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Replying to OpenYourEyes]
I don't agree.......
I was born into a Christian family but never really followed or cared about the Christian faith. Then when I was 17 I had a born again experience at a Billy Graham rally and became passion in my walk with the lord for over 40 years after that.
Prior to my acceptance of Christ as my personal savior, I would have considered myself a deist or perhaps agnostic but never an atheist.
During my born again experience and thereafter, I felt the sense and presence of the Holy Spirit throughout my life...
I had never questioned the historical documentation of the resurrection because
1) I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life as all the conviction that I needed to validate that Christ was real today as much as anytime in history past.
2) The clergy and other spiritually mature Christians I respected assured me that ample historical evidence existed both within and extra Biblical to validate this event so that I never doubted it occurring.
3) I saw many successful adults within the church I attended whom where gifted/ intelligent and all believed in the resurrection. As a result, I presumed they must have looked into this and found out what the clerical folks knew that it was true so there was never a need for me to consider doing that....
But over time some problems occurred.................
1) I was passionate about my study of science/engineering as a student. and the more I learned about earth/space sciences along with anthropology/sociobiology the more I struggled to maintain a world view based on my Biblical beliefs with the growing empirical evidence of science in direct conflict with that. However, I learned to accept science but not let it tread on my faith or that which I felt the Holy Spirit revealed to me........
But something else came up that began the process leading to where I am today.
I was born in 1954 and all through most of my decades as a Christian my faith was never challenged, questioned or debated by others in my surroundings.........but over the last decade or two with the growth of the Internet and other social media others have approached me and asked or challenged why I believe what I do (I was evangelical enough with what I believed that everyone knew that about me......I didn't try to beat people over the head with a Bible but I took every opportunity to witness the Gospel to others when I felt the Holy Spirit lead me to a situation like that.........
So when all these people began to approach me I remembered 1st Peter 3:15 and realized that I had to be ready to provide an answer to anyone asking about why I believe in what I do......
.....most of my questions came about the history of the manuscripts and canonization process of scripture of which I knew little about since I had relied on other Christians to tell me about this in a very general sense.
But since I had no way to answer those who asked about this, I began to study the process of Biblical history and the process of information exchange of the event claimed in the Bible not only from a Christian's prospective but also from a secular prospective as well to "get the other side" so to speak. I also, felt that my faith was strong enough and that if the resurrection was a fact that it would stand up to any kind of skeptical challenge so I looked at that side of the issue as well with the confidence in what I believed.
I presumed all along and it was implied in my church that the Gospels for instance were written by the people that had their names associated with them..........I envisioned them all sitting around a campfire with Christ at the end of everyday and taking down the notes of what happened in the days activities like a daily diary..........When I found out the truth of their writings from scholarly sources both Christian and secular......I was in shock........
Another factor was my relationship with the Holy Spirit............What ever truth this aspect of the triune God was suppose to reveal to me through inspiration or the words of the Bible, sometimes came up against doctrine and understanding that was in direct conflict (often with even essential salvation doctrine) with other Christians claiming their Holy Spirit revelation.........
I began to understand that I placed my faith in manuscripts of information processing that is no better than those oral stories related by people passionate in what they believe......... not for the purpose of documenting history. Like how UFO groups claim with the Roswell crash site for instance....
And I knew that the inner voice in my head was my own conscious and not something supernatural simply because there was no consistency among Christians of this revelation.
Much more along these lines challenged me about what really was going on in my effort to defend my faith and it took very little time for me to discard it after 40 plus years.....
The only lasting piece that I struggled to discard was my fear of hell..............which evidentially became nothing more than a myth like everything else once exposed to the reality of historical study.
There is not earthshattering change to my life now as I hold the world view of a scientific rationalist which sees me defined as an atheist to most I talk to about the subject..............just that I have a lot more time on Sunday mornings which I volunteer to do clean ups of the environment and help with abandoned pets and such. Otherwise, morally and socially I'm the same person but without the baggage of the an adult Santa Claus belief................
Sorry for the digression, but I think its important to know that many atheist were once born again Holy Spirit filled committed Christians at one time as well.
Not just lukewarm or social Christians..........