Focus on Jesus, not on People?

[Moxie]

The hypocrisy of the church was the main reason I deconverted. When I tell Christians this, their response is something like, "Look to Jesus, not to people" or "Don't let the hypocrites rob you of your relationship with God."

 

I spent years in a church where Christians were cheating at their own game of salvation and morality, and then when I dared to raise the standard and tell them that I wanted human friendship and love, they said "Jesus is the one who loves you. That's what matters!"

 

Those responses never made sense to me. I am a human being who needs human connection. Being snubbed and ostracized by Christians, and then being told by the same Christians "Focus on Jesus, he loves you" really hurts.

[Geezer]

I left religion after years of study & research convinced me the Bible is simply a collection of fictional stories, aka theological myths, with fictional characters. The evidence suggest Jesus was a fictional character. The only place historians can find a Jesus of Nazareth is in the Gospel story. If he actually existed he left no historical footprint. 

 

As as far as I can determine Christianity is not based on any real events or real people. People believe it because they are afraid if they don't they will go to hell,.......another fictional place. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

Response: "You can't look to someone who never shows up."

 

[midniterider]

17 hours ago, Bookworm said:

The hypocrisy of the church was the main reason I deconverted. When I tell Christians this, their response is something like, "Look to Jesus, not to people" or "Don't let the hypocrites rob you of your relationship with God."

 

I spent years in a church where Christians were cheating at their own game of salvation and morality, and then when I dared to raise the standard and tell them that I wanted human friendship and love, they said "Jesus is the one who loves you. That's what matters!"

 

Those responses never made sense to me. I am a human being who needs human connection. Being snubbed and ostracized by Christians, and then being told by the same Christians "Focus on Jesus, he loves you" really hurts.

 

Jesus is not an independent person. He never talks or appears on his own behalf. Jesus is just a collection of ideas that Christians grew up with, read from the bible, or told each other. So I guess 'not looking to people' would remove the Jesus influence from your life as well. If you ignore the Christian hypocrites you could end up meeting good solid non-religious people.

 

So you might tell your old Christian churchmates, "Thanks for the advice! I looked to Jesus! And found my deconversion"

 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

You deserve what you're looking for. Of course human beings want human connections. 

 

Is it just me or do many/most Christians use Jesus predominantly as an excuse, instead of as guidance? 

[★ Citsonga ★]

On 2/20/2018 at 6:31 PM, DestinyTurtle said:

Is it just me or do many/most Christians use Jesus predominantly as an excuse, instead of as guidance? 

 

The Christians basically are "Jesus." How else could it be that "Jesus" always agrees with them? When they look to "Jesus," they're looking to themselves. 

 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

20 hours ago, Citsonga said:

 

The Christians basically are "Jesus." How else could it be that "Jesus" always agrees with them? When they look to "Jesus," they're looking to themselves. 

 

Yeah. A lot of people use Jesus's name as a sleight of hand to veil their narcissism. Isn't that literally the definition of "using the Lord's name in vain" (as in, literally, for your vanity?)? 

[MOHO]

39 minutes ago, DestinyTurtle said:

Yeah. A lot of people use Jesus's name as a sleight of hand to veil their narcissism. Isn't that literally the definition of "using the Lord's name in vain" (as in, literally, for your vanity?)? 

 

My biggest irritation with the fundy/chritty crowd.

 

"I just mentioned Jesus's name so YOU MUST bow down to ME and do as I say and believe EVERYTHING I say!"

 

Yeah, I'm a little jaded here. But when you live with that mentality AND accidentally land on the myriad of radio stations in the immediate area spewing this crap when scanning channels - it has an impact.

[quinntar]

On 19/02/2018 at 9:22 AM, Bookworm said:

The hypocrisy of the church was the main reason I deconverted. When I tell Christians this, their response is something like, "Look to Jesus, not to people" or "Don't let the hypocrites rob you of your relationship with God."

 

I spent years in a church where Christians were cheating at their own game of salvation and morality, and then when I dared to raise the standard and tell them that I wanted human friendship and love, they said "Jesus is the one who loves you. That's what matters!"

 

Those responses never made sense to me. I am a human being who needs human connection. Being snubbed and ostracized by Christians, and then being told by the same Christians "Focus on Jesus, he loves you" really hurts.

The reality is that Jesus is one's best shot for invisible love. It's narcissism in it's highest form.

[Lerk]

On 2/18/2018 at 5:22 PM, Bookworm said:

The hypocrisy of the church was the main reason I deconverted. When I tell Christians this, their response is something like, "Look to Jesus, not to people" or "Don't let the hypocrites rob you of your relationship with God."

 

I'm glad for you! Seems there are a lot of things that cause people to deconvert. For me it was realizing that Genesis 3 was about a snake and that there was no Satan there. I have a son who deconveted because he decided he really needed to read his Bible more and he followed through. Oops! Some people, like you, just realize that being Christian doesn't really magically change people like it's supposed to, so you know its claims are bogus. No, it wasn't hypocrites robbing you, it was a failure of a promise that Christianity makes, making it obvious to you that it isn't real.

 

Whatever causes a person to realize that there are no such things as gods is a good thing. I think being an atheist has made me a better person, but it's because I was already a pretty good person and have always wanted to be a good person. I know there are lots of despicable atheists, but if they were ever Christians, or of they were ever to become Christians, they would have been or would become really nasty Christians. Even if they're nasty atheists, it's better than having people believe in magic and try to make laws based on an ancient book.

[austere]

Focus on Jesus, not on people?

 

"He's dead, sweetie, he's not doing much these days..."

 

But I get what you mean.

I don't have a good answer for you, @Bookworm . It was my refrain right up until I left. I just want you to know I hear you.

[RachelSkates]

They hate Jesus and no one I ever met acts like He did. I like Jesus. I lke Seneca. I like Diogenes the Cynic. I like Marcus Aurelius. 

 

Same message but people are not tainting their memory.

 

There was a nice mman named Jesus. He was cool. He was  a cynic like Diogenes and a stoic like Seneca. And people felt bad when he was crucified. Like they felt bad when they poisoned Socrates.  Just like they felt bad when they stabbed Caesar. They just never deified Socrates. But they DID deify Caesar and beleive me, they REALLY believed he was a god as much as we believed Jesus was one. 

 

Jesus is the new deified mortal. He is the latest, but perhaps not the last. People like that shit . And who knows? Maybe he went somewhere, maybe he was an alien, maybe  XYZ.............

 

but that does not mean we are................

[superbrady]

99% of Christians that you and I have met are hypocrites. Modern Christians are buffet line Christians... they choose to embrace the passages that are comfortable to them and throw out the rest. Yet they’ll tell you the Bible is the infallible word of God. There’s a reason why Christians focus on the mercy and love bits instead of orders by God on how to keep slaves of many kinds, to kill homosexuals, throwing babies against rocks, hitting your children with rods, and so on... nobody would take them seriously if anyone espoused these views. So they water them down and claim that those are non-issues today since Jesus came and we need to examine the historical context or whatever (though there’s no historical context to justify these behaviors... they’re morally depraved). And, in the modern world, many of those pesky laws wouldn’t be adopted by many Christians in my area... they love their pulled pork sandwiches. So they often say that Paul says that you’re saved by faith and not works, and by extension, the laws are no longer taken into account... even though the Old Testament says the law is eternally binding and Jesus says that not one “jot or tittle” is to be removed from the law and that he did not come to take away the law. You’d think Jesus would have more authority than Paul, a person who never met Jesus in real life, on these matters but I guess not.  

 

 And when Christians has want to “sin”, such as to have sex before marriage for example, they will always say “oh, Jesus will forgive me”, often while condemning the vices of other people that they do not have. It’s pretty ridiculous. It seems like Jesus to many Christians is often an excuse to do whatever the hell you want, as long as you ask for forgiveness afterward. 

 

The ironic thing is that I felt like I was solely following Jesus in the events leading up to my deconversion. I felt that Jesus “lead” me to read the Old Testament. And it eventually lead to the death of my faith because I couldn’t get myself to accept the moral monster Yahweh is in the Bible.