Why in the world do you question God's word?

Why did you become an atheist? Did someone make you think you were wrong in your beliefs that made you question the Bible and it's validity?

I never questioned whether it was God's word. I was told you can question but you are supposed to have faith. That when you really read it and know why it is written the way it is then you will uderstand.

My question that I asked was why did God make a tree of good and evil?

I got this answer- maybe because the tree is something that God had in his plan- for Jesus to die and save us. It makes sense. Then why would he make the law of Moses?

The Law of Moses was to make us appreciate the salvation through Jesus Christ.

Why did you question and what were your answers?

101

Actually, I don't doubt the Bible, just the new testement.

which god? which myth? which myth structure?

the study of myths, what they all share in common, and the study of humanity itself reveals more than any single construct could provide.

an old saying goes "the power lies behind the throne". The answers lie in humanity, not in deity. Deity is just an appeal to authority, a desire to see an order, a need to provide an explanation where one is not present.

Hyper,

Who told you it was mythology? Your mom or dad or the guy next door? How did you come to this conclusion?

Lord Um,

Why the NT?

Fixed!

101, I questioned the bible when I was 6 yrs old. I knew something was up when I wasn't getting answers and the ones I did get were unrealistic. I am a show me kind of girl and when they couldn't tell me why I couldn't see god and how could a man come back to life after he's dead. But I think the clincher was when I found out jesus wasn't born on the 25 of december. I knew I had to look into this right away. I found out that there were many mythical gods before the one I knew and the I found out where it came from. After I cut through all the fear instilled in me by my religious background, I opened my mind to the reality of the whole thing. The rest is musing here in this forum. I'm learning new things every day and I'm loving it.

God reveals himself to those who ask and seek him. Did you ever ask God to show you a sign? A reality is not going to be found if you don't look for it?

Questions at 6 yrs old. Did you believe in Santa? Girl that is young.

what told you it is not mythology?

the answer comes from which side of the fence is your "home perspective". It is in the study of the history of humanity, and all its associated cultures, myths, philosophers, thinkers, etc that we peice together the commonality that defines the human condition. How many posts have you seen on here where people have talked about the myth structure of the abrahamic religions? i remember starting one myself. It is in deconstructing the construct we see how it works. It is by examining the meta we come to a broader understanding.

I never "believed" in the abrahamics, so it was rather easy for me to look at them objectively, for they are no more real to me than any other mythology. When one is a part of the mythology, it is harder for one to force that objective separation for you are simultaniously questioning a "story" and your own worldview.

To answer your question, I told myself it was a myth (the abrahamic tree). You already know what i think of the middle child of the three.

I understand that Hyper.

Maybe it is the way one is raised. The way their mind thinks of things. It is harder to grasp unrealistic concepts when you or someone is truly briilliant. But sometimes the master and creator is smarter and more brilliant and could make those very things happen.

I appreciate the honesty.

Thank you.

I have asked for signs. Never received them. I was born and raised in a Christian Church, and like curiousity, I started questioning early. It wasn't encouraged, maybe because my parents didn't know the answers, or maybe it made them uncomfortable. Then later I started reading it, and for most of it I could only shake my head.

I remember when I was young being scared to death to die. I'm talking curl up in a ball kinda scared. I asked my parents what happened after you die, and they said you go to heaven. I never got much more of an answer, but I knew from sunday school (I was young) that, that was only if you were good, cause the Bible said so. How does a little kid know if they're good?

The Bible never, ever made sense to me, no matter how much I believed or had faith. That fact just started to make me look into other things and discover Christianity is not the end all be all, and the book they like to beat you over head with is far from the infallible word of God.

Humans wrote the book. I don't believe it was inspired by God. God wouldn't make himself out to look like he does sometimes in that book.

Because to me it really isn't god's word. It is series of different scriptures put together in the council of nicea. When God comes to speak to me then I might to start to believe.



I became an atheist when I started to think with my own brains and see the world and the people as they are. Also reading and learning helped me to break away from the greatest con of all times. Nobody made me question my beliefs. It was just a natural step for me. I wanted to know more of where and how the book took form and that is also how my eyes opened.




Well that is the problem isn't it. When you actually start to look at the book as it is, an infantile attempt to explain the world thousands of years ago. You'd have to read the book under the spell of the holy spirit which in english means, without critical thinking, the human bulls*** detector. When you read the book as it is, you can notice that the god in it is just an egomaniac with an eternal puberty.



And my answer is that there is no logical reason for it, he just did it, ok. He just snickered a bit further away and watched if the poor bastards would fall for it. Honestly, the book is littered with this sick sh**. He likes to do to people what we in the modern world call "entrapment".



No, it really doesn't make sense, please share this thought in a bit more elaborate way.



The law of moses, oh come on. Why does an almighty god need the three first lines just to make sure nobody goes against him. Not only egomaniac, but insecure too.

How come, if christianity is so much about love, i can point out countless murders, rapes, genocides, mutilations... the list goes on, and only a handful of occasions where somebody's doing something good (this usually not being the god)?

Parents don't know all the answers and a child should always ask their pastor questions like that.

I am sorry you were left scared.

It wasn't just that. The fear was a big part of it, but my pastor at the time was a liar, a thief, and an extortionist. Didn't help much. That and the fact that even though no one knew it, I was one of the ultimate sinners in their eyes. You know what it's like when you're 13, you know you're gay and everyone around you is saying "All those homos are going to burn in hell."

Well no, I guess you wouldn't. If you read the book without blind faith, and just look at it like you would any other novel, it's fairly clear that it's propaganda. Especially the NT. Now, not that it's completely useless too me. I said in another thread I like to read Proverbs and Psalms. I don't consider myself a Christian however (Plus that when I used to tell people my denomination they called us a cult).

The tree was a part of his plan. I think because he wanted us to have a choice and not follow him like mindless zombies and he wanted some people to question him. Maybe so he could know that he gave a choice.

You shouldn't disrespect my Bible by sayiong it is bs. It really isn't nice and I don't say mean things about atheists.

you are right 101, god does reveal himself to those who believe and look at everything as a sign from it. I would too if I imagined everything was caused by a god. Don't get me wrong I think there is a rythmn to life and some things happen they are hard to ignore but I can't say it's an entity causing it. I do keep my eyes and mind open to signs and I interpret them as they pertain to me. I also believe that It's not god, it's my own interpretation of my psyche and I don't give it a name.
I still believe in the concept of santa as a winter season fireside fairy tale.

"Chaver" - are the only other Jew on this site? I get so tired about being lumped in with the "nb's" .

My reaponse to the initial question would be the traditional "Jewish Answer" - that is, a question.

WHY DO XIANS QUESTION THE TORAH? YOUR BELOVED "SAVIOR" REPEATEDLY SAYS THE TORAH IS NOT TO BE CHANGED, NOT ONE LETTER. HE CAME TO OBEY THE TORAH ("FULFILL" THE LAW=TORAH). MOST XIANS DISREGARD EVERY SINGLE STATUTE IN THE TORAH. DO YOU REALLY THINK THE ETERNAL YHVH SUDDENLY CHANGED HIS MIND? HE STATES REPEATEDLY THAT HE WILL NEVER ABANDON THE JEWS.
AGAIN, WHY DO YOU QUESTION THE TORAH?

Gid , I never questioned the Torah or Old Testiment.

But some of the laws were Jewish laws- the unclean etc.

Do Jews still practice the unclean laws?

haha, still makes me chuckle when i see someone saying the council of nicea put together the Bible.

it didnt, by the way.

Who then, please enlighten me. I'm always open to new information. Additionally some links to sites or books would be nice for me to check it. Thank you.

And 101, I'm very sorry about my outburst, something just went into me . It is just that I'm utterly disappointed with the concept of religion after being with the gang for 15 years People try to force others into their ways, i can't but despice that.

That is okay. I forgive you.

I was just telling you how it felt.

That much I do know that the councils to which the Nicea incident was included did canonise the bible and decide which books were left out and which would be included... what am I missing here??

various church fathers over about 200 years.
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html that has links to just about every scrap of primary information concerning the council of nicea.
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html#genobj good introductory article on the issue of the NT canon.
http://www.ntcanon.org/ is useful. details who said what about various books, and when they said it.
as for books, i havent read any concerning this particular subject. the third link recommends Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament.

101, I attended Catholic school ( till grade 3) i asked alot of questions, the answer i always got was don't question , to me it seemed obvious this wouldn't be gods word, i don't know why or how My parents wanted me to be Catholic it just didn't match the truth I was finding inside, i trusted that , not those that claimed to know. then when i was 8 i went to live with my grandparents and they confirmed the truth i found inside. Basically by saying don't look to others for your truth look within first then measure all the truth you find outside by that it works for me maybe it wouldn't for someone else. Namaste Sheri

Because it was written by men who claim it was gods word...Men lie.

Thank you, i'll dig into it for the next couple of weeks

Me, well, when I was born my parents were Catholic, then they stopped going to church and my mom studied with Jehovah Witnesses, I went there a few times, then got too lazy and bored to go back[yes, it's true]. My family never forced me to believe in anything, hell I told them that I wasn't sure if I believed in God and they didn't really care much. My dad isn't religious. He just lives life as it is, but he does believe there is a God. So, I just starting looking into the bible more, seeing what was wrong with other religions beliefs, argueing with them and Atheist, and now my faith is stronger than ever.


Another thing that helped me keep faith in God is these forums. Coming here and watching how the Atheist argue boosts my faith in God for some reason. They seem to go out on a limb and try uber hard to make God look bad. Why do you need to try THAT hard? Anyway, yeah, personal research and these forums = strong faith in God.


The reason I questioned the bible is to see if I can find an answer to my question to see how valid the bible is. And guess what, none of my questions have gone unanswered. The bible is truly a book of Knowledge. Especially for it's time.

zero, the reason is polarization.

I asked my eldest today what he thinks about god, he said, and I quote "God is an excuse for most people, but I don't care one way or another, I think what I think, and if God thinks it's wrong, he's not my god, he's someones elses."

That is good enough for me.

Is that what you'd say about your president? If he thinks something is wrong that you find right, then he's not your president. =P [Guessing that you live in the US]

Alot of people disagree with bush but still have to listen to him laws.

Yup, I didn't vote for the one in office.

Bush is NOT my President...Period, dot, end of story & I don't care much for anything he says or thinks.

the first two sites are xian, the third actually seems to be objective.
Something, you seem to be so irritated when someone points out the origin of the nt. I guess it must really irk you that it is a fourth century forgery. We know the only reason one book or another is included is because of a vote. Why lie?

wow, how original. the "its christian so it must be wrong" defense. doesnt matter that the first one just summarizes the primary sources (he provides links to all of them, and saves you the time of flying to archives in the UK to find some of them) and the second and third cite many of the same sources.
too bad your little idea on the origin of the NT flys in the face of EVERY ounce of scholarship on the subject. even the guys that have gone off the academic deep end would probably laugh at you.
no, what really irks me is people who really lack any common sense and refuse to be corrected.
and, please, before you accuse me of lying, have something substantial to back it up.

back to ignoring you.

You don't have to be to damn original when nothing original has come out of christianity for ohhh, 2000 years? Oh wait, crusifixtion was replaced with far more devious & cruel torture...Pardon, you do have a point...Please, do expound!

Even left a little bait for you to attack...

Hmmm i believe in God strongly and about the Bible...Well im a Unitarian so basically i feel that Christianity is a way to God- but not the only way. Ive mentioned that i feel that Bible could have been corrupted by man- we may never know. Yet ive also defended the Bible as being a book of great wisdom and amazing historical data. I cant stand people that completely blow away the Bible when theres much good in it- or people that say its historically inaccurate when it indeed is a fantastic historical course that answers many questions that scholars probably would never have known. Is it the word of God? Who knows- theres a coupla things in the Bible that i've yet to understand or comprehend confusiong sometimes leaves one to say "screw that i cant be bothered" solving its puzzle.
I myself want to learn more, discover more and understand the Bible more clearly. Studys on!

Ramster, you are a voice of reason on these boards, and really one of the few examples of a real christian (next to Irish of course) I have met on the internet, please, do keep speaking, I enjoy what you have to say.

Thanks a lot. I'm very honest in what i have to say. A lot of Christians wouldn't call me a "true Christian" but thats fine. Im a true person thats all that matters.

and you obviously didn't read your third website-i reqad all three before making an intelligent decision to respond to your bs.

everything, everything in the nt stinkss of 4th century to anyone who is educated in jewish scriptures. starting from the virgin birth snafu. i posted the evidence before. isaiah was prophecizing the birth of his own third son, Immanuel. the nt author of matthew, whoever it was, didn't know hebrew or didn't care. it sounded good so it was added in. and your bs xian sites apparently didn't find the passages sitll in your greek book stating over and over that john the baptist was elijah. ignoring reincarnation doesn't make it go away. and the matzoh incident. the nt writers didn't know anything about jewish customs, either. yes, matzoh is central to passover. Yeshu would not have dipped a piece of matzoh in wine. you ever try it? the book is written to convert pagans. jews had already rejected Yeshu and the nazarenes that followed him. the jews reject him still. this is a major enmbarassment for xians that jews are still here, two millienia of oppression, mass murder, and torture, and still they know better than to follow a false messiah.

go ahead and ignore me, why should i care. you xians have been ignoring the truth and retarding science for long enough.

To answer the title, I question out of curiosity and maybe to start forum fires.

Rocket Man!

I believe in a supreme power but I do not believe that he came with a manual. I have become a Bible critic because of extensive studies and a logical conclusion that the Old Testament tales are a colleciton of writings from earlier sources such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the RM49 tablets, Iranian cave writings, etc. None of this was God inspired or directed but represents that collection and the exaggerations, extensions, myths and superstitions that hallmarked early societies.

The New Testament is even less credible and has absolutely no basis in historic evidence or fact even though it was only 2,000 years ago. Again, we are asked to believe that the Council of Nicaea (mentioned by another poster earlier) was divinely inspired when selecting what was then sacred works. We are then told to ignore the Apocrypha even though it was the source for much Biblical content. We are told a tale that has been repeated for a minimum of 500 years before Jesus and asked to believe that this time it is the truth.

I reduced my belief system to an acceptance of a supreme power and I accept it if it is called God, Allah, Buddah, Zeus, etc. I am comfortable with that and with the knowledge that the majority of the world holds the same belief.

The bible just doesn't make sense; it is so bipolar in it's message. My parents were agnostic, I was allowed to look into what ever I choose to look into. I enjoy learning about religions and find that most takes on christianity just seem fundamentally wrong in my opinion.

People are welcome to believe whatever they choose, and as long as it does not infringe on other people I will support their right to practice. What other people do is up to them and honestly I couldn't care less.

I do find it funny that when 101 writes about god, that his staements assume that everyone is considering his god "THE" god, and that just isn't the case. It is frustrating to me when folks make that assumption; your god is YOUR god, and may have nothing to do with my belief and my personal truth of the universe. Your "truth" is no more valid to me than is anyone elses; assuming you are correct over everyone else just seems rude...that may not be your intention, but it happens so commonly amongst christians that it gets frustrating.

of course, the council of nicea had nothing to do with the NT canon. check out the first link i posted ( http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html ). you should be able to properly appreciate it.

I am not certain of your intent here. If you are referring to the quote, "Some people seem to think that the council, which was the first council of all the Bishops of the Christian Church, either invented the New Testament, or edited it to remove references to reincarnation (or whatever) or burned large numbers of heretical works, or whatever," it is true . . . . the council did not "invent" the New Testament but the selection of the books to be included in the New Testament certainly was part of their assigned duties.

then they didnt tell anyone about it. that is the point of that site. the council issued no canon concerning what books were to be in the NT, and no one that records the events of the council mentions anything about it.

I personally wasn't forced to think that god wasn't real; it came about through my own learning and observations.
I grew up in a very religious family, but I also loved learning, and my parents promoted both somewhat
Through most of my teens I wanted very much to conform and believe what I was told I should believe, and I realize now how wrong that really was. I had learned so much about science and the real world and witnessed on many occasions that the more "devout" people in church were really just as bad as everyone else. I wanted very much to believe that we as humans were more then we really are I guess is the best way to explain it, but the fact is that through religion I was imposed with false expectations about who and what I should be, so I judged my self and others, and I mean how can you not when you are given a books of rules but then told not to judge people by them... seems kind of contradicting if you think about it, but any way I soon realized that we are all humans and I shouldn’t expect to be something or someone I could never be
Another help for me was learning about the true history of humanity and the church, and learning about all the different mythologies
Oh and by the way by definition the bible is a myth...
(Myth- a story that has no author that attempts to explain the natural world, Mr. Farrow from my mythology class in college studied classics at Cambridge University, Queen's College)
After learning about all the different things that people have believed as true in the past, I realized that the absurdities of Greek and Norse mythology is no more absurd then the Christian bible. People try to make it different by saying well because we are Christians we are higher and better then the Greeks and Romans… I mean really think about that for a minute, the Christians destroyed their religions, and then they welcome in an age of enlightenment? No the dark ages, the enlightenment came when Christianity allowed scholars to really study what was left of the knowledge from the pagan people… no to mention humans have been around for over 200,000 years but yet the Jewish and Christian religions have only been know to exist for 5 and 2 thousand
Realizing all of these things made me see that the bible is just a book, as believable as Hesiod, Homer, Ovid, or any other myth, and yes there is some history. But then there has to be, right it was written in the past
It’s no better historically then the Iliad, or the Odyssey both of which helped people of today understand much more about the Greeks and their way of life but no one really believes in the Greek gods living on Olympus today do they?
And having a major interest in life sciences, history, and geology and getting information from a credible source help quite a bit also.

So I wasn't forced to question god, it came about through knowledge and understanding about the real and natural world

I meant nothing by capitilizing God's name or writing how it is my truth. I never intend to say it should be your way. I have never been told this before. I find it funny. People write about God all the time. or a creator. I just thought that me saying stuff about my God was okay. My apologies if I hurt you.

BTW I am a female.

No offense Hyper, but that doesn't sound very objective at all. Saying it's a myth, then reading it to find out the "truth", obviously you're going to come to the conclusion that it's a myth.

I know, I know, Christians do the same except we look at it as truth.

It all depends on our POV

Regards, PA

i studied as a philosophy, i concluded it was a mythology.

The council was actually ordered by Constantine to resolve a bitter battle between two early church leaders. In the beginning that was the singular cause for the meeting and the other works they accomplished were developed as they discussed the needs of the church. One of those needs was the formation of a standard book to serve as a reference to believers.

It is true that reports coming directly from the council are vague or have been lost in the subsequent 1,700 years. But to better understand the labors of the council and the battles over which books should be or not be included, you can refer to some of the writings of Jerome who reported what he had learned from those who had attended the council. The council did, in fact, create some of the canon as verified even by the reference you provided, "The 318 bishops issued a creed (Symbolum), 20 canons, and a letter to the church of Alexandria." Among those canons was the mentioning of Lent and "the body of Christ" which certainly bears reference to the New Testament.

uhh, what? Lent and the timing of regular provincal synods has nothing to do with what books are included. you had better explain yourself better. right now you are not making any sense.
Jerome says that the bishops attending the council had some idea as to what could be considered canonical, which wouldnt wouldnt be surprising considering how most if not all of the scholarship on the subject says the canon developed.

let us get real about this. If you were going to reconstitute a nearly-dead religion, torn apart by strange schisms, in order to subjugate an empire, would you publish notes about it? "June 15, 351: subject of meeting: the book of Enoch. vote was 360 to 5 in favor of rejecting it." nop, you would cover your tracks.