Question for "You never relieved believed" type pe

[rikuoamero]

This is just a quick and short question. There are certain people who say to former Christians "You never really believed because..."
I find such a statement not only offensive but absurd. I won't blather on about the offensiveness part, but the absurdity. When it comes to any other belief a person may have, and them later changing their stance on that belief, you never hear that person being accused of "Not really believing..."
Here's an example. I can attest that this is true for me, but obviously I won't be giving evidence.
Someone I know was accused of molesting children when I was thirteen years old. For seven years, I believed in the innocence of that person. When I was twenty, I was given evidence that that person had molested another child I was close to. From that point on, continuing up until today, I believe that that person is guilty of molesting children.
It would be the height of absurdity to suggest to me that because I now believe the person to be guilty, that I never actually believed in their innocence. If you were to ever suggest I had always thought him to be guilty, I would laugh in your face. I defended this person, was very vocal about it for those seven years.

The same applies if you are a part of that group of Christians who say "You never really believed because..." No, I did believe. I honestly was convinced.

My question for this group of people is - Upon what basis do you dare to suggest of former believers that they never actually believed? Why is it that when someone changes position on another topic, one that has nothing to do with God, you don't say to them "Oh you were never that at all!" (e.g. if a person changes from pro-gun to anti-gun, no-one ever says "You were anti-gun all along, you were never pro-gun!")


I also want to point out - if you still reject what people are telling you about their own state of minds, that is you rejecting people's own testimony about themselves. Yet, more than likely, you accept the testimony of long-dead gospel authors for some reason.

[puddleglum]

[Replying to post 1 by rikuoamero]

The same applies if you are a part of that group of Christians who say "You never really believed because..." No, I did believe. I honestly was convinced.

Many words have more than one meaning and when discussing them it is essential that we define what meaning we have in mind. One meaning of "believe" is to be intellectually convinced that something is true. By that meaning of the word you did believe.

But the kind of believing that saves involves more than simply believing certain facts are true. It means committing yourself to that truth. In the Bible this act is sometimes called repentance. It means a change of direction, turning from one life to follow another.

You might believe that an airplane can take you to a place you want to go to. That is intellectual belief. But if you want to reach your destination you must actually get on the airplane. When you do that you are committing your life to the reliability of the plane. That is the kind of belief that makes a person a Christian.

I have experienced both kinds of belief. As long as I remember I have believed that the Bible was true and that Jesus was the only savior. That belief led me to get baptized and become a member of a church. After I had been an active member of the church for a little over two years I learned that real faith requires an inward change and a commitment to Jesus. At that point I really became a Christian although before I thought that I already was one. If instead of exercising real faith I had turned away from the truth and rejected Jesus I would probably believe exactly what you do.

There are two posts in my blog in which I discuss the subject of salvation and explain how I turned form merely professing to be a Christian to actually being one. Perhaps reading them will help you understand better what I mean.

https://clydeherrin.wordpress.com/2011/ ... rspective/

https://clydeherrin.wordpress.com/2015/ ... the-bible/

[Paprika]

Some Christians believe in the doctrine of 'perseverance of the saints', which implies that those who fall away were never true believers or (at best) will find themselves back.

[puddleglum]

[Replying to post 3 by Paprika]

If you click on the first link in the post before yours you will find out why we believe it.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 2 by puddleglum]

I see you didn't take onboard the last paragraph of my OP. Here you are somehow rejecting that I believed (on at least some level), rejecting my personal testimony as to what it is I do and do not believe, my convictions for doing so (did you not read what I wrote about how ardent a supporter I was of the child molester, in believing them to be innocent?)

What you just wrote serves as a verification of what I wrote in the OP. Upon what basis do you claim that I didn't "commit myself to the truth"? How do you know whether or not I "turned from one life to another"? (what does that even mean by the way, in plain language?)
No, you, without any data at all to go on, other than the fact that I am a professed non-believer in the Christian religion, say that I mustn't have "committed" before. You don't have any evidence at all to back up your claim. You don't know me. You have never spoken to me, never met me...yet somehow you have the gall to make pronouncements of what I was like nearly 2 decades ago?
The arrogance coming from you is appalling.

[puddleglum]

[Replying to post 5 by rikuoamero]

You described your faith with these words,

No, I did believe. I honestly was convinced.

That indicates you had an intellectual belief that Christianity was true. The kind of faith that saves involves more than that. It involves submission to God's will and leads to a spiritual rebirth which gives you eternal life. If you had experienced the second kind of faith you would have had neither the desire or the ability to turn from being a Christian.

You concluded the OP with these words,

I also want to point out - if you still reject what people are telling you about their own state of minds, that is you rejecting people's own testimony about themselves. Yet, more than likely, you accept the testimony of long-dead gospel authors for some reason.

People are capable of deceiving themselves about the state of their minds. God is not capable of being deceived and knows us better than we know ourselves. I will believe what he says about the state your mind even if it contradicts what you say about yourself.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 6 by puddleglum]

Here's a challenge for you. Go to any church in the US (I presume that is where you are) and watch the priest or pastor at work during Mass. Then look up this website
http://clergyproject.org/
That site is for priests, pastors (or whatever title they use) who genuinely no longer believe in what it is they are preaching.
The priest can outwardly look like a devout member of the religion, can look to you like they are devoted to God and Jesus...but secretly are not. You would never know. It's not like actual devout Christians have magic eyes that can pick out people who are no longer believers.
The same applies to me. If you had met me when I was a child, you would honestly have thought I was very devout. I used the phrasing "I was convinced" because now that is how I describe belief in the Christian religion.

If you had experienced the second kind of faith you would have had neither the desire or the ability to turn from being a Christian.

You are wrong. Flat out wrong. I did experience the second kind of faith you describe. Yet, it turns out that later in life, I realized that what I was believing had no basis in fact.

People are capable of deceiving themselves about the state of their minds.

I suppose that you are immune to this? You cannot deceive yourself about what it is you believe?

I will believe what he says about the state your mind even if it contradicts what you say about yourself.

Here's the big mistake you just made. God didn't write those gospels. They may very well talk about God and/or Jesus (I don't believe they do but that is what the authors did believe they were writing about), but they are not by God. They were written by anonymous Jewish authors just about 2,000 years ago or thereabouts. What makes the author of Matthew/Mark/Luke/John a better source on my psyche, my state of mind, than me myself?
Here's what's happening now. I am talking to you, today, directly. I am alive right now. You can ask me questions about what it is I mean (although so far you haven't) if there is some phrasing that bothers you.
Neither of us can do that with the Gospel authors. If there is some phrasing that bothers us, we can't call up the Gospel authors and ask for clarification.
For some reason, when it comes to MY state of mind, both now and what I believed in the past, you take what some guys two thousand years ago wrote and apply that to me.
Do you not see how idiotic that seems from my point of view? It makes it seem as if you honestly don't care what anyone says about themselves - if a person talks about themselves, you'll trust the Bible first instead of the person.
If you are going to continue down this path, of not believing what a person says about themself, and instead read a book written thousands of years before either of us were born - why bother talking to that person? Why bother talking to me, and telling me "Oh you never believed, not for realsies!"? Now, you're not talking to me, and I can't talk to you. I'm talking to a book instead. I don't want to talk to a book. I want to talk to YOU. YOU as in a person, who's alive, right now.

So what's your response?