Walter
Elite Member
- Messages
- 433
- Reaction score
- 63
- Gender
- Male
- Religion
- Christianity
Dear Malayloveislam:
Your query has caused me to reflect. Thank you. Allow me to write my reflections both in response to your query, and for my own benefit.
From birth until 7 years, I attended a Baptist church with my parents, until we relocated and attended a Methodist church.
I was not a bad fellow. I was obedient to my parents, and gave no trouble in my community. I read the Bible and prayed from childhood, and yet, things seemed unclear to me. Every Bible story, and sermon, and ritual seemed to be another piece of the puzzle, but I did not know what the final picture was supposed to look like.
After 14 years of church attendance and following the various rituals and traditions, I visited a Pentecostal church and accepted that despite my relatively good behavior, I could never be good enough to earn God’s favor, love, and forgiveness. I realized that I needed God to forgive me for my wrong thoughts, motives, and actions. On 29 August 1979, I asked God to forgive me and accepted whatever Jesus did on the cross as sufficient to bring me closer to God. I felt wonderfully clean. The Bible was like a new book to me, and it seemed easily understandable.
I kept attending the Methodist church on Sunday mornings with my family, and with my parents permission, attended the Pentecostal church on Sunday evenings. A few months later at the Pentecostal church, I raised my hands in praise to God for perhaps the first time, and felt a sort of bubbling from within me which came from around my stomach region and out of my mouth. I spoke a language that I had not known, and I did not want to stop. When I returned home, I knelt by my bed to pray and tried it again, and found that I could speak this new language at will.
That Christmas, my grandparents gave me their first and only gift, a massive concordance, with a Hebrew and Greek dictionary, which my father taught me how to use. That began an almost 30 year study of the Bible, early civilizations, and history.
When I was 16 years old, my father wrote me a letter advising me to be true to myself. He also explained that God has given us tools to use, but it is our responsibility to sharpen those tools. Since that time, I have tried to honestly interpret any evidence, and be as conscientious looking for evidence that does not support my biased views as those that do.
I continued to attend the Methodist and Pentecostal churches for the next two years or so. When I was at university studying Engineering, I attended a Baptist church. For the past 5 years, I have attended, and continue to attend, a Wesleyan Church.
I have found that it is possible to spend your life believing things that are entirely false. That is OK, since there are many things, especially in the natural world, that we can only speculate about. However, the consequences of being wrong on some spiritual things can carry eternal consequences.
Determinations of spiritual matters used to be by evidence. God set the standard of verification very high. He said that prophets predictions must come to pass if He sent them. Therefore, their word was easily verifiable.
As time went on, God’s method of verification was abandoned, and people believed something to be true because someone said so, and enforced their belief with violence and property confiscation.
In the past two hundred years or so, we have returned to verifying assumptions through the scientific method, and the violent enforcement of most beliefs has subsided, at least in the Western world. We are free, to some extent, to investigate evidence and rigorously scrutinize opinions in our efforts to verify the assumptions upon which these opinions rest. We are free to do what God has asked of us, to test and investigate in order to know the truth.
Where there is insufficient evidence to verify the assumptions upon which opinions are based, then conclusive statements about those opinions should be avoided. This is true in every field of study.
We should never be afraid to present our beliefs to the light for scrutiny. Truth should always be able to withstand honest rigorous scrutiny. However, error generally finds comfort in darkness in order to avoid examination.
I have critically examined the Bible for over 30 years, and with the available evidence, I have found it to be true. I have rigorously examined the principal teachings of the Qur’an, and have found that they do not contradict those of the Bible. Therefore, it would seem that the Bible and the Qur’an have a common author.
I am fully aware that most Christians and Muslims do not share this view. I believe it is because their leaders teach their adherents that there are fundamental differences between the Bible and the Qur’an, which I have found not to be the case. Regrettably, there is still the tendency, by adherents, to resort to a violent reaction when their religious traditions are questioned. I am here to simply discuss the evidence.
Regards,
Grenville
Your query has caused me to reflect. Thank you. Allow me to write my reflections both in response to your query, and for my own benefit.
From birth until 7 years, I attended a Baptist church with my parents, until we relocated and attended a Methodist church.
I was not a bad fellow. I was obedient to my parents, and gave no trouble in my community. I read the Bible and prayed from childhood, and yet, things seemed unclear to me. Every Bible story, and sermon, and ritual seemed to be another piece of the puzzle, but I did not know what the final picture was supposed to look like.
After 14 years of church attendance and following the various rituals and traditions, I visited a Pentecostal church and accepted that despite my relatively good behavior, I could never be good enough to earn God’s favor, love, and forgiveness. I realized that I needed God to forgive me for my wrong thoughts, motives, and actions. On 29 August 1979, I asked God to forgive me and accepted whatever Jesus did on the cross as sufficient to bring me closer to God. I felt wonderfully clean. The Bible was like a new book to me, and it seemed easily understandable.
I kept attending the Methodist church on Sunday mornings with my family, and with my parents permission, attended the Pentecostal church on Sunday evenings. A few months later at the Pentecostal church, I raised my hands in praise to God for perhaps the first time, and felt a sort of bubbling from within me which came from around my stomach region and out of my mouth. I spoke a language that I had not known, and I did not want to stop. When I returned home, I knelt by my bed to pray and tried it again, and found that I could speak this new language at will.
That Christmas, my grandparents gave me their first and only gift, a massive concordance, with a Hebrew and Greek dictionary, which my father taught me how to use. That began an almost 30 year study of the Bible, early civilizations, and history.
When I was 16 years old, my father wrote me a letter advising me to be true to myself. He also explained that God has given us tools to use, but it is our responsibility to sharpen those tools. Since that time, I have tried to honestly interpret any evidence, and be as conscientious looking for evidence that does not support my biased views as those that do.
I continued to attend the Methodist and Pentecostal churches for the next two years or so. When I was at university studying Engineering, I attended a Baptist church. For the past 5 years, I have attended, and continue to attend, a Wesleyan Church.
I have found that it is possible to spend your life believing things that are entirely false. That is OK, since there are many things, especially in the natural world, that we can only speculate about. However, the consequences of being wrong on some spiritual things can carry eternal consequences.
Determinations of spiritual matters used to be by evidence. God set the standard of verification very high. He said that prophets predictions must come to pass if He sent them. Therefore, their word was easily verifiable.
As time went on, God’s method of verification was abandoned, and people believed something to be true because someone said so, and enforced their belief with violence and property confiscation.
In the past two hundred years or so, we have returned to verifying assumptions through the scientific method, and the violent enforcement of most beliefs has subsided, at least in the Western world. We are free, to some extent, to investigate evidence and rigorously scrutinize opinions in our efforts to verify the assumptions upon which these opinions rest. We are free to do what God has asked of us, to test and investigate in order to know the truth.
Where there is insufficient evidence to verify the assumptions upon which opinions are based, then conclusive statements about those opinions should be avoided. This is true in every field of study.
We should never be afraid to present our beliefs to the light for scrutiny. Truth should always be able to withstand honest rigorous scrutiny. However, error generally finds comfort in darkness in order to avoid examination.
I have critically examined the Bible for over 30 years, and with the available evidence, I have found it to be true. I have rigorously examined the principal teachings of the Qur’an, and have found that they do not contradict those of the Bible. Therefore, it would seem that the Bible and the Qur’an have a common author.
I am fully aware that most Christians and Muslims do not share this view. I believe it is because their leaders teach their adherents that there are fundamental differences between the Bible and the Qur’an, which I have found not to be the case. Regrettably, there is still the tendency, by adherents, to resort to a violent reaction when their religious traditions are questioned. I am here to simply discuss the evidence.
Regards,
Grenville
not yet (it is still afraid of banishment to land of mice)!