Would anyone have any reading suggestions for someone considering re-entry into the Christian faith?

He rejects that position though.

samefagging, he rejected this idea too. i hadn't finished reading. in the end all he does is say a cop out that we don't know the original context that these words were spoken so we can't interpret it. this is quite incredible considering Craig wants us to believe the gospels are a very reliable account. if the true context of these words is lost even when context is given in the form of the questions Jesus is replying to here what else is missing its original context?

Former seminarian here. Life as a true Christian is a life of service to God and to others. Set aside the self-centered attitudes that modern society teaches you from the cradle. Strive to serve God's Will in all things. Look for His signs and dwell in His light.

Above all else, be humble. Vanity is a cancer that will poison your faith and turn you from grace.

That file name though
I'm afraid you aren't fully grasping the original idea of Christianity. Where are you from and what kind of christianity are you interested in?

Refrain from responding if all you're doing is shitposting.

Why not go ask a pastor or something? They'll certainly have the best advice for bringing you back into the fold.

Judaism and Christianity are also objectively false. Their metaphysical claims don't hold up to the smallest drop of scrutiny, and the evidence that anything in the Bible or the Torah happened is shaky at best, or non-existent.

H.L Mencken wrote an essay about the graveyard of dead gods, which everyone in this thread owes to themselves to read. There is no more evidence for the god of Abraham than any god in that list.

Fuck off, this isn't a religious board.

You can talk about your theology all you want, but straight up proselytizing bullshit and prayer request crap does not belong here. Also, nobody cares about your "spiritual emptiness".

*le tip*

Are you a mod?

The American Midwest. I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "what type"; if you mean what denomination? Conservative branches of the Anglican Church.

And as far as the filename, I know Christ isn't really a War God, but it's the strong, devout Crusader-era expression of Christianity I find the most compelling. The righteous wrath of Revelations has always been my favorite part of the Bible. I think it's a valid expression of Christianity, but I recognize that it by no means represents the faith fully.

I feel like that's a step for when I'm a little more certain.

It seemed that this board was the best place to ask for religious literature. The topic seems to dominate conversation quite heavily; I apologize if it was out of place.

And I just thought some background might be good for people who had suggestions; once again, I apologize if I'm out of place.

Christianity is bullshit. It's not real.
All the archeological evidence points to Biblical claims and stories having been invented or greatly exaggerated.

Stop relying on fictional characters and live your life with the aid of common sense.

Can you post constructively instead of acting like the average r/atheism poster?

>"I only want people to post that which conforms to my own world-view and which validates the ideas I have."

>relying on evidence in matters of faith

It's like relying on blowjobs to get a woman pregnant. It's just not going to work, but that doesn't mean the woman is infertile.

Evidence and the scientific method are required to understand the natural world, faith and acceptance are required to understand the supernatural world.

If the account of Genesis in the Bible is not true, then the whole thing is nonsense. If The Bible is nonsense, and there is no God, then Nietzsche was right. If there is no objective basis for morality, then there is no point in following the rules of anyone but yourself. I'm inclined to believe there is a God, I just don't believe he genuinely cares about us. He is probably observing us with callousness, and apathy. Could a God that is infinitely more powerful and knowledgeable than humans truly love us, even if we are less to him than ants are to us? He could, but why would he want to?

>Yes Lewis was mistaken about the failed prophecy

No he wasn't.

I'd listen to you if you acted like a decent person.

Have a nice day.

>faith and acceptance are required to understand the supernatural world.

By that reasoning, why should Christianity be special or 'true', out of all the world religions? If "faith and acceptance" are required to understand this supposed 'supernatural world' you speak of, then why don't you have faith in and accept the tenets of the Baha'i's? The Buddhists? The Muslims?

Also, your reasoning is just lazy. It opens up the gates of absurdity, such that any religion or belief system can be considered 'true' simply because "no proof is needed, only faith and acceptance!".

different user, but I can to an extent. I'm on my phone and can't really supply sources. first off there is no evidence to show the wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. if we believe the bible it was millions of people, yet archeological digs south of Israel and in Jordan don't support this many people living in nonpermenant settlements. moving on to King David, Jerusalem's population at the time was around a couple hundred, Judah only 2-4 thousand, while the Ephraim hill country had a pop of 40,000. it is nonsensical to think Judah could subjugate not only this region but Philistia, Edom, Ammon, Moab, parts of Egypt and Aram. also the first iron age fortifications that are built in Israel aren't during David and Solomon's reigns but a century later. The Torah is probably not written by Moses as hebrew didn't even exist in the 1400s BC

That's a very feminine reaction to someone challenging your beliefs. I hope you are a girl.

True, by that reasoning I can't disprove Islam or Buddhism or any other. Nor do I attempt to. I believe Christ to be the true God, but I neither can nor desire to prove this to a Muslim. God will direct them in his way. If they join us, wonderful! If they don't, I wish them the best.

Except there is no such supernatural world. Evidence and scientific method can prove that.

>I believe Christ to be the true God,

Why? After all, since you said proof is not needed: how do you know the Jews aren't 'correct'? Or the Muslims? They don't believe in Jesus as a son of God: one of them classifies him as a madman and demon, the other as a mere man and prophet.

>If they don't, I wish them the best
in hell?

I don't know. I believe they aren't right. Perhaps I'm wrong; that would be quite unfortunate for me. But my belief is strong enough I don't consider that to be a possibility worth considering.

It's just faith. Unprovable, unaccountable, supernatural, immaterial belief, that enters into you without your knowledge builds conviction against your doubts. Its the only evidence you can ever have, but if you have it, it is the only evidence you need. Perhaps its wrong and you're delusional, perhaps its right and you're on the true path, but once it takes hold that faith cannot be denied no matter what.

Only through Christ can people be saved, but Christ can choose to save people that do not believe in him. Whether he does or doesn't, I don't know - thus, I wish them the best.

Try Revolution in Judea, by Hyam Maccoby.

If God knew the future before it happened, then why did he create people he KNEW would not be saved?

you've basically admitted to not caring what the truth is

I don't care what delusions you carry around, but I refuse to let religious people try to impose their worldview on others just because "it's faith" - that is, ruining people's lives and denying services because of that faith which you yourself claim is "unprovable [sic] and unaccountable."

For that very unprovable "faith" of yours, people have been killed in the past and even today, and for it people have been denied their integrity and rights or services that would improve their lives.

All religions may very well be looking at the same God from different perspectives. Science may be doing the same in studying the laws of the universe.

Faith is intuitive, not logical. You feel a calling, and you follow it. It's impossible to explain to someone who has never felt it.

so then Christ doesn't care about me. fuck him

I would add that rearing a child with an unquestionable faith in a God that would have him sent to eternal punishment if he masturbated too much without repentance is a form of psychological abuse.

No, just that I don't think truth can be objectively established, and as such each of us must follow the truth in our hearts. The alternative is to strip away the impulses of faith and devotion.

Every society needs a universal, binding code by which to abide. Pluralism has proven to be a disaster - in the American southwest, in urban ghettos, in Muslim Europe, basically everywhere it has been tried. Since no one code can be objectively proven as superior - not due to issues of faith, but due simply to the inability to scientifically analyze a society that defies isolation and experimental control - we have to pick one and force it on everyone. The question then is just whether you choose a religion, a totalitarian ideology, a racial exclusivity, or something else.

Its not an issue of "my religion is the only right one and I will force you to follow it" (though obviously the average person will interpret it this way), but instead "we have to have a universal, mandatory code of laws in order to keep society stable, and religion is perfect for the job."

panentheism plz go

The cognitive dissonance on display in your posts is astounding

I don't know how you got that from what I said? Literally

>Christ can choose to save people that do not believe in him

... How did you turn that into "Christ doesn't care about me"?

Do you have the autism? It's implied that if you care about someone it wouldn't be a matter of IF you save them from eternal hell fire, it would be an obvious "of course".

He didn't choose to save me. in fact he is intentionally leading people like me away by placing mountains of evidence that contradicts his holy text. he created me knowing I would go to hell. he either doesn't care about me, hates me, or doesn't exist

Definitely. Living in Midwest America, you very quickly begin to see Christianity as more a form of evil than good.

-Tons of broken and fucked-up families thanks to the parents' obsessive affiliation with Christianity (gay kids - or anyone that the Bible says is a "sinner" - getting kicked out of home and ending up on the streets, kids that got pulled out of school because the public system was "godless" and they ended up stunted and ruined, battered wives because of the entire "wives, submit yourselves to your husbands..." verse)
-High STD rates because religious fundies in the legislatures cut funding to centers that offered free testing and/or condoms or charitable services

That's just what I myself have seen personally. Used to have an ex- that was broken because his parents were such hardcore Christians that their entire way of raising him was one giant abuse, which culminated in them kicking him out of home and forcing him on the streets and telling their entire congregation that they had "purged themselves of an evil amongst them" and comparing cutting off their own son to that verse about cutting off one's own hand if it causes one to sin, which was met with acclaim.

Would it be an obvious "of course" for a judge to save his son from a parking ticket? Just because Christ might care about us, doesn't mean he won't still hold us to the Law he set down.

God didn't write the Bible, he inspired it - the stories, allegories, and myths are filled with the patterns of ancient human legends. But the inspiration behind them is divine, and that's what counts. Normal Christianity makes no claim of Biblical literalism.

Additionally, your last points don't follow. Why do you say God created you knowing he would go to hell? Calvinist predestination is a widely rejected doctrine (outside Calvinism, obviously). If he did, just because you intend to punish someone for sins they commit doesn't mean you don't care about them (see the judge example earlier).

What a convoluted and totally unconvincing way to try to save face.

"The Biblical stories were divinely inspired, but not completely, so this accounts for those things that don't add up in the archeological record. However, this proves Christianity true, in essence."

Ah-h, how convenient for you!

>a parking ticket = eternal suffering'
Are you a nigger or just stupid?

>"The Biblical stories were divinely inspired, but not completely,

Not what I said. They are completely divinely inspired, but not divinely written. Their core essence (the moral point, the history of the Jews and Christian peoples) is true, but the factual details have been stretched and distorted by man's failures as record-keepers.

>so this accounts for those things that don't add up in the archeological record.

It doesn't account for them, it just doesn't touch on them. George Washington's honesty and skill as our nation's first president isn't in question because there's no archaeological evidence he cut down a cherry tree.1

>However, this proves Christianity true, in essence."

Never said that, and no it doesn't. Nothing can prove Christianity true except your own belief.

I suppose the theistic standard can be phrased as "just because something is true, doesn't mean its provable. Belief is the key to supernatural truth, but not all belief leads to truth."

Are you unable to think in analogies?

predestination is the only logical conclusion you can draw with an omnipotent and omniscient God. He has the power to make me believe and has chosen not to. your parking ticket analogy is terrible. I'm not even being punished for a crime. my "crime" is simply living according to your doctrine and the judge is offering a get out of jail free card but it is a mere rumour spreading throughout the court room and there are other competing theories on how to obtain this get out of jail free card, even that I won't be punished in the first place. how is this a fair justice system?

>George Washington's honesty and skill as our nation's first president isn't in question because there's no archaeological evidence he cut down a cherry tree.1
we have actual fucking letters written by him, not mere rumours like the cherry tree

>Are you unable to think in analogies?
No, but apparently you are. A parking ticket is a temporary punishment whereas burning in hell forever is FOREVER. In fact, I wouldn't even say Hell is a punishment, as you will never get to act on your lesson learned. It's more like psychopathic torture forever.

>George Washington's honesty and skill as our nation's first president isn't in question because there's no archaeological evidence he cut down a cherry tree.1

Did God send you down here to troll us?

>predestination is the only logical conclusion you can draw with an omnipotent and omniscient God.

Logical conclusions don't mean much when we are talking about a being who exists outside of the very universe we inhabit. Even so, you claim it's the only logical conclusion, but don't offer any explanation. Not forcing you to believe in him is not the same as predestination; he may not force you to, but the chance for salvation still exists.

As far as the parking ticket analogy goes, the system you present is unfair, but it is not the system presented in religion. A better way to phrase it is 'the judge may suspend the ticket on account of good behavior, but a team of lawyers disagrees on what the judge considers good behavior." That seems fair, and is far closer to the actual case than your hyperbole.

You're missing the point. Just as in the Bible, the cherry tree story illustrates a truth, regardless of the archaeological record.

That's a very American Protestant understanding of hell. Traditional Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism have understood hell as eternal separation from God. God doesn't send you there, but if you separate yourself from his grace he is under no obligation to force you into that grace. That separation causes suffering to your eternal soul, and Satan is the ruler of realms outside of God's grace, but that doesn't necessarily mean its eternal hellfire.

>'the judge may suspend the ticket on account of good behavior
nope, the only way to the father is through Christ. unless you think believing in your religion is the only form of good behavior

>That's a very American Protestant understanding of hell. Traditional Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism have understood hell as eternal separation from God. God doesn't send you there, but if you separate yourself from his grace he is under no obligation to force you into that grace. That separation causes suffering to your eternal soul, and Satan is the ruler of realms outside of God's grace, but that doesn't necessarily mean its eternal hellfire.
And that is still many orders of magnitude higher of a punishment than a parking ticket. Either way, my previous post stands unstumped

The only way to the Father is through Christ; this can mean "through belief in Christ" or "through Christ's grace" - given the emphasis placed on correct moral behavior in the Bible and the universality of salvation, "through Christ's grace" seems as valid as belief.

Fair enough, but the point was not about hell, the point that I was illustrating was that a caring God is under no obligation to save you from the wages of sin, in the same way that a caring father is under no obligation to save his son from the fines of criminal activity. The analogy doesn't extend outside that point, I admit that, but I think my point still stands.

God exists outside time; he didn't do things before they happened. He created the universe, directed it, created people, returned to the universe, conquered Satan, etc, all at the same time, and at no time at all. Its difficult to explain or understand, because we are talking about a being existing totally outside anything resembling what we know as the laws of time, space, or existence.

> God is under no obligation to save you from the wages of sin, in the same way that a caring father is under no obligation to save his son from the fines of criminal activity.
Again, you are making the same analogy that makes no sense. A caring father would save his son from the fines of criminal activity IF that fine was life imprisonment.

>God exists outside time; he didn't do things before they happened. He created the universe, directed it, created people, returned to the universe, conquered Satan, etc, all at the same time, and at no time at all. Its difficult to explain or understand, because we are talking about a being existing totally outside anything resembling what we know as the laws of time, space, or existence.
We are also talking about a being that knows literally EVERYTHING, something you forgot to mention. So knowing everything that is, was, and will be, he would know that his creation would forsake him and damn themselves to eternal suffering. The only logical reason he would create these people knowing these facts, is that he does not want everyone to be saved.

>A caring father would save his son from the fines of criminal activity IF that fine was life imprisonment.

Ah, now that I disagree with. Depending on the crime, a father would still be obliged to send his son to life imprisonment, regardless of his feelings for him.

>The only logical reason

There we go again, trying to analyze God using logic and our understanding of time. But these are useless in analyzing God; God exists outside of the realm where logic makes sense, and in a continuity of time outside our comprehension. As far as the Bibles say, God both knows all that has ever happened or will, and does not know what we will do in the future. Both are true, since both are statements that depend on a liner flow of time rather than... whatever kind of "time" God may or may not experience.

catholics aren't for faith or works, they believe faith AND works are needed

You don't need god to not be spiritually bankrupt. You can go to church and be spiritually bankrupt.

I make no claim on behalf of the Catholic church.

I assumed you must be closer to their theology if you were bashing protestants. i don't know of any church organization that says faith or works is okay

I'm definitely *closer* to their theology, but I disagree on this, as well as papal infallibility.

you won't find support in the NT for this idea. whenever someone is saved through God's grace it is understood to be through Jesus's sacrifice on the cross, which must be accepted. quite plainly in James it's said faith without works and works without faith are worthless. plus, what threshold is there for good works needed to avoid hell? the simple heaven or hell dichotomy is terrible for this. say you make it 51% good works vs. 49% of your actions being bad or evil is the threshold. the worst person in heaven and the best person in hell are going to be nearly identical yet have vastly different afterlifes

Hope this helps user.

you guys are fucking faggots,
religion is for weak minded people
grow a set and be a fucking man,
your going to die
face it you pussy

Different user here,

Can you elaborate further? Out of curiousity.

Sorry OP, can't give you any suggestions, as reading the bible cover to cover has an odd effect of causing a person to become atheist.

...

Reading list with links here: pastebin.com/bN1ujq2x

>please tell me what I want to hear
>I already have my conclusion, just argue it to me

Fuck off, OP. The most literal example of a LARP-er.

>examine religious texts as representations of an anciant society's ideas desires and world views.
Then realize that we are not an alien race, but a continuation of that society with a world view that is not completely alien but is an blown out world view of their ancient one. A more detailed version.

Imagine their world view that they represented in the bible as a surface of a baloon that has barely any air in it.
Our modern day society is the durface of the baloon after a lot of air has been blown into it.
Its surface is the same but it is stretched, everything is further apart and there is more space in between, making it harder to achieve a perspective when we are stuck.

Looking back at the baloon when it wasnt stretched can give us perspective and allow us to untangle our specific opinions and world views.

They cant help it.
They cant realize that their staunch atheism is a symptom of the ills of modern western society.
It is a counterforce to religious violence and extremism.
Religious extremist collided with secularism and both were flung back as a result of the collision.
These fedoars dont realize their oppinions are too narrow minded and that what is needed is not extreme secularism but a renewed emancipated examination of religion, through our enlightened 21th century, post modern eyes.

Wasnt meant to be green text, sorry.