When I started becoming an agnostic.

JoeB131

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Jul 11, 2011
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Chicago, Chicago, that Toddling Town
When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Anyway, Sister Bonaventure was telling us all about Noah's Flood one day. And she said, "And God saw that people were WICKED! And he told Noah to build an Ark, and put the animals aboard, and he sent the rains to drown everyone because they were WICKED."

And being the soft-hearted kind of kid I was back then, I asked, "But why did God drown the babies?"

"They were WIIIIIIICKED Babies! WIIIIIIIICKED!!!"

Well, not surprisingly, when it became kind of hip to be a lesbian, enrollments in these holy orders dropped faster than Obama's approval rating, but it did get a few wheels rolling in my head.

Why would any God who drowned babies be considered "Good"? Why would God drown people for being the way he made them? Reading the original scripture didn't help clarify the matter. (They didn't let you at the original scripture until High School, usually.) It went on about angels having sex with women and creating giants, which was even more confusing, really.

I've discussed this matter over the years with Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Evangelicals, and frankly, as idiotic as Sister B.'s explanation was, their explanations were equally stupid.
 
When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Anyway, Sister Bonaventure was telling us all about Noah's Flood one day. And she said, "And God saw that people were WICKED! And he told Noah to build an Ark, and put the animals aboard, and he sent the rains to drown everyone because they were WICKED."

And being the soft-hearted kind of kid I was back then, I asked, "But why did God drown the babies?"

"They were WIIIIIIICKED Babies! WIIIIIIIICKED!!!"

Well, not surprisingly, when it became kind of hip to be a lesbian, enrollments in these holy orders dropped faster than Obama's approval rating, but it did get a few wheels rolling in my head.

Why would any God who drowned babies be considered "Good"? Why would God drown people for being the way he made them? Reading the original scripture didn't help clarify the matter. (They didn't let you at the original scripture until High School, usually.) It went on about angels having sex with women and creating giants, which was even more confusing, really.

I've discussed this matter over the years with Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Evangelicals, and frankly, as idiotic as Sister B.'s explanation was, their explanations were equally stupid.

Not that it is relevant, but for me it was as a young child in my parents church on any Sunday night when "testimony" was asked for and given. Someone would testify about their experience of being "saved" and soon someone would be filled with the holy "spirit" and sometimes, rolling on the floor, they would "speak in tongues."

To me, besides being scary because of the obvious lack of self control, it always sounded contrived, made up, not a real language at all. Then some other person would "interpret" what had just been said by the person filled with the holy spirit.

As to your confusion, it's mythology, and the meaning of the myth has been lost through the ages. But all myths have some basis of truth or fact if you can discover it.
 
When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Anyway, Sister Bonaventure was telling us all about Noah's Flood one day. And she said, "And God saw that people were WICKED! And he told Noah to build an Ark, and put the animals aboard, and he sent the rains to drown everyone because they were WICKED."

And being the soft-hearted kind of kid I was back then, I asked, "But why did God drown the babies?"

"They were WIIIIIIICKED Babies! WIIIIIIIICKED!!!"

Well, not surprisingly, when it became kind of hip to be a lesbian, enrollments in these holy orders dropped faster than Obama's approval rating, but it did get a few wheels rolling in my head.

Why would any God who drowned babies be considered "Good"? Why would God drown people for being the way he made them? Reading the original scripture didn't help clarify the matter. (They didn't let you at the original scripture until High School, usually.) It went on about angels having sex with women and creating giants, which was even more confusing, really.

I've discussed this matter over the years with Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Evangelicals, and frankly, as idiotic as Sister B.'s explanation was, their explanations were equally stupid.

Another ex-catholic who came to their senses.
 
You just don't understand God.

I'm not sure I understand "God", but I do understand Yahweh pretty well.

Yahweh is the imaginary explanation for all the bad stuff that happened to Bronze Age savages called Hebrews, who didn't know what an atom was, or what a germ was or where the sun went at night. So they got hit by a flood. Yahweh must be mad at us. Let's go stone some "Sinners". A disease started. Yahweh must be mad, let's go slaughter some animals needlessly. An enemy is attacking us. Let's go kill some non-believers in his glory.

The problem with the flood story, is that it isn't unique. Yahweh kills babies all throughout the bible.
 
You just don't understand God.

I'm not sure I understand "God", but I do understand Yahweh pretty well.

Yahweh is the imaginary explanation for all the bad stuff that happened to Bronze Age savages called Hebrews, who didn't know what an atom was, or what a germ was or where the sun went at night. So they got hit by a flood. Yahweh must be mad at us. Let's go stone some "Sinners". A disease started. Yahweh must be mad, let's go slaughter some animals needlessly. An enemy is attacking us. Let's go kill some non-believers in his glory.

The problem with the flood story, is that it isn't unique. Yahweh kills babies all throughout the bible.

Is this accurate? Did Yahweh kill babies, or did Pharoah and others kill babies? Weren't the Hebrews simply attempting to explain events? I find it hard to blame Yahweh for things done by people of power.
 
JoeB,
So are you one of those people that blame God for killing all those people from the tsunami a few years back?
 
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When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Sometimes elderly people are grumpy because of the pain of arthritis.
 
When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Sometimes elderly people are grumpy because of the pain of arthritis.

And some are grumpy because they've spent their lives building bitterness in their heart rather than love.
 
When I was a kid going to Catholic School in Chicago, we had this nasty old nun named Sister Mary Bonaventure. She must have been about 80 years old. Really, mean personality, the kids were terrified of her. Which is probably what happens when you are a frustrated lesbian living in a Convent for 60 years with other frustrated lesbians and not being able to touch the goodies.

Sometimes elderly people are grumpy because of the pain of arthritis.

And some are grumpy because they've spent their lives building bitterness in their heart rather than love.

Maybe it's because they just feel grumpy because they have chronic pain. Maybe they're sick of people like you, who don't even know them, judging them.
 
Why don't you ask Him?

Why don't you leave people alone?

I'm not sure how encouraging people to find answers on a public message board is bothering people. If he doesn't want the suggestion, he doesn't need to take it.

Is there something about going to the source of knowledge to learn that is offensive?

Why don't you knock off your proselytizing? This is a thread about being agnostic. Is this some sort of mission you're on? Telling people who could care less they should pray to your god?
 
JoeB,
So are you one of those people that blame God for killing all those people from the tsunami a few years back?

No, I don't blame God for anything. I'm not even sure there is a God and I'm certain the Abrahamic God worshipped by Christians/Jews/Muslims/Mormons isn't the almighty being.

The world works in the way it works. We are all going to die of something, eventually. It's what we did with the time we have that's important.

My problem with Sr. Mary Bonventures position was that she had no problem with a God who murdered all the world's babies because they weren't the way he wanted them to be. He's Susan Smith or Andrea Yates writ large. We don't respect those women for just drowning their own children, much less everyone's children.

Ignore for the moment the thousands of logical fallacies of the Flood Story. Too numerous to list here. The very fact that a God would destroy his own creations because he "regretted making them" is kind of telling in itself. And he didn't even resolve the problem he set out to correct, because there was STILL evil in the world after the flood.
 
Why don't you leave people alone?

I'm not sure how encouraging people to find answers on a public message board is bothering people. If he doesn't want the suggestion, he doesn't need to take it.

Is there something about going to the source of knowledge to learn that is offensive?

Why don't you knock off your proselytizing? This is a thread about being agnostic. Is this some sort of mission you're on? Telling people who could care less they should pray to your god?

I was unaware that you were the only one allowed to share your spiritual feelings, encourage people, to live better lives, and seek answers.

I apologize, but after taking your counsel into consideration, I am going to have to deny your request. The beauty about being in public and being an American is that I have the right to say what I think and feel is important. I am not going to stop simply beause you don't want to hear it.

Id also note that if people care enough about an issue to share their thoughts and feelings on it, I would hardly say that they couldn't care less. I could easily be wrong, but this question was clearly a concern to Joe enough to influence his decision to start being agnostic. I merely suggested that if He wanted to find an answer to His question then the logical solution would be to ask God since He is supposedly the source of all knowledge. What he does with my counsel, if anything, is between him and God.

Also, I would point out, that my post goes straight to the point of addressing the agnostics concerns. Mainly that it's impossible to know whether there is a God or not. I contend that it is possible and the logical way to find out if there is a God is to experimenet on the word. That experiment would include prayer to seek answers through revelation.

I can only give adviced based on my own experience and knowledge. At one point I had no clue whether there was a God or not. But I wanted to find out, so I searched, I studied, I prayed because I logically concluded that if I did absolutely nothing It was a certainity that I would never know.

That I think is my main issue with agnosticism as a theory. it excludes the possibility of learning. If you think it's impossible to know, you never put the effort into try. And if you never put the effort in, you never do learn. It's a catch 22.

God is real. It doesn't matter if people believe or not. It doesn't matter if they want to believe or not. This is a fact. It's something I cannot deny or I would be lying because I've had experiences where I cannot deny the hand of Divine Providence. I've learned things I couldn't have otherwise learned. I've been healed miraculously. I've seen my heart change and the hearts of others change when they have been touched by the Holy Spirit. I've witnessed these things for myself.

I also realize that I am no one significant. If the Lord was willing to reveal things to me, then He is willing to reveal them to all men and women. And He has the power to. But that won't happen until they discuss things over with Him. My responsibility is to encourage, exhort, and invite others to do so.

You might not like my invitations. You might think I should shut up. But I have the right to speak my mind and a responsibility to do so. There is nothing wrong with inviting people to seek answers to the questions that concern them. Nor is there anything wrong with encouraging communion with our Heavenly Father.

When you taste the joy the Spiirt. The Pure love of God. The glory of God. You can't help but want to share it with others. You want to encourage them to love. You want to encourage them to seek out the truths of the Gospel. It's just a natural reaction to it. It would be selfish to not help others find the answers they seek. But I can only help and point. Every individual has to do the leg work themselves.
 
The existence of God is illogical.

I would argue the opposite.

But then logic depends on the information and premises used to analyze. Logic is only as reliable as the premises used to reach the logical decision. The question is then how do we determine what premises to use does it not?
 

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