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Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 768396
10/31/2009 3:53 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Your thoughts determine your reality.
If you want to have a peaceful life, you need to start by learning how to have a peaceful and quiet mind.
Clarification: Your thoughts determine your actions which create your reality. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 795140
There is much more to reality than action and 3D..
There is a state of being where there is no action.
When Buddha's mind became totally silent, the 3D world vanished from his perception for a time. |
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duh
User ID: 793310
10/31/2009 3:56 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
the glory of god is to give back all you have lost |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 807221
10/31/2009 4:31 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU..organized religion is lost due to it's merger with Judaism. It is good that you have left it.
It is wrong, however, to reject the offer of eternal life..retain your belief and trust in CHRIST JESUS. There is no other way to have condemnation lifted from your soul when you fall.
You have your eternal life as a gift..do not reject that gift. Remember the word "church" is just another word for "assembling"..and that work is accomplished by THE HOLY SPIRIT. The assembling spoken of in scripture is being one in SPIRIT. The true spiritual Israel are living stones shaped and fitted together into a spiritual temple.
PERHAPS you are simply Hasbari using an intricate "ex-Christian" story to attack Christianity. If so, only judgement awaits you. If, however, you're telling the truth, then leaving the compromise of so-called Christianity was an act of obedience to THE HOLY SPIRIT.
I have known many in organized religion with mind of "babes"..who falsely believed they knew much. Recall Nicodemus.
Be sealed in the mind of Christ, do good and gather those who seemingly were not invited to the wedding. For indeed they have been invited ..a worldly "church" cannot see..the last shall be first. Quoting: Mentalis 807221 |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 795140
10/31/2009 5:01 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
There is much more to reality than action and 3D..
There is a state of being where there is no action.
When Buddha's mind became totally silent, the 3D world vanished from his perception for a time. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 768396
Now this is someone I can learn from. Please come to the forum more often and post. I would love to hear from you. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 795140
10/31/2009 5:06 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
It is wrong, however, to reject the offer of eternal life..retain your belief and trust in CHRIST JESUS. There is no other way to have condemnation lifted from your soul when you fall. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 807221
May be we should treat him as someone we aspire, not someone to lean on. How do you know for sure there is no other way and please don't quote from the book? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 117166
10/31/2009 5:34 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Haven't read this thread but Christianity is the one religion that goes way beyond religion and ends up a form of incurable mental illness.
The only way to "cure" it is self realization or self-healing.
I compare it to jumping out of an airplane and staring at the ground as it approaches faster and faster - the natural tendency is to keep watching the ground as the fixation factor takes hold - but if you do not pull the rip cord and pull out of it - you go splat - and then wake up on the other side and realize you just wasted an entire incarnation in pure delusion.
Christianity is the fixation on delusion.
It is rare that people pull out of such delusion during an incarnation, so I give you big ups for that. However, there are major problems with atheism as it pertains to universal functioning, as atheism denies the continuity of life and everything metaphysical - when 99% of what is, is metaphysical. The 3D world is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
But as far as "god" goes, everyone has their own version so they all have to be wrong - so to say you don't believe in "god" means you don't accept any of the versions - which is a good thing - but - I would submit that there is/was a first cause - conscious intent that stirred the unmanifest to create all that is. I would label such a creative intelligence as source/creator - but it is hardly a localized being with rules and reactions to anything we do. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 795140
10/31/2009 5:54 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Haven't read this thread but Christianity is the one religion that goes way beyond religion and ends up a form of incurable mental illness.
The only way to "cure" it is self realization or self-healing.
I compare it to jumping out of an airplane and staring at the ground as it approaches faster and faster - the natural tendency is to keep watching the ground as the fixation factor takes hold - but if you do not pull the rip cord and pull out of it - you go splat - and then wake up on the other side and realize you just wasted an entire incarnation in pure delusion.
Christianity is the fixation on delusion.
It is rare that people pull out of such delusion during an incarnation, so I give you big ups for that. However, there are major problems with atheism as it pertains to universal functioning, as atheism denies the continuity of life and everything metaphysical - when 99% of what is, is metaphysical. The 3D world is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
But as far as "god" goes, everyone has their own version so they all have to be wrong - so to say you don't believe in "god" means you don't accept any of the versions - which is a good thing - but - I would submit that there is/was a first cause - conscious intent that stirred the unmanifest to create all that is. I would label such a creative intelligence as source/creator - but it is hardly a localized being with rules and reactions to anything we do. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 117166
Very profound indeed. Thank you. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 795140
10/31/2009 6:00 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Faith precedes the miracle.
Then miracles do happen. 
Just admit you don't know the answer and neither do God. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 807327
10/31/2009 6:09 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I was a senior in high school at the time and making decisions about career and college. I was "led" into the full-time Christian ministry shortly after my conversion, so I chose to attend a rather well-known Bible college in South Carolina.
After four years there, I sensed that I'd most likely eventually become an overseas missionary, the which I did. But before accepting a missionary assignment in Italy, I graduated, got married, was a youth pastor, a Bible teacher in a Christian school, put in a year towards my Master of Divinity degree, and finally pastored a church in Philadelphia for three years. Six years after graduation from college, my wife, two children, and I moved to Europe to evangelize and start evangelical churches.
This was my life and ministry for over 28 years, but all during this time I was struggling to maintain my faith. I had so many questions about the Bible and its teachings. I kept suspecting that Christianity really didn't "work." I mean, prayer didn't really work. Faith didn't make me a new person. My old "sins" were still plaguing me. I rarely sensed any "presence of God" in my life. I looked for God's guidance, but rarely was sure I got it. And even then it often turned out to be patently erroneous. I experienced church and missions from the inside and became very disillusioned with it. For an enterprise headed by the God of the universe, it sure was awfully human, and terribly fallible. I really saw precious little that could be called "evidence of God" in it all.
My questions about the Bible and its teachings just multiplied over the years, until I had to intentionally close my eyes to them in order to maintain anything like enough faith to continue my ministry without feeling like a total hypocrite. But the struggle only got worse...along with depression and very real self-loathing (for my feelings of hypocrisy.)
Finally, after 28 years overseas, I came to that place where I just could no longer consider myself a believer. I could no longer represent Jesus and the Bible, as my missions agency called on me to do. Honesty demanded that I quit the ministry and return Stateside.
It is now almost five years that I've been back in the "secular" world. I no longer attend church. I have come to peace with my unbelief. In fact, I am happier and enjoy greater contentment now than at any other time in my adult life. The dust has slowly settled in my mind and I have come to realize that I actually do not believe in God at all anymore. I haven't looked to become an atheist, but I guess that's what I am... and I'm very happy in my unbelief, thank you very much!
That's my story in a nutshell. If anyone wants to comment on it or jot me line, feel free (rjtrueman AT gmail DOT com). I'm not crusading for atheism, but neither am I ashamed of it. Quite the contrary.
Be well! Quoting: Ex-Minister 534348
Is that you, O'Rourke? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 797089
10/31/2009 6:09 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I think you made the right decision.
The correct word in this context is "omniscient" you dumb ass.
You make a good case for Darwin. Is your old lady a Baboon? Quoting: Anonymous Coward 789608
I wrote the goddamn word and that is what I meant shithead. You the fuck do you think you are to tell me the context of what I wrote? |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 117166
10/31/2009 6:32 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
It is understandable yet unfortunate that people must learn by oscillating from one extreme to the other - as we are creatures of reaction instead of responsive awareness. And so, the OP leaves the extremes of self delusion to the other extreme, that nothing is connected, there is nothing eternal, and all you see is what there is. I understand it is a method of mental/spiritual house cleaning - and probably necessary to a point, but, there will also come a time when the apparatus for inner knowing, self realization, and intuition are restored and OP will gain a sense of the allness in what is and how it functions and interrelates.
The opposite of Christianity is not atheism.
It is awareness.
Christianity is mythology run amuck.
It does not require the negation of all that is, metaphysically speaking, to discount Christianity.
It just takes a bit of logic and some pure awareness. |
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INK
User ID: 807456
10/31/2009 6:39 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I've never been a member of the clergy, but was a devout, what I would consider Christian my entire life. Then about 10 years ago, I kind of got to where you did and none of it made sense. The more I looked, the worse religion (and I mean ALL religion), seemed to be. So I dumped the whole worship stuff and even though I beleive in a supreme (or superior) being, I don't think they need my adoration, approval or belief in their existence. I'm much happier now and I generally ignore bullshit of any kind. Religious people (and once again I mean ALL religious people), are freakin' insane. I'm an equal opportunity disdainer of the holy folk. The Hasidic Jews are lunatics, the Muslims are as well, and most hardcore Christians should be locked up permamently. Of course these are the more fanatical and therefore dangerous ones, but religion is meant to divide us all and it has done a great job. As long as any one group believes they are "god's favorite", we're all screwed. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 117166
10/31/2009 6:43 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Great post. Gonna copy and paste it into my archive. |
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MagiChristmas 
Cher Ami -- When did Pigeons not= Doves?
User ID: 554973
10/31/2009 10:43 PM
 | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Okay since the reason you worship him is because you want to be like him, the ultimate question you should ask yourself is this: "When will he teach you how to develop those awesome special powers of his?" Without this I don't see why anyone should worship anybody else. Just like I worship my physics teacher in the area of science but the guy never teaches me anything about physics.
Faith precedes the miracle.
Then miracles do happen.
Just admit you don't know the answer and neither do God.
Miracles aren't for sharing, as that would preempt the prerequisite faith.
This will have to do for you. 
"Prophecy on War,"
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]
Here is one example of a modern (1800s) day prophecy that has seen partial fulfillment.
PROPHECY - KEY TO THE FUTURE ch 1
On December 25, 1832, Joseph Smith uttered a prophecy "concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina."(D & C 87:1.)
It was twenty-eight years later, on April 12, 1861, that his prophecy began to be fulfilled. On that day Southern troops opened fire on the Union fort at Charleston, South Carolina.
This statement, which has come to be known today as the "Prophecy on War," described other details of the War Between the States, also. It stated that "the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States," - [link to awatchtower.blogspot.com]
This subject WAS added to my Log of Direct Links:
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]
MC
Last Edited by 3*8** aka MagiChristmas on 10/31/2009 at 10:48 PM
TToD Links:
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com]
Tis True, Tis True, Second Degree Doom Doth Ensue precisely as prescribed several months prior.
Discern the TRUTH of the TimeTable of Doom described in the aforementioned links. The TToD is Based on April 6th aka The MOST Significant day - 4.6 magnitude precursor earthquake struck Italy on April 6th shortly after the Prophet spoke. Then the major earthquake event occurred shortly after general conference adjourned. Ref=lds.org
The swine flu epidemic also emerged on April 6th in Mexico.
The deception continues to crumble.
[link to www.godlikeproductions.com] |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 755785
10/31/2009 10:53 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I know of whom you speak of and was a friend to him at BJU. I can say that I completely agree with you and your realization.
Be to you and your family. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 721556
10/31/2009 10:56 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
OP, read William Paley's Evidences of Christianity. Really read it. Then see what you think. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 534348 (OP)
10/31/2009 10:56 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I attest that I was re-posting this story but it falls in line with what I have been through as well.
I wish peace to all who read it and hope that others may seek the true in love. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 797693
10/31/2009 11:53 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Wow. I have only been reading GLP for about two weeks but this has got to be one of the best posts I've seen. I would give you five stars if I knew how.
This universe is to big and complex to be defined as a battle between God and Lucifer with us poor helpless humans stuck in the middle and the destiny of your sole being based on what you chose to believe.
Think about what the Christian say that God says:
"I'm going to give you an average of 70 years to figure out who Jesus was and of you get it wrong I am going to torture you for eternity.
P.S. Since I am omnipotent I knew before you were born what your destiny would be and I decided to create you anyway."
I think you made the right decision.
Exactly the reason why I have had a hard time accepting Christianity. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 750799
The christian cult religion is just smelly garbage.
I was reared a christian too.
By age 12, I knew that shit just couldn't possibly be true, but it still took me ten years of study, including all 12 major religions, before I could state, absoultely without fear:
"THERE IS NO GOD".
Now I say:
"Hey god, go fuk yourself you baby slaughtering asswipe.
The christurd mutherfuker god, isn't real.
It's nothing but a make believe, stinky, very turdly, god fugger.
it rally sucks ass to believe in that hump backed turd god. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 117166
10/31/2009 11:57 PM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Maybe you should just drop all the veiled rhetoric and just tell us how you really feel. |
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troydungeon
User ID: 669821
10/31/2009 11:59 PM | |
weatherbill
User ID: 805320
11/1/2009 12:01 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
for every christian who becoems an atheist, there are 1000 or more who become christians....just the facts.
[link to EarthQuake2010.org]
MEGA Quake Tsunami coming Sept 2010. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 797693
11/1/2009 12:46 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
for every christian who becoems an atheist, there are 1000 or more who become christians....just the facts. Quoting: weatherbill
That's only because christurds brain wash their babies from birth.
Any doctrine can be taught to babies and children.
No one who hadn't been brain washed from baby hood by your stinky cult would use your bible for anything except to wipe their ass's.
- |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 779693
11/1/2009 12:51 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Good for you! Your story proves you're never too old to be rehabilitated.  |
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Lester
User ID: 805761
11/1/2009 1:01 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
The falling away has been going on for about 5 years.
2nd Timothy 2:6 says those who work in the vineyard should first be partakers. Meaning don't preach, minister, witness unless you are Born-Again.
Wouldn't be many out there, but God Knows What HE IS Doing!
HIS Will IS Always Perfect!
Sad feeling for this poor dejected fella.
Such is the torment of carnality.
You can't put yourself first in life and pretend to know HIM; not unless you want to live a lie.
Christianity IS God's Banner to the world.
All about Christ IS True.
You just have to be able to Trust God Fully with every aspect of your life, if you would be HIS.
This poor man never loved God more than himself.... |
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Lady Wolf
User ID: 803931
11/1/2009 1:04 AM
 | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
After about 30 years myself of being brainwashed into believing the holey-babble, and after much study I too came to the realization that it is not true.
And to think that I once was so convinced that I would have died for it!
Yet, I was totally wrong!
I'm just the COMPLETE opposite - after so many years of REBELLING against God's word, b/c I thought the whole thing was utter garbage, I've come to the realization in recent years that it IS TRUELY the WORD OF GOD, and we need to walk in obedience which is faith through Jesus Christ.
BTW - if Christianity were so phony, then why are masons and wolves in sheeps clothing like Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and John Hagee masquerading as Christians, only to do all they can to dilute the gospel? Quoting: Anonymous Coward 800472
I'm not here to put you or your beliefs down. We all have our own journey to walk and to walk it in our own time...but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you the following question with respect to the part of your post I've highlighted...
Which one is "TRUELY THE WORD OF GOD?"
Is it The King James Version, or maybe The New King James? The New International Version? Perhaps it's The Living Bible? Or maybe it's The Revised Standard Version? Then again, it could be The Septuigent? Or The Tanach? Perhaps it is the Torrah? Perhaps it's The Catholic Bible? Or maybe it's just The Dead Sea Scrolls? Hmmmm if so, which ones? Is it The Apocrypha, or only some of them?
I hope I've made my point and given you a place to start. But even more so, I hope I've given you enough of a question to start doing some searious research as to the origins of "The Word of God."
Remember...Real Truth Is Self Evident;)
Can't PM? Feel free to e'mail me at ldy_wolf@sbcglobal.net |
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9teen.47™
Time is short.
User ID: 807675
11/1/2009 1:13 AM
 | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
 Talk, talk, talk. So much stupid useless talk.
The plain fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ is the living God. Do you think that He talks to children in the complicated way that you lot talk.
No He does not, you think you know everything, but in fact you know nothing. BEST FRIEND...
[link to www.chick.com]
Zec 12:3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
Psa 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, [and] all the nations that forget God.
STOCK UP NOW. You should have at least 6 months worth of basics for every member of your household. Stay away from crowds when trouble starts, do not forget water storage, tobaccos worth more than gold or silver, and be kind to hungry children. |
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Liquid Reality
User ID: 781957
11/1/2009 1:16 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I'm sick and tired of hearing from people like you. Quoting: 9teen.47™
Likewise, I'm sure!
Fools must learn from experience. |
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Liquid Reality
User ID: 781957
11/1/2009 1:18 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
Talk, talk, talk. So much stupid useless talk.
Stop talking!
Stop pointing out the abject stupidity of my religion!
Stop making me realize, way down deep inside, that I follow superstitious nonsense from the pre-Bronze Age!
STOP MAKING SENSE!
Or we'll start an Inquisition and kill ya.
Fools must learn from experience. |
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Liquid Reality
User ID: 781957
11/1/2009 1:21 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
for every christian who becoems an atheist, there are 1000 or more who become christians....just the facts. Quoting: weatherbill
And millions who become Muslims.
I guess their religion must be true, huh?
Fools must learn from experience. |
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Anonymous Coward
User ID: 807550
11/1/2009 1:31 AM | | Re: Atheist after 40 years a Christian Minister | Quote |
I was a senior in high school at the time and making decisions about career and college. I was "led" into the full-time Christian ministry shortly after my conversion, so I chose to attend a rather well-known Bible college in South Carolina.
After four years there, I sensed that I'd most likely eventually become an overseas missionary, the which I did. But before accepting a missionary assignment in Italy, I graduated, got married, was a youth pastor, a Bible teacher in a Christian school, put in a year towards my Master of Divinity degree, and finally pastored a church in Philadelphia for three years. Six years after graduation from college, my wife, two children, and I moved to Europe to evangelize and start evangelical churches.
This was my life and ministry for over 28 years, but all during this time I was struggling to maintain my faith. I had so many questions about the Bible and its teachings. I kept suspecting that Christianity really didn't "work." I mean, prayer didn't really work. Faith didn't make me a new person. My old "sins" were still plaguing me. I rarely sensed any "presence of God" in my life. I looked for God's guidance, but rarely was sure I got it. And even then it often turned out to be patently erroneous. I experienced church and missions from the inside and became very disillusioned with it. For an enterprise headed by the God of the universe, it sure was awfully human, and terribly fallible. I really saw precious little that could be called "evidence of God" in it all.
My questions about the Bible and its teachings just multiplied over the years, until I had to intentionally close my eyes to them in order to maintain anything like enough faith to continue my ministry without feeling like a total hypocrite. But the struggle only got worse...along with depression and very real self-loathing (for my feelings of hypocrisy.)
Finally, after 28 years overseas, I came to that place where I just could no longer consider myself a believer. I could no longer represent Jesus and the Bible, as my missions agency called on me to do. Honesty demanded that I quit the ministry and return Stateside.
It is now almost five years that I've been back in the "secular" world. I no longer attend church. I have come to peace with my unbelief. In fact, I am happier and enjoy greater contentment now than at any other time in my adult life. The dust has slowly settled in my mind and I have come to realize that I actually do not believe in God at all anymore. I haven't looked to become an atheist, but I guess that's what I am... and I'm very happy in my unbelief, thank you very much!
That's my story in a nutshell. If anyone wants to comment on it or jot me line, feel free (rjtrueman AT gmail DOT com). I'm not crusading for atheism, but neither am I ashamed of it. Quite the contrary.
Be well! Quoting: Ex-Minister 534348
This is why?
The bible is pure MYTHOLOGY, with a deeper meaning, see my page for some insight.
[link to thehiddenlighthouse.blogspot.com]
Nightwatchman |
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