This Generation

I found this video that well articulates some of the thoughts I've been trying to put together lately (especially after being asked why I gave up Universalism for disbelief). Trying to get back to those days in early 2013 when it came tumbling down, I have to say it was still a huge struggle trying to make the Bible make sense, not in the why God sends people to hell, but what the heck does all this apocalyptic stuff have to do with anything.  I've been researching again after putting all this stuff away for a time. I've been so influenced by my extreme bias over the last couple of decades, that I need to hone my critical thinking skills.



When I first started believing, back in 1995, I was immediately fascinated by prophecy. The teachers on T.V. excitedly proclaimed that Jesus fulfilled oodles of  Old Testament prophecies and that the time of the End, prophesied by Jesus himself, was most certainly at hand. I bought it without question. I didn't check the scriptures, or church history, or secular history, I just believed it. Sure, I would read the pertinent passages in the way the teachers presented them to me, but I just didn't do the research.



It's about 40 minutes long. I listened to it on my phone as I cleaned the house, the audio is well enough to get the meat of it.

The God Concept

This is an introduction to Evid3nc3's masterfully done deconversion series. I revisit it from time to time. This time the idea of graceful degradation stuck out to me, as I am now researching the ins and outs of belief and the whys of deconversion. For example, how is it that some can not take the bible literally and still hold faith, while others see it differently?



Graceful degradation is the ability of a computer, machine, electronic system or network to maintain limited functionality even when a large portion of it has been destroyed or rendered inoperative. The purpose of graceful degradation is to prevent catastrophic failure.  (google)


As he says in the video the concept of God is a mega-belief held together by several smaller beliefs, and it's only after enough of these smaller beliefs are challenged that the system does break down.

Holier Than Thou

When I was a believer, I thought that I knew God, I was more serious about my relationship, more close to God than all those other people "playing church."  I really did. But of course, it was not me but Him who was doing it. I just did my part in loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.



Driving my son to school this morning, it occurred to me that we all probably think/thought that. No one strives to be lukewarm, we all want(ed) to please Him. Those who don't do things the way we do or read the scriptures with our own interpretation are not "filled with His spirit." It's impossible to know how sincere anyone is in their faith. Will we know them by their works?


Jesus in the sheep and goats judgement passage says plainly it is works and not right belief. In fact, many people who didn't think they were in, were, and those who did weren't.  In fact, I can't really think of any passage where right belief is the standard for holiness.


Wresting scripture? Good grief, everyone accuses everyone else of that. I finally got tired of all the doctrinal nit-picking and wanted to get down to the truth. It was when I left all the hills to die on that I gained (what I believe to be) some humility about this whole thing. What are the essentials. Believe. Believe what exactly? Well, thats the rub, isn't it?


Believe (and then????)



I once heard a sermon where the pastor was giving some sort of lesson about maturity in Christ, making points of the characteristics an immature, growing, and then mature Christian would display in their lives. Here I was a Christian for 17 years or so hearing that if I didn't think church attendance was important, I was immature. I didn't think church attendance was important. What did Jesus ever say about church attendance?

I longed for that personal, sublime relationship with the all that is all. I knew that church attendance, baptism, communion, boring re-hashed homilies, topical powerpoint sermons, tithing had nothing to do with that. (Note all those things are done inside the ecclesiastical country club).

Bible study, getting to the heart of what God says to us, that's where it was at. Yes.


What a mess that was.


Love, yes, that's it. God IS love.

But not so fast, he's also not ONLY love.



Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

What We Deserve

We all deserve Hell.


I heard it over and over, I believed it, I taught it to Sunday school children. Why do we all deserve Hell?


All have sinned and fallen short the Glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.



Note Paul doesn't say the wages of sin is eternal torture.  That is pieced together from other places and in Jesus's proclamation of wailing and gnashing of teeth. The fire is never quenched, the worm never dies. The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever.


If Hell forever is your default setting, then yes, any way to avoid it would be preferable. Do you love Jesus or are you running to him to avoid Hell? If there were no Hell, would you still love Jesus?


I'll link to this post today. The last few paragraphs made me think about this.


Putting aside that there is no proof of hell outside of ancient books, I like this quote:

"...Now is there the slightest evidence for this? No, it just says so in Mark 9, Matthew 13 and Revelation 14. Perhaps you'll remember from The Lord of the Rings, it says that when the elves die, they go to Valinor, but they can be reborn in Middle Earth. I say that just as a point of comparison.”-  Sam Harris

 WHY does everyone who ever lived deserve to be in eternal pain and suffering for finite sins we commit on this earth during our short lives?


An eye for an eye is infinitely more merciful in the light of this and Jesus was supposed to be more compassionate than the Law of Moses?

The only unpardonable sin is not believing? What is going on here?



The disease is created so the cure can be sold.  Don't question it, or you'll be going there yourself.

Expectations

Yaddy asked me in the comments of the last post about what it is that I want from God?



That can be a quite complex question, but again quite simple depending on how deep one wants to get into it.


If one reads through my story and even before in the posts and devotions I did as a Christian, you will see that through it all, I tried to make it (Christianity, the Bible, the observable world, reality) make some kind of sense that I could live with and say, yes this is absolute truth.

I've been accused on numerous occasions by more than one of being too black and white in my thinking.  We are all that way in many areas of our life, not to say there isn't room for gray areas at all, but when dealing with the absolute truth of life and the nature of reality, I needed some proof.


Let's just deal with prayer for now.


Would I expect a good God to take away all/prevent all evil from the world? I don't know. How can one have light without darkness? If all were good for everyone all the time, would life be less worth living? That's a whole other subject, but I suppose I would not require a Utopia for me to believe in God.


Would I expect a good God to answer the prayers of his people? Yes. Did I see many many prayers of devout, faithful, self sacrificing believers go unanswered? Yes. Did I see tragedy heaped upon tragedy in real time to a family I knew as a Christian? Yes. My own prayers were hit and miss and as many have said before, we rarely count the misses.


The bible says over and over that God loves us and is listening and will answer our prayers. Think about the prayers you and others have prayed.



Why won't he heal you and  your loved ones? Why won't he save the sinner who you are constantly praying for? Why won't he bring in the Kingdom?


If he could part the seas and raise the dead and heal the lepers, why not now? Why are we going to doctors instead of praying for new limbs, hearts, kidneys?


I'm not asking in a selfish way as if he were a genie. I'm taking the scriptures (Jesus even) at their word.


And if this doesn't happen, ever, then what?


Apologetics, excuses, mental gymnastics, all the things I did to try and ease the dissonance.



I stopped believing in Hell as forever at least about a year and a half or so before losing faith and in that time, since the fear was gone I was able to really question. I discovered that it was just not true.



I expected the promises of the Bible, as far as prayer, to be true.