Please do not take the below as an attack. I would hope that anyone who frequents these forums would agree with me in spirit, if not in letter, or at least hear me out first.
The question was asked, so I thought it was a good time to write it out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ditto  Michael Chui (and any other ex-Christians), I'm curious, what problems did you have with Christianity? |
I got tired of Christians who couldn't quote any line but John 3:16. Who could do nothing but socialize. Whose knowledge of the Bible they professed to scour for truth consisted of the ability to read the concordance, context be damned. (Anti-gay activists quoting Leviticus, I'm looking at you.) Who never actually gave any thought to what it was they professed to believe in. These are principally descriptions of my fellow church-goers, once upon a time, but they also include many of the more public figures who call themselves Christians.
To be honest, I still consider myself a Christian, whereas they are not. But there was no way I would be able to detach the label from them, so the best alternative was to detach it from myself; and since my personality is very lone wolf anyways, it cost me little to nothing.
The other problem I had with Christians was their intolerance of logic. I spent a lot of time, when I was younger, arguing for creationism against people who knew more than I did. I knew when my argument was lost. I knew that, while I was not refuted, I could not refute them, so their theory had as much validity for we, the laymen of biology, as creationism. For a lot of Christians, they're not willing to question the nature of God or explore the possibility that parts of their doctrine could in fact be wrong. I cannot stand this, because it stands in the way of the search for truth. Again, this does not apply to all of them, but too many.
I would rather consider myself a "sect of one" than associate myself with such people. I felt actively inhibited by the affiliation, so I discarded it as unncessary.
So, I'm not sure I'd say I was an ex-Christian so much as an enlightened Christian; the foundation of my philosophy is verses 16-18, in the 4th chapter of First John. How many people read that?
How many people could recite First Corinthians, Chapter 13, from memory? I could. (NIV, since that's what we used. I haven't bothered to continue exploring the Bible, because the notion that a book, even one with tremendous accuracy in integrity, is valid by divine fiat first demands an exploration into the nature of God. People argue that you can come to know God by seeing him in the natural world, quoting a nicely famous line from Psalms. So that's what I do. Nothing in the natural world has suggested I read the Bible yet.
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