Un-conversion

Tangle asks why "God" would do something. My question is will we ever know why? Will we ever know God?(remembering the construct)Im sure you will now ask why it matters....

Interestingly enough I was raised in a Christian home, not fundamentalist, (Anglican), but we went to church on Sundays. In my mid teens it just became irrelevant in my life. In my thirties Christianity was presented to me and so after reading C S Lewis' "Mere Christianity" I accepted the faith and started back to church.I went along like this for about twenty years and then decided to really sort out what it is that I believe. Since then I have read numerous books on theology, read Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagan and others and also started reading non academic books on science such as Hawking and Greene.What I have found is that what I believe about Christianity has changed considerably but on the other hand my faith is much stronger for it.You ask this question:

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It seems to me that if this God does exist and he is indeed the God of the Christian faith, then he's done himself out of a soul. Now why would he do that?

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In asking the question this way you are making an assumption about God and the Christian faith that I suggest doesn't represent the orthodox view nor the Biblical view of God. If we base our views on Scripture, reason and tradition we would find that the idea that you are to be damned to hell based on what you give intellectual assent to, does not hold up in any of the three with the exception of the tradition of a minority of churches that have existed primarily since the reformation.JMHO Edited by GDR, : sp

Actually, as I'm an atheist, I obviously don't think it's got anything to do with god.My question is just a way of saying that there is no reason why god would un-reveal himself is there? It's all a nonsense. Because I suddenly saw the light, I am now denied entry into heaven? Simply cobblers, God wouldn't work that way; not and still be the God Christians claim he is anyway.The most obvious explanation is that Christianity is an error. Something we humans just made up.

You've read the Old Testament, yes? Well, there's your reason right there. God's a sadistic fuck who enjoys torturing people. Making you deconvert will send you to hell, where you will be tortured forever, plus, you get to serve as an example for everybody else who are doubters.Even when we look to the New Testament, we see a god that would gladly torture and kill his ow son / himself. If he doesn't even care for his son / himself being tortured and killed as much, what makes you think he'll give a shit about you?

People crucified Jesus. It was God that resurrected Him.

So, Jesus wasn't here to get tortured and killed? That was just an accident?

You are absolutely right IMHO. That isn't reasonable and it isn't scriptural.Look at this quote of Jesus' from Matthew 9:

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12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

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The fundamentalist response is that Paul says that there is no one righteous. Well yeah, if we are comparing ourselves to Jesus.Firstly He is repudiating a system, that connected forgiveness with bringing sacrifices to the Temple. (They tried that again with indulgences.) Jesus is saying that it is mercy, which equates to loving hearts - that is what is desired.He is also saying that the point is to change hearts so that those that are self serving become the servant of others. I can't find the exact quote right now but C S Lewis writes that if I become a Christian, I should become a nicer person than I had been previously, but not necessarily as nice as my atheistic next door neighbour.My point is that it is the condition of our heart regardless of our theological beliefs that make us right with God. As I've said before, if you as an atheist goes out serving the poor without any earthly agenda it is IMHO more pleasing to God than some Christian who performs the same service in order to get in good with God. It is the difference between selfish love and unselfish love.I contend that what I have said is completely consistent with the overall message of the Scriptures and if you read the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7 and the separating of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25: 31-46, I don't see how it can reasonably be understood any other way.I'm not saying that this proves that Christianity represents truth, but I do think that from what you have told us on this thread, the Christianity that you rejected is not what Christianity is about. I don’t know you or all of your reasons for rejecting your faith, but in my view I would say that in rejecting a Christianity that consigns all non-Christians to hell you understand better, and are closer to, the heart of God than those that believe that it is all about personal theology, and that believing a specific dogma is what it’s all about.As Rob Bell titled his recent book, Love Wins. As you can see by some of the comments at the end of this video there are many Christians who feel threatened by this and I would suggest maybe with good reason.

I sure wish I had half the certainty as most respondents to this thread.This deity is all over the map from GDR's loving father to Huntard's psychopathic monster. And the afterlife indeed, everything from jar's Socratic academy to Buzsaw's pimp palace of eternal bling.Looks like a lot of what is referred to in psychology as projection.Have to go with jar on this one, which god?All I can say is I hope you get what you want out of this deity, perhaps getting what you want is the trick question of the day, paradise or damnation, your call.Well, except Huntard, I wouldn't wish his interpretation as that evil bastard of the OT on Saddam Hussein.As for me, I just don't know. Is truth beauty, and beauty truth, as Keats would say, or is the whole deal just an accidental unfolding of natural law, as Dawkins might say?Hell, you got me. (if any purported deities are listening, please disregard any literal interpretation of that last sentence, am only expressing my uncertainty due to a rather odd lack of information, as per the rough outline of the OP).So, please let me know if you have some secret esoteric knowledge since I am as yet unaware. Otherwise, no absolute certainty in this corner.

That is hardly the reason He was here. Primarily He came to establish His Kingdom that is supposed to be characterized by humble sacrificial love. He went to the cross because that is what generally happened to people that upset the authorities at that time. Christ's message that the temple could be replaced by human hearts and that those hearts were to love their enemies put Him in opposition to the powerful people in that society. (Sorta like walking up and down Wall Street with a sign saying that capitalism is dead.)Jesus was saying that the enemy wasn't the Romans, but that the enemy was evil itself and the only way to defeat evil is with it's opposite, which is love. He confronted the evil that was brought on Him and God resurrected Him in an act of love.As I said, it was people that killed Jesus but it was God that showed that the evil inflicted on Jesus by people was not the final chapter in the story.

Then, everything Christian is worthless except 'do as you would be done by' which is the core of prettey much every faith and all democratic societies.Christianity and faith in Gods are simply redundant.Of course, this is absolutely NOT what the established faiths have said until relatively recently. Choose my faith or go to hell is what they mostly say.

I suspect that revelations are always certain ;-)I have the usual scientific, guarded, intellectual reservations about the existence or otherwise of a non-intervening god. But the kind of god Christians talk about - that's just a preposterous joke.

I don't know about you, but do you think it wise to run and operate your life on the opinion of a 14-15 year old?Not known for their mental ability, knowledge, or psychological maturity. Maybe think about it.

In looking at it that way though you are going back to the reason you say that you rejected Christianity in the first place. In essence you are saying that the whole point of religion is to avoid going to hell.I agree that the one part of the Christian church, particularly in North America in recent years has tended to go down that road. My point is that view is a major misunderstanding of the Bible. In effect what it does is incorporate a particular misreading of Paul and ignore the Gospels.The primary message of Christianity is that we are to be the wise stewards of God's creation and that there is a point in doing that. Jesus came to establish a Kingdom that is for the now and through to eternity, characterized by unselfish, sacrificial love. Jesus didn't just wash the disciple’s feet for the heck of it. It was a demonstration of how authority is to be exercised. As wise stewards we are to govern creation with humble kindness and justice. In Christianity the message is that that there will be a great act of re-creation of the cosmos just as there was once an act of creation and that somehow, (in ways that are beyond me), what we do as stewards will be incorporated into that re-creation.The way we treat our neighbours, our enemies, our animal life and our environment all matter and all have eternal consequences. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:

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9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

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The mystery of His will is that it isn't about getting your theology right so that God is on your side and it isn't about following a particular set of laws for the same purpose. It is about having a heart that is able to find its joy in the joy of others. By becoming followers of Christ and taking His message of unselfish sacrificial love on board we will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit that will in ways that are well beyond my knowledge help us to make that change of heart and create in us a greater awareness of the life that we are to lead as part of the Kingdom He established. And again I'll repeat, that doesn't necessarily make a Christian more Christ like than his/her atheistic neighbour but if there is a genuine desire to serve Christ as a humble, kind and just member of His Kingdom, (or church if you like), it will make him/her a more Christ like person than we he/she was and establish a trajectory that will play itself out over a life time.

I'd go with Keats. Sorry no secret esoteric knowledge here, but as for lack of absolute certainty may I suggest that is exactly what we should expect if my view of God is anything close to correct. (Again I can't offer certainty but only a certain expectation of uncertainty.)It is my contention that we are creatures who have been given free will and the knowledge of good and evil. As things stand we can objectively say that we can make moral choices. However, with certainty about God and His true nature we would in practice be unable to exercise that free will as we would know the consequences of our actions. We could never just go down to the food bank to help out for no other reason than we simply want to help someone less fortunate without any thought of reward for doing it, or punishment for not doing it.There can be no free will with certainty. The fact that we don't have certainty is completely consistent with God as I believe Him to be.

And yet, you quote bible verses as though they mean something.Strange.