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Goodbye Jesus

From Christian to Messianic to ????


Caro

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Hi, I am really pleased to have found this site. I will write a full testimony in time but for now I am enjoying the journey of discovering a whole new way of seeing the Bible and Judea/ Christian religion. I stooped believing in Hell about 6 years ago and now I am unraveling the second-coming/resurrection belief. So much to work through. Thank you to all who post on here. Your stories matter - you matter!

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Welcome. I'm certain you will final a lot of valuable information on this site that will help you in your journey. Bart Ehrman & Robert M. Price  are but two of many scholars that I think you would find helpful in your search for truth. 

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Welcome to ex-C.

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Thanks for the welcome. I am on to my second Bart Ehrman book:) 

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Welcome!

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Welcome to Ex-c. Glad you stopped believing in Hell. It is nice to be able to open up your mind and question what you've been told never to question. :)

 

I just happened to wonder what the general religious presence is in New Zealand? I mean is there heavy Christianity everywhere? Or is only in certain geographical areas? Is Christianity avoidable or is everyone a bible thumper? Yeah, I could just google it. :) The other NZ people here could jump in as well. :)

 

Enjoy the site.

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NZ is very multicultural so religion varies a lot here and our government leadership is very secular atheistic- the name Jesus was recently removed from the opening prayer in parliament. I will get back to my reply later though as I have a toddler to tend to now:-)

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Hello! I’m from New Zealand too! It’s so hard to deprogram all of the crap from your brain isn’t it! You spend so long being beaten into shape and beating yourself into shape that it’s weird when you don’t have to anymore. Hard to know what to do with the freedom!

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1 hour ago, Kittenswonderment said:

Hello! I’m from New Zealand too! It’s so hard to deprogram all of the crap from your brain isn’t it! You spend so long being beaten into shape and beating yourself into shape that it’s weird when you don’t have to anymore. Hard to know what to do with the freedom!

HNZ is very multicultural so religion varies a lot here and our government leadership is very secular atheistic- the name Jesus was recently removed from the opening prayer in parliament. I will get back to my reply later though as I have a toddler to tend to now:-)

ok back😀

All the major religions are represented in NZ mostly within their typical cultural contexts. But Christianity crosses all cultures. My background is Pentecostal Baptist from age 10-20 followed by 10 years of “backsliding “ (fell in love and lived with my boyfriend-felt guilty but it was so much easier to live together than flat separately in a big city away from our parents plus we knew we would get married anyway) then had a crises of conscience turning 30 with 2 little kids. Oh no 🤦🏼‍♀️ I have to tell them about God, what if I died? I want to go to heaven if I die and I don’t want my kids to grow up ignorant of the Bible and salvation! 

So went to a large non denominational Pentecostal church up the road and felt like I was home. Hubby soon joined me and for the next 4 years threw ourselves into it all! 

Back later

 

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Welcome! Yeah it's a lot to work through! It took me ages to get passed the fear of hell even after I stopped believing. They really program it deep into you!

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Hi Caro

 

I've said welcome already, but I'll give you one on your own thread. Welcome to Ex-C

 

9 hours ago, Caro said:

HNZ is very multicultural so religion varies a lot here and our government leadership is very secular atheistic- the name Jesus was recently removed from the opening prayer in parliament. I will get back to my reply later though as I have a toddler to tend to now:-)

ok back😀

 

Aye that was a great move on the part of Trevor Mallard. The Christians wailed a bit, but even in Parliament there are many for whom Jesus is not part of their religion. Made sense.

 

You probably saw on Kittens thread that we have a real time chat channel - you can find details here. There are at least two of us from NZ on it. We'd love to have more

 

 

Wishing you all the best on your de-conversion journey.

 

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"Hi LogicalFallacy,

 

i noticed on your profile that you are interested in ancient humans and ancient earth. Can you recommend and good books with solid information which you have read on these topics. Coming from a Messianic background where there is a lot of emphasis on the 7 thousand year timeline in the Bible I would learn how to disprove this.

Thanks

Caro"

 

@Caro I thought I'd answer this in your own thread.

 

I assume when you talk about the 7,000 year timeline you mean that your background is creationist (The earth was created 6,000 years ago in 6 days, and on the 7th God rested), and each day represents 1,000 years, and at the end of 6,000 years Jesus will return and begin the "millennial reign"? (He's late for a start! :) )

 

Most of my knowledge in this area comes from Documentaries and reading science related info on the web. I also listen to a lot of audio books. See disillusioned and my posts below this one for recommendations. 

 

The 6,000 year old earth is easily disproved to anyone who values reason and evidence. IF however the people you are trying to convince are like my family then its all a plot by Satan to deceive people. At the end of the arguments when you present the evidence and have shown them why their 'evidence' is wrong they resort to some variation of Satan deceiving the whole world.

 

I found the book Why I Believed by Kenneth Daniels to be very good because of the broad subject matter - he goes through evidence for age of earth, while prophesy fails, worldviews, morality etc.

 

There are several major subject areas that all disprove the 6,000 year old earth:

 

Astronomy and Cosmology. We can measure the speed of light and the distance it travels per year. We can also measure how far away stars are in light years. A star 100,000 light years away has been there for at least 100,000 years for us to see the light.

 

Geology shows the earth is older than 6,000 years.

 

Evolution shows the same thing.

 

There are trees living today that are older than 6,000 years, Icecores going back 120,000 years have been dug out of Greenland.

 

You can start with this - after that the knowledge you can gain is endless

 

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Welcome Caro!

 

Regarding the 6000-7000 thing, I recommend The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins. There's a nice discussion of radiometric dating in there that really puts this issue to bed. Another book to check out is Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. Both are relatively easy to read and very informative.

 

There's also lots of good stuff in astronomy/cosmology to check out, but I haven't read as many popular science books there personally. We've had a few great discussions about this here recently though, and I'm always happy to talk about it more.

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Welcome!!

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4 hours ago, disillusioned said:

Welcome Caro!

 

Regarding the 6000-7000 thing, I recommend The Greatest Show on Earth, by Richard Dawkins. There's a nice discussion of radiometric dating in there that really puts this issue to bed. Another book to check out is Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. Both are relatively easy to read and very informative.

 

I knew I'd forgotten to mention other books and Greatest Show on Earth was one of them. Thanks disillusioned. 

 

I am wondering if one of the Carl Sagan books would be good Astronomy/Cosmology books?

 

@Caro I haven't read it but Stephen Hawings  A Brief History of Time might be a good read. Also Neil Degrasse Tysons Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is an interesting read.

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Thanks everyone for your replies. I have sooo much reading to do- it’s a good thing I love to read! The 7 thousand year timeline referrred specifically to the supposed 6 thousand years since the creation of Adam followed by 1000 years of Jesus’reign on Earth. Most of my believeing friends don’t seriously think the Earth was made in 6 literal days or that the universe young. But to be able to show my mother in particular that humans have been around for a lot longer than 6K years might be a start. As a side note my brother is an award winning astrophotographer who is passionate about astronomy. Unlike most of my family (immediate and extended) he is staunch agnostic. If he knew the path I’m on now- we’ll he might throw a party😂😂😂

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30 minutes ago, Caro said:

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have sooo much reading to do- it’s a good thing I love to read! The 7 thousand year timeline referrred specifically to the supposed 6 thousand years since the creation of Adam followed by 1000 years of Jesus’reign on Earth. Most of my believeing friends don’t seriously think the Earth was made in 6 literal days or that the universe young. But to be able to show my mother in particular that humans have been around for a lot longer than 6K years might be a start. As a side note my brother is an award winning astrophotographer who is passionate about astronomy. Unlike most of my family (immediate and extended) he is staunch agnostic. If he knew the path I’m on now- we’ll he might throw a party😂😂😂

 

Oooh astrophotography... I'm just getting into that.

 

Right so your family is one of the old earth but humanity only 6,000 years old variants...

 

So the book Greatest Show on Earth will blow that one out of the water, but they'd have to accept evolution as fact.

 

We can show that humans, in their current form, have been around at least 200,000 years. The oldest cities in the world are older than 6,000 years so they make a great starting point. Pretty hard to have Adam starting humanity at 6,000 years when we have cities at 9,000 or 12,000 years yes? And that's continuously inhabited until today. There are ruins even older!

 

https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/eco-tourism/stories/12-oldest-continuously-inhabited-cities

 

 

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Cool. Thanks for the link. 

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