Philip Kledzik
“An Issue of the Heart”
authorphilipkledzik.books.officelive.com

Sure, I will add the introduction.

In answering your question, I see your point. My question assumes God’s existence and goes on from there. But of course, the Bible does the same thing (In the beginning, God…). So could it be argued that to begin understanding Scripture, one must believe in the existence of God?

I do, of course, believe that all the evidence points to God’s existence (even sin and evil), but I am not about to get into all of that right now.

By the way, I would love to read that book of yours. Did you get it published?

Is this not the fatal error? Does it not reveal that God is created in man’s image, rather than man being created in God’s?

I’m just curious. I wrote an entire 115 page book trying to defend Christianity (from any perspective) and spent countless hours trying to put myself in God’s shoes and the whole thing just fell apart for me. I realized that in order to put myself in God’s shoes, I was assuming that we thought alike. Then I realized that any explanation I came up with from this form of thinking would be nothing more than my own invention. And then it occurred to me that this is probably what happened with every Biblical author.

How is putting yourself in God’s shoes revealing of anything, other than that God is man’s projection of himself into the cosmos?

Oh, one other thing… could you perhaps include my introduction to the posts?

Thank you for commenting. I have read through your three posts several times, and am printing them off to share with some atheist friends of mine to see if they agree with you. I am sure I have missed some of your points, but I will continue to read and learn along with you.

I would argue that there is no such thing as reading the Bible at ‘face value.’ There is no such thing as ‘unbiased’ reading. Everybody, Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, etc., come to the Bible with a set of presuppositions, preconceptions, theological ideas, and life experiences through which we read Scripture. As some of these change and develop, our reading of Scripture changes.

I think God knew this, and so provided us with a book that could be read and studied by people of all cultures throughout history (this is one of my presuppositions). This doesn’t make him a poor communicator, but a master communicator. Will there be misunderstandings by various people in various times in various cultures? Absolutely. But the alternative was to make a book that was only meaningful to one group of people at one time in history. That would make God a poor communicator.

I mean, put yourself in God’s shoes. If you were God (assuming his existence) and you wanted to reveal yourself to all people of all cultures of all times, how would you do it? Writing a book that was meaningful only to 21st Century, Western, Scientific, Linear-logical minds would be a poor choice. I suppose God could have avoided the whole ‘book’ thing, and done something different, but then we really get into an area where misunderstandings would flourish. I’m not God, but considering God’s goals (there’s a western concept right there!), I’m just not sure He could have done it any differently.

Anyway, it’s my thoughts on the subject. I really appreciated your posts (and all the posts on de-conversion) as they make me think and really challenge my faith. Keep ‘em coming!

The “you” are my primary readers who have a particular “Christian” way of reading Scripture. Is the Christian understanding of Scripture “elitist”? I think any reading of Scripture can become elitist when we say “This is how Scripture is to be read and understood and everybody else’s way of reading is wrong.” Anybody can fall into this trap.

I do have a concern with your perspective. Keep in mind that my hermeneutic in school was to take Scripture as much at face value as necessary, because I expected that God had a message to communicate to me and I wanted to hear it. I also trusted that God was a good communicator. Is this too far fetched? Does it require an intelligent person with an ability to “nuance” their faith in order to understand what God says?

Isn’t the ability for a person to take the Bible the way I presented it evidence of God’s inability to communicate clearly? If so, how could someone like me trust anybody’s view on the Bible – including yours?

If the Bible taken at face value cannot be trusted, then Christianity is only for the elites who can nuance it just so.

The point to remember as you read Josh’s summary is that people do not read Scripture the same way you do. Probably, Josh presents a “reading” below which is far more common than the typical “Christian” way of reading Scripture.

Who may I ask is “you” in your statement? Were you referring to me? Or is there some elite group of individuals who happen to read the Bible correctly? And by correctly, I’m sure you mean turning a blind eye to many of the realities listed in the Bible.

What you must remember is that we de-converts, once read the Bible like “you” do. We believed it. We lived it. We cherished it. We loved the Word more than life itself. We read it cover to cover. Read books on it. Sang worship songs about it. However, one day the lights came on. We shed our tainted glasses which allowed for God’s atrocities, the contradictions, the mythical stories, the illogical thought patterns, etc. and began to view the book in a more realistic sense.

Many of us miss the days of blindly believing that God would protect us as he promised in Ps. 91 even though we see Christians die daily in tragedies, hurricanes, etc. If you browse the d-C blog, you’ll find many posts of contributors longing for their days of faith.. much like the character in the Matrix wanted back into the Matrix. However, it’s not possible. Once your eyes are open, you can never really go back.

So, if by “you” you mean those who live in denial, who willingly embrace contradictions and fallacies, then I have to say I’m glad I’m no longer counted in that number.

d-C