How to convince a religious girl...

GOMER_PYLE said:

Not trying to preach here but I can't see why some of you guys don't believe in God. I mean seriously, what have you got to lose? Don't get me wrong, I am a Christian and I believe that God sent his son Jesus Christ to die so that I can go to Heaven. So, if for some reason this is a lie (I obviously don't think it is) then I've got nothing to lose when I die and I'll just be dead. Period. But if what I and a lot of other people believe IS true, then those who reject God and his son Jesus will spend eternity in Hell when they die. I'm just trying to look at it from a logical perspective. You know you're going to die, why not just believe it just in case? At least it'll give you something to hope for and look forward to.

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I could write a lengthy book on this matter, but I'll give you the extremely condensed version, as you might find it interesting. It's not so much of an issue of I want my total independence or freedom to live my life completely as I choose. Being a person that believes in God, I could be willing to accept some guidelines and principles in my lifestyle in order to serve Him. However, at this point, I do not ever think anything about how my actions are viewed by God. I live my life as I choose to live it, although I have a much stronger moral code than a large number of people that waste their time in church every Sunday morning (not to suggest that people waste their time by church, but that churches are full of people that are living a double-life and not truly devout).

I am a disappointed, discontent, distaught, miserable, and bitter individual and I pretty much always have been. I thought that Christianity would feel this void in my life, but it really never did. I still felt completely ostracized by those that claimed to be fellow Christians. I felt as if I had no one, nothing, in my life. Mankind continually disappointed me. Eventually, I came to accept the fact that non-Christians generally accepted me more as a Christian than my own Christian crowd did. I still felt completely out of place in this world.

I really lack one thing that is essential to Christianity: love for my fellow man. If I were a Christian, I would have a hard time proclaiming the gospel to others. To be frank, I really don't like and don't care about my fellow man. I find most people to be complete assholes and I find most Christians to be the worst of them. That has been a huge disappointment to me. I think where I fell away from God (I don't believe in the doctrine of eternal security--though I would be saved if it were to be true) is when I began to feel confusion and somewhat angry at where things went wrong. Why did I for years and years have a troubled life, but with a relationship with God, and nothing ever got better--only worse? I do not have the strength of Job. He was a better man than I. I cannot fake joy and peace in my heart where none exists. I could not bear any longer to wonder why things were the way they were. I have not prayed in years. If everyone I cared about were suddenly hanging onto their lives by a thread, I would not resume prayer. I will not go through the mental anguish of feeling like my voice goes unheard and feeling unloved (though scripture says I am loved). Strangely enough, though I am still very much disturbed, I am closer to peace than I have ever been. My existence is a simple one. I never even think to look up and ask "why?". I simply wake up each morning, go to work, come home. etc. Someday I'll die and I, right now, assume that I would be facing an eternity in hell. Though that is not easy for me to accept and deal with, it is something that I can sort of understand. I'll never understand why I could not find any trace of peace in my life and why I should suffer damnation as a conseqence, at least the process is laid out before me.

This has been the two minute version of what would really take days to convey in an adequate manner.

I'm sorry that things have not turned out well for you. I'd like to say I understand but I really can't because my hardships in life have been few. I do feel that I am more accepted by my neutral or non-Christian friends also. I have a bitter attitude toward my fellow man and a pretty bitter attitude toward some of the "devout" Christians in my church. I have stopped attending church because of those people. They think that because I want to drink a beer and go two-stepping every now and then that I'm a bad person. I believe it is people like that that drive people away from Christianity. I'm still a Christian but I refuse to treat people like they do.

GOMER_PYLE said:

I have stopped attending church because of those people. They think that because I want to drink a beer and go two-stepping every now and then that I'm a bad person. I believe it is people like that that drive people away from Christianity. I'm still a Christian but I refuse to treat people like they do.

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Yeah, that is not all of what I meant. Even it seems as though people that were friends and did accept me never really understood me and TRULY accepted me. I still felt outcast.

So many believes advocated by so many churches have no solid Biblical basis. That does not mean that might not be good advice, but I cannot see them proclaiming them as "sinful". My parents raised me in a Wesleyan domination. Their church forbids drinking alcohol...period...they believe in no drinking whatsoever. I was never able to confirm it, but supposedly John Wesley was himself a homebrewer of beer, according to a friend I know that got a M.A. in theology. The puritans were also supposed to be brewers. Understandably, the church has consistently condemned alcohol abuse, but this idea that social drinking and, perhaps, even the occasional tying one on is sinful is an idea that stems from the temperance movement of the mid-1800s. With the chaos and disillusionment around the time of the Civil War, alcohol abuse became more prevalent and drew opposition from some in the religious community.

Now, I have no problem with a clergyman saying alcohol abuse is destructive to the family and against the teachings of God. I have no problem with that same clergyman giving a personal recommendation of avoiding drinking altogether, but that is a whole world different than preaching that the occasional drinker is damned to the same consequences as murderers and adulterers. That is wild speculation, at best. An old roommate that intends to become a minister in the near future told me he agreed with this historical and cultural perspective, but said I might be a "bad testimony" to others if I were to drink, dance, etc. I told him that I'm only one man and I don't have the influence, nor the responsibility, to undo the church's mistakes.

I didn't mean to get sidetracked, but I found your comments interesting, as someone that would drink on occasion, even during my years of religious devotion.