Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Embracing Christianity Without Really Believing

I was raised in the Baptist church but at some point in my 30’s, I realized that I didn’t really believe. I couldn’t say for a fact that there wasn’t such a thing as a god (Spinoza’s god being an example), I just couldn’t make myself believe the Bible was the true word of God so I reckoned that made me an agnostic type atheist. As all my friends and family are Christians, I kept it to myself for the most part and went on with life. Later, I looked for likeminded folks online to discuss it with and discovered that the vast majority of non-believers are insufferable pricks who had substituted leftist crap for their religion.

In the last few decades, the culture of the country has gone to hell in a handbasket and I’ve come to see that there are truly very few people who can live without religion and that they will substitute all kinds of outlandish beliefs in place of it. We went from a society against gay marriage to courts compelling the mutilation of [bleep] children to appease the transgender psychosis that demands you pretend boys can be girls if they want to badly enough. We went from a high trust pretty much homogenous society to importing as many 3rd world orcs as can get across the borders. We live in a Gynarchy where our young women would rather be Instagram whores than marry and have children and our older women are as likely to be cat lady harpies as they are to be loving Grandma. We are taught to worship diversity and Gaia and we have taboos, sin, Armageddon, penance, and all the other trappings of that old time religion but now in pagan, commie form. I realized that Christianity was a tried and true system for keeping people in line while allowing for the development of the most successful society in the history of mankind. The Greco Roman/Christian tradition is why we don’t (or at least didn’t used to) [bleep] in the streets and it is imperative that it be defended.

Just as many of the great classical Greeks and Romans weren’t all that devout, many biblical characters were a bit weak in their faith at times too. Some of the greatest were outright stinkers. David was a bloodthirsty lecher who sent Uriah off to be killed so he could nail his wife but God used him anyway. Saul of Tarsus used to persecute Christians before he wrote the user’s manual for the Christian church. Charles Martel was a scheming, Machiavellian type but stopped the Muslim invasion from Spain, and the Crusaders were a motley crew if there ever was one. The list goes on and on.

Many of the great men of Christianity were deeply flawed characters. This is seen as examples of redemption and God’s ability to use any tools available to see his will done. I think maybe it is also an example of men realizing that a stable structure is necessary for a society to flourish, understanding that Christianity provides that structure. So here I am. Turns out Paul was right. Regardless of what I ponder philosophically, I am convinced that this country needs a big ass dose of Christianity; the hardcore kind that roots out heretics and burns incorrigible blasphemers at the stake. Keep your doubts to yourself and do what’s right for society. Stare Aut Cadere Deus Vult.

Interesting , some of us "God Peddlers" have been blessed to see the Light.

Yowsa.

This is seen as examples of redemption and God’s ability to use ANYONE HE CHOOSES to see his will done. I think maybe it is also an example GOD realizing that a stable structure is necessary for a society to flourish, understanding that Christianity provides that structure. So here I am. Turns out Paul was right.

FIXT

Kind of like how GOD grabbed Trump and put him on the stump, huh?

Of course, it's just a coincidence the World opposes GODS plan and there couldnt be an intelligent plan working to destroy the shining city on the hill called America.

Surely HE couldnt have been correct in saying our battle is not with flesh and blood but with the spirit of evil.

I'll plug this in here.[Linked Image]

Churches are filled with people that vote for Pro-abortion Democrats and advocate for gay marriage.

It is very rare that religion trumps pop culture on a large scale. The commies own pop culture and that is the root cause of our country’s problems.

God has often used evil people to accomplish his works. He used a blasphemous Babylonian empire to chastise the Jews to drive them back to him. He later did it again using the Romans but they still haven't come back. They will in the end but who knows when that will be.

Churches are full of non-believers. That's the ONLY thing that will save you - believing. No amount of good work will do it. It's faith and faith alone. At some point, the visible church will be all non-believers while the true believing church will be under ground. When that happens, the non-believers will fall away. It won't be pretty.

Mother Theresa herself was filled with doubts, this from someone who had ostensibly devoted her whole life to Christ.

Not that I would know, but a good church shouldn't expect you to leave your brain at the door.


I do believe the Ten Commandments are rules for happy living here on earth, never mind the Afterlife.

Fixt.

Zing

This.

Even if one doesn’t believe the Gospel, following Jesus’ teachings will make ones life better, and it will make one better at life. And who doesn’t want their life to be better; who doesn’t want to be better at life...?

Quite true. Look at Moses, he stuttered and needed Aaron to speak for him.

Some situations require a scalpel and others an anvil.

Are you content to stay under ground and cling to your eschatology? If the churches are full of non-believers (and apparently they are), drive them out. Reclaim the culture. Cat ladies, whores, commies, and sodomites are miserable people. Why should believers hide under ground and wait for the end? Sell yer cloak and buy a sword.

I’m a died in the wool militant Protestant still protesting. Aka Western Christian curmudgeon. Solas and all that.

That having been said, I wonder more and more at this modernistic separation of good works from faith. Is faith mere ascent to a set of beliefs? If one “truly believes”, and the definition of that has been debated for centuries, won’t there be actions that demonstrate that belief?

Is doubt as per the OP an unforgivable sin? Bible says there is only one and that isn’t it. What is more preferable; to say “I believe” and act like a worthless lech “sinning so that grace may abound” all week before begging forgiveness on Sunday, or for a person to step forward and say, “well I don’t know about all this not even sure it is for me to know, but a power greater than me has made it plain that I should follow a morality that roughly mimics the 10 commandments and I like a neighborhood full of people who do the same so I’ll rest my mind from big esoteric questions I can’t know and try to love my neighbor”?

Now it’s a false choice I know; I believe the historicity of Scripture AND seek to allow the Holy Spirit to form me into the likeness of Gods Son each day. The question, however, is valid.

Related... I always wonder what exactly the faith was that saved the thief on the cross? Surely he had more uncertainty that certainty?

Anyway...

I like Jordan Peterson’s question about what it means to “believe in God” and will assert more people could bear to ponder it.

Lots of people suffer from spiritual dryness. It's not a sin and it's not uncommon. It's part of the human condition.
Persevering through it is uncommon and brings about great blessings.

Good points - more and more I see an individual's relationship with God to be a very personal thing, to which organized religion is often a detriment. That is not to say that organized religion does not play a part in a person's relationship with God, but rather that it needs to be just a part of the relationship, not dictate how it must be structured.

OP, well stated and, at a minimum, good food for thought. I don't know who is right; but, it's good food for thought. I think John Adams said, I may be paraphrasing here, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other". It's just another point to ponder.

What do you call a collective group of people who are lying, greedy, covetous, cheating, lustful, porn watching, tax dodging, jealous, racist, judgmental, angry, lonely people who spend too much, drink too much, eat too much, worry too much, medicate too much, smoke too much, who gather together because they believe Jesus is the light of the world - and they need more light...?
You call em’ The Church.
Sinners are the very people that Jesus came for. And The Church is full of sinners. We ‘all’ fall into the ‘sinners’ category, regardless of whether or not one professes to be a ‘Christian’. But for The Church (and individual ‘Christians’ in particular) to cherry-pick which ‘sins’ they are going to be ‘outraged’ over is more than a little bit hypocritical. Jesus’ harshest words were reserved for hypocrites.