u/HeavenSwordExalted

Hi, I am an ex christian. Was a protestant from 17-34 with a heart for Jesus. Converted from a guilt enhanced accept Jesus into my heart event.

With some backstory, at this point i literally cannot believe in Jesus in a supernatural way, and I dont think any apologetic is going to help that, because the bible is so broken to fit the supernatural model over just purely human origins.

Some examples we can get into, matthew's use of fulfilled prophecy in Matthew 2:15 vs Hosea 11:1. Wrapping it in theological language like typology doesnt change whats going on, matthew is framing and calling something a fulfilled prophecy using a keyword, when there is zero prophecy in sight and matthew just felt the narratives had similar themes.

The difficulty of the resurrection account harmonization is another one. How many women were at the tomb, was the stone already rolled away or not, how many angels were at the tomb, etc.

Judas death difficulty of harmonization.

The genealogies of Jesus going back to fictional characters, and not matching with each other, matthew stating 14+14+!4 when one has 13, and he skipped stuff.

Paul's theology almost demanding a literal historical adam, and thats been debunked by science, and the biblical characters in the story treating adam as a literal historical figure as well as noah and the flood.

Moses being summoned by christ from heaven as an actual person during the transfiguration, when historical scholars have very good reason and lack of evidence to believe the exodus story does not comport to reality. 2 million people in a desert that takes 12 days to walk across for 40 years, zero historical evidence of this journey. Zero evidence that israel / hebrews were ever in egypt as slaves. Moses was probably not a real person in history.

Jesus being wrong about things like demonic worldview, which every symptom has had natural explanation, which the church fought with fire and blood to not go that direction, and today has completely surrendered the narrative of demonology to secular medicine. Because we actually have cures and they have dogma.

Jesus having bad marriage advice, matthew 19, only valid reason for divorce is sexual immorality (which catholic interpretation dont even agree with that), trapping people in terrible situations they want to leave for millennium.

The communication problem. God could have inspired the bible to point harder towards roman catholicism and what their current dogmas are. He didnt. Now there are 6 main branches of christianity, protestants being 1 branch, with 45,000 denominations between all of them.

Catholics shift the presupposition from the bible cannon being from God, or that Jesus resurrected, to Jesus established the catholic church, and the catholic church has complete authority to interpret, ignore, or make new dogma, over scripture.

I know that was a lot but to me christianity in all its forms are an obviously false religion. There could be a God/creator. If there is, they most certainly did not give special revelation in a holy book we see today because every religions holy books debunk themselves or do not comport to reality.

Personally im just going with a natural explanation for everything we see, trying to keep secular ethics of wellbeing vs harm reduction plus reason, which can be easily arrived at that we are biological beings with a nervous system, pain hurts, we dont want to suffer, so we shouldnt harm others, and this is the one life we are verified to have. When I die what happens will happen is my policy, im not worried about it.

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My question for catholics: Why should I believe in a catholic interpretation of scripture and shift all authority to Catholicism being established by Jesus who is in heaven, when that is based on a presupposition and backed by scripture?

There are 6 main branches of christianity

Roman Catholicism: The largest single body, consisting of the Latin Church and 24 autonomous particular churches.

Protestantism: A diverse group with thousands of independent governing bodies, including Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians.

Eastern Orthodoxy: An ancient communion made up of multiple self-governing regional churches.

Oriental Orthodoxy: A distinct historic family of ancient churches separated from Eastern Orthodoxy.

Restorationism: Movements seeking to recreate apostolic Christianity, such as the Latter Day Saint movement and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Church of the East: Historic ancient tradition, also known as the Nestorian church.

There are an estimated 45,000 to 47,000 Christian denominations worldwide

At what point do we admit God failed at communicating a clear message?

Take James White. He speak fluent Koine Greek, reads it on live almost every live on the dividing line, has done over 200 publically moderated debates, authored 24 books on the faith, and has a deep understanding of church fathers and church history. He believes in a calvinistic Christian God with eternal conscious torment and rejects authorities like Rome.

David Bentley Hart, another theologian believer. Speaks reads and translates fluent koine greek, has around 20 books and translations, and comes to the conclusion of Universal Restoration in Eastern Orthodox tradition.

These two theological heavyweights read the same bible, dedicate their lives to it with a strong work ethic, are intelligent, and come to opposite conclusions and dont see the need to submit to Roman Catholicism.

At what point do we just say that God is not a clear communicator for his message on what he wants?

Okay so my party was confronting the frostmaiden at lvl 10. She is like a Goddess who has been terrorizing the people the whole campaign! We were not prepared

I am a bard!

Initiative ends up getting rolled. And I get the brilliant idea of Insult her for aggro and use wall of force as a personal enclosed suit of armor (no space to teleport inside). So I dropped a devastating insult and wall of forced myself

Next time my turn comes around, DM ruled that she can still hear and see me, and did not grant me rule of cool vicious mockery because total cover. So I just dropped another legendary insult, DM had me roll intimidation. Fucking nat 20!!

She proceeded to spend the rest of her legendary actions that round throwing things at me!

When my turn came around again, we were still linked via telepathic bond (my spell) and I told the party, hey guys Im good, I have 9+ more minutes of this, have dimension door and polymorph. The plan is you fucking run, and i teleport 500 feet randomly away and transform into a bird and fly away. And then i dropped another legendary insult!

Anyways we ended on a cliffhanger! Party is probably running? Stuff is happening! But yeah I am have never seen wall of force used as personal armor that was a pretty cool session!

The american slave trade was the life long ownership of people as property with full control over them. They used systematic engineered torture as discipline to get the most effective labor out of their slaves. They fed them the minimum cost amount of food for optimal profits. They choose their housing and separated families to break resistance moral. Their women were raped regularly, majority of european ancestry in black DNA came from white male into black females. It was race/ethnicity based as blacks being subhuman. They used leviticus 25:44-46, exodus 21:20-21 to justify it, as well as Jesus's dead silence in the gospels about the specific issue and the apostles endorsement "Slaves obey your masters even the cruel ones."

Even after the civil war, the racist christians held onto their ignorance and passed shit like jim crow etc. Today there is still systematic racial oppression and plenty of closeted racists and racial bias. Christians today benefit from the north winning the war and racism being taboo, but they are incorrect to think that modern doctrine is the more biblical view and the south was unjustified in the slave trade biblically because Jesus said love your neighbor.