Beautiful and sweet job, Sis. I did have a point in my life, as I think I’ve told you about – I know I’ve posted it online – where the God of Whom I had intellectual knowledge and a theoretical faith became a real Person with Whom I found myself in a relationship. But I think that is because I in particular needed it, needed to have my compartmentalized mind cracked and His love poured into it, to become who I am today.
If one likens a conversion experience to someone walking down a road away from God, and Him meeting them on the road and turning them around – which is a metaphor I’ve seen used a lot in the past – then people who are headed in the right direction may only need a gentle nudge, or a series of them, something so subtle it doesn’t stand out to them as a major change.
And I may have mentioned the wise old priest I knew just after becoming Episcopalian, who said he answered the “Are you saved? When did you get saved?” question thus:
“Same time you did – 3:00 PM Jerusalem Time, on the first Good Friday!”
Hey, don’t worry about it. Topics on and about religion sometimes does that. I mean, it’s so easy to get caught up differences in opinion and views with such a touchy and controversial subject. Especially when people were raised differently. It’s perfectly all right.
If you want to get really technical, the Orthodox answer is – from always, because the Crucifixion and Resurrection were a part of the Divine Plan from eternity. ;j (Yeah, I know, wrong kind of Orthodox! So sue me! :p)
By this are you saying that you had a moment of clarity/religious experience which created or changed this relationship? Or are you saying that this gradually came about with time and one day you just found yourself there?
I did have a “conversion experience” event that was a transforming experience. But it was part of an ongoing evolution of God working in my life/a sense of spiritual growth and change.
(I’m resisting the temptation to tell all about it at inordinate length.)
Please tell me: as a believer, are you willing to kill witches as your god commanded in Exodus 22:18? If so, how will you identify them?
Do you believe that slavery is morally justifiable? Are you aware that slavery is condoned in both the Old and New Testaments? Check out Exodus 21. How do you feel about the fact that “God” himself forces a slave (after serving his master for six years) to choose between freedom without his wife and children (assuming his master has “given” the slave his wife) or a LIFETIME of slavery with his family? Is this not a sadistically evil law that comes straight from your god? It seems to me, in order to believe that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of “God,” you must also believe that “God” is sadistically evil.
That was precisely my point in another thread – presuming that the Bible is literally the Word of God, with any humans involved being purely “word processors” for Him, leads to the conclusion that He is a sadistic megalomaniac. On the other hand, divorced of any question about God and His putative inspiration, the Tanakh is clearly a collection of writings of an ancient civilization, including their myths and legends (and the New Testament a similar collection about one radical group from late in their history).
So:
That some people believe God to have inspired Moses to write down those commands (presuming that it was he, and not some Jahvist, Priestly, or other tradition that did) does not enforce them on me.
The witch item and the O.T. slavery are commands to the Jewish people, not to me. They are quite explicitly as non-binding on me as the Jewish dietary laws – at least, Zev hasn’t condemned me for eating a cheeseburger lately.
The N.T. slavery item is aimed at a miniscule congregation in the midst of a world-dominating Empire, telling servi (“slaves” in the Roman usage) to be content in their lots because God would reward them later for it. It is no excuse for someone with political power to enforce slavery, but abolishing slavery was clearly beyond the powers of the little church in the catacombs or the one that met at so-and-so’s house in Corinth.
In any case, the KJV translation as “witch” has been known for over 100 years to be invalid – the word in question was descriptive of a potion-seller who often dealt in poisons.
God has given explicit instructions on how to deal with Wiccans – because they’re human beings. And it’s to love them and treat them as you would be treated, not to kill them.
In short, nice blast at what you mistake Christianity to be – and at what certain elements of it in fact are – but you missed me and my co-believers by a mile.
I believe in God and Jesus, but sometimes it is hard. I read the story today about the 14yr old girl going to a Catholic school beaten to death by her mom while she slept. It is hard to have faith and feel “saved” when you read things like that. Im not saying its God’s fault she died, but damn…
When I was 13 my buddy’s mom wanted to “welcome me into the forever family.” Being a Catholic boy, I found the idea bizarre. I mean, I thought I was sort of in it already…and who exactly was she to be the greeter? It turned out that my buddy’s family were all pretty normal people until you got on the topic of Jesus, and then, they became–as I interpreted it at the time–goofy.
Ironically, I look at this experience, and that comment in particular, as one of the turning points in my spiritual life. It was at this point that I began to question the faith I had been raised with, and frankly, I found it to be kind of goofy too.
I would actually be interested in hearing about it, if you don’t mind sharing.
I take it from your writing that you were christian before the event, however this event more or less brought you closer to where you are today in your faith?
I’ve frequently gotten somewhat bristly when asked that question- it always seemed like some kind of secret code for something that I wasn’t quite sure the asker was really getting at.
Okay, you’ve made an assertion. How GD works is, now you get to prove it, with cites. It’s possible if you narrowed your assertion down from “Christianity” as a broad term to something more specific, some of us would agree with you. But for now, I wanna see some evidence proving your case – and for “Christianity” not merely for “the Baptist church in my old home town” or some such.
