I Love Metal

...and video games.


This guy is very talented. Check it out.

Happy Weekend!!

I Wish I Could Write

I just don't have anything and I miss it. So I'll quickly write about not having anything to write about. I've been reading a bunch, though. I visit and read blogs daily and have found a few very funny waiter/waitress blogs that have kept me giggling. It's fun just to read for FUN, you know?


I certainly don't have the energy or time to research out counter apologetic matters right now, but will try to point out good resources when I find them. The sadness, depression, anger, shock of the loss of my faith have for now settled into a comfortable acceptance. I truly am happy.


I have hung up my teaching hat and the kids are excited about the changes coming this fall. Work is going well and I feel good to be able to contribute financially to the family. It was a long time coming.


The weather is beautiful and I'm going to do some spring cleaning this afternoon.



Anyway, I guess I've got my typing fix in now. I hope to be back soon with something of substance. 

Those 70 Weeks

When I first became a believer, I was quite fond of watching Jack Van Impe presents. It was on on Sunday nights and I remember trying to make it home from work on time to see it (these were pre DVR and internet days). He was so excited and had all these verses memorized. Each week he assured us that we would be raptured any second. Well, after a few years of this, and no end of the world it got old. We joined the Church and all this was put on the back burner. Babies started coming every couple of years and this kind of thing wasn't as important at the time.




After we left the Catholic church, I felt the freedom to switch on TBN and the local Christian station again. As members of the Universal Church, we were discouraged from ingesting information from our apostate friends in the ecclesiastical communities in which they were involved, but now we were free to see what the rest of Christendom had to say about things. What I found were the most frequent types of programming were the Charismatic healing and prophecy.  Prophecy fascinated me. We were really in the last of the last days and Jesus was coming back very very soon. I was so glad that God had chosen to wake us up and lead us into the True Faith so we wouldn't be found sleeping when He returned.



I learned that the book of Daniel was a BIG DEAL. I never knew that before. Lots and lots of shows devoted time to interpreting it and as I made my way onto the internet, my study into this book deepened. It is claimed that Daniel predicts to the very day when Jesus is crucified, proving that Jesus is the Messiah and the book of Daniel is inspired. I took this for granted all these years and when my own calculations (non theologically trained though they were) came up short, I just pushed it to the back of my mind.


So, when I began to lose my faith, it concerned me that Daniel had predicted all these things in such minute detail. Then I found this series of blog posts looking at Daniel skeptically. In all the years I studied it, I never went to see what other views were out there.


From the introduction to the series:



Most mainstream biblical scholars who have looked at Daniel dispassionately have concluded that the bible-believer’s dating of the book is indeed flawed. They cite overwhelming evidence that Daniel was not written until 167 BCE during the Maccabean Period, or about 400 years after the fundamentalist’s claim. Furthermore, once Daniel is put into its proper historical context, the prophecies that seem to predict the events mentioned above, really concern local events of the time. (emphasis mine)




It is even in the introduction in the New American Bible (Catholic edition) that the book was written during that time and that Daniel is not the author.


I highly suggest reading the series on Daniel above and doing your own homework, but for me, it is enough to shed doubt on the 70 weeks prophecy.

It's Nice Outside

After we decided that the homesteading thing just wasn't going to work for us and we also had pretty much no hope of getting out of the city, we decided to start buying some quick growing trees in order to create a natural fence and keep (or at least discourage) strange kids around here from walking through our yard in order to get from the housing addition across the street to the basketball courts at the school that is about a quarter mile behind our house. 

Hubby went to Lowe's and bought two evergreens of some sort and we figured we'd add to them as we could. A year later and that was money well spent.

Ironically, we had a tree that was blown down a couple of years ago and the rest that we (he) chopped down was placed in a temporary wood pile.

There's a new tree growing out of it.

And the new tree growing out of it is doing really well. Hubby says we will have to cut it down, though since it's "too close to the house."

In other news


I've been babysitting my niece every couple of weeks when my sister has to go to team meetings and such at the institution where my nephew is staying. My daughter and her are so cute together and are just best friends. It's adorable.

Sidewalk Chalkin'

One day they will be laying around talking or texting or whatever on whatever device is to be invented, rolling their eyes at me, but now they are so sweet.

Prophecy

One of the last lingering doubts I had as to the Bible (or at least some of it) not being inspired was the idea that it prophesied events well into the future. Most importantly, I suppose were the prophecies that Jesus was said to have fulfilled.



I saw an article in the comments section of another site recently in which a rabbi explains why one such fulfillment is rejected by Judaism.

Question:One of the methods you used in your tape series to refute missionary claims is to point out the context of the prophecy. For example, you point out that the seventh chapter of Isaiah cannot be a prophecy about Jesus’ virgin birth because it suggests that the prophecy was to have been fulfilled in Ahaz’s lifetime, some 700 years before Jesus.Still, maybe this is a “double prophecy,” a prophecy about a boy to be born in the days of Ahaz and also a prophecy to the birth of Jesus. The context is only for the first application of this double prophecy. Rabbi, do you have any comment? read on.... 

For me, this particular prophecy always seemed a bit of a stretch anyway, so it wasn't hard to see how it does really seem to be completely out of context when referring to Jesus. There were more, trickier ones, and I'll try to delve into those in the coming weeks and months.



Meanwhile, check out this post on the doctrine of Hell from a Judaic view.

Post Mother's Day Post

Oh boy.


The night wasn't all that great money-wise, but at least I got to work extra late.


I pull into the parking lot to find it nearly full as in where am I going to park full and while circling the building to look for a space, I see that the front porch is full of people waiting to be seated.



Awesome.



I walk into the side door and see one of the severs shiny with sweat. It was really warm yesterday and the AC was clearly not on and/or working right in the dining room.



"How's it going Natalie?"


"It ****ing sucks."


Roger walks by and looks at me with a run while you still can expression on his face.


I look to see where I'm stationed and find that I'm splitting a shift with Roxanne who gets to leave after lunch. Upon seeing me she yells ALICE!! and gives me a huge hug while practically jumping up and down. She is also sweaty and so is everyone else.


And so would I be soon.


I'm in the section that I absolutely hate the most, but I'm willing to be positive. At least I know it won't ever get too bad, since two of the tables will be in party mode all day. I basically will only have two tables turning all night. My top goal going in yesterday is that it wouldn't be a huge disaster.



(Fast forward though all the hilarious details I would like to add, but won't for the sake of not offending any bosses or guests should they happen upon this way.)


After all the delightful less than 10% tips* on three of my four parties (one left over 20- them's good people and I WILL remember you) and my two top that was empty more than it wasn't, I reminisce about a rather slow Monday night a couple of weeks ago in which I made more money- in about 2 less hours.



But I still love my job:)



I have a bunch of housework to get to now, but have been in tears laughing at this blog all morning. HILARIOUS.




*In the restaurant I work in (as in most) servers are automatically charged 2.5% of their SALES to "tip out" the bar and the hosts. If we get crummy tips we are doubly cheated since the amount of our tip out isn't based on crummy tips and unfortunately, the bigger the check on a crummy tip, the worse it is for us. I wish people knew this. Also, it used to be that we could automatically add gratuity to parties of 8 or more, but since January 1 of this year, we are no longer allowed and that is not good much of the time.

It's Mother's Day!

My boys are learning to play guitar (loudly).


I just got done making myself a rather caloric lunch, but it's okay since I probably won't have time to eat again until late tonight.


My teen is in her usual spot on her laptop and my little gal is walking around carrying a red purse.


Hubby just went to buy garden supplies so we can have some fresh veggies this summer.

The weather is beautiful and the windows are open.


I've got to go into work in a couple of hours and Mother's Day is supposed to be super busy. I hope it goes well.


I look forward to coming home and spending time with hubby (and some Chardonnay).


I hope you all have a very wonderful day as well.

Eternal Life and Death- Part Eleven

About Personal Experiences

Even if the Bible and the Church have it wrong in all the finer details, even if the contradictions and scandals in high places put a stain on Christianity, we always have that. Our own personal experience provides a kind of last line of defense, or at least it did for me. I recall distinctly my very first prayer for salvation and the wonderful feelings that followed. From that point forward any intense, sublime emotion was credited to the spirit of God. 

I also recall distinctly one late summer evening after having pretty much deconverted, experiencing those same sublime feelings completely out of a Christian mindset. It frightened and intrigued me. 

I wrote about my conclusions to this dilemma in the former series I wrote:

(originally posted 12/01/13)

The Spirit of God is promised to all believers. I truly believed I had it from the first time I asked God to reveal Himself to me and perhaps even before.

Back in high school and college when I was depressed a lot, I used to go driving in the country to listen to music and think. In some of my most hopeless moments, it seemed like sometimes there was a presence there, a comforting spirit that would help me to feel better. I kind of always felt like something or someone was watching me, too. I had spiritual like experiences in the past even before coming to Jesus, some may have been due to "outside influences" but in altered states, the mind goes places that one just doesn't usually go. There is another dimension, even if only in one's mind.




What I found as I tentatively wandered out the of the Christian (but not spiritual) box, that the feelings that I always associated with being the Comforter would happen anyway, without my being directly connected to or focused upon Jesus or Christianity. In the months that my faith was slipping away, many times a song, a moving scene from a movie or video game, or fellowship with my children or husband would bring about such feelings of being connected with the Spirit of God.

I discovered this when I began meditating, too and I started to wonder about the implications of it. Maybe it didn't matter if I was praying to Yahweh in Jesus's name, Jesus, Mary, Shiva, Allah, Krishna, Ganesh or the three goddesses of Hyrule. The very act of praying or contemplating on the sacred or anything like that seemed to produce the same feelings in me. I wondered if that had happened to anyone else.


The flood of emotions that I felt during my salvation experience may not have been exclusive to Christianity. I had heard of the Mormon's burning in the bosom, but I also discovered that in all faith traditions there are similar (or essentially the same) feelings that are produced.  Maybe this feeling is coming from within one's own self and not some outside force. All people of all religions can't all have the Holy Spirit if Jesus is the only way. Are they all deceived but not us? ...

 Upon discovering this, I was more convinced than ever that I was ready to let go.

No Hell/ No Heaven

In losing the horrific doctrine of Eternal Torment, I was able to let many questions that had been stifled for years come to the surface and be investigated. It was the conviction that God was love that allowed me to let go of the fear I had to question, and eventually let go of Christianity.


I do not write to convince anyone that I am right and they are wrong, I write because being and then not being a believer was something I never imagined would happen.  I write to explain why I can't settle into any kinder, gentler, less restrictive form of the Faith.


I'm done with it.


Not to say that I disdain all spirituality, I don't...really. I don't have any answers on that front nor am I actively pursuing any. If the universe has a Supreme Being, I imagine that such a being is more than capable of revealing (if it wishes) itself to each and every one of us without a shadow of a doubt.  A Cosmic Mind? Karma? Enlightenment? I don't know. And that's okay.


In the end, if we just cease to be, that's becoming increasingly comfortable to me. If there is some afterlife, I hope it's based upon what we did here and how we treated others and not on right belief, especially right belief on so little verifiable fact.




And I hope that in the end all would be finally welcomed and would find themselves in the state of eternal peace.

Eternal Life and Death- Part Ten

Finally Realizing My Doubt was Reasonable

Back in my very early believing days (in my early twenties when I knew everything...:)) I asked my agnostic dad about the Bible. He said he had read it and just found too many contradictions. I felt as though he were dismissing me and I was offended and saddened.  Although I hadn't actually done the homework myself, the allegation that the Holy Book had errors in it was unthinkable to me. He must just have not understood, or paid attention, or read it in the right context. And besides, I was pretty sure he was just angry with God and all that. I really was. Well, God had shown me Himself and I was sure that the Bible could be made sense of and anyone who wanted to believe that could prove it to be true with the correct study and an open heart and mind. 

Fast forward 19 years.

The past 19 years were full of the homework. Some years more than others. There was a detour into the Roman Catholic religion where the Bible is not the sole authority, but I did find in those years that their authority was not all that impressive, either. After that, I jumped into the scriptures like they were literally the complete and utter answer to everything. The Jesus words only thing was my last attempt at holding onto any kind of scriptural truth.

Honestly, for me, the red letters contained some of the most confusing and scariest phrases in the Bible.  I loved the parts where Jesus pardoned the adulteress and told others to love their enemies. Father forgive them, for they know not what they do was also deeply comforting. But the parables and the judgement passages seemed uncharacteristic to the Savior. By this time, I was pretty much done playing games. In an attempt to adjust my focus, I went to see what they (the unbelievers) were saying about Bible contradictions.


I happened upon this site along with others.


If the Bible has contradictions, what parts do we pay attention to? Which parts are for us and which are not? Why would the red letters be any different? Why all the commentaries and study bibles? (I myself was using a Scofield Bible and had been for years.)


After heading down this path, I knew I could never see the Bible in way I had seen it, the way I needed to see it in order to hang onto any kind of Christian beliefs. How do we know any of this is true?



It had never occurred to me to ask.




Next Part

Rainbow Portals

(Happy Friday)

My son runs into my room a couple of night ago: 

"Mom, Mom!, you have to come see..." 

At the time I was afraid something was wrong but after following him outside, I saw what all the fuss was about.

I wish I could have got the whole rainbow in the shot. It was beautiful and went all the way across the field. 

For the music selection this week, I have been hooked on a song from Portal 2  (a game I have never played) and have two favorite instrumental versions here and here, but I found this video with the actual songwriter signing it and another.

The music starts at about 50 seconds in...

Under the circumstances, I've been shockingly nice

I love how when the second song starts, the audience joins in, it's really cool. I wish I were there or had any idea why they all love it so much:)



Have a great weekend!

A Brief History of God

One commenter on yesterday's post wrote that the Bible may have been the work of ordinary humans with very human agendas.



It reminded me of a video I had watched sometime ago.

I remember reading in our kids' homeschool curriculum about a certain Pharaoh who tried monotheism. It didn't stick.


In a previous video the narrator talks about John Shelby Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die.  

What we see in this History of God is that religion, God, or at least our concept of god changes and those changes must come in order for the religion to survive.