Introduction

[LogicalFallacy]

2 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

Spiritual beliefs are my interest. I realize for an authentic atheist this may mean no spiritual beliefs at all, but it seems sometimes even atheists have a spiritual card up their sleeve (so to say). Like Sam Harris for example.

 

What is your definition of spiritual? Sam Harris does talk about spirituality, but often its not the same as what a religious person means. It's usually so poorly defined and understood that people describe watching the sun set as a 'spiritual' experience. If that's the case, then I also am spiritual. However if you are referring to something or other that is outside our reality (Like say if you thought that spiritual was the spirit of God moving in you) then no I don't believe in the spiritual.

 

So if you can properly define spiritual, and perhaps propose criteria by which we might know if something is a spiritual experience as opposed to just an emotional experience then we can have a talk around it.

[Joshpantera]

3 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

Are you spiritual?

 

I've argued that I can be more spiritual than a christian. Due to the many problems associated with christian theology versus some of the more sophisticated renditions of spiritual thinking in the world.

 

Full debate linked below:

 

 

[Astreja]

Hei, SouthernSound!  In no particular order:

• Bunny avatar = Close personal friend of the goddess of the vernal equinox.  ("How are you gentlemen!!  All your Easter are belong to Us.")
• Currently an agnostic atheist humanist Stoic who practices mindfulness meditation, and observes Old Norse holidays and festivals.
• Not a moderator, but I've been around here for years and years.  Also a contributor to the main blog, although I haven't submitted any articles in several years.
• Is being an atheist reasonable?  I don't feel that I have a choice one way or the other -- from childhood I've always found religious claims unbelievable, and at most was a Christian In Name Only (CINO) by virtue of infant baptism and having nominally Christian parents.

[nontheistpilgrim]

SouthernSound: you asked about my past denomination? Independent for about 60 years.

[SouthernSound]

21 hours ago, Krowb said:

Just like Christians, ex-christians go on to believe all sorts of things - some true, some not.

 

Leaving Christianity is not a single lane country road.  To discard one single belief is not to automatically take up another, specific belief.  The only universal belief ex-christians share is that continued belief in Christianity is not justified.  Where they go from there is entirely up to them.

 

 

 

It's where they go from there that interests me.

[SouthernSound]

20 hours ago, midniterider said:

Southern, has Jesus ever appeared to you in person? Or spoke in an audible voice to you? If so, what did he say?

Why does chaos magic make things happen?

[SouthernSound]

19 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Sam Harris does talk about spirituality, but often its not the same as what a religious person means.

How often is it the same?

[SouthernSound]

19 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

I've argued that I can be more spiritual than a christian. Due to the many problems associated with christian theology versus some of the more sophisticated renditions of spiritual thinking in the world.

 

Full debate linked below:

 

 

I did read part of that. Your history as an SDA and your lineage is interesting. Is there somewhere specific in the debate where you describe your spiritual beliefs?

[SouthernSound]

14 hours ago, Astreja said:

Hei, SouthernSound!  In no particular order:

• Currently an agnostic atheist humanist Stoic who practices mindfulness meditation, and observes Old Norse holidays and festivals.

Not sure what that means. Does that mean you change your mind from day to day?

[SouthernSound]

11 hours ago, nontheistpilgrim said:

SouthernSound: you asked about my past denomination? Independent for about 60 years.

60 years and a minister. Wow. Have you posted your testimony here somewhere. I would like to read it.

 

 

[midniterider]

49 minutes ago, SouthernSound said:

Why does chaos magic make things happen?

 

I'll give you my theory if you answer my questions.

[Joshpantera]

4 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

I did read part of that. Your history as an SDA and your lineage is interesting. Is there somewhere specific in the debate where you describe your spiritual beliefs?

 

Pretty much throughout the whole thing. But by the end of the 1st page I launch into what I see as a deeper spiritual outlook and thinking than what christianity offers people...

[Moonobserver]

On 8/24/2021 at 5:08 PM, SouthernSound said:

I'm here. I'm an authentic Christian. My visits will be sporadic.

 

My reason for joining is I'm interested in what Ex Christians believe after they apostatize.

 

Salue!

I'm curious---do you draw a particular distinction between an "authentic Christian" and an "inauthentic" one?

[TheRedneckProfessor]

@SouthernSound there's this thing that people do called quid pro quo.  Some people refer to it as "this for that," or even "tit for tat."  Others call it "give and get," or "give and take."  If someone is kind enough to answer your questions, you should extend the same courtesy to that person.  So far, you have thrown a wall of questions at us, but answered very few of ours.  This will not do at all.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

46 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

This will not do at all.

 

Exactly @SouthernSound. I answered your question about the name I chose. Or in your term. "My Avatar". My only question was what region of the world you call home. I'm just saying a general area. Europe, Australia, Canada? I imagine your version of evangelical Christianity is very different than what I consider evangelical in the southeastern united states. 

     I dont know if you looked up the church I was a bishop in. But it would be considered a Holiness church. We believed that a person had to live a "Holy Life" as defined by the church teachings..... which were strict. To much to go into detail without a dedicated thread. But we believed if a one didn't love a Holy Life they would lose their salvation and have to start all over from repentance through baptism and so on. 

     So we didn't have the type of "bishop" that the catholic church has. We defined our ministers as either Bishops or Evangelists. Evangelists didn't have a home church but would go from church to church within the organization to preach. The bishops were basically pastors of a church and that church was their responsibility. I ended up being an assistant pastor at one of the local churches. I think they made me assistant because they felt I wasn't ready to completely take a church over. Probably because I asked to many questions. That they couldn't answer. Which was ultimately why I left the church and started my deconversion which took 4 years before I finally saw the Bible for what it was and ended up in this wonderful community.

 

Now I've given you even more detail about my past. Let's hear yours. 

 

My original question: what area of the world do you call home?

 

And an additional question: what denomination is your specific brand of evangelical christianity?

 

 

[SouthernSound]

2 hours ago, Moonobserver said:

I'm curious---do you draw a particular distinction between an "authentic Christian" and an "inauthentic" one?

Yes.

 

An authentic Christian is a person who loves and worships Jesus Christ with all their heart. If this is done with a genuine and honest heart many character traits follow from that, of course.

[SouthernSound]

2 hours ago, Moonobserver said:

I'm curious---do you draw a particular distinction between an "authentic Christian" and an "inauthentic" one?

What is "The Divine Mystery"?

[SouthernSound]

58 minutes ago, DarkBishop said:

 

Exactly @SouthernSound. I answered your question about the name I chose. Or in your term. "My Avatar". My only question was what region of the world you call home. I'm just saying a general area. Europe, Australia, Canada? I imagine your version of evangelical Christianity is very different than what I consider evangelical in the southeastern united states. 

     I dont know if you looked up the church I was a bishop in. But it would be considered a Holiness church. We believed that a person had to live a "Holy Life" as defined by the church teachings..... which were strict. To much to go into detail without a dedicated thread. But we believed if a one didn't love a Holy Life they would lose their salvation and have to start all over from repentance through baptism and so on. 

     So we didn't have the type of "bishop" that the catholic church has. We defined our ministers as either Bishops or Evangelists. Evangelists didn't have a home church but would go from church to church within the organization to preach. The bishops were basically pastors of a church and that church was their responsibility. I ended up being an assistant pastor at one of the local churches. I think they made me assistant because they felt I wasn't ready to completely take a church over. Probably because I asked to many questions. That they couldn't answer. Which was ultimately why I left the church and started my deconversion which took 4 years before I finally saw the Bible for what it was and ended up in this wonderful community.

 

Now I've given you even more detail about my past. Let's hear yours. 

 

My original question: what area of the world do you call home?

 

And an additional question: what denomination is your specific brand of evangelical christianity?

 

I did look into your denomination a little. I could not find much to be honest. It may have been that I was just not looking effectively enough, not sure. I would have liked to have found a statement of faith. These are common for denominations and even non denominational churches will usually list one.

 

My focus is what God said in the Bible. I am sola scriptura in the sense that if a teaching contradicts the Bible I reject it. I congregate with fellow believers who love and worship Jesus Christ and believe in the truth of God's word.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

2 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

I did look into your denomination a little. I could not find much to be honest. It may have been that I was just not looking effectively enough, not sure. I would have liked to have found a statement of faith. These are common for denominations and even non denominational churches will usually list one.

 

My focus is what God said in the Bible. I am sola scriptura in the sense that if a teaching contradicts the Bible I reject it. I congregate with fellow believers who love and worship Jesus Christ and believe in the truth of God's word.

 

You may have more luck looking up the church of God of the Union assembly. My particular branch "the gospel assembly" was started after a dispute between Jesse Pratt and Wayman Pratt over who should be the next General overseer. Who was effectively the leader of the church as a whole. There was also some contention on certain doctrines. Most of their beliefs are the same except the Union assembly believes you go straight to heaven at death and the gospel assembly believes you stay in the grave until resurrection. 

 

If you want to know details. Look up the book "Religion of fear" by David Cady. At one point in time it was a very oppressive cult. Not as much now as they got into legal trouble for their beliefs on faith healing. 

 

But you still did not answer my questions. You didn't give me a specific denomination. And you didn't tell me generally where you are from. 

 

Are you saying that your not a part of any organized religion but basically you and some buds are building your own interpretation of what the Bible says? If so. That's basically what most Christians that come here are doing. As far as not believing in teachings that contradict the Bible.  Your trying to do an impossible task. The Bible contradicts itself in oh so many ways. 

 

Here have a go at this and let me know what you think. This is my favorite secular scholar. I can relate to him in many ways bc he is also an ExChristian.

 

 

[Moonobserver]

2 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

What is "The Divine Mystery"?

There are various references to a "Divine Mystery", and it's essentially just that---what Alan Watts once referred to as "the deep-down, basic whatever-there-is". It's Lao Tzu's "Tao", it's the Prime Mover of the classical philosophers, it's "Nature's God" of Deism.......the indescribable and unfathomable source of all that exists.

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

2 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

I did look into your denomination a little. I could not find much to be honest. It may have been that I was just not looking effectively enough, not sure. I would have liked to have found a statement of faith. These are common for denominations and even non denominational churches will usually list one.

 

My focus is what God said in the Bible. I am sola scriptura in the sense that if a teaching contradicts the Bible I reject it. I congregate with fellow believers who love and worship Jesus Christ and believe in the truth of God's word.

 

I had to edit my last reply. I have fat fingers and post from my phone. So I get a lot of automatic corrections that sometimes aren't right. 

 

It replaced gospel assembly with government assembly. But my grammar is lacking anyway I'm sure. Sorry if there was any confusion.  

 

[LogicalFallacy]

9 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

How often is it the same?

 

I said it's often NOT the same.

 

So out of my entire post in which I specifically ask for, and I quote myself "So if you can properly define spiritual, and perhaps propose criteria by which we might know if something is a spiritual experience as opposed to just an emotional experience then we can have a talk around it."

 

You pick out the bit about me pointing out the problems with spirituality definitions and fire a nonsensical 6 word question back that fails to address my question for you.

 

Let me define something for you in this case: "Waste-of-time" : A person who comes with the pretence of wanting to have a conversation, but in fact does not contribute meaningful content to that conversation. 

[nontheistpilgrim]

10 hours ago, SouthernSound said:

60 years and a minister. Wow. Have you posted your testimony here somewhere. I would like to read it.

 

 

It's there - dated 29th November 2019

Enjoy!

[SouthernSound]

6 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I said it's often NOT the same.

 

So out of my entire post in which I specifically ask for, and I quote myself "So if you can properly define spiritual, and perhaps propose criteria by which we might know if something is a spiritual experience as opposed to just an emotional experience then we can have a talk around it."

 

You pick out the bit about me pointing out the problems with spirituality definitions and fire a nonsensical 6 word question back that fails to address my question for you.

 

Let me define something for you in this case: "Waste-of-time" : A person who comes with the pretence of wanting to have a conversation, but in fact does not contribute meaningful content to that conversation. 

Often is the same as saying not always the same which means it is the same sometimes even if not often.

 

A meaningful discussion can be had about Harris' spiritual belief. As I started in my first post my interest is in what apostates believe after falling away.

[nontheistpilgrim]

I didn't fall away, I got up and started a new pilgrimage.

You do need to watch your language, SouthernSound, if you wish to engage in a meaningful way. Some of us have rejected terms that seem to label us within christian thinking and that to us are pejorative.