Life without God

I hesitate in posting this as I seem to keep winding up in debates, (when all I really want is a discussion),in which I feel completely unqualified to debate. We all have our beliefs and I can’t imagine that I’ll change yours, or anyone else for that matter. Also as being someone who has no doubt that I don't have all my ducks in a row I don't want to sound preachy, but I thought I'd post a couple of my thoughts after reading this thread and the thread on deconversion.If I could sit down over a beer with you there are a few questions I would like to ask about your so called deconversion. It seems your background in the church has been evangelical. Personally I would describe myself as an evangelical who has a considerable problem with the theology and actions of many of those who would describe themselves in the same way.It seems to me that the evangelical church so often, particularly in North America, desperately tries turning the Bible into something that it is not intended to be. It is not an equal to the members of the trinity. People like to have something that gives them definitive guidelines, or a set of laws and regulations so that they can have certainty in their lives. Certainly it has some of that in it but I believe that it is a lot more than that. I think that the Bible is the story of God’s people and His relationship with them. However it is the story of people with all their strengths and weaknesses and readers of the Bible should, IMHO, understand that.For example from Leviticus Chap 20:

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10 ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wifewith the wife of his neighborboth the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.

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Now compare this from John Chap 8

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1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say? 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?
11 No one, sir, she said.
Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared. Go now and leave your life of sin.

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Or how about this from Deuteronomy 21:

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18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard. 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

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Compare that to the story of the Good SamaritanThe book of Acts tells the story of the early Christian church. The Christian church did not stop growing after that book was written. The history of both the early Jews and the Christian church is full of abuse and error but we have been given both tradition reason and revelation to sort out, over time, what is of God and what comes from self interest and self promotion.
It certainly seems to appear that we have evolved physically over a period of time and it appears to me that in a very similar manner we are evolving spiritually over time.Frankly the god that many Christians seem to believe in is a god that I wouldn’t believe in either. I’m not at all inclined to worship a God that advocates stoning to death people who are guilty of blasphemy, but I have more than happy to worship a god that desires restorative justice for all. The question then becomes does such a god exist, and we have come to different conclusions.I have no idea of whether or not God led you to your wallet although my inclination is that you are just very fortunate, but in either case if it had been me I would still give thanks as I believe I am a created being who lives in a world where finding the wallet was possible.I don’t know on what basis you rejected your faith. It is my view, rightly or wrongly, that when people look at the condition of the church and the cold and dead theology that is sometimes taught, they may well be closer to the heart of God after leaving the church than they were before.I know I keep repeating this verse from Micah but it is my contention that it simply states what is at the very heart of Christianity.

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Micah 6:8: He has told you, O man what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.

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I think that all of us here can agree that humility, justice and kindness are something we should all strive for and I’m pretty sure that didn’t change for you after you left the church.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Hi BuzMy belief is that God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. Your view seems to suggest that God adjusts his morality based on the nature of His people. It does seem to me that God is above situational ethics.I also contend that the seeming contradictions in the Bible, (although I would argue that they are real contradictions) have people confused. I suggest that the reason for the confusion is that people like yourself are trying to turn the Bible into something God never intended it to be. It is not a magic rule book but the story of God breaking into this world starting with His chosen people — the Jews. Yes, the Jews were meant to stand out as God’s chosen people to bring God’s message to the world. However, they were supposed to stand out by living out the Ten Commandments. More than that they were meant to stand out against the pagan nations around them with their love for God and neighbour. However, just like the church today, the Jews were more often than not influenced by the culture(s) around them. Do you really believe that God at any time in history would want His chosen people to act in this manner that I’ll re-quote from Deuteronomy 21.

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18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard. 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

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Do you honestly believe that the God that we worship through the lens of Jesus would ever at any time in human history want a father and mother to do to his son what is described in that verse. Frankly, if you can justify God doing that then we worship very different Gods.If however, we see that as being in the Bible because God wants us to actually use the reason and wisdom that he has given us to sort out what is of God and what comes from the culture around us, or from self-interest, then it makes sense. God has given us a Bible that demonstrates what happens when we misuse the gift of free-will. The Bible was not meant to be used as a book to control us and put us all into little boxes. It is meant to be the first part of the narrative of how God first revealed himself to His people and how they used and misused the revelation that they had been given. The Bible is not the 4th member of the Trinity. He has given us free will and we continually seem to more often than not worship at the altar of the love of self.The problem of the church not adhering to God’s message of love and forgiveness hardly ended with the death and resurrection of Jesus. If the story of the church since then was chronicled it wouldn’t look much if any better than the OT stories. I somehow don’t think that God is much impressed with the prosperity gospel for example.It is my view that the Bible is a gift from God given to us so that have a record of His revelation to us and a record of the pitfalls of man ignoring or misusing the gifts of that we have been given. More than that, He has also given us the gift of his son which gives us a lens filtered through love, kindness, mercy, justice, truth and forgiveness, with which we can know how we are to interact with the world around us both in the church and outside of it.Thanks be to God.

I don't disagree that God works in us in time but that is not the same as believing that he would tell one group of people that it is ok to have their children stoned to death by everyone in the town and then a few hundred years later tell another group that what He really desires is forgiveness. However it isn't necessary to wait until the time of Jesus to get that message.Here is another quote from Leviticus 6. (The old covenant)

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1 [a]The LORD said to Moses: 2 If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving a neighbor about something entrusted to them or left in their care or about something stolen, or if they cheat their neighbor, 3 or if they find lost property and lie about it, or if they swear falsely about any such sin that people may commitX 4 when they sin in any of these ways and realize their guilt, they must return what they have stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to them, or the lost property they found, 5 or whatever it was they swore falsely about. They must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day they present their guilt offering. 6 And as a penalty they must bring to the priest, that is, to the LORD, their guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. 7 In this way the priest will make atonement for them before the LORD, and they will be forgiven for any of the things they did that made them guilty.

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God's message of forgiveness can always be found in the OT. Why would he have somebody's son stoned to death for standing up to their parents, (who could very well be in the wrong in the first place), and then provide a means of forgiveness for other transgressions? It makes no sense. Either God is a god of love and forgiveness or he is a god of vengeance. You keep trying to have it both ways and it can't be done. The vengeful god is a reflection of the various pagan religions that the Jews were surrounded by, which they allowed to creep into their own beliefs. It is in the Bible because we are to learn from their mistakes. When Jesus taught us how to pray He said that we will be forgiven as we forgive. I think that is a message that we can carry with us and believe that it is a truth for all time. Can I humbly suggest Buzsaw that you are doing here what I contend that the early Jews did when they came up with the idea of having the town stone their kids to death. They and you are taking the culture and trying to fit God into it. In other words, instead of allowing God to mould us into His image they were trying to mould Him into their image. It's what we all do to one degree or another all the time. I somehow don't think that because they have a particular mind set designed to achieve a specific purpose at West Point that we should assume that God should use a similar method to achieve his purposes. Couldn't you have picked a shorter Psalm as a reading assignment? The book of John starts off like this:

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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

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It is fine to throw around the term the "word of God but the Bible itself is very clear that it is Jesus that is the word. The authority of scripture is only what God designates to it and not what any human decides it is.
I would also point out that in verse 34 in Psalm 119 the writer prays: Give me understanding, and I will keep your law God has not, IMHO, given us a book which has everything in black and white but a book that we need to prayerfully read with wisdom and understanding so that what he wants of us will be written on our hearts.
In addition when the psalmist talks about following God's word to what do you think he was referring? The canon of scripture didn't exist at that time.
I just go back to what we are told in the book of Micah and that is what God wants of us is to humbly love kindness and do justice. That is from the old covenant and having their kids stoned to death because we don't think that they were obedient enough just doesn't fill the bill.God inspired people to write down the record of His people and His relationship with them. We are now to take that book and learn from it and the lesson here is that we are not to allow the various world cultures to distort God's message of forgiveness, love, mercy, truth and justice in our own lives and in the life of His church.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

The Bible is reliable. It is a reliable record of God's people as told by those that were inspired to record it. Included in that record is the things that they got right as well as the things that they got wrong. God has given us free will along with the reason, understanding and the Holy Spirit so that we can discern what is of God and what isn't.What God is looking for in us is loving, kind justice seeking hearts. Having the whole town stone anybody to death is obviously going to harden the hearts of everybody involved accomplishing exactly the opposite of what God wants.This is a case where they got it wrong but kept the record of their thinking accurately. If we understand it that way the Bible makes complete sense and with wisdom we can use the Bible to sort out what is God's will and what isn't. Human reason is a gift from God just as is the Bible. God didn't give us the Bible so that we could blank out reason. Reason and scripture are complimentary gifts and we should use all of the gifts given to us.The Bible in context is clear about one thing in particular. We have a God who loves us. The god that is described in that passage from Deuteronomy is not the God that you and I worship. That god is a god of human imagination modelling the pagan gods of the dominant cultures of the time. We are meant to read that with the understanding that we are not to allow the other gods in our own cultures, (such as love of money and power), to take over our own lives today.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

It has, but I read your posts regularly and I'm grateful for your physics lessons, not just for what you say but also for your ideas pointing me towards various authors. I contend that the primary reason for this is that as humans we don't like ambiguity. If we hold the view that the Bible is essentially ghost-written by God then we can go there to get drfinitive answers to all questions without having to look or think further. This kind of thinking in my view actually works at cross purposes to what the Christian message is all about.I contend that Christianity is about developing a heart that rejects self love and embraces altruistic love. If there is no ambiguity then altruistic love becomes virtually impossible when we know that there is a reward at the end of the tunnel. What God wants IMHO for us to love kindness, justice and (sorry about this ) humility for their own sake and not for personal reward. I wound up coming to other conclusions. After converting to Christianity in my 30’s largely based on reading C S Lewis I decided 10 years ago that I wanted to sort out exactly what it is I believe. In order to do that I started reading books on science and theology.To this point my reading has definitely changed my views on a number of things about my understanding of the world but also my understanding of my faith, but in the end I became convinced of the essential truth of Christianity.The two things that I have become convinced of which is the basis for both my religious beliefs and my worldview is that there is a creative intelligence that has caused the universe to exist and secondly that the resurrection of Jesus as an actual historic event.With all of the complexities of the universe, of any life form, of morality etc the idea that there is an external creative intelligence seems far more likely than not.Secondly then, if I accept the fact that this creative intelligence does exist then I am prepared to accept the possibility that this intelligence might very well intervene in what goes on in the world he/she/it brought into existence.On that basis I read a number of books that looked at the resurrection from an historical point of view. I found the debates between Dom Crossan and N T Wright as well as Marcus Borg and Wright particularly useful. If one is open to the possibility that the resurrection was historical then I viewed Wright’s argument for, much stronger than the arguments against. I found that the proposals made by Borg and Crossan of why Christianity took the shape it did, or even that it came into existence at all, very weak.So in the end what was central for me was the resurrection and it wasn’t necessary to twist my ideas in pretzel like fashion to try and prove the literal accuracy of the Bible. As a result I find the Bible far more instructive than I did previously. Definitely a good start. Humility isn't a problem for me because, to paraphrase Chruchill I have so much to be humble about. Edited by GDR, : typo cleaned upEdited by GDR, : No reason given.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.