Same here. Also I don't even really know how to go about becoming a christian. How do you just START believing in something that you don't actually believe?
I feel like the traditional values espoused can be lived by easily enough, but truly believing in the more mystical aspects....how do you even do it? Get saved first? Devote a lot of time into learning it immediately after and eventually brainwash yourself into it?
I think you're describing the Peterson problem. Most believers have been told over and over of the veracity of the book. Most believers are basically doing the "appeal to authority" fallacy. Hundreds and hundreds of people, a lot of them university trained, have told you exactly what this book says. But when someone comes along capable of rational thinking, and by coincidence, able to read the original languages, and finds a lot of it is fake news, well, that's a tough one to deal with.
I mention Peterson because, fundamentally, that's his problem. He agrees, like a lot of us, that the Bible holds excellent traditional values that have problem time and time again to be effective. What do we do with the mystical portions of it though? Peterson believes there is a supernatural component. He calls it "the metaphysical". I personally agree with that. I think there is some outside force calling the shots. Here's where it gets confusing for me: What does this force want? Is it Jesus? God? Alien? The God of Aliens? A Kardashev Level 3 civilization? Are those things all describing the same entity?
I heard it put well once by someone.
You know, disproving the bible, talking snakes, all of the fantastical stuff that isn't real.
He said, don't think about the bible as a book of facts, but instead of as a book of truth.
I think there's definitely something there, but I have no way to know, so I guess for now I shall remain a Christian Agnostic.
Same here. Also I don't even really know how to go about becoming a christian. How do you just START believing in something that you don't actually believe?
I feel like the traditional values espoused can be lived by easily enough, but truly believing in the more mystical aspects....how do you even do it? Get saved first? Devote a lot of time into learning it immediately after and eventually brainwash yourself into it?
I think you're describing the Peterson problem. Most believers have been told over and over of the veracity of the book. Most believers are basically doing the "appeal to authority" fallacy. Hundreds and hundreds of people, a lot of them university trained, have told you exactly what this book says. But when someone comes along capable of rational thinking, and by coincidence, able to read the original languages, and finds a lot of it is fake news, well, that's a tough one to deal with.
I mention Peterson because, fundamentally, that's his problem. He agrees, like a lot of us, that the Bible holds excellent traditional values that have problem time and time again to be effective. What do we do with the mystical portions of it though? Peterson believes there is a supernatural component. He calls it "the metaphysical". I personally agree with that. I think there is some outside force calling the shots. Here's where it gets confusing for me: What does this force want? Is it Jesus? God? Alien? The God of Aliens? A Kardashev Level 3 civilization? Are those things all describing the same entity?