Pastor David Responds: Part 2 - My Conversion is Just as Awesome

I began answering Pastor David Nicholes latest letter to me here. Now, I'll jump right in to his next paragraph.

Alas, the providence of God--my brother and I went to a huge beer blast in a college town (Athens, Ohio).  There, of all places, I met a friend with whom I played lots of baseball while we were growing up in Cleveland Ohio.  We were both good pitchers and had much mutual respect for each other with reference to baseball.  I was in a sports bar in Athens Ohio and in he came, not expecting to see me, but when he saw me he commenced at once to tell me of his new found faith.  He apparently had just become a believer and was excited to tell me about it.  I was quite surprised and a kind of spiritual conviction seized on me.  I didn't understand what he was trying to say except for the fact that God was real, that God apparently was personal, and that I should learn more about what knowing God means.  The next 18 months were full of remarkable experiences as I sought to make reforms of sorts--groping after God.  I won't try to recount these for you now.  Suffice it to say God wonderfully took the veil away so that I clearly understood that God saves people--even me--on the basis of pure grace, without any meritorious works whatsoever.  In May of 1977 something really wonderful happened, God brought me to life.  I could feel it, my desires changed, I changed.

David, let me tell you a story. Usually, at this point, an ex-Christian will tell you how awesome a Christian they were. Not in a self-aggrandizing manner, but simply to combat your definition of a True Christian. I'm not interested in that approach. The merits of my Christianity can stand on their own and I don't really care if my brand didn't or doesn't fit your "absolute truth". Instead, I'm going to tell you about my conversion - or de-conversion, if you will.

In the winter of 2010, my son died three times in the hospital. He stopped breathing from whooping cough. He hadn't been vaccinated because we didn't believe in vaccinations at the time. Neither did anyone at the church we were attending - my childhood church. The "world" was not to be trusted and vaccinations were an integral part of that "world". 

I watched my son waste away, throwing up all food and drink for weeks. He coughed throughout the night, and, as I mentioned before, was hospitalized several times, even stopping breathing. I watched in horror, hoping beyond all hope, that years later, I would remember this as a terrible distant memory. At that time, I was thinking about the current events as if it was par for the course, my faith was being tested, and I would be made stronger for it.

But then something clicked in my head.

There were millions, nay, BILLIONS of people who didn't get whooping cough. Even the families at my church who had a few of their kids inoculated with the DTAP shot when they stepped on a rusty nail didn't get whooping cough when it swept through the church. And here I was, watching my son die, right before my very eyes, because of fear.

Fear of what!? Fear of the unknown? I don't know a lot of things. But that shouldn't make me run from them. What I needed was education about these "worldly" things, in order to see WHY the rest of humanity didn't suffer from whooping cough, and yet was not inherently evil.

So I studied vaccines. And I found that I had been lied to. And lied to - a lot. So I kept going. I didn't only study vaccines, I studied everything.  I learned about homosexuals. I learned about abortion. I learned that there were thousands of viewpoints for every single issue known to man. And yet I had been taught all my life, that life was black and white.

I looked at God. I saw a paradox. A paradox of good and evil. The good was irreconcilable from the bad. And I decided that it was acceptable - for a while. Then I dropped that as quickly as I grasped it. I kept going. I noticed many flaws in God's character. I began to look at the Bible through the eyes of the people that were killed or affected by God's chosen nation, Israel. And I saw pain. I saw hurt. I saw death, undeserved. I saw women with their bellies split open if they were pregnant. I saw children, stabbed through the heart by a sword, crudely crafted by a nomadic people. I saw shock on the faces of those that were being attacked by an army and killed for just living. I saw a woman carrying water to a well, kidnapped, and made to live in an upper room, ashes on her head, dressed in a gunny sack. Then, after 30 days, she was raped for the rest of her life by her captor, who prayed his thanks to his god for providing him a hole to stick his penis into.

I saw all these things. Previously, I had only seen a people, Israel, blessed by God, wholly in the right to kill all those in their way. And I read it just like I was supposed to read it - a description of a holy and just god. I read it just like you David. 

But I couldn't anymore. People are people. One army is not blessed above a civil society, just because they have an angrier god, or whatever petty reason the attackers have to kill the victims.

So I left that religion. I moved into freedom. I was free. I no longer had to go to church. I no longer had to spiritually lead my family. I no longer had to tell my kids stupid stories that made no sense. Life finally had real meaning. I was never happier. NEVER happier.

Part 3 - Where He Sticks His Foot in His Mouth

Pastor David Responds: Part 1 - I Think I Like This Guy

If you've been following along, I've been having a small email exchange with a gentleman, Pastor David Nicholes, about his sadness for me leaving his faith. I say his faith because all of Christianity is different. Even the orthodoxy that everyone says they have consensus on. They fool themselves into believing that they have the right answers. There are as many interpretations of Christianity as there are people who believe in it.

Pastor David wrote to me, I responded, then I followed up with a Bible lesson for him after noticing a theological flaw in his first correspondence. Now, he has written again. I will be quoting his latest email below, then responding to it, bit by bit.

Hello I. C., 

God has so marvelously transformed my life through the gospel which brought me into living union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm happy for you David. I really am. Whatever makes you happy, as long as you don't hurt yourself or others, I genuinely don't care what you believe. Go ahead and believe that Zeus throws lightning bolts and Jupiter runs around with naked women, causing you to love your wife. Heck, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is all the rage these days. Even better than your god, he is actually on YouTube!

But seriously, I have no idea what you mean by "living union." I know all the Christian jargon. I was bred on it. I knew it better than 99% of Christians. I lived it, buddy. But, living union? Is this just a filler phrase to denote the fact that Christ is alive and has made you spiritually alive?

If so, then good! If you want to think you have a spirit, go right ahead. I don't have any such notions, so I don't worry about loving a dead guy. I'm kind of into women myself, really.

I was raised in a middle class heathan (sic) home.  I never talked with a Christian even once that I can recall until I was 18 years old.  I really didn't even know there were people that took the Bible seriously.  When I was 18 I enlisted in the Navy on the delayed entry program.  I joined to find a meaningful change in as much as my home life was not going well, my friends were living increasingly pointless lives, I was tired of mowing lawns, working in a restaraunt (sic), and stealing things to get by materially. 

I actually feel sad for you - a bit, being that you didn't know any Christians until you were 18. That's kind of a long stretch to not be well-rounded, immersed, or at least tangentially affected by other schools of thought. No WONDER you converted! Christianity must have felt fresh to you. I know what you mean. I've had those "feelings."

Also, don't kid yourself. Even those who take the Bible seriously, don't really take the Bible seriously. They explain away all the horrible parts or make excuses for their god, saying his sovereignty gives him the right to be a dick, do anything he wants, and then outright lie to those he says he wants to "save."

My friends know that my favorite Bible story is the one about Pharaoh and Moses. I know, as an Independent Fundamental Baptist Pastor, you believe in free will - unless of course, you have been co-opted by the John Piper, Reformed Theology predestination crowd. (Of course, they don't really believe in predestination if you press them on it. There would be no point in missions if they did and they know it would make them look like elitists. It gets worse as you work yourself through the theology. Much worse than the more laughable notion of free will in a world run by a god that encompasses every omni characteristic there is.)

Anyway, back to the Pharaoh story. I mention it because you take the Bible seriously and I want to teach you about your god.

Several times, Pharaoh told Moses and the Israelites to leave. Free will, right? A victory for God! He sent his dumbest servant, Moses, to go and plead his case (because, for some reason, an all powerful god can't just knock over a few soldiers and let his blokes run through the city walls, escaping to freedom), and Moses was successful!

But God was like, "Nuh uh! No! I'mma gonna do some killin'!!"  So what did he do? He "hardened Pharaoh's heart" and forced Pharaoh to poke Moses in the eye. Why? Why did God do this? Why in the hell did he have to harden Pharaoh's heart so that he could get to the final plague where he kills all the baby boys?

And you thought your god was pro-life. *cluck *cluck...

We could also talk about the fact that your god specifically says that he doesn't want anyone to "perish". In this case, as you know, perish means that you get to go to hell forever, just for not noticing a petty, jealous, childish, and selfish god. No, you say? God isn't those things? Oh yes he is! But it's okay, right? God CAN be those things - because he's God, and that makes naughty things holy things.

Back to the perishing thing... God doesn't want anyone to perish, is all powerful, all knowing, with knowledge of  the past, present, and future. And this isn't a "choose your own adventure" futuristic knowledge. No. Look at his prophesies. Every one of them are specific, to the point, and un-equivocating.

And yet he created hell. WHAT!? He created hell? But I thought he didn't want anyone to perish!? You know, David, if I was your god, I would have an easy solution - no hell. Simple. Everyone gets to not perish.

Oh, there's more. I could go all day. But you get the point. The Bible is so chock full of crap that you have to swallow to pretend that God is a loving god, when he's simply a selfish jerk, less amiable than even your most tantrum-throwing toddler. At least your toddler just throws a shoe. Your god? He murders entire populations - simply because they squatted on their own land - which just happened to be his.

Finally, I haven't been a Christian for about two and a half years. Since then, I haven't stolen a thing. I stole more crap AS a Christian than I ever have or will as an atheist. And my life is not pointless. It is full of meaning. When I was a Christian, all the rules and regulations, wrapped up in the bullshit idea of grace and mercy, kept me so tied down to a system of thought, I never cared to get to know people who believed differently than me. The idiot Apostle Paul told me not to. He said to be separate. And I was.

I am happy.

Read Part 2 - My Conversion is Just As Awesome