Agnostics

[Slyhunter]

When you recognized you're agnostic, did you continue to join community worship, or did you stop going? Why did you choose to either continue to attend church or stop attending church?

I recognize the fact that there may be a being powerful enough to be called a god. If real I doubt he cares what I think.

I used a church to get a job. I use church to get handouts for food. A Mormon Church brought us Thanksgiving dinner. I stay in the closet.

 

[alang1216]

To believe in the supernatural I'd have to experience the supernatural. I never have. There are miracles throughout the Bible, how about one for me? Maybe a burning bush? Even a small one would do, just so it offers no natural explanation.

As someone who has experienced the supernatural, I advise to think this through. Think of the most amazing thing that you have done with the realization that this was a one-time experience. There may be few, if any more, like it. I have often had the rueful thought that there is a reason there are so few supernatural experiences: It cannot help but be the most addicting event ever...and it only lasted seconds, a minute or two at the most.

Jesus observed, "Blessed are they who have not seen yet believe." Take my word on this. They are indeed blessed.

My philosophy is exactly the opposite. I believe in nothing I can't see for myself. It has keep me from believing in many things I think are false: aliens, leprechauns, ghosts, sasquatch, etc. Do you believe in them? Why or why not?

So, you believe your feet disappear and no longer exist when you put socks on?

I am a very trusting person. I believe dinosaurs walked the earth. I've never seen one or even dug up a dino fossil but I believe they existed because I'm convinced I could dig up a fossil if I chose to put in the effort. I'm not convinced God would talk to me no matter how much effort I put in.

 

[alang1216]

My philosophy is exactly the opposite. I believe in nothing I can't see for myself. It has keep me from believing in many things I think are false: aliens, leprechauns, ghosts, sasquatch, etc. Do you believe in them? Why or why not?

The only reason you do not believe in leprechauns, elves, wizards, Big Foot, etc. is because you can't see them? At a young age, couldn't you have just asked an adult if they were real or fictional?

As for ghosts, yes I do believe in ghostly appearances--not because I experienced any myself, but because a colleague of mine did. (By the way, said colleague is atheist.) Ghosts are an interesting thing. We batted back and forth whether exceptionally strong emotions could linger, and whether there was a a scientific phenomenon that might account for it. Then there was the experience my then five-year-old nephew experienced.

My mother was a wonderful person but rather superstitious. She believed her loving God might break her back should I step on a sidewalk crack. Not really but she was superstitious.

There have been many things I encountered that I can't explain but that's OK, I don't need to guess or invent something. I saw two UFOs but I don't believe they were flown by little green men. They are just unexplained.

 

[Blues Man]

Anyone can acknowledge a supreme being anytime they want from anywhere and the supreme being will know.

No one in my family is a supreme being so for them to know what I think of them I must actually tell them or they can infer it from my actions toward them.

My point is, do you do things with your family as a group, or your community as a group? Or do you insist on eating with only one person at a time, or having a party with one person at a time? Do you ever gather with more than one person?

What's that got to do with the supreme being knowing whether or not you believe ?

But most of the time it's just me and my wife I have no extended family and she has a sister in another state.

 

[norwegen]

When you recognized you're agnostic, did you continue to join community worship, or did you stop going? Why did you choose to either continue to attend church or stop attending church?

Pastors may throw in the words God or Jesus now and then, but they don't say anything that motivational speakers say.

I teetered on agnosticism recently, wondering if Christianity hadn't ended nearly two thousand years ago with the resurrection. But then, of course, that would have been dismissive of the eternal gospel.

I stopped attending church services. I still drop in on Sunday School occasionally and keep in touch with those friends, but I derive biblical truth from the Bible itself and with Preterist circles, one in town and some online.

Any agnosticism I might have entertained was not because the traditional church continues to disappoint in its failure to answer questions or present a Jesus who comports with reality. It was because at 30,000 feet, the Bible began to ring with clarity, and I wondered if it pertained to me.

 

[Meriweather]

I doubt he cares what I think.

You will be surprised.

 

[Meriweather]

I'm not convinced God would talk to me no matter how much effort I put in.

The funny thing is that no effort is required.

 

[Meriweather]

They are just unexplained.

Yes! Like your examples, so much (like 99.9%) about God is unexplained.

 

[Meriweather]

What's that got to do with the supreme being knowing whether or not you believe ?

But most of the time it's just me and my wife I have no extended family and she has a sister in another state.

It is not about God knowing...it is also about being part of something larger than self. I'm offering information on why so many people of faith choose to worship as a community along with their own personal, private time with God.

 

[miketx]

When you recognized you're agnostic, did you continue to join community worship, or did you stop going? Why did you choose to either continue to attend church or stop attending church?

What would be crazy if you were an agnostic stuck at a green light light behind a guy in a car with a bumper sticker that says "honk if you love Jesus."

 

[Meriweather]

and I wondered if it pertained to

I know I discovered that while parts are very pertinent to me and my life--to my astonishment the entire thing was not about me!

 

[Blues Man]

What's that got to do with the supreme being knowing whether or not you believe ?

But most of the time it's just me and my wife I have no extended family and she has a sister in another state.

It is not about God knowing...it is also about being part of something larger than self. I'm offering information on why so many people of faith choose to worship as a community along with their own personal, private time with God.

But the supreme being himself doesn't care how you worship just as long as you do.

 

[norwegen]

and I wondered if it pertained to

I know I discovered that while parts are very pertinent to me and my life--to my astonishment the entire thing was not about me!

None of the Bible pertains to you and me when we consider that we're not Israel. Even if we were descended from one of the tribes, we're still not the temple people before AD 70 when they forfeited their Law. The Bible chronicles ethnic Israel's history, no one else's. It's not our story.

The term Israel does take on a new meaning, however, as the Bible relates ethnic Israel's eschaton, or closure. Israel no longer comes from Abraham or Isaac; it comes from above (Gal 4:26). No one is unclean anymore, as Peter's vision on a rooftop illustrated. So I can't disavow God. In fact, I think He's more real than ever, now that I understand His word.

 

[BreezeWood]

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On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
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christianity, their book above quote not the religious itinerant represents circular reasoning without resolution or the definite goal the original religion of that period required for admission to the Everlasting and in fact is no different than either agnostic or atheist in regards to the conclusion of their physiological existence and the consequences of that event.

You simply missed the lesson. Ask unsaved individuals what they would say when they die and meet Jesus at the gate to heaven, as to why they should be allowed to enter in. The general response will usually be something like this: "Well, I didn't kill anyone --- I tried to do my best --- I was a good person--- I did more good things then bad things!"
The problem is these are ALL the wrong answers!!!!!!!! The only reason anyone is able to enter into heaven is because of what JESUS did and not what anyone tried to do or thought he was accomplishing ----- even if supposedly done for GOD! JESUS is the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

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Ask unsaved individuals what they would say when they die and meet Jesus at the gate to heaven, as to why they should be allowed to enter in.

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if random speculation is the answer for salvation yours might certainly succeed through your book, having been read - for those others at the gate theirs will be for values achieved by their accomplishments through motivations naturally provided.

really nipper, your chances are not the same as anyone else's ...

 

[Picaro]

and I wondered if it pertained to

I know I discovered that while parts are very pertinent to me and my life--to my astonishment the entire thing was not about me!

I think the bolded part is what most stumble over in Christian and early Hebrew theology and philosophy; they're raised in a culture where Darwinism is worshipped like a religion, and when the read 'all that crazy stuff' in the OT and NT they can't relate it to 'real life'. Never mind nobody ever 'makes it' entirely on their own and never will. Much of what makes it possible to achieve what is achieved is just as invisible to them as any deity would be, which is why I think Thomas of Aquina and the Scholastics used the methodologies they did in order to teach theology.

 

[cnm]

What I can't figure out, though, is how anyone could be so arrogant as to believe that they're "right" and that they're the ones who've got it figured out...

"Right" about what, precisely? For example, most faiths teach love of others. Is that arrogance? What is wrong about loving others?

To paraphrase Gandhi, faiths are ok, it's the faithful who are the problem.

 

[Picaro]

and I wondered if it pertained to

I know I discovered that while parts are very pertinent to me and my life--to my astonishment the entire thing was not about me!

None of the Bible pertains to you and me when we consider that we're not Israel. Even if we were descended from one of the tribes, we're still not the temple people before AD 70 when they forfeited their Law. The Bible chronicles ethnic Israel's history, no one else's. It's not our story.

The term Israel does take on a new meaning, however, as the Bible relates ethnic Israel's eschaton, or closure. Israel no longer comes from Abraham or Isaac; it comes from above (Gal 4:26). No one is unclean anymore, as Peter's vision on a rooftop illustrated. So I can't disavow God. In fact, I think He's more real than ever, now that I understand His word.

Gentiles were also blessed at at various times in the OT as well, and the trend toward universalism in the writings of Moses and some prophets were part of the covenants. There were few bars to conversion in the pre-exilic confederations.

 

[cnm]

The problem is these are ALL the wrong answers!!!!!!!! The only reason anyone is able to enter into heaven is because of what JESUS did and not what anyone tried to do or thought he was accomplishing ----- even if supposedly done for GOD! JESUS is the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

Hmmm. Let me try to get this straight. Those people will not be able to enter heaven even though Jesus did what he did? Which raises the question, why did he bother?

 

[Meriweather]

But the supreme being himself doesn't care how you worship just as long as you do.

What is considered worship? I suggest it is in Isaiah and Psalm 40.

Isaiah 6 said, "Send me!"
Psalm 40: Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will.

We can do some things as an individual. We can do even more as a community. (I see this, and I am a hermit--more or less. )

 

[Meriweather]

None of the Bible pertains to you and me when we consider that we're not Israel.

Ah, but what is Israel's role? It is to be a light to the Gentiles. And as Jesus noted, a light should not be hidden under a bushel basket. We are adopted in to Israel's story and sprout from there.