles. 6 ft tall turtles that know freaking kungfu, because they were taught by a 5ft rat!

Thats if you are good of course...you don't want to spend eternity in Shredder's Pit fighting the Foot Clan.

[Robbobrob]

FYI there is also NDE stories where children come back claiming to have been with cartoon caracters, like TMNTs and the like...

 

Does that give you any idea how credible NDEs are?

 

No, but it finally validates the credibility of the freaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, baby!!!!!!

 

There is an afterlife, and that afterlife will be spent with turtles. 6 ft tall turtles that know freaking kungfu, because they were taught by a 5ft rat!

Thats if you are good of course...you don't want to spend eternity in Shredder's Pit fighting the Foot Clan.

Well, duh, isn't it turles that hold the earth up?

 

turtles all the way down....and they know kung fu and eat pizza too. Big Flat Earthlike pizzas.....oh no....was that a giant turle head I se on the horizon....could it be the End Times?????

 

"I like turles".....the prise pigs will be posting shortly, looking for their $1,000....LOL

[LosingMyReligion]

Basically, the bible is bullshit. I am so glad that you aren't indoctrinating your child into believing in that mess. We all used to profess Jesus simply because we were afraid. It wasn't about having fellowship with some cosmic hippie. It was about not incinerating for all eternity. Organized religion is repulsive. Good on you for discovering this.

[par4dcourse]

Question every thing and every body. Truth will stand up to scrutiny.

[Mongo]

Welcome and good luck on your search. I too had taken the view that if god is truth then he can handle the hard questions.

 

As to hell, I strongly suggest you do some Internet research on the topic. Find out what other people think of it and also find out what knowledgable people say about it.

 

Try to answer difficult questions like, why don't Jews have a similar hell concept as christians. This is a really important question. After all, if hell is real, god should have made it real stinkin' clear to Adam, Abraham and Moses what the consequences of disobediance are. Yet hell is a relatively new concept. How can that be?

 

If you have energy after that you might consider educating yourself regarding the "literal" word of god. This is a point of doctrine that christians defend vigorously and where there is a lot of evidence to the contrary that they do not even admit to its existance. If you can understand what the bible really is and what it is not, you will have a much better handle on what to do about it.

 

On Tuesday I started reading Bart D. Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus. The author was a dedicated born again christian and went to Moody institute. The more he studied and wanted to understand the "holy" scriptures the more and more problems he found with he belief system. If you can go to a book store and read the introduction, you'll find a ton of information you have never considered.

 

I loved his argument that, if the new testament is really gods literal and holy word, then why was god unable to perform the basic (and critically important) miracle of perserving his word from corruption from human beings? I'm dying to finish the book.

 

Take care!

 

Mongo

[qadeshet]

What kind of a parent wound sentence billions of his children to everlasting punishment? Does such a god deserve our love? Only a god of infinite cruelty could conceive of such an evil plan. And if there is no Hell to save us from, then there is no reason for the sacrifice on the cross. I would rather burn in Hell than serve the cruel and vengeful god that would send me there.

[Robbobrob]

Question every thing and every body. Truth will stand up to scrutiny.

Very true.

[R. S. Martin]

One of the first shocking things I learned in my OT course was that there are multiple Gods in the OT. Some of the words translated into English as God or Lord are in Hebrew Elohim. El=god. And I understand the last part of the word makes it plural. This is reflected in the KJV with capitalization, etc. That is how I remember it. I didn't take very good notes. I was mezermized by the very concepts. Some of this might be in "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Elliott Friedman. The course was taught by a Christian in a Christian school. Obviously, not by fundies, but by people who accept higher biblical criticism.