Oh, I think I put you into exactly the right box. You’re no different than a million other people who became evangelical Christians when they ‘found Jesus.’ Been there. Done that.
I was an evangelical Christian in South Africa for 10 years. It destroyed my life and gave me PTSD. American fundamentalist Christianity is everywhere. It’s even down the road from me here in Gaia, Portugal..
It is precisely because you didn’t have any prior knowledge of Chrisitanity that I doubt you were an atheist. Please don’t confuse not being religious with atheism. It is absolutely and utterly impossible to understand why there is no god and then suddenly to believe in fairy tales.
“because it was based on simply the lack of understanding of God and of Christianity.” Well, I became an atheist after 45 years of believing that junk. Many pastors become atheists. And the reason that atheists have a much greater understanding of Christianity than Christians do is because many were aactively involved in it at one point.
How do you define ‘very intelligent?” Nobody who is ‘very intelligent’ believes in fairytales. And anyone who searches for god was never an atheist. “I found god immediately.” You’re in mental decline. That’s delusion. Imagining you’re talking to god and that god is with you is delusion.
“at a prompting of a Christian friend of mine.’ You mean she witnessed to you, and you bought into it because something was missing inside you. Was sex involved?
I once read the bible from beginning to end 18 times in 18 months. I could place any verse in the bible as to where it came from. My knowledge of the bible was so great that when I converted to Judaism I was immediately elevated to the committee — something that simply does not happen to people who convert. And in London a pastor told me that my knowledge of the bible and Christianity ‘was frightening.”
For ten years, I attended bible study twice a week, prayed for a few hours each day, read the bible for many hours each day, went witnessing to others out on the street, and attended church twice on Sunday. And I went to many different churches in many different cities.
That said, the bible is a load of nonsense, and anyone who has a ‘Master Theological Studies ‘degree’ isn’t intelligent enough to differentiate fact from fiction. That’s why you got caught. You’re easily influenced, and you don’t have the brains to figure it out. This is where the Dunning/Kruger effect comes in.
Obtaining a degree from an evangelical university is meaningless. I could tell you every single thing you believe in. I have studied the entire history of Christianity. There is not one piece of secular evidence for the existence of Christ.
What there is evidence for the evolution of the church and how it evolved from the Babylonian religion of Mithras. Later it hooked up with all sorts of pagan religions. I bet you weren’t taught that. If you had known any of that before they converted you, you wouldn’t have been converted.
Your studies wouldn’t even remotely begin to touch the level of my knowledge about the church and Christianity. I say that with complete confidence for reasons I am not going to explain to you. Unlike you, I have actually studied real science at university, and I’m a helluve lot smarter than you are.
Oh, I totally have a strong bias against anyone who believes in stuff and nonsense.I make no bones about it. Goodbye.
