I don't want to sound puffed up (I Cor. 8:1), but I did in fact walk the Christian walk (II Cor. 5:7) ... I did more than just talk the talk. I know the Bible better than you do (if you feel anger when you read that statement, then I suggest that you're having fleshly pride, and you need to repent). No brag, just fact. I am a veteran of many
"defending the faith" discussions, some quite heated, where I was arguing in favor of Christianity and the Bible. I've engaged in personal evangelism, one-on-one, on three different continents. I have preached sermons "from the pulpit" and on one memorable occasion actually received the offering from the offering plate (a truly humbling experience. It totaled $11.22, and I had to split it with the banjo player. It was a very small church, and my sermon wasn't so great. Neither was the banjo player). I once enrolled in a seminary, and actually attended classes for a while. I have spoken in tongues (unless I was just fooling myself ... which is quite possible). I can read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. I have memorized hundreds of Bible verses; I can still quote them and cite the chapter and verse. I have even memorized a few Bible verses in the original languages (Hebrew and Greek). I have forgotten more Bible verses than twelve average Christians memorize in their entire lifetimes. I have had, on two different occasions (years apart), afternoon-long discussions/arguments with Jehovah's Witnesses (they always show up in pairs) in which I successfully defended the standard Southern Baptist "take" on Christianity.
And in case you didn't know, it takes a black belt (with a red stripe) in Bible knowledge to outsmart the Jehovah's Witnesses.
What I'm saying is that whatever you're going to say to me, I have probably not only heard it before, I've used that very argument, probably phrasing it better than you would.
The high point of my day is when some Fundy quotes the Bible to me and makes a mistake, and I get to say (gently, of course),
"*Ahem* ... that's Romans 10:9, not 9:10. Look it up if you need to."
What sort of things do Christians say to me? Here are some examples:
— "You couldn't have been a real Christian. If you had been, you wouldn't have left the faith."
*BRRRRRRNNNK*
[buzzer sound]
Sorry. You're wrong. I know what happened, and you don't. I was THERE, and you weren't. I apologize that the facts don't coincide with your baseless speculation/wishful thinking.
What you're really saying is, "I can't allow myself to believe that you were ever a born-again Christian. If you left Christianity, it follows that I'm capable of leaving too ... which would destroy the very foundation of my beliefs. You couldn't have possibly left Christianity just because you studied the Bible more intensely than I ever did, and discovered that it's a load of bullshit."
— "You seem angry and bitter. You must have been disappointed by some of the Christians you met."
*BING!* [Happy bell sound] You bet your ass I was disappointed by the Christians I knew. As a whole, not only were they NOT morally better than the average Joe on the street, they were, in MOST cases, morally WORSE.
— "Don't judge ALL Christians by a few bad apples."
I didn't. There were LOTS of bad apples.
— "If you really understood the Bible, you'd still be a Christian."
Wrong again. The major factor in my leaving The Faith was that twisted "Holy Book," which I came to understand very, very well. Preachers preach only from
the "good parts."
— "You don't believe in hell, but if I stood in the middle of the road and didn't believe in trucks, I'd still get hit by a truck."
Yes. And if you stood in the middle of the road and trucks DIDN'T EXIST, you'd be nothing more than a paranoid fool with (1) a silly look on your face and (2) a belief in something that doesn't exist.
— "I'm praying for you."
Good. You go ahead and pray your head off. By the way, have you ever gotten any actual results from praying to Biblegod? Be honest now.
Right now, ask your God to heal 1,000 terminal cancer patients. That's surely not too difficult for the Almighty All-Knowing God-is-love God, it it? Think he'll do it?
— "Jesus loves you."
But he wants to control me like a household pet.
— "If you died right now, where would you go?"
To the fuckin' morgue, if I'm lucky.
You know what a Pagan says when he dies?
"Shit ... not again!"
— "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making people think he doesn't exist."
No, that was his second greatest trick. His greatest trick was writing the Bible ... with just enough truth in it to keep people happy, enough error in it to keep people from the truth, and enough inconsistencies to make the different Christian denominations point fingers at each other and say, "THEY are going to hell for believing the wrong things!"
— "If your house were on fire, would you want me to let you know? Of course you would. You'd probably thank me for telling you.”
No, I'd kill you for being in cahoots with the arsonist.
— "Jesus has risen from the dead, conquering death and hell and Satan - our accuser and our enemy."
So ... as a result, no one dies, goes to hell, or is ever deceived by Satan anymore? Is that what you're saying?
