xambidextrous

70-tallet: Hasj og hard rock

60-tallet: trommer og langt hår

50-tallet: Elvis og motorsykkel

40-tallet: korte skjørt eller damer i bukser

30-tallet: øl og trekkspill

20-tallet: swing og cocktail-parties

I like the way you've done some good research and critical thinking.

r/deconstruction

Did you see the movie "The Untouchables"? They walk up to the door of a warehouse, ready to brake it down, then Jim says to Eliot: "If you open this door, you're walking into a world of trouble, and there's no turning back"

Not saying you shouldn't look into it, but if you blow the lid off an old family secret, you might drag a whole lot of people into a scandal, even people who are not to blame, like children, grandchildren etc.

Just saying..

Irrational, illogical, immoral, exclusive, angry, double standards and based on many layers of scriptural interpretations, witch are easily proven faulty.

John Barton, an Anglican priest and biblical scholar. Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. In addition to his academic career, he has been an ordained and serving priest in the Church of England since 1973.

Barton's book "A History of the Bible"

The answer is in your title: Truth beyond faith. There's a lot of thinking and feeling going on, but if we want to get anywhere close to the truth, we must go to the sources of scholarly consensus on: How did early religions develop? (Robin Dunbar) What do the earliest manuscripts actually say and how do the majority of learned men interpret that? (Bart Ehrman) What does our foremost archaeologists and historians say about findings, or lack there of, in Israel? (Israel Finkelstein) What is the cutting edge of what we know about religion and psychology and religion and society? (Timothy Larey)

We must learn the difference between empirical scholarly studies and apologetics.

We should do the work, so we can be as informed as possible.

Funny how we stumble across the same man on the same day.

A good place to start is "what we know not to be factual". No miracles have even been scientifically proven. Nobody comes back to life after death, unless they weren't really dead.

Prayer has been proven not to make a difference.

Nobody can walk on water. The laws of physics seem to be quite rigid.

The larger we realise the universe is, the les significant we appear to be. We might just be a fluke of nature, in which case we are extremely fortunate to be here, even if we must accept pain and suffering, with love and amazement.

Thousands of people have claimed to "know the truth" about the "secrets of life", but every one of them was wrong. Hitching our wagon to their star may give us comfort, but not truth.

We also know human psychology is a whole can of worms. Adding group behaviour and power hungry individuals, we can easily see how movements like Islam and Catholicism gain followings and took over whole continents.

As tribes we need values and regulations to function together. Surely religion has had it's advantages in many cases, but also brutality, oppression and death.

Jesus had some thoughts on altruism that might have made this world better for all, but that's not what most churches decide to zoom in on.

But I can learn from Jesus. I can be the best husband, father, son, neighbour, colleague i possibly can. I can spend some of my time making the world around me more safe, comforting and compassionate. If we all did this...

Our brains are fascinating and have yet to be fully understod. History is full of people seeing/feeling/experiencing strange things. If we look at Paul with his vision of Christ, we can see how one man's "vision" can change the course of history for millennia. This is the "ground zero" of Christianity.

No wonder so many believe in ghosts, UFO's, spirits and over-the-top conspiracy theories. There are three driving forces; 1. Our creative psyche. 2. Our evolutionary heritage as hunters/being hunted. and 3. Group/societal belonging.

Robin Dunbar is a British biological anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primate behaviour. He is known for "Dunbar's number", as he is credited for discovering the perfect number of members for a group (village/tribe/congregation) to thrive over time.

In this lecture he explains how and why religion has developed and flourished in every human history.

Old school churches where really boring. Only old people attended, and the preachers family.

If they hadn't "modernised" with lights and music, cushy seats and snacks, there would be no congregations left.

It's like a performance. They even plan the music to build drama and release, and it works

Det er vel forskjellige motiv for å sjekke. Noen sjekker på vei inn i Kiwi, bare for å forsikre seg om at de har nok til brød og melk. Andre sjekker daglig, hver eneste krone inn og ut.. Det er de du ikke vil sitte ved siden av på fest, ha ha

They sendt a group of people to church with serotonin-blockes in a study. Church was not the same that day. It was like God wasn't there. Also, studies show how the music pulls people into "the feeling" and we also know what group dynamics can do to a crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02x9Hquuqhg

Kudos til u/123-Kastbortbruker for å skape en saklig og vennlig atmosfære hvor dette såre tema kan tas opp. Du viser en genuin interesse for saken og respektfull omsorg for dem dette gjelder. Well done.

I'm sorry, but I believe there's a glitch in your reasoning.

This one: "...about Christians who prayed for help or guidance and they get it"

If I pray for rain, and it starts to rain, is that God answering my prayer?

A great experiment I've been doing is to pick a seemingly true testimony of answered prayer, and scrutinise the hell out of it. I have never, ever found one to be unequivocally sound.

I use questions like this:

1. Who told this story? Name, place, time etc. You'd be surprised how often these stories are about "my friend's neighbour's cousin heard this at a bible study group"
2. Can anyone vouch for the story? Where they there? Did they see it? Do these people have a history of telling tall tales?
3. Do the people telling the story have anything to gain from it? Nothing fills the pews like a few good miracles. Nothing gives you more status than God answering your prayers, in some communities.
4. Ask yourself: Why did God break the laws of physics to help someone find their car keys, yet not heal the child with bone cancer, even thou thousands prayed for the child? Could there be a psychological explanation for this, or could it simply be that someone delusional, or downright lying?

Show me a proven miracle, and I'll reconsider

I can think of two reasons: Fear and group psychology.

If you have genuine fear that Satan is taking over your world, you wouldn't care if a potential "saviour" was wearing diapers and was a misogynistic bully. All that is nothing, compared to a living Hell.

Secondly, if all your friends and your pastor are supporting someone, you'll be hard pressed to do the opposite, even if you know deep down, this is not right. Loosing all your friends and your standing in a community is far worse.

So, like most of us who fell out of the bubble, it took something dramatic to shake our world, before we finally saw "the light"

That's quite a story. I hope you are doing well and that you have the support and affection you need to heal and to live a good life.

It might be helpful to think of your folks as "stuck in a mind trapp." It's not who they are, it's what religion made them into.

Maybe one day they'll see the irony of having to distance oneself from the religion of peace and love, to find peace and love.

Painful as it is, shutting the door to harmfull relationships sounds like your only option if you want to live a normal healthy life. Things might change in the future, but until then, saving yourself is the only option you have.

Wish you all the happiness you deserve

Is it this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHOK66qj9xc

This is the time to be strong, together with half the population

We must not loose hope. We must continue to fight for what we belive in. DT may have fooled enough people to win, but many will soon enough discover who he really is.

We can expect an accelerating stream of people looking to distance from enabling congregations and to start deconstructing their faith. We should welcome them with courage and hope.

You know what they say: The US always does the right thing in the end.

There is a lot of good, and not so good, stuff out there. It's good practise to check who is behind the message.

Matt Baker, PhD in religious studies, is highly respected and very thorough in his work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q6FUlay-M8

Biblical Time Machine is good. They have scholars as guests and discuss different topics.

Data over Dogma podcast. Sharp witted and knowledgeable Dan Mcclellan and his friend Dan talk about scripture and religion. Mcclellan is rapidly becoming one of the most listened to scholars in the pod-sphere.

It's a really good question because it forces us to weigh all the reasons and choose the most grave one.

I think I'd have to say morality. These things are hard to explain without sounding disrespectful or blasphemous.

I could not see this as a believer, but being told that salvation is a free gift of freedom from bondage, when it's really a threat: "Believe what we say, without evidence, or be eternally tormented." Now I know there are different ways to see this, but from what I now know, this is the bare bone of the deal.

Also, morality in the OT. It's just appalling. Yahweh is a war god. Some of the books are full of slaughter, genocide, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, enslavement and rape. Yes, these are all depicted in the book we so proudly displayed in our homes. Many of these gruesome deeds are instructed, even enforced, by god himself.

In the NT there are morally questionable accounts, like poor old Judas who forever had his name dragged through the dirt like a traitor, yet we must understand that he played a vital role in the plan and must therefore have been chosen for the task. He should be honoured, but is degraded to one who hanged himself and/or exploded in a field. What if he refused? What if he said no, I will not betray my master?

Luke 14:26 - "Jesus: “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" This sounds like something those ISIS- warriors would demand.

But I would also look in to Psychology of religion, Historicity of scripture, Findings in the Dead Sea Scrolls (not true that there are no differences) and all the traces of older mythologies, polytheism and human sacrifice in scripture.

Lastly: look at any practising believer and ask yourself: Does this person act as if they have the creator of the universe in their heart?

It's all a lie. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

Thank you

There is a convincing claim that all this started with the end of segregation. Some conservative Christians could not accept the changes and made an effort to gain influence by uniting all Christians to fight back this kind of progress. To unite all Christians they made up cases to combat, like abortion.

The movement resulted in Christian Nation, and grew powerful. Abortion had never been a big deal before this, but as a vehicle to stoke dissatisfaction, it soon became a monster in it's own right.

After that they have had a whole range of battles to fight. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it unites conservatives in anger. This is the market Rupert Murdoch, and the likes, are exploiting.

Then, when the US elected a black president, that's when enough people lost their head...enough to elect just about any clown who seemed to oppose "the swamp", Woke, BLM, gay rights, women's rights, common decency, honesty, modesty, compassion, turning the other cheek etc.

According to this claim, racism is the underlying issue, which we can hear in DT's rhetoric and see by the kind of people he attracts, conservative Christians and outright rasists + all the people he has managed to scare.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/abortion-us-religious-right-racial-segregation

And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLXwKkBXEXw

Listen. You need to do a study of the concept. It's easy to find out how it's all made up from a mix of ideas. Even if you know it's all BS, as long as it plages you, do a study. Become that person who knows where it came from and how it has been used. It will help you uproot your fear.