What would you say if …

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McCulloch
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What would you say if …

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Post by McCulloch »

You have been invited to speak at your former church. They want to seek deeper or more diverse understandings of some such idea.

Do you accept? What would you say? Keep in mind any objectives you might have for talking to them. Remember, just pissing them off is probably not a good objective.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
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Divine Insight
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Re: What would you say if …

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Post by Divine Insight »

McCulloch wrote: You have been invited to speak at your former church. They want to seek deeper or more diverse understandings of some such idea.
I would be encouraging if this was indeed their motivation.
McCulloch wrote: Do you accept?
I personally have no desire to give such a talk. I would not be interested at this time. However, if they were really interested in hearing what I have to say, and were asking me passionately to give the talk, I might do it specifically for the reasons they gave above.

Just as a practical note: The Church I used to attend probably has an entirely new congregation by now. I wouldn't know anyone in the congregation. But for the sake of make-believe we can imagine that the old original congregation would still be there. Although in reality most of those people have since died. ;)
McCulloch wrote: What would you say? Keep in mind any objectives you might have for talking to them.
I would give them insight into why I no longer believe, paying very special emphasis on the fact that I am 100% convinced that the Bible cannot be true as it is written.

I would try to organize the talk into the following sections.

Part 1. Why I feel that the story of the Fall from Grace is absurd and has no merit.

Part 2. The absurdity of a God who uses retribution instead of restitution.

Part 3. I would point out the major failings of this God and several major biblical contradictions.

Part 4. Why I feel that a God having his own son crucified by his own Chief Priests makes no sense at all.


Finally, if time permits:

Part 5. Why it makes far more sense to me that these stories are nothing more than superstitions and rumors potentially sparked by real people and real events.


I think that would pretty much cover it.
McCulloch wrote: Remember, just pissing them off is probably not a good objective.
That would be the furthest thing from my mind. I definitely would not want to go for that reason.

My presentation would be my honest and sincere "testimony" of why I am 100% convinced that the Bible cannot be true verbatim as written.

And I would be sure to end it with the following personal confession:

"I confess to everyone, including any God that might exist. The Bible has convinced me that it cannot be a correct and true description of any intelligent or wise God. It has convinced me of this precisely because it is so extremely unwise and unintelligent. And this is my honest and sincere assessment and perception of this ancient collection of stories.

All I can say at this point is that I'm being as honest and sincere as I can possibly be. What righteous and just God could have a problem with that? If there exists a righteous God then I would certainly hope that it would appreciate my honesty if nothing else."


And I would then thank the congregation for having invited me for the talk, and that would be the end of it unless they wanted me to answer follow-up questions.
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Re: What would you say if …

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Post by marco »

McCulloch wrote: You have been invited to speak at your former church. They want to seek deeper or more diverse understandings of some such idea.

Do you accept? What would you say? Keep in mind any objectives you might have for talking to them. Remember, just pissing them off is probably not a good objective.

Good question. I would revisit my boyhood and present to them the unquestioning faith I was taught to display. I would quote a hymn: Faith of our fathers:

"How sweet would be their children's faith if they, like them, could die for Thee."

And I would show them some recent headlines where some people, of another religion, display a faith even stronger than mine. They die, not sweetly, but in atrocities that kill others - with the words that God is great echoing above the corpses. This, for me, is what religion does. It has good intentions - but there lies hell.

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Re: What would you say if …

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Post by steveb1 »

McCulloch wrote: You have been invited to speak at your former church. They want to seek deeper or more diverse understandings of some such idea.

Do you accept? What would you say? Keep in mind any objectives you might have for talking to them. Remember, just pissing them off is probably not a good objective.
Ex-Catholic, current Buddhist here.

I would, if invited, try to show the connections between Catholic and Buddhist spirituality and both systems' emphasis on selflessness, altruism and "godly" compassion.

Explain that while Christianity has a high, one true creator deity, and Buddhism does not, still there are many points of association and contact between certain points in the Buddhist conception of Nirvana, and the Christian mystical conception of the Godhead, to the point of them being functional equivalents of each other.

Point out the "christological" similarities in regard to Jesus manifesting on earth as an "Incarnation", then being exalted to heaven and being regarded as the preexistent Logos/Word, and the Buddha's appearance on earth, followed by his apotheosis as a "Dharmic" world-ordering Principle.

Point out Jesus's "Beloved Disciple" and the Buddha's own favorite, his cousin, Ananda.

Compare the Buddha's teaching stories with Jesus's parables.

... and so on.

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