In another long thread I posted:

"I wonder whether there'd be value in starting a new thread in which you could tell us something about the faith you have now and how you've come to that, Richard. In many ways I'm in the same boat. I'm being told here repeatedly that the Bible is 'all or nothing', and yet there are parts of the Bible that are offensive enough (and I'm not talking about 'the offense of the gospel') to make me lean toward 'nothing'. But I don't want to go there, either. Is there something that can be salvaged as a faith that is Christian in essence but seeks the underlying truths of the gospel past some of what certainly seems like humans seeking Divine sanction for their own power and prejudice in the Bible."

So this is the thread for that discussion. I count myself as a Christian, and yet in the recent Australian election I put all the 'Christian' parties at the bottom of my ballot because they stood for racism, intolerance and rampant capitalism including the deliberate continuation of social disadvantage.

Please try to understand that this is not about rejecting Christianity (for me at least - others' experience may be different) - but about hanging onto it with my last breath.

John Shelby Spong a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark presents one way of dealing with this problem for those who still wish to call themselves Christian.

Wikipedia entry on John Shelby Spong

I did a six part series on my journey at Reinventing the Adventist Wheel blog and it starts at the following link...

Memoirs of an atheist

Now atheist is not a term I gave myself. It really means that as far as god as described by the Bible and most Christians, I am an atheist. I don't believe in a replacement god either, but I don't deny spiritual experience and transformation.

The closest I would come to theism is some form of Deism and this is not well defined because there really isn't any basis for proof outside of a very loose theory. And I certainly wouldn't defend Deism on any logical basis.

That should give all of you a fairly detailed background and description of where I am coming from.

Its human centered because you can't separate the human from any set of laws. Even you can't separate your humanity from your thinking and reasoning. You talk of the Bible as if it can somehow, through no demonstration of reasonable means, can talk for God. It takes some very creative and convoluted thinking to maintain the idea that the Bible is a God generated book.

Even when people claim they are following the Bible, they have no option but to follow their own interpretation of the Bible. This is, in practice, a human solution. So everybody's views are completely human centered. To claim otherwise is to claim a special understanding of God's mind, which is blasphemous by your own book.

That's certainly an upgrade, but essentially you have to come to an agreement with God or you're dead. And you have to come to an agreement possessing a depraved mind in a world, through no choice of your own, created you with a tendency to desire wrong things. And you have to accept this situation as something given to you by a God who is just.

And you then have to figure out how to explain this to all the people in the world and convince them of the same illogical mess using a book that takes an advanced understanding of various written languages, ancient cultures, apologetics, and conflicting moral systems.

And if you include Ellen White you add a whole other layer of culture, interpretation, apologetics, and mythical story telling to the set of requirements. And after all this, you still have to present the solution to all of life's problems as something so simple a child could accept it.

One simply has to look at all the various debates within Christianity itself to understand that no one really knows what it takes to be saved because its a metaphorical solution that is debated literally and in some cases enforced literally.

Are you denying, then, that God communicates with humans through written language, such as in the Ten Commandments, or through the Holy Spirit?

It seems to me you are saying that the Bible is not from God at all, and that even if it were from God, we're incapable of really knowing His will by studying it. So that humanity is totally ignorant of God.

Do you believe in God? If so, could you describe something about the nature of the God you believe in? For instance, do you view God as being personal and does this God have any concern or interest in human affairs? Does God care anything about you?

Regards,
"John 3: 17"

Well, when you use the term God, you are naturally referring to God as described in the Bible. I believe the description of God in the Bible is completely man made. I also believe that the Ten Commandments are completely man made. I also believe that the Bible is completely a product of men's minds.

This video by Sam Harris does a wonderful job of summarizing many of my views on why I find it unlikely that the Bible is anything beyond the creation of men. I have other reasons, but those will reveal themselves within the context of this dialog.

Sam Harris on religious belief.



Yes, to be brief, that is what I am saying. I think the previous video really presents the problems of viewing the Bible as an authority of God's will.



I don't believe in any of these things. That, I realize, will seem totally unacceptable to you and to even contemplate the idea that there is no God as you understand God, brings forth a whole myriad of emotions.

I believe there is spiritual experiences and transformations, but I prefer to leave these free of explanations and let them express themselves within the experience. What I have learned is that as soon as I say there it is and its this, there it goes. These experiences are encountered through other means than language, theology, and dialog.

Philosophically we have three options:

1. We trust someone else's perceptions of reality. For example: some form of organized religion, some kind of cult, or modern science.

2. We trust some form of inspired writing. For example: the Bible, the Koran, Book of Mormon, etc.

3. We trust in our own ability to decipher truth. For example, a mix of church tradition and the Bible, a mix of modern science and the Bible or agnosticism.


For some of us, not one of those three is attractive because we have no guarantee it is right. For myself, I long ago realized how susceptible I was to being misled or fooled. I became convicted that my mind is not an infallible source of information with an ability to decipher truth from fable. So in my case, I decided that I would have to choose either option 1 or option 2. I have chosen option 2. Some that fancy themselves intellectuals can not let go of option 3. That is their choice but I feel my life runs much better and my eternal future is much more secure by trusting in the Bible than in my own ability to decipher truth from fable.

After spending a little time here on CA ... I have determined that it may not be so easy to trust in my reading of the Bible. I see the Greek and Hebrew scholars hashing it out here and NO one seems to come to an agreement on WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.

Fables might be easier to figure out.

In the end ... we have to trust our interpretations of scripture on the basis of our personal experience with God. Our faith in Him is what matters. We will all disagree with the interpretations of scripture. IF my salvation depended upon how I obeyed and followed scripture ... then I would be lost from what I have gathered here at CA.

I look forward to Heaven .... when I will really find out about "truth". In the meantime ... I will put my trust in GOD .

Not necessarily. I'm using it in the sense of Supreme Being, etc., as, for instance, Buddhists or Hindus envision God or gods.




Do you believe in true prophecy as in Daniel 2 and Ezekiel 26 and Obadiah?

Do you believe in Christ and the prophecies regarding him, such as Daniel 9: 24-27?

Regards, "John 3: 17"

Just because some people don't agree with what the Bible clearly says does not mean the Bible is unclear or that it can't be determined what it says. There are many reasons why some people might not agree. Most of the time it has to do with the fact that some people may not be taking all the Bible into account or it may be that some people have reasons to want to believe it says something besides what it actually says. This also happens in the interpretation of law. Two lawyers may disagree about the particulars of the law, but they also have many agreements. So it is with people discussing the meaning of a text. John 1: 1-3 is very clear, for example, yet there is a great deal of disagreement about what it is saying about Christ. Why? Because there are people who don't want to believe it says that Christ is God. They want to believe he is a god. They don't want to believe what it says, and like the proverbial horse, you can lead some to the water, but you can't make them drink it.



If you don't think it matters what you believe the Bible is saying, read what Peter said in 2 Peter 3" 15, 16. The Holy Spirit inspired Peter to write that some people were twisting Paul's writings to mean something they don't mean, and this twisting was "to their own destruction."