RE: 3 BIG FAT LIES THAT IS BELIEVED AND PREACHED BY MAINSTREAM CHURCHES
That's called wanting to have your cake and eat it too. It won't work...
Says who? Christ already forgave me, who has the ability to take that away from me? Did I miss the part in the bible where Jesus made his forgiveness conditional?
That's just an emotional reaction. There's no logic behind it.
Faith and logic are like oil and water. Logic is defined as "reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity." Faith is believing in something without proof (validation). Let's not make this about who's being more logical here. My beliefs are validated by the words in the bible and the physical evidence that I see in the real world.
I think every religious person should imagine their God in the form of a human. Then imagine that human doing the things that they are reported to have done. Forget all the mystic stuff and try to imagine your God in a show similar to Game of Thrones.
Imagine a character that kills everyone on a planet because he's angry. A character that allows his enemy to torture his most faithful servant and murder his daughters, just to prove how faithful he is. A character that kills every first born son in a thriving city. A character that jokes with a faithful servant by asking him to kill his child, then tells him he's been punk'd at the last minute ("Dude, you almost killed your kid! LOL!").
From what I've read, Jehovah doesn't seem like a good guy. The stories don't inspire love or devotion in me, just fear and disgust. Jesus is cool, but I don't talk to God because I'm afraid that he'll actually hear me.
A side note: I don't mean to hijack your post or trash what you believe in. This is just where I'm at, spiritually. I've got a lot of questions that I haven't found satisfactory answers to and maybe discussing things will bring clarity. If my comments are offensive or annoying to you, I won't persist.
Sorry to jump in on ya'lls conversation but I can't help but comment here.
@fronttowardenemy, You say Christ already forgave you, but by what authority do you think He is capable of doing that? I mean, if He's just some "revolutionary man" who sacrificed himself for "the betterment of society" then in what sense does that work? I mean, if He's just some guy, how is the betterment of society achieved by His sacrifice, and in what sense is His death even a sacrifice?
I think part of your problem is that you've been exposed to too many Christians with a very narrow view of inspiration; the kind of thinking that says, "if the Bible says it, I believe it." Well, the Bible says the Earth is Flat, so should we believe that?
There's actually many different opinions of what "inspired" means, and they don't all require you to believe that the Old Testament is giving literal history. Plus, the ancients had much different standards when writing history as well. Many of the stories in the Old Testament are written as polemic responses to the myths of the other religions in the ancient near east. So, for example the flood: there are flood narratives in almost every ancient culture and some predate the Exodus, Moses wrote Genesis so these stories predate the Genesis account. The Eridu Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh were popular myths at the time, and the Hebrew writers were countering the theological statements made in those myths by explaining that it was YHWH, not Marduk or any of the other "gods" of the time/area.
You also need to take into account the very idea of what a "god" was to the ancient world was a being that destroyed your enemies and protected your people, brought rain, punished evil, etc. When these ancient people wrote about their conquests, they often ascribed the violence to their gods. The ancient Hebrews would have been very much like their Sumerian, Canaanite, Babylonian, Egyptian counterparts. Thus, when the Israelites conquered some ancient people, they would ascribe the violence to YHWH, their God. The degree to which they ascribed violence to YHWH is really a reflection of how violent these ancient people were.
I know full well that some of what I said is controversial, even in Christian circles, but it doesn't put me outside the realm of orthodoxy. I'm just trying to make sense of the data we have.
The New Testament tells us that God's character is perfectly represented in Jesus. Hebrews 1:3 says
This means that Jesus perfectly represents God's character. It means that when God's Glory is shining, the "shinyness" is Jesus.
Jesus Himself tells us the He is the same as God:
What I'm suggesting here is that you look at the Old Testament through the lens of the cross. God showed His love for us by laying down His life for us. john 3:16. We know what love means by His example 1 john 3:16. Try to keep Jesus in mind when reading the Old Testament, because He is the revelation given to us: