Many books in the bible have been edited and added to by the people transcribing them in order fit their social or political views, the Gospels included. I believe that homosexuality can be overcome by faith as I have spoken to people who have done it and were genuine about it. I believe it is a sexual perversion like any other, and as such should not disqualify someone from raising a child. If anyone who was sexually deviant or suffered with sin was barred from raising children there would be no parents in the world today.

For me, the big thing is to not get all wrapped up in religious dogma. By that I mean some things in the Bible or some claims by Christians just don’t make sense and trying to make sense out of the senseless is well nonsense. For me, there’s just no way my mind will accept that Jesus was born of a virgin, died and then came back to life in anything other than a metaphorical sense. However, with something like…
"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
… I can get my head around the idea of what I believe Jesus was getting at and actually apply it in my life. So as a child sees a snowfall for the first time and reacts with a sort of awe, trying to keep that same mindset when looking at the sheer fact that anything exists at all allows one to see reality differently and feel differently about it than say one who concludes snow is just H2O and there’s nothing mysterious or awe inspiring about it.

I'm going to retract this actually. I don't know enough about homosexuality to judge it.

I took a wrong turn somewhere here, just have to figure out where.

I think when I said God played a role in every positive relationship I have ever had I might have been over stating his influence in them. The ones that were healthy for me though, I do feel he was present for

God must really help atheists with their marriages/relationships because according to the statistics atheist don't divorce as much as Christians or Jews..

Possibly yes, but generally I would say this is the worst way to judge if something is correct. If something makes you feel bad or unhappy it doesnt necessarily mean its not true. If something makes you feel good it doesnt necessarily mean it is true.

Your answers in this thread have just made me think of this scene Brian Preaching, especially the bit where the crowd go "aah, hes just making it all up!". That is what comes across , especially in your description of how god is somehow in your heart, yet not in your heart, you need to ask him in, except hes already there. You were just making it up as you went along basically. You have given non-answers to almost every question in this thread.

lol you dont know enough about homosexuality? what is there to know , other than that its 2 men rather than a man and a woman?

You must be right about the relationships you had, god was there for the god ones, and not there for the bad ones. but were the bad ones bad because god wasnt there, or was god not there because they were bad? How about it being more likely that he was there for 1) all of them, or 2) none of them?

as a non-believer... this is the part that shows all kinds of issues. To me, it sounds like you had an emotional experience of some sort and you want to believe so you're equating this emotional experience as a reason to believe.

Specifically, #3.... You are starting with an assumption that there is a God and you trust him. There is nothing rational about this.

You invited negative responses so I just offer that nothing you've posted yet sounds at all like anything that should lead to someone believing in Jesus. More importantly, as KB Coolman mentioned above, your experience sounds no different then what people of other faiths experience that they use to convince themselve that their faiths are correct.

I always find it odd how believers don't find it bothersome that what they're experiencing that justifies their belief is no different then what others describe for justifying completely different beliefs. Rationally... one would realize that either ALL the Gods are correct (and this experience proves they are all correct) or the experience you describe does not indicate what you want it to.

On the one hand, royce has been a believer for two weeks. And all us jokers are asking a wide spectrum of questions to him. It's sort of like asking a new recruit to explain everything about the army after 3 days of basic training. We can probably cut him some slack.

On the other hand, royce would be wise to say "I don't know" alot more.

If one has an answer and opinion on everything already, there's no need for truth, as you already have all your answers. "I don't know" opens space for truth to be revealed.

you realize this is a contradictory mess...

If he did say, I dont know, Id have a lot more respect. So far, it seems like he has dodged the questions that he could answer honestly ( eg what was the revelation , explaining how he was messed up before, etc), and then made up answers to the ones he doesnt know, mostly, it seems, to try and fit his revelation into a nice neat "christianity of the bible" slot.

I'm a little confused by his statements. His writings seem to indicate he already believed in God. He also seems to have had some sort of religious upbringing.

I think it is the other way around. Christians who believe the scriptures are divinely inspired word of God will eventually run into many problems with their faith--or at least they should.

So I will ask you the same question that I asked Royce. How do you explain the terrible things in the bible--the killing of homosexuals and disobedient children, the genocide, it's view on slavery, and its sexist views on gender roles?

If you truly believe that the bible in the inerrant word of God then you have a lot of explaining to do if you are going to convince anyone that this God is benevolent.

I can't. That's why I don't believe that they were instructions given to man by God. The God that I know isn't evil like that.

How would you know that?

But the whole Jesus person is based on the old testament, he clearly knew what the old testament laws were since he himself given them to the Jews before(if he was GOD). Don't you think that if Jesus was against what was written in the OT because it wasn't his laws but only changed around laws by people he would have pointed it out, clearly stating to stop twisting his words around? Instead he did not say anything about these OT laws given to Moses, even better he claimed these laws are everlasting(don't pass)...

So i find it rather silly when people claim to believe in Jesus but don't accept the bible claiming that the text has been twisted around and does not really represent true words of GOD/JESUS.

I guess I don't; at least not in a way that would satisfy you.

Neither should it satisfy you...

Gskowal, I don't believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, so I don't have to justify anything.

So you don't believe in anything that was written in the bible about GOD and JESUS?

My view is that if God is malevolent then we are all ****ed and there isn't anything we can do about it. So I don't worry about it or give it any consideration.

sure, but as a default you believe he is good, yet you don't really have a reason to do so since you don't really know him... do you?

To tell you the truth I don't know because I haven't picked up a bible in a long time and when I did it didn't make any sense to me. If I do pick one up in the future I am going to be very skeptical of it and not take any of it as literal truth. If I can find some meaning in the philosophical parts then fine. If I can't then I will probably quit reading it for good.

I classify myself at this point in time as a general theist who doesn't really know anything.

I disagree with this but I can't give you a good reason why I believe. You would scoff at my reasons.

I would also say that you would be right to scoff. I don't know how someone can share their mystical experience of God. It might be impossible.

If you think that people would scoff at your reasons then you should take some time to think why would that be the case...