Theos-Talk Archives (September 1995 Message tl00222)

Daniel:

>It is sad when one reads so many compliments to a heart felt
>letter from someone declaring deconvertion.
>
>It is perversion.

That is a your view, taken as a follower of a particular belief
system. You'll never understand experiences and insights outside
that belief system until you let yourself "think differently",
until you let yourself stand aside from the rigid dogma that you
are trained in and consider ideas on their own merit.

>Obviously it is clear that the same arguments that caused his
>redirection are the same arguments used to validate the origin of
>the bible.

Apart from your belief system, you have to concede that his
experience of the deconversion was spiritual, uplifting, and
a step forward in his life. Your beliefs about what happened
and what it should mean are different from his actual experience.
Someone with his background might suggest that you, too, would
open up to the spiritual if you underwent "deconversion".

>For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened,
>and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become
>partakers with the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God
>and of the powers of the age to come,

I would suggest that "tasting of the heavenly gift" has nothing to
do with the experiencs that may come from belonging to any particular
religious sect, but rather from an inner spiritual awakening. This
is something you won't find in the Bible or any church, and there's
no preacher to tell you what to do. You have to *do it yourself,*
with the external crutch of an external authoritative religion or
deity.

>If they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they
>crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and PUT HIM TO AN
>OPEN SHAME.

It is never truly possible to fall away from the spiritual. If one
strays in one lifetime, there will come corrective karma leading
to a renewal of the spiritual in some future lifetime. It's too bad
that the early Christian Fathers decided to remove reincarnation
from the "official" belief system for the masses, because it would
have provided a much better explanation of the justice in life than
that of the Old Testament Jehovah, full of anger, vengance, and
all sorts of ignoble traits.

>No one here has honestly and openly investigated the validity
>of the New and Old Testament. And if you had, your rose colored
>glasses caused you to be blinded from the obvious.

An honest and open investigation includes all the religious books
of the world, regardless of the silly claims to absolute truth that
the various followers of different religions make about their
favorite books.

>There is SOOOOO much evidence that it baffles the intellect.
>Only the depraved mind could interpret less than
>accurate and the reprobate less than inspired.

I'd suggest that it would only be possible to see vast truths in a
single religious text, if one keeps blinders on, and never honestly
considers the obvious truths in other religious texts. One's personal
view that a particular text contains exclusive truth is just that:
a personal view. The universality of spiritual truth is obvious for
those without the narrow focus of religious dogmatism.

>Will anyone here ask for the evidence to be presented?

You're asking to prove to us that one source of religous writings is
an exclusive source, when we've already seen that religious truth can
be found universally.

>Remember, FAITH is the substance of things not seen and the EVIDENCE
>of what is hoped for.

Faith comes from a living connection with one's inner spiritual nature,
and *not* from rigid obedience to an external religious authority.

-- Eldon