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Goodbye Jesus

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aik

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it was interesting for me to read about your journey my friend. i am a believer in Jesus and i am not intended leaving Him. All i want to say is that Jesus is freedom. He sets free from a religion. also He sets free from sin, from attack of others' opinion, from fears, from hesitations and the Bible is true, but religion kills the children of God. Now you are free from religion but your journey is still in process my friend. There is no one else who will be able to free you from evil and sin, but Jesus. Jesus is freedom.

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Goodbye Jesus
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NOTE: The post above was made in the Testimonies of Former Christians section.  It has been moved here in accordance with our rules, which do not permit christian proselytizing in most sections.  

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1 hour ago, aik said:

it was interesting for me to read about your journey my friend. i am a believer in Jesus and i am not intended leaving Him. All i want to say is that Jesus is freedom. He sets free from a religion. also He sets free from sin, from attack of others' opinion, from fears, from hesitations and the Bible is true, but religion kills the children of God. Now you are free from religion but your journey is still in process my friend. There is no one else who will be able to free you from evil and sin, but Jesus. Jesus is freedom.

 

If you are not intending to leave Jesus aik, can you assure us that you will be entering into debate with an open mind on all subjects?

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Before I give an answer I need to know: 1. What the purpose of debates is, 2. Who usually sets the topic. 3. What the format of debates will be. 

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11 minutes ago, aik said:

Before I give an answer I need to know: 1. What the purpose of debates is, 2. Who usually sets the topic. 3. What the format of debates will be. 


Hi aik!  Here in the Lions Den, “debates” are informal, usually with a christian making the case for their beliefs and one of more of us opposing.  It’s free/form back and forth.  For more formal debates, typically one-on-one, we have other sections.  But the vast majority of such encounters are here in the Lions Den.   Since this is a community of apostates from christianity, there is generally a vigorous response to christian posters.  It’s not for the faint-hearted, but scripture does indicate that a believer will receive divine assistance… “for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12:12)


But no pressure.  If you feel inclined and able to make the case for Jesus in this place of skeptics, agnostics and atheists, we offer you a platform to do so.  

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Just to make clear, anybody, believer or non, can start a topic of their choice.  If you prefer to just engage with one ex-christian, that can likely be arranged.  Otherwise any apostate or any other christian who wishes to may join in. 

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Thanks taba. It is clear. I really appreciate your assistance. But I very much need to know, what the purpose of a debate can be for a non-believer. For me it is like when you see your brother injured, you wish to help him, like to take out a goat or a donkey from a pit. But I do not understand what is the benefit for anyone of non belivers. Please let me know, teach me, I will learn it from you.

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4 hours ago, aik said:

it was interesting for me to read about your journey my friend. i am a believer in Jesus and i am not intended leaving Him. All i want to say is that Jesus is freedom. He sets free from a religion. also He sets free from sin, from attack of others' opinion, from fears, from hesitations and the Bible is true, but religion kills the children of God. Now you are free from religion but your journey is still in process my friend. There is no one else who will be able to free you from evil and sin, but Jesus. Jesus is freedom.

By the way taba, I wish that this my post shall be delivered to whom I addressed it. If you could assist me in this, I will appreciate it. That man needs to read what it is written here.

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20 minutes ago, aik said:

By the way taba, I wish that this my post shall be delivered to whom I addressed it. If you could assist me in this, I will appreciate it. That man needs to read what it is written here.


That’s a reasonable request.  I will tag the member in the thread you originally responded to, and will draw his attention to your post above that started this thread.   

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@aikI'm your huckleberry. 

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K57FNEBFHVG2FE2G3I5EJAOP2E.jpg

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Hey, it's not often we get someone here from Russia.  It will be interesting to see if his insights are different than those we have been hearing.

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Lol. I created a new stream and to be honest I cannot find a button to add my starting post. Do you know where it is? 

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@Hierophant your account picture shows that you never new Jesus, my friend. If someone gets into water he will know about it because he gets watered, hairs dress and the whole body. But when someone says 'hey I am in the water' yet he is dry, it means he missed. Moreover when somebody comes and tells me that he has been swimming in a sea or river, and the water was brown and smelled like from a sewer, I understand that he never saw a sea. The latter is yours my friend. I am here to help you finding the real Jesus.

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14 minutes ago, aik said:

Lol. I created a new stream and to be honest I cannot find a button to add my starting post. Do you know where it is? 

New features will open up after your first 25 posts.  Enjoy.

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8 hours ago, aik said:

Thanks taba. It is clear. I really appreciate your assistance. But I very much need to know, what the purpose of a debate can be for a non-believer. For me it is like when you see your brother injured, you wish to help him, like to take out a goat or a donkey from a pit. But I do not understand what is the benefit for anyone of non belivers. Please let me know, teach me, I will learn it from you.

I am guessing it is a similar motive to yours - a genuine desire to help lurkers clarify their doubts.  For someone who has been a Christian for many years as I was, it can take a long time to work through it all and reading a debate quietly with no pressure can be helpful.  
 

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Years mean nothing. 

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A few things to keep in mind, Aik:

 

1.  Just about everyone here is familiar with Christianity and with the Bible.  This site is called "Ex-Christian," rather than "Never Was a Christian," for a reason.  There are many, many people here who earnestly sought Jesus but lost their faith anyway.

 

2.  If you make a claim, you need to support it with evidence.  (Preferably that evidence should come from an empirical source and not from a personal testimony or from the Bible.)

 

3.  Do not tell someone "You were never a true Christian."  The moment you do that, you lose - you have made an unsupportable and unsalvageable assertion about someone else's thoughts, beliefs and life experiences, and you will almost certainly lose a lot of respect and goodwill.

 

(On a personal note:  I don't know how others here feel about being called "friend" by a stranger, but I dislike it very much.  Please don't do it.)

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15 hours ago, aik said:

Before I give an answer I need to know: 1. What the purpose of debates is, 2. Who usually sets the topic. 3. What the format of debates will be. 

 

Hello aik.

 

Assuming that you now have satisfactory answers to your three questions, please answer mine.  Thank you.

 

Here it is again.

 

If you are not intending to leave Jesus, can you assure us that you will be entering into debate with an open mind on all subjects?

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4 hours ago, aik said:

Years mean nothing. 

 

Please provide objective evidence to support this assertion.

 

Otherwise...

 

 

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

 

                                                                                                                                               Christopher  Hitchens.

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1 hour ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

Please provide objective evidence to support this assertion.

 

Otherwise...

 

 

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

 

                                                                                                                                               Christopher  Hitchens.

I don't know if you have father or mother, my friend. But if you do, can you tell me do your and your fathers DNA fit, have you ever passed DNA test to be sure that he is your father or mother? If not, why you claim them to be your parents without objective evidences?

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1 hour ago, walterpthefirst said:

 

Hello aik.

 

Assuming that you now have satisfactory answers to your three questions, please answer mine.  Thank you.

 

Here it is again.

 

If you are not intending to leave Jesus, can you assure us that you will be entering into debate with an open mind on all subjects?

Fair question. Yes, I do assure. But be sure that not every debate will I enter into. My daily schedule is thick, so don't be upset that I cannot be here online whole day long. That is why I will get acquainted with this platform step by step. 

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17 hours ago, aik said:

Thanks taba. It is clear. I really appreciate your assistance. But I very much need to know, what the purpose of a debate can be for a non-believer. For me it is like when you see your brother injured, you wish to help him, like to take out a goat or a donkey from a pit. But I do not understand what is the benefit for anyone of non belivers. Please let me know, teach me, I will learn it from you.


That’s a very good question, aik.  Even regular ex-christian members sometimes ask why we provide a platform for christians, and why we bother to argue with them, thinking it’s a waste of time.

 

If our goal was to convince our christian visitors to stop believing and to become one of us, yes that would generally be a big waste of time.  Few christians are willing to even consider the possibility that what they believe is not true and that their god doesn’t exist.

 

One reason we allow christian arguments to be heard is to demonstrate to one and all that we are confident in our rejection of christianity and have no fear that christians will make a more convincing case.  We believe the arguments against christianity are overwhelming and able to prevail, in the minds of those who are not locked into the belief system by indoctrination or emotion.  And that’s the key: our main audience is not devout believers like yourself: it does include people who come here and start reading around, people who are already inclined to reject christianity or at least are starting to question all they have been thought.  
 

You will learn that deconversion from christianity is a process, not a single event.  It starts when the believer both hears objections to the belief system and is willing to at least consider that what they have believed is not in fact true.  Sometimes those objections come from inside the person’s own mind: they may have harbored lingering, nagging doubts about aspects of christianity for years.  In truth, few christians lack such doubts completely, but most suppress them, as I personally did for many years.  
 

Anyway, we have a lot of people who find this community when they are starting to think they no longer believe.  This is often a very traumatic time for the person, as they start to consider for the first time that the things they believed for years may actually not be true.  Their tendency to no longer believe can be wracked with fear, fear that Hell may actually be real and is waiting for them if they are wrong,  fear of being ostracized by believing family and friends.  They may be torn with indecision, finding some arguments in favor of christianity to be persuasive while also being impressed by certain arguments against.  They don’t know where to turn or what to think.

 

Those of us who are now stalwart, dedicated members of this community started the journey away from christianity with that same fear and confusion, in many cases trying desperately to hold on to our former faith even while it crumbled.  Here we found a group of people who had overcome fear and confusion and gained not just a welcoming community but also a new way to think that eased our doubts, solidified our rejection of christian dogma, and provide a foundation for a post-christian life free of religious dogma, free of fear and guilt, and with minds newly open to new ideas and new possibilities.  
 

So this community is a place where people learn to think differently, but it’s also a place of immense learning.  Most of us have learned things about scripture, mythology, the history of religions and of course science, that have vastly expanded and deepened our deconversions and made the idea of going back to christianity as unthinkable as going back to our mothers’ wombs.  We want those just starting out on the deconversion process to gain the benefits of “full deconversion” also, and that’s why we are happy to engage with christian arguments. 

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добрый вечер@aik,

 

I appreciate you commenting on my deconversion story. I read through your follow-on comments and I have a good idea of where you are coming from. I want to flesh out a couple things:

 

1. Christianity is a religion by definition. Any ideology that promotes the concepts of God or gods, an afterlife, and cult worship of said God or gods is inherently a religion. I will not allow any deviation from that definition, otherwise we start to render words meaningless. 

 

2. Are you willing to agree that you might be wrong in your understanding of Jesus, or Christianity as a whole? What I mean by that is are you open to the idea that you could be wrong about your beliefs - and willing to accept when I make a strong argument that counters your current beliefs?

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7 hours ago, aik said:

I don't know if you have father or mother, my friend. But if you do, can you tell me do your and your fathers DNA fit, have you ever passed DNA test to be sure that he is your father or mother? If not, why you claim them to be your parents without objective evidences?

 

I asked you to provide objective evidence to support your claim, aik.

 

But instead of doing that you have asked questions of me.

 

The onus is still on you to provide that objective evidence before I answer any of your questions.

 

That's because I have made no claims about my parents.

 

That is something that you have introduced into this thread, not me

 

Whereas you DID claim that "years mean nothing" in this thread.

 

And your claim is currently unsupported by objective evidence.

 

Please provide that objective evidence.

 

Thank you,

 

Walter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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