PaulS

Billy, Your story makes me happy too and I'm glad you have found a community that is fulfilling! Enjoy. Cheers Paul

Hi Pam, Welcome to the forum and I hope you enjoy it here. I'm glad you have found what works for you and I look forward to your participation here. Cheers Paul

Thanks Joseph.

I agree with both Steve and Joseph, Whilst there are arrogant and judgemental fundamentalists of both the Christian and the atheist kind, I think there are also fundy 'true believers' from both camps who don't exhibit those traits. In fact, one of the kindest, most caring people I ever knew was a fundamental literalist of the deepest conviction. On the other hand, I have met fierce advocates of atheism who dedicate their lives to helping others and demonstrate compassion rarely seen amongst Christianity. Cheers Paul

Welcome Tiger Lily, I'm very happy you have found this forum and I think you will really enjoy it. From what I've experienced, a lot of members here hold similar views to what your developing - i.e. the bible and the story of Jesus can be enriching and of value, but there is quite likely much lost in translation, interpretation, and some of it is even very doubtful concerning authenticity. I don't think it is 'bad' at all to question the authenticity of some of Jesus' words, in fact I think it is our responsibility to question some of these, particularly when there is so much evidence to suggest they don't seem authentic. In any event, they were written thousands of years ago and so even if they are all word for word genuine, it still doesn't mean they are right for today in their entirety. I hope you enjoy it here and I look forward to your participation and discussion. Cheers Paul

Sorry Chem Eng, I'm not particularly aware of any such sites specifically for discussion on energy. Cheers Paul

Welcome FireDragon76, I can't say I know a lot about Eastern Orthodoxy, but your life journey of not knowing where your beliefs actually fit is not uncommon here. Many here, including myself, have travelled through Christianity in a variety of ways and come out the other not necessarily fitting any particular label. I hope you enjoy the participation here and I look forward to your discussions. Cheers Paul

Rom, My misunderstanding on your post then - I thought you were saying that belief vs belief doesn't measure up because of the lack of evidence. Yes, I have read Wright's book and concur - a very interesting read. Paul

...and myths.

Jason, Welcome, and I hope you enjoy participating here. Cheers Paul

I like the notion Norm, that we're better off just being a 'witness' if you like, to others and letting them come around in time. I guess my question is more considering the influence such religion has on children which in turn become the next generation of decision-making adults. Should we stay silent and let people teach their children that homosexuality is sin and evil and that such people are practising evil for instance? I'm not suggesting 'thought' police but I am asking if there is a line to be drawn where we say such beliefs and indoctrinating children into them should NOT be a case of just "live and let live"? I mean I doubt anyone here would accept that we should let people teach their children that blacks are only good for slavery or that a child best learns how to have sex if it first has sex with its parent, so why the difference?

Rom, I don't think everything is able to be scientifically verified beyond doubt. For instance, I could probably make a fairly good scientific argument that child abuse impacts negatively on the victim's adult life, but there are perhaps also victims that are not harmed. Similarly, there are many instances of religiously indoctrinated children carrying harmful religious baggage throughout their life, and others who don't carry such baggae, even though both have turned their back on the religion they were indoctrinated into. Paul

Should we do so when we know how harmful certain beliefs and indoctrination can be? Should we stand against fundamental Christianity when we have experienced the harm it can cause, or should we let fundy's continue to live their beliefs as they see fit, and continue to push those beliefs and/or indoctrinate children, without voicing a contrary opinion?

"Live and let live". Do we do so when we know how harmful some beliefs and indoctrination can be?

What better way to worship a creator than to love, embrace and enjoy that which he has created - your family and the earth itself! There's all your worship there , IMO. Welcome to the forum and I hope it helps you find some answers from within yourself. Cheers Paul

Thanks Joseph.

Hi ychild, For what it's worth I don't see Jesus as dying for anything other than his own personal experience/beliefs. About the only thing we can say with reasonable certainty about Jesus is that he seemed to have made a significant impact on a number of people during his short period of teaching/preaching. Most likely Jesus felt he had an incredible relationship with God and he wanted others to have that. Most likely he thought the existing religious framework of the day, as well as Roman oppression, got in the way of that. He was trying to change the scene and for that he was executed. I believe that the discussions and theology that followed turned Jesus into a religion, and taking the tradition of sacrifice in Jewish religion, Jesus followers interpreted Jesus' existence to become something different to what it actually was - a sacrifice for us rather than the more likely scenario of a God-enveloped human who was passionately trying to help people see God the way he saw God, but was killed for his troubles. To me that doesn't take a single thing away from the personhood of Jesus and I can still respect, revere, and consider his teachings as a useful guide in life. Cheers Paul

Welcome Kay, When you have God figured out can you let me know please? I'm still wondering about that one too! As Joseph mentioned, the process of elimination may help with narrowing the choices. Welcome to the forum and I hope you enjoy participating here. Very open-minded and some excellent discussion here - and to date, not a single firearm-related injury death or fracking incident! Cheers Paul

I'm probably better at knowing what I don't believe about God, than what I do!

Misquoting Jesus by Bart Erhman gives some insights to significant alterations, but as we don't have any original documents and the oldest versions of any New Testament writings are still hundreds of years older than their originals, it is impossible to say what changes may have been made. Certainly evidence such as the Nag Hammadi texts and other Christian writings from the early centuries of Christianity, show there were plenty of other opinions and views about Jesus & God than what we ended up with in the 'Bible' as it was declared in the 300's CE. Sometimes biblical scholars point out facts such as Matthew's misinterpretation of Isaiah when he writes about the birth of Jesus - Matthew used a faulty Greek version of Isaiah to misinterpret 'young women' to 'virgin'. Subsequently, it is believed the myth of Jesus' virgin birth has arisen from such a mistranslation. I wonder if the fact that such errors are still in there may be some evidence that some documents are still true to when they were first written. But as Joseph mentions in part above, there are so many inconsistencies and errors in fact, not to mention the outright bigotry, sexism and racism in the Bible that it is impossible to an open minded person to regard it as the infallible Word of God. To the contrary, the Bible is a mish-mash of various interpretations and understandings of God made by a variety of authors, in a wide variety of political and cultural contexts of the day. And bear in mind that these authors thought the world was flat, that epilepsy = demonic possession, and that many in the early Christian days actually thought Jesus was returning in THAT generation. When the return of Jesus did not eventuate, Christians need to come up with a new understanding and is still demonstrated, even to this day 2000years later, that Christians are still trying to pin the return of Jesus on different translations of the Bible.

SW, Unfortunately those feelings still come back to haunt me every now and again, to this day. Indoctrination from childhood can have lasting ill effects! I grew up in a fundy household but became the black sheep when at 18 I joined the police force and had my eyes opened to how many other people live. This made me question what I'd been taught about man choosing to sin and needing to wake up to himself and accept Jesus. I knew nothing of progressive Christianity 28yrs ago so mainly I felt anger towards God for being such an a#£hole! I couldn't reconcile God's 'justice', the way I had been taught, with what I was seeing. Anyway, I turn 46 this year and I can't say that I never question the possibility of hell etc, but I usually easily satisfy my doubts by recalling what I have learnt from various biblical scholars, which reiterates for me that all this theology business is just mankind trying to express his/her way of experiencing God. It seems very different for different people (often culture related) and always subject to interpretation (with healthy doses of indoctrination and lack of questioning usually!). It gets easier with time and education. Understanding the biblical scholarship of the last 200 years really helped for me, but I do wish PC was known to me then - I think it would have saved me a lot of pain. Peace and goodwill. Paul

If God is a God of love, I fail to see how you loving an atheist could be a bad thing! I'm probably not the best to ask because I don't believe in a God who is 'displeased' with humans as though we are little schoolchildren. I've been there and done that with fundy Christianity and can only thank God that I saw the light and hightailed it out of there! Peace and goodwill. Paul

Welcome SouthernWonder, Indeed, to move away from the shackles of conservative fundamentalism can be very exciting! I hope you enjoy participating here and find lots of useful information. Cheers Paul

Welcome Chris, I'm glad you found this forum. Many people here have travelled that journey of having their views of what they understood the bible to be about, challenged. I'm in Australia, so my university reference might be no good, but the Murdoch University in Western Australia (a secular private university) offers Theology (I looked into it but never proceeded due to work commitments) and their school seemed very progressive. A professor there (Bill Loader) wrote a resource freely available on the internet called "Dear Kim - This is what I believe". I enjoyed his understanding of Jesus & the bible. Cheers Paul

Just as an aside, I read a fun book the other day that I'm sure would qualify for similar criticism as that received by Buck. The book is called "Lamb - The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal". Quite funny and definitely heretical to any red-blooded literalist/fundamentalist!