culture that is so backward compared to ours, and edited many times through the centuries. Some of them were written by pretty deluded individuals

You made three pretty bold statements there, Temaskian. Care to expand on at least the first one on how you know this to be true?

So evangelism is superfluous then?
in the same post, in my address to Postman:…. Our job is simply to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ to sinners and saints

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I beg your pardon, so you did. Now to me it seems strange that you even need to do that.
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If you so desire, God will surely allow you the rope with which you will hang yourself.

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As has been said before, most Christians are nicer than the God they worship.
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Thanks al, this has been illuminating for me. I hope you feel the same.
- Eshu

I love this series!

I recently had the opportunity to post my Christianity-to-atheism story on Christian webzine The Jesus Manifesto, and the resulting dialogue between myself (an atheist) and the readers (Christians) was fascinating and productive – and I think you’ll get the same thing here, with this post series.

Cheers,

Luke

I said “liar” and I am not sorry I said it. If I am bitter, so what? No one said that ex-Christians are perfect. Certainly, I don’t claim to be one. AND I DON’T WANT TO BE ONE.
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I left Christianity for hundreds of reasons. I am not going to blame one thing or the other specifically. But a stranger saying that he loves me summarizes many of my reasons, which Eshu did a good job of explaining.
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Again, I could write a book about why an “I love you” comment by a stranger is offensive to me, but I will try to summarize it in point form.
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1) First, I must clarify that I never did confuse it with anything that wasn’t fraternal love. So, let’s get that one out of the way.
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2) I don’t believe there can be love without relationship. In order to love someone, I must know them REALLY well. ANY stranger that says they “deeply care” for me out of the blue would be lying, or being a hypocrite, which is one my reasons for leaving the faith: I no longer wanted to be a hypocrite.
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3)He said what he said out of “obedience” to Jesus. I know that, because as a Christian, I was commanded to love others whether I wanted or not. But love cannot be commanded. Love, to be genuine, has to be cultivated. Two comments on a blog hardly amount to friendship, let alone love. In short, I will not follow a religion that wants to COMMAND my feelings. If there were a God, surely He would be nice enough to let me feel whatever I wanted. He couldn’t possibly be that sort of tyrant.
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4) Ryan does not love me. He didn’t even hear me. He didn’t even address any of my points. All he did was dish out the memorized Christian clichés that he’s memorized in church. I know all those clichés because, for years, I also recited them to others. He never did say anything I hadn’t heard. He spoke down at me condescendingly as if he knew something I didn’t know. Generally speaking, he didn’t. For years, I heard and believed what he says and believes, and I rejected that after careful examination. I am NEVER going back. Let’s make that very clear.
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5)Instead of answering my questions, he said he was going to stop “beating the dead horse” and move on. That was rude. Is he allowed to be rude and also love me? What a contradiction! Had he been in the room with me, I would have slapped him. That isn’t wrong according to my values. I don’t have a God controlling me, and if there were a God, he probably would be on my side.
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(6) Why does he feel the need to say that “He loves me?” Is he under the impression that I cry myself to sleep every night because no-one loves me? Does he think that I am some sort of orphan whom everyone hates? He couldn’t be more wrong. Not only have I the strong support of friends like Eshu and others, but I also have the love of my husband and other friends and relatives who KNOW ME and like me anyway.
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I do not need to beg for love. I have enough. Had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to walk away from a tyrant God who Christians said would roast me in hell if I didn’t believe in Him.
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In short, offering love to someone assuming they’re a beggar when they’re not is highly offensive.
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I am extremely offended. But as usual, you Christians go around insulting people and, what do you do? You blame the victim. How very Christian of you.
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You want me to behave like the submissive women whom in church you keep as low as possible, but I am not one of them. I have a voice and I use it. If telling the true to a liar who insulted me is being bitter, so be it. I did not come here to sell a product or to try to convince anyone. I came to stand up for those of us who’ve rejected your faith and that’s what I did.
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Proudly,
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Lorena

I don’t take credit cards, cash only please.

But the offer isn’t mine and it still stands.

Al,

Sorry about the age assumption. We can compare AARP cards some other time.

And I believe we’re pretty much on the same page. What I was referring to was not that our relationship with God is one sided, and that all we need to do is assume He knows us, but my initial point was the simplicity involved in opening our hearts to Christ. Revelation 3:20 states, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

The context for my statement was that this is really not about “religion” with all of its man-made rules, regulations and theological arguments, but it’s about “relationship,” a relationship built upon a simple, child-like openness to the One who is knocking.

Demian,

Thanks again for fostering such a lively exchange!

You surprised me, I say, because I think you don’t miss much. But maybe I overestimated your understanding of Christ and Christianity. If so, I apologize.
o
Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I’ll just keep living my life in a secular, humanist, live and let live – make the best of the one life we have – kind of way. If God wants to administer His Holy Spirit, he’s welcome to do so. If what you say about Him is true then I’m sure He can do so in such a way that I’ll know it when I see it, but in the mean time there’s little point in me listening to what any human has to say about it.

Of this I have no doubt: you will live as you choose, regardless of my desires for you, because God will allow you to pursue or neglect and deny Him as it pleases you. As the psalmist said to God, “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing,”(145:16). If you so desire, God will surely allow you the rope with which you will hang yourself.
o
Elsewhere, you accurately stated:
No one as far as I know has ever become a Christian … from direct revelation alone. No, they were all aware of Christianity before the revelation. (Someone correct me here if you know otherwise).
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The communication is generally … decidedly human forms of communication.
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So without the Bible, the Roman Empire, European colonialism, even people talking on blogs, no one would be entering that relationship with God. How would they have any idea what he might be saying without some cultural reference point?

This is perfectly correct because “it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe,”(1Cor.1:21). Why folly? “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,”(1:18). And why, again, is that? “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men,”(1:25).
o
As for your various potential explanations regarding Lorena, while I appreciate your efforts, one has but to peruse her website to find that her experiences in christendom apparently came no closer than your own to touching the living Truth that is Jesus Christ. Your lives have been tainted by that which dares to call itself Christian but is not; what the Bible calls “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power,”(2Tim.3:5).
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You both have obviously tried something– church, a belief system, the counsel of others, I don’t know what– but something that represents itself as Christ. But it was not Him, and you have discarded the baby with the bathwater. I mean no insult by saying this– it happens manifold times the world over every day, and I experienced it repeatedly. And yes, I too thought that God was the failure, until at last I found that the failure was me and my only salvation from myself was the true and living God.
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What I say to you now I say humbly because it is only by God’s merciful and undeserved gift to me that I can say it at all, yet I say boldly because Jesus Christ has promised that [1] whoever comes to Him He will never cast out, and that [2] no one (not even ourselves) is able to pluck us from His hand, therefore:
There can be no such person as a former Christian– only those who think they were once Christians but never really were.