Ex catholic here ? What about the miracles ?

[TABA]

On 2/16/2024 at 8:12 PM, Hierophant said:

I think it would do you good to start reading works related to higher criticism, and that will help your brain do a paradigm shift. Right now, you are interpreting the Bible and the world through a lens that blurs reality and makes it difficult to see things for what they are.

This is very important.  That paradigm shift is essential and when it happens, life-changing.  Let me be clear that this shift does not mean developing a bias against Christianity.  Rather it means adopting the same standards for Christian claims as one does for those of other religions and indeed for other aspects of life.  Religious people almost always set a lower standard for the claims of their own belief system, in fact often no standard at all.  This is called “Presupposition” where the religion is simply assumed to be true and no opposing view can be considered valid.  By embarking on a period of avoiding Christian material and instead reading works of higher criticism like those of Ehrman and others, you begin the process of using the same method to evaluate Christian claims as you would any others.  Doing that lets you have confidence in your conclusions, not so easily thrown off course by fear or other emotions.