I think that you may be surprised to learn that I've actually read The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold... then by Acharya S. But what I find interesting about authors like her and David Icke, and Mike Davis, and Robert Price... whose books I've read and very familiar with... all of these authors had similar experience

1) They saw that religion causes pain
2) They saw that mythologies of the past are dismissed today
3) They took it upon themselves to alleviate the world of pain suffering by means of "dismantling" the "religious myths".

Which is what I think you take on as your goal in having conversations with Christian believers... and which, believe it or not, was my goal too at one point of time.

Yet in my experience I did come across much of the evidence that we don't have Christianity today in it's pure form... in essence being INDIVIDUALS that come together to discuss what they've learned and experienced and support each other in their quest for truth.

What we have today is groupthink mentality that discourages any kind of underlying discussion that would potentially undermine the TRADITION (yes, I know that most of us would claim that we take that tradition directly from the Bible, but it's nowhere to be found there), religious HIERARCHY, or ESTABLISHED DOGMA... especially the one that has nothing to do with Christ's teachings and is extrapolated from a couple of passages that are not specifically related to the subject.

Yet, when you take and understand Christianity in its proper context, of being a belief system of INDIVIDUAL on a way to discover the CREATOR... I think it would be easier to form your own view that is independent of the negative aspects inflicted by the group think of the past.

For example. Some of the very simple fallacies that I observe in modern Churches today.

... like taking the concepts that were given to a specific group of people for a specific time frame and for a specific reason, and applying these universally as THE RULES to live by. Now, I'm not talking about 10 commandments per se, but about little things here and there that make their way into our lives as some "greater spiritual truths".

Then we begin to read too much into certain things that were not written to be such. David picked up 5 stones, because that's how many he happened to pick up. Yet, I've heard preachers that would give names to these stones... I.E.

The stone of trust
The stone of righteousness
The stone of Word of God

And, for any reasonable person this is insane, yet we let the insane people lead us many times, because the "ultra-fanaticism" many times is interpreted as a form of "spirituality".

Another common theme that I find when reading the above described people, is that they are quickly to dismiss the "Religious myths", yet they are as quick to adopt the "New Age" like perceptions that have very little underlying support for these. And they derive the ideas from shamanism and experiences that are much more far fetched than Christian thought IMO.

So, while I do understand your reasons for believing what you do. I grew up as ultra-Atheist who would go to Churches and Sunday school discussions to prove people wrong about Christianity and God. Yet, I've learned that early on that everyone believes for different reasons... and that for some, reason is not of utmost importance like it was for me.

There are plenty of things that reason can't penetrate. You can't know the origins in epistemological sense of knowledge. Likewise, you can't know the past in epistemological sense of knowledge. All of these rest in the realm of faith, whether you like the idea or not. You have to trust that the author's sources are correct, and that sources of the sources are correct, and the sources of the sources of the sources are correct.

Yet, for some odd reason you accept these with absolute certainty and you criticize the absolute certainty of Christian reasoning. Don't you see a certain duplicity in it all? Wouldn't you agree that our worldview would attract certain thing that we want to believe in? That's why I can't say for certain that what I know is true. But I can say for certain that these are the things that I ACCEPT AS TRUTH, based on my existent knowledge.

So, please satisfy my curiosity and tell me what exactly is it you are planning to accomplish here?

You should check out this book

Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

http://savingparadise.net/

Because reason cannot penetrate everything, I think it is more honest to say that we don't know and to be suspicious of fantastical claims. Since I have never observed the types of things described in the early church and since I see people today make up fantastical stories that aren't true about religious figures, but a lot of people believe, it seems more likely that they were made up in the early church as well. There is enough evidence present to doubt the claims of authorship and the claims of miraculous events.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.



I don't accept anything with absolute certainty. Like I said, there is enough evidence there to seriously doubt the accuracy of early Christian claims. It has nothing to do with what I want to believe. You can tell me that the sky is really green, but no matter how hard I try, even if I wanted to, I would not believe the sky to be green.

I don't believe the claims of the Bible because they are no longer believable to me. And there has been no Christian apologetic that honestly addresses most of the serious problems with these claims.

Christianity must rely on fear for most of its persuasion. There is a lot of Pascal's wager type of thing. What if it was true? To me, that's the greatest source of doubt for me. It's hypocritical to say its based on love, when its very reason for existing is the fear of punishment for not being a Christian.



Well, I see no difference other than a lot of "New Age" stuff tends to lay off the hell and brimstone. And maybe that's why its so attractive. Personally, I think its because people haven't learned how to live with mystery.

I have to admit that the inner journey is an interesting one, but I think its a mistake to start a new religion just because I might have a transformative inner journey. I think these experiences happen all the time, in spite of religion.



If I was to state my core goal, it would be to reduce suffering. I believe that fear based belief systems are immature at best, and have the potential to create great harm if left unchallenged. I think history attests to this over and over, particularly among those belief systems that claim certainty.

When these belief systems come to power, no reason and many times, no force, can change their harmful influences. At least a tyrant will respond to threats of force. Belief marches on even unto death.

While I appreciate the sentiment of this talk by Laurence Vance, he certainly is not a church father, nor does he really give a Biblical basis for Christians being anti-state violence. If one ignores portions of the bible a case can certainly be made from individual texts for Christian non violence.

We don't have to look too far to find apologetics for war by church fathers. Augustine, the premier church father paved the way for religious violence through his work on a just war. He has plenty of Biblical support for the use of violence since this was the most often used method of the Jewish god in the OT. And of particular note is his definition of justified.

I am glad that there are thinking Christians promoting more rational approaches. My point is that while they claim they are coming from a biblical basis, I recognize reason as the primary source of their positions.

Ok, you know what this does, it puts some things into question, pertaining to scripture, I think you need to give us some examples, best would be to have the truth and the the lie so that we can analyze it!

How about it?

Have you read the whole thread? I give numerous examples and links.