any religious people coming to terms with new found atheism? (Page 4)

What questions?

Interesting thread.  I too always enjoy reading about other peoples belief system and how it came about.

I've had a life journey as well when it comes to my belief in Christ.  I went from no religious background at all to a "christian" to an agnostic, to a full on atheist, and back to a fully surrendered Christian.  So, it's been quite a journey.  lol

Back to the OP I think many churches get it completely wrong on how they treat homosexuality.  It is a sin, and that is very clear in the bible, but so is looking at another women with lust and swearing.  Go read the sermon on the mound in Matthew 5.  Quite simply, we all are sinners and fall short of the glory of god (Romans 3:23) and for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. (James 2:10).  So, I sin just as someone who is gay sins, but we both are redeemed through Christs sacrifice. (Romans 3:24)

I don't see how anyone can question the church's position on abortion.  That ones pretty easy because the pretty much every religion and secular society as a whole believe it's wrong to kill somebody.  My personal opinion, religious or not, is that society needs to protect the most helpless among us.

I believe in the bible, but I am not a literalist in the sense that every word of the bible is absolutely there for a reason because there are so many different translations of the bible.  If older translations have a lot of masculine terms and newer translations use more gender neutral terms for political correctness then which literal word was God's intent?  I say it doesn't matter because I believe in a personal relationship with Jesus and use the teachings of Jesus and his message in the bible, not the literal words that were written by man in an attempt to record his teachings.

I think one of the biggest problems with religion is the man made part of it.  There are so many examples of churches doing horrible things and twisting things to the benefit of the people running the church.  This makes it very difficult for someone to recognize and understand what Christianity is.  I know there's been some Catholic church criticism in this thread and I am not a fan of the Catholic church at all.  I think there's so much "man" in the catholic church that it's very difficult for people to truly see Christ and what he did.  I know many Catholics who truly believe that in order to get to heaven they just have to go to mass and confessional, yet there is no biblical basis for this belief.

Either way, I do enjoy threads like this and I think it makes us all think about what we believe in.  I always tell my kids, if you can't defend what you believe in then you don't believe in it.

I don't want to monopolize the thread but a few examples:

1.  Why does it have to be creationism OR evolution.  Why not both?

2.  Science has proven the earth was not 100% covered with water during the age of man, therefore Noah (and much of Genesis) must be an allegory, not fact.  However the church states that if you question the validity of one part of the Bible then you must question it all.  And that's not allowed.

And others like this... Most of my issues come from a headbutting of science and the Bible.  I say that many of these can be squared by slightly changing the wording of a book passed down person to person for 1000s of years (without changing the meaning behind the words).  The church tends to think otherwise.

I am lately thinking I'm more of a Deist than anything else..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

To fold both of your issues into one: the Catholic Church sees no contradiction between faith and reason, between scripture and science.  The two go hand in hand.

The Bible is a collection of books. Some are meant to be read literally, some allegorically, some historically, and so forth.  Once one understands that the life of Christ is the central event in all of time and space in the past or the future, then reading scripture written before his life takes on a new focus.  Everything in the old testament points to the promise and the coming of Jesus.

I think we have a mistaken understanding of what a myth is. We tend to think of it as a fiction to describe an event that was beyond the rational understanding of the people of that time. That's not what a myth is.

A myth is a story that tells a truth in a way that is deeper and wider than mere facts can communicate.  There is truth in myth beyond the details.

The Bible is indeed inerrant. All of it speaks to truth. That doesn't mean that it is all to be taken literally.  That's never been part of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

But it has of the Baptist church.  And that is what I was raised in. (And until 2009 the CC never said evolution was a viable theory).

Just to continue the thought.  Does the CC point out which parts are meant to be taken literally and which are are not?

There's no official designation as to which parts are to be read in which way.  However, the Church Magisterium has and will say whether a theologian's interpretation is consistent with Church teaching or not, if that becomes necessary.

Everything comes down to whether or not a particular understanding of scripture is consistent with Church teaching.

Same goes for scientific theories, as distinct from scientific fact.  Facts are facts, but some theories are consistent with Church teaching and some are not.

For the record, the Church has never been wrong about this.  Something to think about. Even when inevitably someone will bring up the case of Galileo, when you dig down into that you find that it was more complicated than the common understanding.

There's no contradiction between Church teaching about the nature of man and the notion that we've biologically evolved from single cell organisms.

In Catholicism, there is absolutely no conflict between faith and reason.

What's necessary in order to get to heaven?

btw, I should clarify I know a lot of people who go to all different churches who think they're going to heaven just because they go to church on Sundays.  So, it's not just a Catholic thing. 

Now for you question, I believe what the bible teaches me because I really have no other reference point.  If I go to a church that doesn't line up with the bible, then I don't go to that church anymore.

I believe that I am going to heaven because I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior.

Some versus about how does one get into heaven that I believe and share with others:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.- John 3:16

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. - Romans 10:9

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” John 3:3

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. - Mark 16:16

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. - John 3:36

This is so true.  My church addressed that specifically a few years ago (non-denominational Christian).  The stance was very clear: the bible does not have a rating system for sins.  We all sin.  It is not for us to judge the magnitude of one sin versus another.

I have friends who have sinned by lying, having lustful thoughts, cursing, etc. just as I have sometimes lied, etc.  I have friends who are gay.  I have friends who have had abortions.  I have a friend who cheated on her spouse.  I don't judge ANY of my friends because it's not my job to judge them.  There's no reason I can't be friends with someone who's gay just like there's no reason I can't be friends with someone who has lied or fornicated, or cussed, etc.

OK.

I believe all of those verses you posted.

What's your understanding of John 6 ? Including this:

John 6:53-58

⁵³ Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵ For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

I would guess they are probably wrong; but again, not my place to judge or to guess at how God chooses to give mercy.

We're not meant to know the answers.  Regardless of whether you believe in God or a hydrogen atom, no one can really tell where it all began, or whether or not life even has a beginning (or ending).  Life is a mystery period and we are just not capable of fathoming so much of it that we question.

I was raised Catholic.  When I stopped questioning every mystery of life from age 18-30, I finally realized that I do believe in my heart, on faith, without definitive proof that God exists.

They say this about human relationships: when you put them under a microscope, you WILL find what you think are flaws and began to question what you think you know.  I guess I feel the same way about my relationship with God.

This was a MAJOR irritation for me.  I mean, from my understanding, a sin is a sin is a sin.  I get that some are mortal and some are venial, although not 100 percent clear on how to differentiate the two.   But why is one mortal sin worse than another.  And why are a bunch of non-gods sitting around judging (anyway, my experience, I have also  met and friended Christians who are not judging but I do tend to be more swayed by the bad apples, which seem to be the majority in the bin).

big +1

Just another thought your original post.

My walk toward atheism went through a long period of a Western flavor of Buddhism.  In my case, it was practicing a form of mindfulness using photography, based on the work and teaching of Minor White with lots of time spent at a sort of art commune/collective called Apeiron in the Hudson Valley of NY.  It was all about Photography meets Zen meets Jungian analysis.

That's what ultimately led me to atheism.

My way out and back toward Christ was through the contemplative tradition of Catholicism.  People like Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and Thomas Merton.

I recommend Teresa of Avila's book Interior Castle and Thomas Merton's book The Seven Storey Mountain to anyone drawn to a contemplative path.

Merton was a Trappist Monk.

God can often come to us in silence.  During my journey back I spent a lot of time in silence, including at an Anglican Benedictine monastery on the Hudson called Holy Cross.  I'd arrive on a Friday. Enter into silence. The monks gave me a little button that signaled to people not to talk to me.

Then I'd go into the crypt of the founder where there was a bible. I'd open the bible to the New Testament, and at random I'd pick out a few verses. Then I'd sit with that, meditate on that, pray over that for the weekend until I left on a Sunday afternoon.  With that I'd also sit in service as the Monks chanted the Liturgy of the Hours.

Invariably, whatever scripture I would choose would be exactly what I needed to hear at the time.

The contemplative path is an old tradition within Catholicism, one that many cultural Catholics don't even know exists.  If one is drawn to mindfulness, one can find that path right within Christianity.

A wonderful example of this is shown in the film Into Great Silence by Philip Groning. It follows the life of a Carthusian monastery in France. The Carthusians are monks who live in community but essentially are hermits. Here's the trailer for the film.

One of the prevailing irritations, complaints, commonalities that I am reading across most of these posts is "judgement" and someone else telling you what you should and should not be doing with your life.

Let me just say that atheism is no shelter from that.  If anything it puts you even more under the microscope of judgement, and atheists judging atheists is just as prevalent once you get past the "oh, me too" stage.

People trying to tell you how to live your life according to their rules (which never seem to make sense) is there whether you believe in a deity or not and is irrespective of the organization with which you or they belong to. 

First off, I'm not a biblical scholar so I'm probably the last person to be asking this kind of stuff. 

I know 6:54 is a strong one in the Catholic Church, but I don't buy it in the literal sense that anyone (believer, or non believer) who takes communion gets their ticket punched into heaven.  My reasoning is because it doesn't line up with the rest of the gospel, including the versus I quoted above.  If all one had to do was take communion then why say all the other stuff?

I'd say this is an example I described about the "literal" interpretation of the bible versus the overall message.  As a comparison, I can literally interpret Matthew 23:9 "And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." and say the Catholics are all wrong because of it, but I know that's not what it means because of the rest of the gospel.

OK let me be clear.  I don't care if anyone is gay or straight.  Love who you love. I try not to get deeper than that.

But let me play devil's advocate to the posts above.  Sure swearing or lusting is a sin.  But those are things that I can do and then chose NOT to do again.  I made a mistake and asked for forgiveness and moved on.

However homosexuality is away of life.  If they continue to "sin" (note use of quotes) over and over and over are they not basically ignoring the fact that it's a sin according to whatever document you want to quote?

I don't see how you can equate the two.  

That's kind of the point....according to the bible, it's not for you or I to try to equate it.

The mortal/venial sin is a Catholic thing and not in the bible.  (at least to my knowledge)

Man should not judge period!

OK.

Putting aside whether this gets you to heaven, is it something to be taken literally or metaphorically?

Just consider this.  The disciples he was talking to had witnessed miracles. They had also heard Jesus talk in metaphor.  It seems that what they heard that day was something else entirely.  It was so troubling that many of them left him.

Just consider that Jesus might have been talking literally.

John 6 continues:

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. ⁶⁴ Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. ⁶⁵ He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

You are correct, and it's very wrong.  There are many christian churches that brow beat people (especially gay people) to repent and turn, all the while they continue to sin all day and every day.  /hypocrite facepalm

I know my church has worked very hard to reach out to the gay community and I have personally as well.  It's a very tense relationship to say the least because of all the bad history.

I think it depends on how you define a way of life.

Perhaps you have the ability to change your way of life not to fix your eyes upon the pace bunny ahead of you, but that is beyond me, and I think most red blooded tri hottie loving men, or women I guess.  Or maybe it just goes to the definition of lust.

not sure if this is a definite list of the mortal sins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_sin

but seems to me there are a number of things on there that I imagine many people make a way of life out of.

I'll speak generally here, but religion has a set of moral standards that are laid out for people to live by.  You can use the "you'll go to he11 if you don't follow them" scare tactic, or you can say as I do, that we all will sin and fall short, but we are forgiven.  There is a fine line between judging somebody and calling them out on what they're doing wrong.

As you mentioned even the Atheists do a lot of judging, but some of it is good.  If I'm smoking crack  it's a good thing for society (religious or secular) to judge me and tell me I probably shouldn't' be doing that.  Obviously there are different thresholds of what's considered acceptable and not acceptable but the concept is no different.

I think where the hang up comes is when an individual thinks what they're doing is OK, and it contradicts what another individual believes is OK. (religious or secular)  Depending on who you interact with the beliefs will be all over the map in both camps.

We don't judge people, but it's our responsibility to judge actions and principles.

Think of venial sins as character flaws, and mortal sins as those so grave that they cut us off from God's grace.

There is biblical evidence for this. Consider John 20:21-23

²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

And consider Corinthians 11:26-29, again relating to the body and blood of Christ:

²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

²⁷ So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.

The early Christians understood that they could fall away in sin to such a degree that reconciliation was necessary for them to be brought back into communion. There was judgment of action connected with that.