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發表於 09-1-3 22:32 |只看該作者

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I posted my detailed research, and again dealt another blow to him. Then I posted another on “sola scriptura”, and then some testimonials on Fundamentalist turning to Catholicism. These Catholic-friendly articles were all on my blog and were quoted by many Catholics to counter attacks from Fundamentalists by many Chinese speaking Catholics. For a while I really considered Catholicism because I loved the beauty of their liturgy.

After thought on the wars with Fundamentalists

During the times, I slowly understand the kind of Fundamentalist mindset and many thoughts emerge. I witnessed first hand what this kind of mindset could do to a persons’ integrity.

This is what I saw happening to them:

At first, a Fundamentalist would appear kind and courteous (just like those holding Bibles and knock on your door with a wide smile). They lives are upright, with high integrity. But as their views and beliefs were debunked one after another, their rigid Fundamentalist mindset created a strong internal conflict in them. Because they choose to defend their “treasured faith”, and that all of their sound arguments were out of the window, they mind started to be locked into an ideological vicious circle:

I knew the truth (or I had the truth, whatever)
They were non-believers, liberals, heretics, apostates, they did not have the truth
So even they had facts, reasonable, used means with integrity they are still wrong
Even if I used things that looked like a lie, unreasonable, illogical, and even without integrity, I am still with the truth
To defend the truth I had to use any means

This kind of reasoning somehow motivated them to use tricks that get meaner and meaner, because they would rather compromise their own intellectual integrity than to suffer the humiliation of admitting that they were wrong. This resulted in the breakdown of their integrity. They no longer capable of loving the enemies, they would speak bitter words of hatred and curse. They turned into Crusaders.

First they would post things with false facts, and then mud-smearing, then back stabbing (they found out which church I attended, and send emails to my church’s email address), flooding the forum to drown out other articles, assumed multiple identities to make it appeared they were the majority, and when they had the authority to delete posts or bar participants in a discussion forum, they used it like some repressive regimes against dissidents.

One case was that I met up with Puritan in another forum that supports deletion of membership, Puritan somehow got the post of administrator, and he barred my membership account, deleted all my posts, put up a notice that basically turn the facts about what happened upside down. This process gave Puritan a inflated self-esteem, he felt he was more powerful than me, he felt a kind of gratitude and satisfaction, as though he won a Crusade for God. The forum went back to “normal” with those “heretic posts” gone, and that served as a confirmation to his terrible tactics - he did it for God using these means, he won, he had “peace” in heart, the good Christian now had a place to share, this had got to be pleasing to God.

This is precisely the dark side of Fundamentalism: in the face of opposition, if they had the powers to crush their enemies, they would use it without hesitant, there is no “Love your enemy”, or that “love” comes after they crushed you. Look at the situation in USA, in those denominations taken over by Fundamentalists, the pattern is all the same.

The battle years with Fundamentalist gradually turned me to a moderate Evangelical, and somewhat leaning to the Liberal side.

In forums, I did not subscribe to common Christian myths (e.g. Darwin turned Christian at his death bed, Einstein was Christian, majority of scientists was Christian, there were tracks where human and dinosaurs walked side by side, the Noah’s Ark was found etc) and often was among the ones that debunked posts containing these lies the very moment they appeared. My action incited Fundamentalists, even some Evangelicals and conservative Christians, because I embarrassed them.

Similarly, when anti-Catholicism articles appeared, I refuted them without hesitation. I then earned the nickname of “the whore” (given to me by Puritan, of course), and gain reputation among forums as the very radical Christians with unorthodox views.

The gay rights controversy

During the same time as I fought the Fundamentalist, I also befriended a number of gay Christians on the forum. I was appalled by the hatred and hostility displayed by other Christians to them. The Fundamentalist and many Evangelicals wanted to stop those gay Christians from posting at the forum. I was a staunch believer in freedom of expression, and I opposed those Christians fiercely, making a lot of Evangelicals and caused a forum to shutdown again. I and one of the gay Christians became friends (he is now going after mysticism).

In 2005, a bill that would make discrimination based on sexual orientation an offense was out for public consultation (“SODO”, “Sexual Orientation Discrimination Ordinance”) in Hong Kong.

This started my new round of fight with conservative Christians. One para-Christian group called the Society of Truth and Light (STL, one that imports all right-winged, conservative views directly from their counterparts in USA). They published large ads on papers containing many false scientific research about homosexuality plus twisted cases in the West. I posted on public forums long articles reprimanding STL, again having heated debates with many Fundamentalists/Evangelicals. Many of my long articles were quoted by LGBT rights activists because I struck at those groups weakest points again – their lack of, cover up or distortion of facts about homosexuality (if it could be “straightened” and “typical cases of homosexuals persecuting Christians” etc).

During that year, a pastor befriended me. He was the kind of seeker sensitive pastor who does not agree with the “military-like” tactics of Hong Kong Christian right/conservative groups, and in particular STL. He preferred the “engagement” mode of helping homosexuals. He wrote some articles criticizing STL in newspapers. STL, unfortunately has a number of senior advisors coming from the denomination which the pastor belonged. About 6 months after he published his views on newspapers he was forced to leave his church (apparently the leadership of the denomination was angry when he embarrassed them). The whole thing was handled in a shadowy manner, the church who asked that pastor to leave even lied about the reason. Their cover was blown away when the pastor released the letter ordering him to resign, showing the deacons had lied public.

The whole Christian community was silent about this issue, allowing the church to lie. The Christian community (mainly evangelical) were just like any ideological groups, refusing to listen to facts and different opinions.

I was convinced then homosexuality is something similar to psychiatric diseases or of in-born nature, and that they were not morally wrong.

These events gradually changed me, I already thrown out Bible inerrancy, I thrown out "simple faith", I denied that homosexuality is a sin, it was only a matter of time before I thrown out the miracles, God creationism, etc.

This event made me decided that I had to cut my ties with Evangelicals and then I completed my transformation to a Liberal Christian, and that had not stopped.

Science – the antidote

By then, I picked up a lot of books about critical thinking, logical reasoning, different Christian doctrines, and finally I returned to my favorite – popular science.

At that time I traveled a lot in China. In China there were big bookstores, the equivalent of Barnes & Nobles in USA. The books were well printed and most of all, dirt cheap. I was drawn to the section of popular science, and picked up 3 or 4 books at every visit there.

I enjoyed those reading so much that I gradually rekindled my love of science.

The war against “Ark finders”

During the same years of SODO (2004 – 2005), there was another event in the Christian circles of Hong Kong. A Christian media group called Media Evangelism (“ME”) announced in the fall of 2004 that they had found the remains of the Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat, and wanted to raise tens of millions of dollars to fund a grand expedition and research project.

When I examined their claims, I was appalled and angry. They just filmed a cave somewhere on the mountain, throw stones into it, and said it had a “hollow sound of echo”, they found big rocks with holes drilled on top (which they claim they were anchors, actually they were shrines made by Christians) etc and they declared “we have the ark”. In news conferences, they repeated said they found it, but showed no physical evidences. They produced a movie and asked churches in the whole territory to buy up big lots of tickets.

I and other Christians posted on a Christian newspaper our views, stating that “ME” was misrepresenting facts about their discovery of the Noah’s Ark, and had heated debates with again the Fundamentalist.

I also found out “ME” site about the “Ark discovery” was full of false materials (including those from the notorious Ron Wyatt who claimed he found the remains of Pharaoh’s chariots that were under the Red See). I sent out an open letter listing all the misinformation in their site, eventually forced “ME” to remove them (but they did it quietly without making an apology on posting wrong things).

Re-visiting origins

The substantial amount of research I did draw my attention to an ancient problem – the earth was over 4 billion years old, there were no evidences of the Flood, that the Ark of that size cannot be seaworthy etc. – the origins of life, the Earth and the Universe crept to my mind. I started to question if Genesis was wrong, how about Virgin Birth and Resurrection ?

As I continued my research I found that much of the claims by Christians, whether about science and history, contained a lot of flaws. Furthermore, the Bible is by no way the inerrant word of God.

Nobody could explain the inconsistencies and cruelty in the Bible. Moreover, the Bible’s authorship was not as simple as most Christians learned about in Sunday Schools. Those were teachings from over 150 years ago. The new discovery and textual analysis, showed that, for example, the book of Genesis, was a compilation of sources up to the time the Israelites were abducted to Babylon, a long after the supposedly time of death of Moses (said to be the author of the first five books). The other books like Joshua, Ruth etc were all written in a manner to teach Israelites not to turn away from God, but many of the events were probably fictional. They were written again at later years.

The battles and wars by the Hebrews in Canaan resulted in large casualties, but no remains of the war were ever found, and the numbers were too high if we considered the world population at that time. Mostly they were exaggerations to make God looked powerful.

The account of Creation by Genesis was also scientifically wrong (plants appeared before the sun was created for example), and that the flood could not have covered the earth (that much water will be triple the volume of the waters of the ocean today) and a boat of that size (450 feet long) could not even stay afloat.

This clear errors in the Bible make me ponder the question, between science and Christianity, I must decide.

At that time I also kept myself updated on the development about arguments of Intelligent Designs and Evolution, I started to realize that, if there is proof that the origins of life, the Earth and the Universe are not a result of a higher being’s intervention (you may call it the Flying Spaghetti Monster), but purely the result of natural forces, then the foundation of Christianity will be gone. You don’t even have to talk about Virgin Birth, Resurrection and End Times.

I examined the evidence in the Bible, and there are clear inconsistencies on the accounts of Jesus’ birth and resurrection. I do not want to go in to details as this was well covered by many other ex-Christians. In a nut shell, the accounts were later created to elevate Jesus to Godhood, but it failed terribly when historical facts were checked. Jesus’ year of birth according to Matthew’s account and Luke’s account was 10 years apart. The census mentioned by Matthew never happened. The mention of the governor at Luke’s account was also in error.

Secondly, the genealogy of Jesus was clearly something created by the authors, they both referred to the paternal side (Joseph’s side of the family). Even if you take into accounts that gaps where there when generations were skipped, there were instances of clear inconsistencies.

The inconsistencies between the accounts of resurrection of Jesus was also disturbing.
I had those doubts buried until I bring myself to face it, and there could be no way anyone can harmonize it. Refer to infidels.org article here for an elaborate discussion: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/bradley.html.

Up to this point, my long held belief that Jesus is God were all disproved, I did not ignore the facts presented to me.

As for Evolution, I already found out that those Christian claims that “Evolution” was challenged were all again blatant lies, they twisted news about new discoveries of bones that changes view of Evolution, and claimed that those discoveries “overturned” Evolution.

I visited infidels.org and another site dedicated to Evolution, and then a very good book that outlined how Evolution works and answered a lot of challenges to Evolution, how simple organisms emerged and evolved without conscious “design” and eventually to advanced organisms by natural selection.

I also read a fine book written by Mr. Fang Shi-Min, a PhD in heredity and biology, who did a brilliant job in explaining some intricate mechanism of Evolution (e.g. how a complex organ like the eye evolved). I was fully convinced evolution is a fact and needed no divine intervention to occur.

The point of no return

It was 2007, I still attended Christian activities, and I signed up for the Franklin Graham Festival as a choir member. By November, as the event drew near, I read another articles. This was the very last question that I needed answer. Does our universe (the energy, the matters therein) needed a creator ? Did somebody create our universe out from nothing ?

Here I found a logical flaw. Its hidden assumption was “for something to exist, it must be create”. This was simply begging the question. What we should ask was “how did our universe begin” without jumping to assumptions that it has to be “created”.

In reading articles on modern physics (which showed that matter could come to existence from non-matter) and that the universe is not a true vacuum, and about virtual particles, it can be demonstrated that matter can arise from non-matter. Secondly, the universe can exist on itself without being created. If something was there along, it needn’t be created. By then I cannot lie to myself, I am not a Christian anymore by definition, I am an atheist.

After some hesitation, I announced by switch to atheism. I could not bring myself to sing in the Franklin Graham Festival Choir (even I attended all the practices, knew the anthems back to back), because that was against my intellectual integrity and conscience. Once I realized that, I knew my mind has passed beyond the point of no return.

Settling in

As I settled after I made my announcement, I really am amazed how we can trick ourselves using our mind. We see what we wanted to see, for example goodness or kindness, we cannot find in our lives, we turned to religion because we hoped that we can find it in some deity. We need assurance that things are in control, probably because we felt at times we lose control of things. We are also uncomfortable that forces of nature are impartial and has no emotion when it happens in ways that stirs our mind. We projected our human nature to the “nature” (mother nature, storms have names etc.). Sure, we shared a lot of commonalities with animals, but that does not give laws of nature a “personality”. The mechanistic view of nature is not pleasing or appealing, but should we go as far as to create our god so that nature is more appealing?

One aspect of Fundamentalism and Evangelism is to attribute God’s hand in everything. The Tsunami in late 2004 was branded as God punishing South Asia and India, which are predominantly pagans in their eyes. However they overlooked cases where pagan temples stood intact after the earthquake and Tsunami, and Christian lives lost in that event (I knew an entire family, the parents and children were lost). They failed to see the human kindness displayed by people during the hard times.

Another is that, Fundamentalist used evangelization to justify everything. For instance, to evangelize Catholics, they created bunches of lies to lure them to convert. To evangelize university undergraduates that has some background in science, they created lies about Evolution. They would even justify persecution of fringe religious group (e,g. China’s Falungong) so to “make way for Gospel”. They even hailed the torture of prisoners held at Guatemala, that the Muslims no matter what, the present of US Troops in Iraq open doors for Evangelization.

Evangelicals are no better. The book by Barna Group (unChristian: what What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters) described precisely their distorted world view because of Christian teachings.

The many pseudoscience stuffs (equivalent to quacks) propagated by Christians are just a direct product of their view that God is there to push things. When there is a gap in the argument, they fill the blanks with the word “God did it”. Their behaviors are just like politicians or lobbyists of big corporations creating opinion to support their agenda, rather than the pursuit of truth.

Concluding words

My story will definitely hurt a lot of my friends I had since I became Christian. Many of these friends are kind and compassionate, but will definitely not able to share my views because their world view is so different from mine. I will like to maintain relationship with them. Fortunately I made new friends who are Liberals, agnostics, and atheists. Something I am happy about.

Prologue – A confrontation

This dialogue was a confrontation between me and my pastor some months before I left Christianity, which just shows how narrow-minded, irrational and authoritarian ministers can be when their core beliefs are confronted. I hope in time, my Christian friends will see the facts.

This confrontation with my church's senior pastor was over the question of "once-saved-always-saved".

During the conversation, he just printed out 10 pages and said there were "over 100 verses in the Bible" that proved "once-saved-always-saved".

He was not ready to discuss with me, he wanted me to submit. I challenged him a number of points citing the a Christian publication reporting a newly emerged church being a "heretic":

(未完,待續)

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發表於 09-1-3 22:36 |只看該作者

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Me: the article listed a number of criteria that makes this church heretic. One is the divinity of Christ, one is pastoral authority, and the other one is "rejecting once-saved-always-saved". I reject once-saved-always-saved, you said the other Sunday with emphasis on this point when talking about this church. Answer me, am I now a heretic?

Pastor: ..... You took the words out of context, it should be placed alongside with the others.

Me: This is illogical, if you listed it there, then as long as you fulfill the one or more of it, then it meet the criteria.

Pastor: ....no ..no, you have to consider it with others

Me: then this criteria "rejecting once-saved-always-saved" should not be there. It is one that the Christendom never agreed on, and I do not believe any pastor should preach it as the dogma similar to Trinitarian formula.

Pastor:.....I am a Baptist minister for 40 years, I was to preach the truth in the Bible, once-saved-always-saved is the truth as proven by the Bible.

Me: then what about the Methodists, the Lutherans, surely you know they don't teach once-saved-always-saved ? The Methodists is against this doctrine.

Pastor: I refuse to comment other churches. I tell you, I am a veteran minister who preached for 40 years. We preach the truth as said in the Bible. The Bible is literally true; the world is created in 6 days, each day a 24 hour day. Do you know that in USA the South Western Theological Seminary, once professor published a set of commentaries and used the word "myth" to describe Genesis? He was sacked and the whole set of commentaries were rewritten. I preach what I believed is true and I do not have to answer to any individual. You are free to read anything you like, but in my church, it is what it will be taught..

.....

We have no common ground. All I saw was a person that refuses to have a conversation, but only wants to thrust his set of beliefs down my throat.

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發表於 09-1-3 22:37 |只看該作者

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發表於 09-1-3 22:44 |只看該作者

以下是中文版本:
結束23年基督徒生涯﹐辭別基督教 - 撮譯自本人給朋友的英文版本 - Resigned from Christianity after 23 years of journey (初稿)

請自己去看,我覺得需要為她禱告....

[ 本帖最後由大臭B爸爸於 09-1-3 22:47 編輯 ]

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發表於 09-1-3 22:53 |只看該作者

為何不先為她禱告呢?我們豈如救主一樣,知道那人沒可能得救,在神眼中每一個人都是寶貴的,縱然她現在敵基督,並不代表她不會日後回轉基督,我們豈能代替神作審判者麼?

更何況她在外面不信的世界是多麼有影響力,你會期望她一斷不斷的發表敵基督的文章,叫無數信心軟弱的基督徒跌倒,那恐怕比bk這裡基督家庭的破壞還要強,我們既然相信禱告的力量,我們的神是全能的,必叫萬事互相效力,叫愛神的人得益處,若然禱告能使她回轉基督,那麼可想而知,那力量是何等的大啊!!

*希望以上的言論,不會得失弟兄你....

原帖由 agape 於 09-1-3 22:37 發表

不要為此人浪費任何時間.
有時間便請向其他人傳福音吧.

約壹5:16 人若看見弟兄犯了不至於死的罪，就當為他祈求，神必將生命賜給他；有至於死的罪，我不說當為這罪祈求。

希6:4 論到那些已經蒙了光照、嘗過天恩的滋味 ...

[ 本帖最後由大臭B爸爸於 09-1-3 23:01 編輯 ]

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叮鈴

大宅

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發表於 09-1-4 00:07 |只看該作者

我都有想過，有天，她若能再回到主的懷抱中，她將成為一個很強的見證。
李天命如是...

只好期待....

奇蹟的出現

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發表於 09-1-4 17:43 |只看該作者

我們一起同心禱告吧!!禱告才是改變的力量....

我以禱告來到祢跟前

[ 本帖最後由大臭B爸爸於 09-1-4 17:44 編輯 ]

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seaman2008

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發表於 09-1-4 22:28 |只看該作者

大臭B爸爸
我很欣賞你對她的愛心，因為我英文麻麻，沒看畢她那全部經歷，只看了少部份。

但已感受到她對教會的失望，而希望你明白，耶穌正正是因為令她們失望而被釘死在十字架上！

明白嗎？

耶穌正正是因為令她們失望而被釘死在十字架上！

記得耶穌凱旋進京的事嗎？每個人出來迎接衪是因為知道祂就是要來拯救「我們」(「我們」在當時以色列人以為主來以軍事手段拯救以色列民)，可是，主耶穌令她們失望了。因為主耶穌要救所有人的生命而並非只為了單一民族的利益。
今天，有些人也認為主耶穌必需要解答了一切神學和哲學的問題，才可相信。例如：三位一體，一次得救永遠得救，上帝造另一上帝、三角的四邊形、圓形的五角形........等。

要知道了一切才跟從主，這叫謙卑嗎？這叫順服嗎？這叫相信嗎？

總之，她今天的成功，完全是因為她努力。而她今天的失敗，完全是因為她身邊的基督徒給她的愛心不夠。總之，她沒錯就是了。

講真，在教會裏，碰到自己不喜歡的牧師是很正常，我就是一個例子，但因為如此而背叛主的恩典，不值得。

她說信了23年，你想想她受了主多少年恩典？但她因為主沒站出來和李天命辯論，或解答她的問題，她便完全推翻了23年的恩典.......

你說為她禱告是應該的，這也是經上教導，阿們！

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