My name is Al, I have been a friend of your step father for around 18 or so years. We attended CAG together with your Mom and brother and sister. I actually taught them both in Sunday school during their pre-teen and teen years. I sure wish that I would have known you then, maybe I could have been good friend to you as well. Anyway, Jay has been telling me about this site you have set up and asked me to look at it. I have been thinking on your premise of this website, which is nice, but aren’t there many more like this? Please don’t take this wrong or that I am attacking you in even the slightest way, “but”, and there is always one of those isn’t there, the following are my thoughts:

You see, in my opinion, and mine is just as important as the next person, but even my opinion doesn’t matter with truth, you see, the truth of the matter is, God is real, without a need for faith. God is clearly revealed in all His creation. God does not need to be proved to anyone in even the slightest of ways. As a matter of fact, it is upon your shoulders(as well as any athiest, humanist,agnostic,etc) to disprove God, which really is quite hard to do. And when true reason and intellect has been applied, many men and women who have truly done so, have come to accept the truth, and I believe that you to one day, will come to accept that fact, because you are looking. It is a good thing to “reason” sometimes, God Himself gives some opportunity to “test” Him. But too much intellect can get in the way, as with Eve, when she was tempted in the Garden: she looked and reasoned, and then fell from Grace.

So as a test for you: I would like you to disprove God in the 3 things he revealed Himself to me:

1) How, after almost 23 years of my life, with almost no church,(or churchy people,save one 5 minute conversation 5 years before) or any faith in my life but my survival instinct(my childhood being very,very similar to yours), did I meet someone who would so radically change my life, in other words, cause me to be “born again”. I was radically transformed.

2) After that conversion, and His gentle leading for 3 years, how did I receive another life changing experience with Him(Jesus), what we churchy people like to call the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in tounges, as well as being used to truly heal people over the next 18 years.

3) And during that time, seeing myself(not the world, or other people) in true need of healing from the pain that was poured out upon me during my very painful childhood, and receiving it, from a loving eternal Father that I never had from a human Father.

And for fun, who is that voice in talking to me in my head? (haha)

Seriously though, My story is the same as millions of others, no religion, no doctrine, no Pastor or Preacher yelled at me, manipulated me(I am one who hates manipulation, as Jay can attest to), no one of any of these has truly changed my life. I have seen people of faith from the pulpit to the pew warmer destroy peoples lives, but that does not take away from the truth of us being “fearfully and wonderfully made”.

(Below is my Pastors opinion… sorry, it is who I am)
Your decision to be like you are is all about your childhood, like it or not, like your unreasonable 3 points stated in the above article.
Your first authority(your sperm donor as you like to call him, obviously an unhealed deep wound) has clouded your “reason” to accept a Father in Heaven. You have looked at all things in life through your anger and unforgiveness of him. And every humanist, agnostic, athiest, person you know would tell you you are right to do so, but let’s be “reasonable” shall we? For you, that is your largest stumbling block toward seeing God as He is. You cannot trust in Him because He let your dad run out on you. It does not make any sense, nor should it, that you should trust in a God who lets harmful things happen to people, especially to us personally. I can tell you that I have experienced abandonment like you. And my step father was a vicious hurtful man, not at all like Jay. My Mother emotionally, and spiritually castrated me, and if she could have gotten away with it she would have physically done so. My question, or “reason” with God was “why?”. Maybe the answer is this: if I did not experience all that pain, would I have even remotely thought of God? But I think more importantly is the real answer, why does God still allow me to disobey Him(sin). If I am truly honest and reasonable I have 2 choices, to deny Him by “intellect and reason” and decide to live how I want, or accept Him by that same “intellect and reason” and live how He wants.
The choice? It is a personal decision, as: free will is always ours.

Truly, keep searching, if you seek Him with all your heart you will find Him, that is His promise to all mankind, and He cannot lie.

I do look forward to many fruitful conversations with you.

Al

BTW, I’m surprised you left Ireneaus out since it was his argumentation in Against Heresies (circa 180) that brought about the position that “the number of the gospels cannot be either more or less than four” based on the very ridiculous principle that because there are four winds on Earth and four living creatures in the book of Revelation and the Cherubs in Ezekiel have four faces, therefore there must be four and only four gospels. (what?)

I don’t believe that there are many barriers between me and going to church. Just one, really; the Bible. We are talking about a text who’s words are inspired by an omniscient and omnipotent God. One who loves each and every one of us so deeply that He doesn’t desire that any of us should perish. Yet this God has allowed His inspired words to be so vague and so full of errors that anyone could use it to defend just about any point of view that you can imagine. You have made this clear in the first paragraph of your response. Not only that, but the fact that the interpretation of these words has changed drastically over the centuries to conform with current social morays is alarming. Either God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8) or He is subject to the changing social climate.

While I don’t want to make generalized statements, it has been my experience in the past that most of the laity in the church know far less about the Bible, the history of the church, comparitve religion, philosophy and critical thought than those that dare to question. By no means is this an insult. Most people are followers, not leaders.

I agree with you on one point. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; but if there is no baby, all you have left is filthy water.

Remember, Christianity began to really flourish in a time that is very similar to present day Afganistan. More than 3/4 of the Afgan people cannot read or write. Most are pretty damn destitute. Is it any wonder how Islam is such a force over there? Education is paramount. If we do not educate ourselves about that which we believe, why do we believe it? Because we are told to? (Iraq has weapons of mass destruction…)

A quote from Stephen Roberts sums it up for me:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I guess the counterpoint to that is why not go to church? If the search for truth is the goal, then maybe there are some hidden clues to be found. Sure you’ll run across some walking zombies in the pews, may hear a canned sermon and get a few half baked answers on core beliefs. It’s also possible you’ll run into some dynamic people ready for a good conversion, meet an inspired pastor that suggests there is more to life than we know, and find a community that is just as exited about the search for truth as you are. This may not be probable, but it is possible!

38,000 demoninations, yikes, what a mess. I personally think Christians spend way too much time arguing over the minor points and not enough on what we have in common. There is evidence this is starting to change, my Lutheran demonination is now in full communion with several other demoninations including the United Church of Christ, Methodist, and Episcopalian. This means we’re all in general agreement about the meaning of the body and blood, despite having other preferences and views that define each group.

The search for the historical Jesus is an important one, and agree that if there isn’t some basic understanding of the dude then all the rest is pointless. We both have some bad experiences of Christianity from back in the day, and like to think I get your concerns with things on some level…there’s a lot of dirty bathwater to wade through. Where we differ is I believe there’s a baby in that bathwater, and that baby is worth pursuing, despite all the filth that surrounds it.

Here’s a few things that may be worth a google/wiki/listen, each has helped me form a world view that falls somewhere outside the common stereotypes of Christianity in America. “Red letter Christian” “Christian Left” and “Killing in the Name (unedited!) song, by Rage Against the Machine.

Keep on with your search, the journey is the best part!

Keep on keeping on with this great site, it has challenged me in many, many positive ways.