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Goodbye Jesus

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Thegodthatfailed

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Hi people!

 

I have been a lurker on this site for a few years. Great forums and website by the way.

 

I abandoned Christianity over 4 years ago after much study and soul-searching.

The other night I informed my older brother who lives in Augusta, Georgia that I am no longer a Christian after He asked me if I went to Easter services.

He and his wife are fundys, so I was not sure what the reaction would be. Well, of course he was surprised to hear about me leaving the faith after being "saved"

since I was 9 years old. He is the first person I have told after all these years. He wanted to know why I rejected the Christian faith. I told him about how I had studied

the discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible especially the resurrection story he just finished celebrating. How all 4 different gospel accounts have

varying versions of the story and are not consistent with each other. Then he uses the car accident witness argument that I am sure many of you are familiar with.

We go back and forth about the historicity of the gospel accounts and some of the spurious scholarship that tries to justify the gospel accounts. We talked about 45 minutes and to make a long story short, after not making headway with his arguments he brings up Pascal's Wager. Which doesn't impress me and can be easily

refuted and applied to any religion or belief system. Anyway, He was pretty cool about the whole situation as far as fundys can be, he didn't reject or disown me or anything, but now of course he thinks I'm going to hell! I told him that I would rather go to hell than serve a tyrant for all of eternity. This kind of shocked him and he

said that the devil is the tyrant. Well, I said who made such an evil being in the first place? Now he wants me to e-mail a list of all the biblical contradictions which

shouldn't be that difficult to compile, just very long,LOL. I told him he asked for it and I will send it out today and not to blame me if he happens to lose his faith also,AS IF that would happen. He said not to worry about that.

I also went into what a sick, immoral religion X-inanity is. Don't see how an otherwise intelligent guy can believe such crap. His son is studying to be a doctor and

his daughter is a honor roll student in college. I guess being raised this way and all the brainwashing he gets at church, etc.

Well, glad I could share and hopefully this will be one of many more postings.

Can't wait to "meet" some of you great, open-minded people.

 

TGTF

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Welcome, TGTF! That is a very positive "coming out" story -- glad to hear he was actually willing to discuss it with you and (gasp!) ask for further information. I'm so happy that it went well for you.

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Hi, thanks for the welcome!

O.K., I sent my brother a list of contradictions in the Bible, http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm.

This is his reply: "Thank you for your list. You obviously know how to cut and paste. I did not understand that when I signed on to this that I would be fighting the entire legions of darkness but nonetheless bring them on, bring them all on!"

Didn't mean for him to take if personally. Don't know what he expected. Maybe just a blank page because we all know the buy-bull has no contradictions

:grin: Anyway since when is critically questioning an old book considered conspiring with the "legions of darkness", except in fundy-land?

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... How all 4 different gospel accounts have varying versions of the story and are not consistent with each other. Then he uses the car accident witness argument that I am sure many of you are familiar with.

...

Which means, if they really took it seriously, that the rest of the Gospel stories are unreliable, just as much as unreliable witnesses to a traffic accident. Meaning, did Jesus really say this or that, or are the sayings, quotes, details in all the rest of the stories now open for questioning? Well, of course they don't want that, because it could mean that Jesus never told them about the golden rule at all, but it was a false or bad memory by the writer. It could also mean that Jesus never "prophesied" about his death.

 

And, btw, Welcome TGHF.

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  • Super Moderator
fighting the entire legions of darkness

 

Laughing my ass off!

 

Anyway, welcome to the pit.

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Howdy and welcome to the defrocked flock!

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Sorry to hear your brother took things badly but the truth hurts and I've seen families more vindictive thatn strangers when leaving the church.

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Welcome to the forums, TGTF.

 

It's a pleasure to have another bright, funny heathen on board!

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Welcome, TGTF! Congratulations for telling your brother where you stand. It sounds like you held your own. Of course, never forget that he has the entire heavenly host on his side!!! :lmao:

 

I’m sure you’ll find lots to entertain you here and I am positive that we will enjoy your participation!

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Welcome, TGTF!

Thanks for sharing your story here. Interesting how your brother is engagin the whole conversation. Great! HOpe that goes well for you. Looking forward to more of your posts!

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Hi guys thanks for the warm welcome!

Doubt I will make much progess in convincing my brother about the errors the buy-bull is filled with.

Just got this e-mail from him stating:

 

"So far as legions of darkness I am refering to these demonic sources.

 

 

Self-Contradictions of the Bible by William Henry Burr (written in 1859 as a response to fundamentalism).

 

The X-Rated Bible: An Irreverent Survey of Sex in the Scriptures by Ben Edward Akerley

 

The Bible Handbook. (This is a compilation of several previous works by several authors, including W.P. Ball, G.W. Foote, and John Bowden. It's a collection of biblical contradictions, absurdities, atrocities, immoralities, indecencies, obscenities, unfulfilled prophecies and broken promises. This 372-page volume will give the atheist tons of scriptural ammunition for shooting down the flimsy arguments of the reality impaired.)

 

You said it would have taken you some time to go through your bible with a highlighter and marked these things and this would have required a lot of study. I do not believe you have researched these things for yourself but were all too willing for whatever the reason to take these things at face value. I am numbering them so that they can be delt with in a systematic manner and thereby disposed of. Today I am referring to number 11 "The bat is not a bird"

 

In verse 13 Moses tells us about the birds and then he lists them out. In verse 19 we see the bat is included in this list. We know that a bat is not a bird. Does this not mean that the Bible is incorrect?

The Bible is not meant to be a scientific description of modern biological categories. Instead, it is often written from the perspective of what we see. In other words, it makes generic categorizations. In this case, the bat is categorized as a bird because like birds, it flies and is similar in size to most birds. If we did not know that it was a mammal, it would be natural to call it a bird. To the Hebrew of ancient times, calling it a bird was perfectly logical. But, in modern times we categorize animal species, more specifically and have categorized the bat as a mammal and not a bird.

Also, we must be aware that it is modern science that has a different classification system than ancient times. To the ancients, creatures such as a bat were considered birds since they categorized all flying animals as birds. If that is the category that they used, then they were correct. It is not an error. It is a difference of categorization procedures. The critic has imposed upon the ancient text a modern system of categorization and then said that the Bible is wrong. This is a big error in thinking.

 

The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

 

Remember, eternity is a long time to be wrong."

 

I studied the Bible critically for months before I deconverted and yet, he accuses me of taking things at face value.

 

And, yes eternity is a long time to be wrong. He just can't entertain the possibly that he can be wrong.

 

After all, he has the ONE TRUE UNIVERSAL TRUTH on his side. :twitch:

 

How should I go about handling this?

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if there were a magical deconversion argument we'd all be using it ;-)

 

But here are a lot good arguments:

 

http://godisimaginary.com/

 

Tell him if God were loving and whatnot, he would not damn people for refusing to believe a poorly written, contradicting, 2000 year old book(officially cobbled together hundreds of years after Christ's death no less) written by a small segment of the world's cultures, and with stories mostly stolen from earlier pagan religions. And if God is not loving, and is setting people up to fail by being 'mysterious', then his *is* a tyrant.

 

The argument I love the most stem from studying human history, and the thousands of religions we've invented, (and continue to invent). Humans love to believe something is greater than what they observe, which is why we must use evidence because we clearly are flawed and can not trust our own spiritual musings.

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Hi ShallowByThyGame,

 

Yes, too bad there is no magical deconversion argument :grin:

 

Thanks for the suggestion about the website. Looks like there are some good arguments that I could use just skimming over it.

 

I'm really not even interested in debating him, though. I was just trying to offer him a few explantions as to why I left the faith.

 

Maybe I'll send him over here if he wants to debate!

 

I told him the other night I didn't care if he had all the evidence in the world to support X-ianty that I would still not follow it because it is such a

sick ,immoral ,ugly way of looking at the world.

 

Yes, I also told him I would rather go to hell than serve an insane tyrant for all of eternity.

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:grin: Hi!

I am also new here.

I suppose that's the problem with being "saved" when you are nine years old, you don't kow what you are doing yet!

 

I love it when christians are shocked by someone leaving the faith saying "But they were saved when they were three!" or "They said the word God once when they were two!"

 

yeah..just yeah..

 

Welcome!

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Ah the legions of darkness. Welcome. :)

 

The best thing (okay one of many many good things) about throwing off the mantle of xtianity is getting rid of paranoid delusions like the legions of darkness. *sigh*

 

Every time my sister gets sick (and lately for some reason that is often), she is "under attack". Wow, can't you just see a doctor like the rest of us? I'm so happy not to be constantly looking over my shoulder for the demons that are coming after me.

 

Anyway, I agree with you decision not to debate your brother. What would be the point really? I long ago gave up the practice of whacking my head on brick walls. And really, nit picking with every little bible contradiction (bats, birds... who gives a flying F?) is such a waste of time. Those things are not every going to deconvert anyone.

 

Heather

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Hi EastCoastGal, and upstarter

 

Yes, it is difficult to break the brainwashing if you have been taught a certain way since you were a child. It has to come from somewhere internally

for you to change your views about something. Does no good debating someone who has no doubts or interest in changing.

 

Now of course, he thinks I'm on "the highway to Hell". Like I'm the big loser for not devoting myself to something which has such filmsy evidence to back

it up. He feels sorry for me I suppose. Damnable X-ain pity! Well fuck that! I really feel sorry for him. Willing to base his entire existence on a fairy tale.

 

I mean he used to be cool and I really looked up to him. He was out-going, liked to joke around, very funny. Now he is just "fundy". :Hmm:

Think it may have something to do with his wife of over 25 years. She was raised in a strict Church of God background and I think she has a lot

of influence over him. Even though she is not above making crude, crass, kinky comments about things at times.

Now my brother thinks he is a bible scholar, even though he's never gotten more than a couple of degrees at technical colleges and repairs copiers for

a living. Also, thinks Ken Ham is a great scientist! :lmao: See why I won't debate him now?

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Welcome welcome!

 

I've been away for quite awhile myself so I should consider myself new haha! Sounds like you have some fun on your hands. Even if you don't debate with him, just have a little fun and continue to send him more and more stuff...eventually, he will get tired of trying to save you and focus his energy on a more simple target. That's the beauty of christianity...they only want to focus their energy where it will actually do some good...like a 4th grade classroom or something. There are so many evidences that the bible is incorrect that it isn't funny. I've even talked to some christians that agree that the bible isn't true...but they do not like it when I point out that if the bible isn't true, then they're basis of their god is fake too...gotta love it!

 

Good luck with the brother, man! Enjoy!

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Hi LtJayson,

 

I guess I could send my brother more stuff disputing the reality of xainanity, but fundys tend to squeal like scalded dogs when exposed to anything

that contradicts their beliefs.

 

The real challenge is his wife! You can read about it here- http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?showtopic=30116

 

Notice you are an ex-minister. Seems to me they are a lot of ministers that don't believe in the cardinal doctrines of the Bible, but continue to

draw a paycheck anyway. Guess most of them have to study the Bible critically in a Seminary and have to change their views if they are honest

with themselves. Unless, they go to one of the fly-by-night diploma mills. I salute you for your honesty in leaving the ministry, Lt. :grin:

 

thanks for the welcome!

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I absolutely agree with dte! Keeping peace in the family is worth it, and even if he writes you off, you haven't abandoned him, it's the other way around!

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You are absolutely right downtoearth! It really does no good to debate with someone who is so closed-minded.

I was just trying to explain a few of the reasons for my decoversion.

I e-mailed him the other day , telling him that I was no longer willing to debate him, and that we should just try to respect each other's

choices in what we believe and leave it at that. Haven't heard from him since. Hope he is cool with it.

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Welcome to the site Thegodthatfailed.

 

Awsome tag you have there. :D

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