Confession of a former christian

i'm a fundamentalist. you were a cath right? I have never found anything wrong with the Bible. you don't have to answer any of these but please think. do you have kids.when yor child does soemthing wrong you explain and then you give a punishment fitting right? what out your beliefs now? i don't believe in evolution because it's absurd to think it took millions of yrs. i'm guessing every now and then you think of these ittle things that make you think with a clear mind. the roman cath have changed part of the bible and that should not be Tolerated. just think of jhon 3.16 and think {PLEASE think with an open mind of what if your right you have to gain and if your wrong what you have to lose.are you a scoffer?

I'm not Taz, but I was a protestant before losing my faith. Presbyterian/Congregationalist/Christian Reformed depending on where we lived - honestly, most denominations are so similar it's silly to call them by different names. Then you haven't looked very hard. I don't have children, but I'll note that among parents who do have children, the punishment for disobedience is never torture. particularly eternal torture. In fact, none of those punishments from the Bible for children (execute rebellious children, execute children who strike their parents, execute children who dishonor their parents) are considered appropriate today, either. Personal incredulity is a logical fallacy. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. 10 imaginary dollars says you don't even know what the Theory of Evolution states. The Protestants changed the Bible, too. And it had been changed many times (well...each of its individual component books had been altered, anyway) long before Catholicism or Protestantism ever even existed. Again, you apparently haven't looked into this very hard.Then you drop Pascal's Wager? What if you're wrong, and the Muslims are right, genius? Then you go to their Hell. Same applies to literally every religion out there - Pascal's Wager assumes that the only choices are (Christian) and (not Christian), but the choice is not binary - it's a false dilemma, and the worst of all Christian arguments.You want to convert an Atheist to Christianity? Give us a reason to believe. Any objective reason. Some bit of real objective evidence that even suggests your deity might exist. So far, all I've ever heard, including in my years as a Christian, are subjective personal experiences, "faith-healing" conmen and their ilk, and an old collection of mistranslated and edited texts based on the mythology of middle-eastern stone-age nomads.Threatening an Atheist with Hell, or offering Heaven, will only get you laughed at - you can't prove either exists, so why should we believe you?

thats was i'm saying on your last part.I know i'm right.now i will answer any of your so called mistakes in the Bible {i choose some kinds of Bibles over others} because how they were manufactured,spelling errors,and places where people tried to {fix} the Bible because they thoghut it was wrong. I don't believ in punishing a child like the way you said. i'm only showing as an example.if a child steals you may explain and maybe spank thier hand or make them sit in a corner it doe'nt not matter because i'm only using it as an example.i was told earlier today that Fundamentalist are more like Taliban than cath but that does not matter either, don't trie to lable me unless you know what i'm saying.now please tell your belief.

On the keyboard, there's this thing called the shift button. There's also this thing called the space bar. And in the English language, a run-on sentence makes you look like an idiot.That said, do you actually talk like the way you write? Because if you do, I feel sorry for your kids (if you've decided to have them or you will decide to have them).Anyway, since you have absolutely no regard for your reader, including me, I don't see why I should take you seriously.Oh and also, "I" is always capitalized. It's taught in grade school for goodness sake.

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I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

ya i know i'm use to writing in places where theres a limit plus i just recently cut right on the edge my finger,and I play piano and that just makes my do go bad but thank for noticing.i saw your writing earlier it's very nice.Squints

How? What gives you this certainty? Don't give me any garbage about the "holy spirit" filling you - countless religions say nearly the exact same thing regarding different gods, so I could hardly choose based on something so subjective.What is your evidence? I'm not asking questions, I'm simply telling you that, as Bart Ehrman says in Misquoting Jesus, "There are more errors and changes in the New Testament than there are words."I can't accept as infallible a book that has been so obviously modified and whose basic meanings have been so fundamentally changed by human hands - theres no objective way to tell which text is the "correct" version. And yet that's what your Bible says to do. Have you not read it? You're supposed to stone rebellious children to death. And you attempted to make an anolgy in saying that God needs to punish his children to instruct them (a position I wouldn't have a problem with, necessarily), except that God's version of punishment involves eternal torture in a lake of fire. And you don't even need to do anything particularly bad to earn this torture. For the sake of my sanity, please stop using spellings appropriate for a 12-year-old text messaging her "BFF."I haven't labeled you at all, you labeled yourself as a fundamentalist.As for my belief, I believe in objectivity. All this means is that I require evidence before I will beleive that something exists. This means that I don't believe in things for which there is no evidence. I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, I don't believe in Santa Claus, and I don't believe in any deities. I do not insist that any of these entities do not or cannot exist, I simply say that I have no reason to believe any of them do exist.This includes the Christian God. If you'd like to know why I no longer believe in that particular entity, my first post in this thread explains the loss of my faith in detail. I now reject faith (defined as any belief not based on objective evidence) as a method of determining what is or is not real, as beliefs based on faith tend to have little or no accuracy in representing the observable world.

As for my belief, I believe in objectivity. All this means is that I require evidence before I will beleive that something exists. are you and Evolutionist?
unlike you i believe the Bible is Gods word and thats all.{you don't have to add anything to itand you can tell if the scipture was changedyou can search through history and the only mistakes you will find that i cannot answer are just a few spelling errors. I believe stoning children was a metaphor

If you mean "do you accept that the Theory of Evolution is a highly accurate model of the observed physical world, and that specifically random mutation guided by natural selection are responsible for the changes in allele frequency over generations in bilogical populations, and these changes in allele frequency over many generations are responsible for the diversity of life observed today," then yes, I am an "evolutionist." I used to believe the same thing, until I eventually noticed that the Bible has been altered repeatedly, and the stories of the bible do not match up with what we can test and observe.For instance, the Earth is not 6,000 - 10,000 years old. It's not even in the same ballpark. Observable evidence, including but not limited to geology, astronomy, physics, radiology, biology, and very simple logic prove objectively beyond any reasonable doubt that the Earth is billions of years old. There was never any global FLood - the Ark story was a myth. There is insufficient water on the planet to cause a global Flood, even taking all of the subterranean water, water trapped in rock, moisture in the atmosphere, and the polar ice caps - you cannot Flood the Earth with the amount of water we have. The geological and fossil evidence also does not match up with the Flood story.The difference between us is this: if the Bible told you the sky was made of cheese, you'd believe the Bible even after flying in an airplane and observing for yourself that there is no cheese. I would be skeptical of the bible's claim until and unless supporting objective evidence was produced - like a peice of the cheese that composes the sky. False. Various passages, such as the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" bit, were added long after the "original" test was written. The passage is compeltely absent from all of our oldest, best docuemnts, and then suddenly appears in another set much later, a derivative of which was eventually used in the King James translations. It was a very clear and obvious addition. It certainly wasn't written that way. It was written as a set of laws intended to be followed to the letter.But seriously, DwarfishSquints, all of your Biblical itnerpretation is irrelevant. I honestly no longer care what the Bible says until objective supporting evidence verifies any of its claims. I would believe the Biblical Flood story if the physical evidence matched, for example. The problem is, the evidence does not match. It even directly contradicts.I will believe in the existence of a deity the moment that objective evidence is provided. Until that time, I will not believe in your deity for the exact same reasons you do not believe in Zeus, or fairies, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The moral arguments are irrelevant (I might refuse to worship a deity I had moral issues with, but that has nothing to do with believing the deity exists). The Biblical arguments are irrelevant without supporting evidence.I will not believe you, the Bible, or anyone else with any statement (regarding deities or anything else) until and unless their statement is logically sound and backed up by objective evidence.

ok first of all i have never heard of the flying speg monster.and I consider fairies to be just an average glow in the dark bug that somebody decided to make a story about.even taking all of the subterranean water, water trapped in rock, moisture in the atmosphere, and the polar ice caps - you cannot Flood the Earth with the amount of water we have. The geological and fossil evidence also does not match up with the Flood story.
that doe'nt not matter because the earth was completely changed by the flood so there would not be any mountains.i Believe In Micro Evolution you are never going to get a cat from a dog,but you will get a dog and this dog might or might not be diff than the dog before it.i have never heard of your claim {let he who is} that it was added later but i think that is possible.thats why I choose my Bible very carefully.everyone has there own Interpretation.as for me I really think there wasdid random dumb chance create the earth?thats alot of dumb chances.

You're missing the point. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is an amusing parody of religion, nothing more. Fairies, however, were seriously believed in. They weren't just a story - people thought they existed with as much conviction as you have in your faith.The point, DwarfishSquints, is that you and I are both Atheists regarding all manner of gods that people used to believe in - Zeus, Thor, Odin, Jupiter, Ra, Anubis, Krishna, and thousands of others. You do not believe in them becasue you have no reason to believe in them - there is no evidence suggesting they exist.I simply believe in one fewer deity than you do, for exactly the same reason that you do not believe in any of the others.I'm not asking you for your explanations as to why people used to beleive in such things. I'm simply telling you why I do not believe in your god, as per the topic of this thread. And yet you haven't thought this through, either.There isn't enough water on the planet to Flood even the normal continents, excluding the mountains, to a level that would cause a global Flood. There isn't enough water.Geological evidence contradicts your rationalization of "the Earth was completely changed." You have no idea what the effects of billions of years of geological activity being squeezed into the year-long Flood would be. The water would be the least of the world's problems, and Noah in his little boat would never survive. Not to mention, we have millions of years worth of annually-deposited sediment layers in the geological record that require millions of years to form. We can see them forming today, each year, with deposits of plant matter, sometimes volcanic ash from nearby eruptions and all manner of other things that conclusively show that a global Flood could never result int he patterns observed, and there are millions of them, with no global layer of sediment as would be the case if there was a global Flood.You're using very simply Creationist arguments that we've solidly refuted here hundreds of times from many different individuals. The evidence disagrees with you - so why should I believe you, or your book? I don't, for the exact same reasons I don't believe the Earth is made from the flesh and bones of Ymir, the great giant of Norse mythology. Evolution does not claim that you will get a cat from a dog. What the Theory of Evolution states and what you think it states are very likely two compeltely different things. It's almost universal among Creationists - evolution is not taught very well in public school in America, its treatment is the media is grossly exaggerated and twisted for dramatic effect (nothing you see on television referring to evolution has anything to do with the actual Theory of Evolution), and Creationist websites deliberately distort and twist evolution so as to attack a strawman of the theory.If you'd like to know what the Theory of Evolution does state, feel free to ask. This is just a hobby for me, but we actually have some rea-life biologists who not only know evolution inside and out but observe and use it in the lab literally every single day. If you've never heard of it, then you haven't done much research into the Bible. It's a well-known issue amongst Biblical scholars.If you don't mind, how old are you? I'm sorry, you really think there was what? Please, for the sake of all of us, make the attempt to use complete sentences and punctuation. It will make your posts much easier to read. This is another popular Creationist argument - but "chance" had very little to do with the formation of the Earth. We see stellar nebulae all the time through our telescopes, and we know with a pretty high degree of accuracy how planets and stars form. Essentially, planets are the leftovers from the giant cloud of gas that forms the star - leftovers that happened to be moving at the correct speed. It's not random - any objects moving at the correct speed for a given distance from the star to maintain a stable orbit will, in fact, maintain a stable orbit.If you're referring to life, well, that's a different consideration. Abiogenesis is a promising but as yet incompelete area of research. We simply don't know yet with any degree of certainty how life originated on Earth. We do know that life forms were simple in the past, and gained complexity over time. This is due to random mutation and natural selection. While random mutation contains a random component, it is still restricted to workign within the laws of chemistry, and natural selection is not random at all."Chance" has very little to do with anything, and your argument rests entirely on your personal incredulity - a logical fallacy.But again, the topic of this thread is "confessions of a former Christian." We're talking about the reasons some of us have lost our faith. If you'd like to discuss any of these tangential topics in depth, feel free to submit a new topic request regarding one of them.

And yet you haven't thought this through, either.There isn't enough water on the planet to Flood even the normal continents, excluding the mountains, to a level that would cause a global Flood. There isn't enough water.listen you are not listening it was not a years long flood and there were no Mountains it was lush and wonderfull a paradise almost then there was a 40 day flood.
the fountains of the deep broke open it was the water inside the earth and now some of it is in space some of it is also on other planets.thats why theres water in spaceThe geological and fossil evidence also does not match up with the Flood story. yes it does you can get the same kind of fossils on this side of the earth as on the other side.if you were caught in a flood you would run right? you would go high right? there after the water receeds your body would rot granted there were'nt that many high spots
but thats where everything that could run would go to.no one in recorded history has seen a star form.they have seen areas get brighter.the same thing happens when a star blows up. the only reason for evolution is to try to remove God from the Bible and make way for the NWO.Creationist websites deliberately distort and twist evolution so as to attack a strawman of the theory.
He was an Inbreeder.now about dumb chance. lets say the horse has to sleep standing up because thier feet pump the blood thier bodies. if the horse did'nt get all that at the same time.there would be no horse.with that said lets look at the {first} creature with legs,what did it breed with? if had the equipment to breed? The Bombard beetle is another one it has to have all those things there at the same time of it would blow it self up. are you making sense of this or are you think what the hey is he talking about.i'm new to this forum but where would you like to argue?

I assure you, Ive thought it through a lot better than you have, I quote from the Bible itself:

quote:

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7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
7:22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

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The rain lasted 40 days. The water remained for 150. I was being generous in giving the Flood a year for your supposed geological changes to occur; the problems worsen if you decrease the time involved.But oh, look! The Bible itself also says, very clearly, that "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." The mountains had to have already existed, and we know the depth of the water...and there is not enough water on the planet to Flood the Earth to that depth, even without the mountains.It would appear you haven't even read the Bible. That doesn't demonstrate that you have "thought it through."As for your ludicrous claims regarding water getting to soace after the Flood...you've seriosuly entered the realm of fantasy. Water does not leave Earth. What mechanism do you propose ejects water from the planet at escape velocity?!A miracle? Those are nonsense. Show me evidence, or I have no reason to believe your absurd claim. But you don't get the same fossils everywhere on Earth. Many species are very localized - almost all of them, in fact. And they are sorted by age, not by buoyancy, as would be the case if they all died in a great Flood. Now you not only briefly question astronomy, you suggest a global conspiracy.I'm a member of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy, and I'm here to teach your children about science! Boogedyboogedy!You do realise that there are Chirstian evolutionists, right?Oh, wait. They aren't real Christians. mmm hmm.Your "NWO" idiocy is a ridiculous fantasy.Did you read my first post in this thread? Did you read about any of the stories we've posted about losing our faith? We didn't turn away from God because we didn't like him, DwarfishSquints. We stopped believing in God because we had no reason to believe in him. it's very difficult to dislike something you don't believe exists. Your appeal to motive is yet another logical fallacy - your argument is bullshit. ...what? This does not make sense. Ah, Irreducible Complexity, the idiotic bastard child of the ID movement, completely unable to stand up to real scientific scrutiny, wholly annihilated in real scientific circles, and reliant entirely on swaying the opinions of the uneducated and gullible layperson who already believes "evilution" is a lie.*sigh*Feel free to go to the Proposed New Topics forum under the "Forums Summary" link at the top of the page, and click "Propose New Topic." Give it a relevant title, make your argument supported by whatever evidence you can muster, and await a moderator to promote the topic or make suggestions.

40 days of rain is all it took to feed the flood i realise i should have said that different.ut oh, look! The Bible itself also says, very clearly, that "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." The mountains had to have already existed, and we know the depth of the water...and there is not enough water on the planet to Flood the Earth to that depth, even without the mountains.
these Mountains were Not like the Mountains we have today if you can imagine a flood covering the earth i think there would be3 some movement don't you?
again if you were running for you life would run with the Man eating tiger Right next to you?
and the millions of fossils that were found together is explained with layers thats why everything is sorted by the flood all the layers each one is of that layer and then next layer is different then the one before it etc.Now science is something you observe and test.they have never made life in lab.{this is My Statemant}check for yourselfYour beloved father of Evolution was an In breeder guess you did'nt know that ?Ah, Irreducible Complexity, the idiotic bastard child of the ID movement, completely unable to stand up to real scientific scrutiny, wholly annihilated in real scientific circles, and reliant entirely on swaying the opinions of the uneducated and gullible layperson who already believes "evilution" is a lie.I really don't uderstand this but like you said before you may explain it.

Added link in above quote.I was going to do this message anyway, and then I found the above quoted. I fully agree with that statement.This is the "Free For All" forum, generally intended to be free of moderator input. We, however, do want to keep things on-topic. Also, themes directly tied to the creation/evolution debate do not belong in the "FFA" forum, although some such are likely to appear as tangential issues.Or something like that.Adminnemooseus

Just like you know that 'the bible is God's word', I know that the bible is NOT 'God's word'. It might be about God, and it might be a story of a peoples search for God, but it is not 'God's word'.