by freedom96 45 Replies latest jw friends
I went from being a firm believer, to not being sure at all that there is a God/Jesus. I've talked about this with one of my clients(she is the one who'c door I knocked on as a witness) She suggested I read a book called "The Case For Christ" to which we presented me with a copy of yesterday.
We'll see if this helps me to believe again.
Lilacs,
There is so much information out their to either support or not to support the bible. What you will find is anything that supports the bible seems to discount any historical information that takes an objective look at the authenticity of the bible. Out side of what is written in scriptures, you have to base your belief on faith. Myself being a person that doesn't take things at face value and demands proof, finds that any explanation by Christian believers is based on shallow evidence.
Will
I was born & raised a JW but I never really believed in God. Even when I was giving public talks from the platform I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn't believe in god. I was just going thru the motions. I was locked into a system of religious belief that I couldn't get out of.
I have to agree with Mackin, in that I never believed in God, even as a little child. I knew what would happen to me if I did something against the rules, so I went with the motions, and I tried to do what was wanted.
With the hypocricy I saw around me everyday, and extremely difficult life at home I experienced, there was no way I could put faith in anything but myself. To this day I have a tough time believing people, as I was so used to being lied to for so many years.
I do think it is my lack of believe in this "God" they spoke about is what made it easier for me to slip away as soon as I was old enough to get out of the house. Well, that and other experiences some of you may have read about on here.
I still don't believe in any type of a god, and I don't participate in any form of religion, either. I disagree with how many believe a god or evil being, or whatnot are responsible for the good or bad things in this world. I enjoy taking full credit for when something amazing happens in my life, but I am always aware I have made some not-so-great choices and I hold the weight and consequences of them.
Edited by - saltiest on 11 January 2003 21:46:22
Edited by - saltiest on 11 January 2003 21:47:2
Lilacs,
I have read a few books trying to justify the story of the gospels, and have yet to see any good information, and no real evidence to prove, even his existance.
There are a couple of books by Josh McDowel that try, yet fall short, All of his evidence is flawed and full of holes, or been proven totally wrong. I am at a point that I could believe he may have lived, but to this point, I still have not see any proof, and any good Jew would have to say he didn't, even though some jewish writings say he did, but even those are only a few hundred years old and not from the 1st century. If there was just a trustworthy tidbit from AD35 or earlier would be great, but nothing. Why did all these GREAT works go unnoticed to all historians? if he did so many things so GREAT then someone should have seen them, but no one did outside the gospel writers and even those are not written by the ones they are atributed to. It is sad
Seedy
A review of The Case For Christ:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/strobel.html
Come on Crownboy, you can do better than that (a URL), can't you frame an arguement?
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Oh, here's the summary of the review;
"Case for Christ is a creative, well-written contribution to Christian apologetics. Moreover, Strobel is to be commended for summarizing the work of so many leading apologists for Evangelical Christianity in such a compact and easy-to-read format. Yet Strobel did not interview any critics of Evangelical apologetics. He sometimes refutes at great length objections not made by the critics (e.g., the claim that Jesus was mentally insane); more often, he doesn't address objections the critics do make (e.g., the unreliability of human memory, that non-Christian historians do not provide any independent confirmation for the deity of Jesus, etc.) Perhaps this will be a welcome feature to people who already believe Christianity but have no idea why they believe it. For those of us who are primarily interested in the truth, however, we want to hear both sides of the story"
Edited by - Abaddon on 14 January 2003 4:36:23
