Alter2Ego writes:
I invite fellow Christians to participate in the questions for discussion.
Are you inviting anyone else?
I am not a Christian. But I have some questions. Don't feel like you have to answer them if you don't want to, though.
You seem very serious and strict about your thoughts on God. I wonder why that is.
In other words, God will supposedly punish people forever in fiery flames of hell--despite the fact the crimes the persons committed were only done during the persons' brief human lifespan.
Are you only afraid of Him?
Or is there another reason you seem so stressed?
Bible Teachings or Traditions of Men?
I think the Bible is just traditions of men.
It sounds like all the other religious traditions of men.
Mysterious "powerful" gods.
Miracles.
Unsupported claims about the afterlife.
Guides to live by.
Promises.
Teachings to take for granted.
However, like all traditions of men, it doesn't actually provide anyone with anything that can't be met or exceeded by other sources anyway.
For example:
Some Bible believers are very happy, and safe and calm and wonderful people.
...but so are some non-Bible believers.
Some non-Bible believers are very angry and dangerous and shady.
...but so are some Bible believers.
In fact, there's nothing about the Bible that grants people anything special.
It can help, it can be helpful to many. It can be the only thing that helps certain people.
But, it's definitely not
required to help everyone.
It's also possible that, for some people, the Bible definitely cannot help them. At all.
The big indicator, though, is that using the Bible also doesn't even "help" more than not using the Bible on average.
This is proven by looking at Bible believers as a whole.
As a whole, they are non-distinct from any other sector of the population taken as a whole.
If there was something special to the Bible... then it would be visible by the results.
However, after 2000 years... the Bible simply doesn't produce any special results.
It's not really a negative, though. No "traditions of men" really produce any special results.
We all have to figure out how to live with our own minds in our own way.
We all have unique fears, unique traits, unique minds.
It's not that big of a surprise that different people will take different ways to find peace.
The only "wrong way" is to think that there's specifically one way that will work for everyone... and then to try and force that on them.