When I decided to leave Christianity, it was a very difficult decision, I obviously began to look at the Bible from a very different angle, and I do have a few problems with Paul’s conversion experience (apart from the usual objections of conflicting accounts).
Think about this, if you wanted to popularise something what better way is there than to tell people that you once hated this product but now you realise how wrong you were? People would obviously find it more convincing that an opponent of something is now an avid supporter of it now.
So according to your own suspicion we also can surmise that you are sensationalizing your leaving of Christianity in the same manner? So you are trying to popularise your rejection of the gospel by portraying yourself to us a strong former adherent?
Seems to me, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Tyopically they concoct fabrications that Paul was not really a Pharisee or various other sundry lies to dull the impact of the man's personal testimony.
So perhaps your "leaving of Christianity" and soul searching upon the "difficult" decision are also sundry lies to sensationalize your dramatic "conversion" to skepticism?
Well, surely you agree that we only have Paul’s word that this conversion happened, we only have his word that he hated Christianity,
I don't know if I agree with that.
Secondly, I don't think that his former opposition to the gospel is the one and only thing which makes his teachings convincing.
Though I did mention that he was a former opposer, the New Testament really doesn't continue to harp on the one aspect of his life in every letter that he wrote.
He certainly didn't base his credentials as an apostle of Christ solely on that alone if at all. In how many of his salutations does he mention it? Not very many to my recollection.
We see him mention it to the Jews in the book of Acts. I don't think he even mentions it but slightly at all in his most basic outline of the Christian gospel - the book of Romans.
and most of all, we only have his word that he had persecuted Christians. It is this final point that I have a real problem with because it just doesn’t sit right with what we know from external evidence.
What evidence would that be?
The idea that Paul could swoop into Damascus, on the orders of the Sanhedrin, to persecute Christians there really doesn’t sound plausible at all. What power did the Sanhedrin have in Syria?
The account as I read it, suggests that he went above and beyond the call of duty to protect Judaism. He went and asked permission to do something. In other words he initiated the idea himself. He invented a move of opposition out of his zeal.
Your skepticism about the matter appears to me to be so much super conspiracy theory of the type generated out of the Jesus Seminar kind of skepto hype.
Then we have to recognise that the very same group that was supposed to be persecuting Christians allowed Paul to preach in their synagogues.
You mean like in Jerusalem where they thought he was in there with some Greeks? And they went in to dragged the men out and slammed the temple door after them? Pretty warm reception that was. Huh?
Finally, under Pax Romana, it is difficult to imagine the Romans allowing this persecution to go ahead when they themselves allowed the nations under their Empire to follow their own faith. Thus, to me, I feel it is more believable that Paul never persecuted Christians, but that the story is a piece of propaganda invented to persuade people that Christianity must be true because one of its most fervent opponents is now persuaded that it is true.
Okay. Please stop feeding us this line about you soul searching and deciding to leave Christianity.
Who do you think you are, a Saul of Tarsus wannabe?
Cut with the sensationalism already. We're suspicious. Doesn't sit right. Too many problems. Something else is far more likely to have happened. etc. etc. etc.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
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