I want to believe in Jesus. What should I read?

the brothers karamazov

There are other ways. You will only find outer peace with jesus.

my diary desu

You're most likely going to be disappointed.

Believe in Jesus the person or believe in the complete trinity? For the latter I recommend you study Thomas Aquinas.

If this doesn't make you believe in a god, at least you'll come out of it being a better person. It is a terrific book

Why?

The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Believe in the Jesus that believes in you.

Look man, you're asking people on Veeky Forums to convert you to Christianity so you can have some purpose in your life. I don't see how that could possibly go well, or lead to a meaningful relationship with God. Start going to a church or something if you really want to believe.

It depends what background you're coming from. If you're coming from an atheistic/agnostic/apathetic background like I did, Kierkegaard is definitely your best bet.

If you want to believe in Jesus don't read the Bible, you're gonna become an atheist.

Read Thomas Aquinas and Kierkegaard theology. The great apologists, but yeah avoid the Bible at all costs.

it could very well lead to greater unhappiness. i had a breakdown as a result of trying to become more religious.

If there is anything good about Veeky Forums, it's the honesty of people around here. Behind all the ironic shitposting and bantz, there are people here, who have no other intention but to help others. That's something that I'm missing in other places, so I might as well ask you guys.

That's not true at all. He should at least read the Gospels, Genesis, Job, and Paul's epistles.

...

...

Though I'm sure you're well aware, the irony in having to forgo scripture in order to build your faith is akin to just admitting that god is dead.
If you can't engage with the Bible in a genuine way but have to do so trough proxy, you're no Christian.

Well I admit that I can't understand how christians manage to do that.

Gut Gott. If you read those and you're acceptably reasonable, there's no way you become a christian, well unless your cognitive dissonance defense mechanism is huge as fuck.

please explain

God is really, genuinely not all that bad in the Old Testament, and actually learning about the historical development of Judaism surprisingly manages to put him in an even better light. He never required human sacrifice at any point, for example, which was a rarity in the very early days of the Near East.

And if you're put off by the OT because it has dragons and giants and half-angel monsters in it, well, that's what you signed up for. Serious commitment to religion sort of turns reality into low fantasy. You've got spirits and demons and healings and such, and of course it's all true. Roll with it.

Engage with the Bible part or not engage with it, yet call themselves Christians?

No true scottman. If you're not a fundamentalist you're no true christian.

Gut Gott. Tell that to the amalakites, sodomites, gomorrans, egipcian first borns and so forth

Reading the Bible and remain christians.

>Protip: You can't, they're all dead.

God was only protecting his people that he had made a covenant with.

Aren't all humans his people? What was the sin of the egiptian first borns? Did the amalakite children sin so gravely? Were the people of Sodom and Gomorra deserving of death because they liked to fuck? Did all these people hold a referendum and decided what to do or did their leaders decide for them?

Fundamentalism is one thing, rejecting or brushing aside the conduit to the most holy of holies within your system of belief in order to maintain an illusion is another. True Christians read the bible, be it literally, allegorically or just out of curiosity for what it's all about. The rest aren't really Christians, they might think they are, claim they are, but are really just there because they were born into it or are escaping into the fantasy of what they think or are told Christianity is.

Wtf does this gif mean? You guys are the most analytical board on here, and I don't want to start a thread just for this gif. It's pretty cool and abstract, I think I might have to do something with being reborn or suicide or something.

Who decides what's christianity? The NT is very clear about how women must be treated, yet almost every christians rejects that.

I agree with the first post, if you really want to do this, you better stay away from the Bible. Genesis is fun but don't touch the New Testament.
God IS dead (le tip). If he wants to find religion for personal purposes it's best not to think too seriously about it, and the Bible takes itself really seriously. Logic gets in the way of emotion, and user doesn't want logic, he wants to be conforted about the big questions. That's a perfectly good goal, so fuck off.

holy fuck how long is this gif

The Ministry of Healing by Ellen G White
The Desire of Ages by Ellen G White
The Great Controversy by Ellen G White

Sodom and Gomorrah were inhospitable to a messenger from God. I think they murdered his companion, in fact. And on top of that, they were truly wicked. Part of it WAS them liking to fuck, or at least fuck in a way that God didn't approve of.

Do you have a problem of that? Does it bother you, the idea that God might judge even the things you do in the privacy of your own home?

It doesn't because I think there's a minimal chance he exists. But it is a horrifying thought.

Did all the people in Sodom and Gomorrah kill the messenger? Did they hold a referendum? Were the children part of the murder? Did they even know?

You conveniently forget about the egyptian first borns.

If you follow the Christian idea that death isn't the ultimate end of everything than the things that happened in the Old Testament seem trivial to an omnipotent being that is beyond the laws of time. Times were different back in the ancient days, and I can see why certain measures had to be taken. A lot of it is putting your trust that ultimately God is just, and only he knows the true hearts of man. God works in mysterious ways. :^)

>God works in mysterious ways.
Nowhere in the Bible says so.

By your logic all life is trivial and we'd be better off killed as babies and enjoy heaven. How do you refute that?

Is there any particular reason to put one's trust in God? Is there any particular reason to believe he exists?

You see why a whole generation of first borns had to be killed?

I was heavily involved in church for over 20 years, I've seen more people find inner peace through Christianity than I could honestly count.

yes, you should read the Bible. yes, the whole thing. then take it a step further by studying the original texts, there are quite a few passages that aren't easily digested and translations certainly aren't working in your favor. There are numerous studies online for anything you could have questions about. I recommend a New Oxford Annotated Bible. Read the supplementary reading posted in this thread.
Understand that the Bible is not perfectly historically accurate and contains many witness accounts of events that clash with one another. Nothing important, but enough to understand how to approach it. If you don't believe me then talk to a rabbi. It was written for its message, not just a historical document.
Understand that you will not understand what is not meant for you. I don't know why God did a lot of things, he often sounds rather incompetent, but I don't know his endgame, or even the purpose behind human life, so I have no way of criticizing when I don't understand his intentions.
Understand that there is no eternal hell and do as much studying as you need to understand that truth. Or just talk to a rabbi. Christianity is an extension of Judaism.
Understand that the Bible was written by an assembly of complete randoms; fishermen, tax collectors, shepherds, kings, prisoners. No one with a lick of literary talent.
The first five books were written by an asshole with terrible communication skills.
Find a good church, but you don't really have to but its good to feel involved.

Molech worshipers threw their still alive firstborn infants into a giant flaming wok and cooked them to death as a sacrifice and stored their remains in urns that they would place in the walls of their home, among other things.
It's easy to say that ancient earth didn't deserve such a wrathful God, and I honestly agree, but the savagery of the past is on a level that we can't even fathom.

No, I don't say all life is trivial for us, I'm saying that our lives are trivial compared to the eternity that is God. That's not to say God doesn't value us as individuals, but rather our lives are very small when looking at the bigger picture of eternity. By all means we should enjoy the gift of life that God has gave us, but we can never put ourselves in God's shoes and say what he should or shouldn't do.

>nowhere in the Bible says so
Isaiah 58:8

Did you live in that time period?

Ah, that was a typo, it's Isaiah 55:8, not 58:8.

What did the egyptian first borns do? And how do the Molek worshippers justify all the other mass genocides I've listed? If you agree, how can you reconcile this with an All-loving God?

>Isaiah 55:8
>«"Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds»
Does that single line state that what God does is incomprehensible for the human mind?

How do you interpret that as God works in mysterious ways? It's a non sequitur. Or at least a very big extrapolation.

>Did you live in that time period?

Can you think of any justification to kill all the first borns of a civilization at any time in history?

>enjoy the gift of life that God has gave us

Why? You believe eternal life is better, don't you? That's how the death of new born children around the world is justified. But why do they get to go to Heaven without any suffering and we must deal with all of this?

Maybe if user meanders through half of the Old Testament and skips the New...

As a former agnostic, reading the bible was a step to enlightenment. I'm not saying it converted me, but it opened my eyes to belief.

The New Testament condones slavery, promotes sexism and condemns sex out of wedlock. Effectively condemning christian homosexuals to sexless, marriageless lives.

>condones slavery

No

>promotes sexism

Not particularly

>condemns sex out of wedlock

I don't see a problem with that.

You want to find inner peace? Face your problems. God is in strife.

>What did the egyptian first borns do? And how do the Molek worshippers justify all the other mass genocides I've listed?
it was a different world, so long ago I don't feel entitled to an opinion.
The Bible contains some of the oldest books ever written.
The distance between us and the events of the New Testament is less than the distance between the events of the New Testament and the events of the Old Testament by almost a thousand years.

You're literally asking me about events that happened in a civization that was established when wooly mammoths were still around. I don't know what they did. Moses was born almost 3500 years ago, I cannot account for his actions. The details of the Bible are very sparse, especially the books penned by Moses, so I just can't say either way.

>If you agree, how can you reconcile this with an All-loving God?
Well I don't believe in an anthropomorphic God, which I think stumbles most people. There's not some Guy in the Sky whose really really smart and really really loves us a lot.
I also don't reconcile Him because that's not my place. I feel that life is a process that were all meant to go through and that's all I can really say, personally.

I do think that God is multifaceted in the same sense that gravity is multifaceted.
Consider how you would explain the concept of gravity on earth's surface to planets if they were sentient. Gravity at that scale takes a different, even unrecognizable role.
Same for Man and time.
Explain your concept of death to earth's population before the notion of anything other than the afterlife came onto the scene. Death to you and death to then are two different things.

>condones slavery

Oh, but it does. The New Testament tells the masters how to treat their slaves and the slaves to obey their masters as if they were god. Ephesians 6:5

>promotes sexism

1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent."

>Condemns sex out of wedlock

You don't have a problem with condemning homosexuals to sexless, marriageless lives or eternal damnation?

People who claim totality of knowledge in regards to the bible, use no textual criticism, especially in regards to God's will, while still acknowledging that he is beyond their understanding, but all the same claiming to have been saved, are enormous hubristic faggots

youtube.com/user/wordonfirevideo/playlists

The Bible is pretty clear on why this people were vanquished, you're taking a cop out. Can you think of any situation in which annihilating an entire civilization would be moral?

>Well I don't believe in an anthropomorphic God
>Genesis 1-27
>«So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.»

It seems you don't take that passage seriously.
What is your metaphorical interpretation of it? And if you have one, how do you decide what to interpret metaphorically and what literally?

>Can you think of any justification to kill all the first borns of a civilization at any time in history?
No, I personally cannot, but I did not live in the ancient times and therefore cannot really assess that particular situation. People lived quite differently back then, and fundamentally knew a lot less about the world than we do today. I'd think a question like that only works on a case-by-case basis.

>Why? You believe eternal life is better, don't you? That's how the death of new born children around the world is justified. But why do they get to go to Heaven without any suffering and we must deal with all of this?
It's an unfair world we live in, and we have to deal with it, our only hope for justice comes through God. I'm not saying we should all kill ourselves to get to heaven, because I think life can be joyful in its own right. I think there can be a love of life and people that can be drawn through God, which can make life worth living, in spite of suffering.

>What is your metaphorical interpretation of it? And if you have one, how do you decide what to interpret metaphorically and what literally?
by not having autism and using context clues like any other normal person

youtube.com/watch?v=htxOjJHB5-8

youtube.com/watch?v=UVsbVAVSssc

as to your literal reading of genesis
youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc

youtube.com/watch?v=LLmqKUQGk3k

no one has ever read the bible like the way you are saying we have to until the 19th century

it is a new theology not grounded in history

>People lived quite differently back then, and fundamentally knew a lot less about the world than we do today.

People didn't killed them, God did.

>It's an unfair world we live in, and we have to deal with it

Who created everything?

>God, which can make life worth living, in spite of suffering.

Tell that to that girls kidnapped, raped and eventually killed by Boko Haram. Tell that to the millions of children who die yearly from hunger.

Is your reason that their suffering prepare them for Heaven?

How do you justify all the animal suffering in the world? Are they learning too?

>How do you justify all the animal suffering in the world? Are they learning too?

>The Bible is pretty clear on why this people were vanquished
No it isn't, that's the entire basis of theological and historical study. The Bible offers little to no detail beyond "this is against God".
>Can you think of any situation in which annihilating an entire civilization would be moral?
Sure, in the context that those souls reincarnate(something congruent with Jewish teaching) or in the context that there were factors that we don't know and cannot acknowledge.

>It seems you don't take that passage seriously. What is your metaphorical interpretation of it?
Well for starters, don't read the Torah the same way you read the NT. The Torah is written in a way that would have made sense to common folk 2500 years ago. Their spiritual beliefs and culture were unrecognisably different from our own.

The "God's image" verse is a very complex passage, but I assure you they weren't referring to head, shoulders, knees, and toes. If you actually want to study that there are countless resources on Jewish texts outside of Veeky Forums.

Gut Gott. I was arguing with Anons who took the OT to heart. People still interpret the Bible to condemn homosexuals though.

Now. You're appealing to common sense to interpret the Bible, which is non-sense the literal interpretations of the Bible have only changed when science exposed them or when they couldn't survive alongside secular morals anymore. Your common sense approach doesn't solve everything. How do you reconcile the condoning of slavery in NT? Are you able to reinterpret that in any positive way? Or the statement that women should never have authority over men? How are those metaphors?

I'm not watching those videos, either state your arguments or be silent.

Those souls were certainly going to hell, as they were supposedly guilty against crimes against god.

Alright, you've decided to dismiss the OT. You haven't offered any argument to why you assure me they weren't referring to bodies, are they referring to minds? Can human minds be similar in any way to God's?
Explain the NT's condoning of slavery, promoting of sexism and condemning of homosexuals to sexless marriageless lives or eternal damnation then.

youtube.com/watch?v=1A65Wfr2is0

>How do you reconcile the condoning of slavery in NT?
mentioning slavery does not equal condone it
the abolition of slavery was born in the church houses
preachers and priests were the first peoples to start to speak out against slavery

>I'm not watching those videos, either state your arguments or be silent.
>I refuse to learn
ok, don't listen to a person who knows answers to what you are asking about

I have never met a man who refused with the same ferocity as an atheist
I have conversed with evangelicals about evolution with more success then atheists about anything

would you have me just copy and paste from his transcript then?

>Now. You're appealing to common sense to interpret the Bible, which is non-sense the literal interpretations of the Bible have only changed when science exposed them
these interpretations did not exist before the 19th century

the catholic church has never taken genesis litterally
the video here>youtube.com/watch?v=LLmqKUQGk3k
was an exert from a book written in the 300s if i am not mistaken denouncing this way of reading very strongly

Frederick Buechner was necessary in my path to Christianity. He bridged a lot of the gaps I felt between myself and the dogma I disliked in the bible. Start with Secrets in the Dark

Hey OP, sorted it out for you. These are the best recs. As for my own recommendation, what actually got me deeply interested in the teachings of this rando Hebrew from early ADs was Tolstoy's spiritual writing. His introduction to his own condensed version of the gospels (the gospels in brief) is maybe just about the best way to approach it as someone who is a little older, on the outside of Christianity, worried about allll that baggage, yet is still curious. Here:

en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Gospel_in_Brief/preface

Read that and tell me it don't put a straight in your back. After that, if you're still curious, his version of the Gospel is what you can naturally follow (obviously you'll eventually have to, ya know, read the gospels themselves (a big part of this whole Christianity thing seems to be the many viewpoints to the same truth stuff) after that, but still, if Tolstoy's preface succeeds in ringing your cherries, then I'd be surprised if you don't just keep going. Afterward, I would recommend following the recs on /lit's charts as seen in the last two attached comments. I haven't read all of the above, but enough to back it as works written by people in (again) a variety of circumstances, and each approaching christianity in their own ways, all ringing at just a bit more truth. It is good stuff. Just don't be one of those guys who goes around trying to talk to people about jesus. You'll be in good company (Wittgenstein for one of many), but ya know, figure things on your own for a bit before you come back. The lessons haven't been digested if you can't just live em out.

watch these
youtube.com/watch?v=po0ZMfkSNxc
youtube.com/watch?v=vjjDDhE8R5k
youtube.com/watch?v=zyyySnUqCug
youtube.com/watch?v=_eEmnhmAwPM
youtube.com/watch?v=Nl1xmkVOyRw
youtube.com/watch?v=xwDTBW8oxug
youtube.com/watch?v=-qPHIS3n7Lw

Everyone who isn't married is meant to abstain from sex, user. And no, I don't have a problem with it. It's God's will.

If you have read those passages like some kind of not-moron then you should know what he's saying already.

>Oh, but it does. The New Testament tells the masters how to treat their slaves and the slaves to obey their masters as if they were god. Ephesians 6:5
oh but it doesn't

mentioning slavery and giving rules to slave owners and slaves themselves isn't condoning
it is mentioning

please quote me where Jesus said that slavery was good in it of itself

>1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent."
Men and women are not equal as the modern world would have you believe
They are complementary
To say that christanity hates women is a slap in the face to every religious sister working in orphanages in Africa, schools in India, and hospitals in America

>Those souls were certainly going to hell
If you read my first post I said there is no hell.
>Alright, you've decided to dismiss the OT
where did I say that
>You haven't offered any argument to why you assure me they weren't referring to bodies, are they referring to minds? Can human minds be similar in any way to God's?
That's a big question I'm not about to answer. I told you to read into the Jewish studies if you actually want to know these things.
>Explain the NT's condoning of slavery, promoting of sexism and condemning of homosexuals to sexless marriageless lives or eternal damnation then.
These are some of the biggest topics for Biblical study. The Bible is the single most studied and written about book in existence. If you really want to expand your knowledge at all the information could not be more accessible.
I'm on a cell phone and eating dinner, I recommend starting with a popular video of a sermon about homosexuality and the Bible, given by a gay kid. It's not hard to find.
Unless you just want those Veeky Forums debate points, I guess you can have them.
If you genuinely care, make the effort to do the reading.

>You don't have a problem with condemning homosexuals to sexless, marriageless lives or eternal damnation?
also
>sex gives life meaning
you think every clergy man has a meaningless life because he abstains
you can only get meaning from sex?
are you fucking joking?

youtube.com/watch?v=GRxofEmo3HA
Was Father Vivaldi's life meaningless because he had sex even though he composed some of the most beautiful music in history?

what a fucking joke

I like how you conveniently skipped over his other citations to make a pathetic retort. You are not a true christian.

anyone who confesses with their mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believes in their heart that God raised Him from the dead, is a true Christian

I'd suggest Orthodoxy by Chesterton as well, or alternatively.

Religion is indefensible.

you may not like the defense but this arrogant claim is stupid

Paul also says "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, man nor woman. All are one in Christ Jesus."

Paul also seems to allude to female priests and bishops in the early Church, though he does also chastise women who speak during Mass, you're right.

You people are all the same. You pick and choose the worst passages from the Bible just as dishonest Christians pick the absolute best passages. In the end, neither of you are quite right.

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I don't deny the good passages. But since these people claim this is inspired by God and since these horrible passages have had FUCKING STUPID implications through history, like the persecution of homosexuals, sexism and such, I think it's important to address them.

Right. Read again. Marriageless, not meaningless. And you should tell that to all of those clergy men who like to play with young boys. Comment from anecdote, dismiss.

Indefensible with logic.You can only resort to faith.

There are very few gnostic atheists. Mainstream atheism, which is agnostic atheism rejects the claim that God exists, which does not mean that it claims that God doesn't exists. Most atheists deem the existence of God as very unlikely.

Why do you claim there's no hell (eternal damnation)?
Do you reject this passage?

>Matthew 25:46 - And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

You basically tell me to investigate myself, like christianity was a proven scientific fact. Either state your arguments or stop debating.

Most atheists are weak agnostic theists.

How is describing how slavery should be conducted not condoning it?

Slavery was fucking huge in the Roman Empire, we're talking about 60 million slaves. Why was masturbation condemn, but not fucking slavery? Not saying it's good, nor bad is the same as saying it's a normal practice.

>Men and women are not equal as the modern world would have you believe
They are complementary
To say that christanity hates women is a slap in the face to every religious sister working in orphanages in Africa, schools in India, and hospitals in America

You're accepting there shouldn't be female presidents, CEOs, female employees ranked above any males employees, and so forth? That women shouldn't be teachers?

Sexism is not hate papi, passive sexism is not born out of hate, but of ignorance.

I don't think that's true. If you have a citation I'll immediately change my mind.

How is describing how slavery should be conducted not condoning it?

Slavery was fucking huge in the Roman Empire, we're talking about 60 million slaves. Why was masturbation condemned, but not fucking slavery? Not saying it's good, nor bad is the same as saying it's a normal practice.

Will you go read The God Delusion if I tell you to? Would you go through Bertrand Russell's writings? I don't have the time to read every religious apologist, I took long enough to read the Bible, the Qu'ran and some Vedas,

I'm not talking about Genesis. You should ask Galileo how it went for him when he challenged the interpretation of the time.

You haven't addressed the passage about women.

>Do you reject this passage?
no.
this is where the
>reading translations
meme gets its relevance
read the verse in in the Greek it was translated from. I'll even do half the work for you, the operative word you're looking for is "aion".

kinda funny what thousands of years will do to written word.

>You basically tell me to investigate myself
yeah
>like christianity was a proven scientific fact
not even close to what I meant by telling you to read
>Either state your arguments or stop debating.
yeah i'm going to bed.

Ok, ok, so we're going with aion and the aionos adjective being used as «long interval of time». Although «eternal» as a translation has been also documented outside the Bible.

Then you don't believe in eternal life either.

>Then you don't believe in eternal life either
I wouldn't say that the word "belief" really applies to how I feel. Whether or not the afterlife is eternal is a nonentity.
one of those "worry about it when you get there" sort of things