Christians are actually not letting "God" speak for himself.

The discussion that inspired this blog (as a reply) started here:

 ​ @penelopepitstop3751 

Hi again. Regarding: 1. (my words; from earlier) "We can either prioritize the courageous pursuit of truth no matter where those discoveries lead OR we can prioritize loyalty to a narrative." --- (penelope's words)
AMEN! I agree! 100% I love this. ---- (My reply) If you love it so much, why not adopt it? ------------------------------------------------------ 2. (penelope's words) "When we pursue the truth (sincerely) with no reservations (truth without man's perspective or persuasions), humbling ourselves to whatever the truth is, relentless in our pursuit, God will show up." -- (My reply)

I am trying to be gentle about this. First, I'm not even sure what you mean by "no reservations". When we have "reservations", the root word of that is "reserve". It means we are setting a limit to what can or can't go into a certain space. If I say "I want to know what the truth is, but I refuse to believe that Satanism is the true religion", then I am adopting a reservation. If I say "I want to know the truth is, but I refuse to believe that the truth is that it's good to eat babies", that too is a reservation. So I'm not sure if you really meant that you literally had no reservations. Was there ever a time when you remember not believing in Jesus? Did you assume there IS a Jesus, and then pray TO Jesus, and then get confirmation? Because those would count as reservations. That wouldn't be an open "wherever the truth leads" exercise. It would be a specifically guided and limited exercise; where a person psyches themselves into believing what someone else wanted them to believe. Next, you said "truth without man's perspective or persuasions" But that's literally the only thing in bibles. It's 100% man's perspectives and persuasions. Next, you said "relentless in our pursuit". See. This is a problem too. Nobody would need to chase after a Super-Being. There would be no hiding and no seeking. If any all-knowing, all-powerful super-Being wanted anyone to know a thing, those humans would instantly know the thing. If I want someone to know the thing, and if it will hurt someone if they don't know the thing, ... then I'll directly, personally, immediately tell them the thing. Why? Because that's what it means to be personally responsible. Also, the entire thing I said (that you claimed, there, to agree with) is the opposite (exact opposite) of everything else you said. Surely you realize that. Worse yet, in order for you to pretend that "humbling ourselves to whatever the truth is, relentless in our pursuit, God will show up.", ... That automatically (yes; automatically) means that you are making grossly unfair and mean assumptions about all the billions of theists in the world who have an incompatibly different conceptualization of god/s compared to yours. They are doing the thing you said always results in a person becoming a Christian. And yet, that did not result in them becoming a Christian. The entity you believe in didn't show up. For some, Jehovah's-witness-God showed up. For some, Catholic-God showed up. For some, Muslim-Allah showed up. For some, the Wiccan "All" showed up. For some, the Hindu god(s) showed up. For some, a Deistic god showed up. For some, an ancient Stoicism-God showed up. For some, a pantheistic sort of "god" showed up. For some, no gods showed up. For some, their own self turned out to be "god". etc. etc.. Now, you can assume and imagine either: they did something wrong or they are something wrong. In fact, you must assume such things. In fact, you did assume such things. You directly told me so. But that is unfair and it's mean. People who were/are every bit as humble as you ended up with different conclusions. The method you said always works a certain way (your certain way) does not actually work that way. This point is not a theory or an opinion. It's a fact. You are wrong. If you were right, they'd all be Christians. Meanwhile, everything you are deferring to as "God's words" are actually the words of men.
Turtles didn't write that stuff. Neither did Fairies, Leprechauns, or a Sky Wizard. Men wrote every word. And where did they get those words? From other men. Where did those men get those words? Same. People just kept repeating, adapting, and evolving pieces of ideas that they each wove into continually-evolving religious stories. I understand that you think a deity told some random dudes in the Bronze and Iron ages what to write. But you have no objective reason to think so. Some fallible humans merely said so. They planted the seed of a conceptualized figure into your mind. They watered it. They fed it. They gave it words and character. They made it real for you. But it's unique to you, because many of the fine details and all of the personal nuance originate from/are expressions of

your own unique mind. This is why no two people have ever mentioned the same "God". It's the same reason why "No Two People Have Ever Read The Same Book". That's how it works for all the different types of theist. Men create the concept and then seed it into other people's heads. But what grows there and gets called "God" is unique to every person's garden of mind. Some of it is pretty; depending on the perceiver. And some of it is useful;
depending on what use a person has for it. But it's still just humans coming up with all of it.
I'm not assuming that's the case.
I accidentally discovered that's the case.
After that, I looked further into it; to sort out of the facts from the fictions.
I'm not saying I sorted out every single point of minutia in that mess. But I have sorted out an impressive amount; much more than enough to verify Bibles are not at all the words of anyone worthy of the title "God". I understand how certain you feel. But certainty is a feeling. And feelings lie. You feel it so strongly that your brain can't tell the difference between that feeling vs knowing. So the mind mistakes it for knowledge. They teach you to rely on the feeling.

And that's a problem. The thoughts and feelings you call "the Holy Spirit" working in-and-through you are your thoughts and feelings. Fundamentalist churches teach members to not recognize those as their own. As a result, Christian fundamentalists do not take proper ownership and responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings (the ones they trained you to put in the mental God-box). You've been taught to mentally encapsulate those thoughts and feelings (along with other men's thoughts and feelings; like the stuff written in bibles, and your pastors interpretations) into a protected box marked "DO NO QUESTION ANYTHING IN THIS BOX. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE WRONG. BECAUSE THESE ARE THE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS THAT YOUR GOD SENT INTO/UNTO YOU". That automatically means that there is an ever-growing collection of STUFF in that mental box that you will never truly question. You will never recognize the stuff that's yours. Nor will you will never recognize the stuff that came from just-some-guys. That means that: Whenever anything you ascribe to your "God"-faith is at issue, you automatically can't participate an a fair/equitable conversation with most other humans (everyone operating outside of your religious paradigm). Why not? Because you've poured mental cement into those parts of your brain, and because the entire box is something you stand (mentally) above us on; as the "moral authority" in the room. "God" is a voice from within that you fail to recognize as your own. As a result, you speak with all the same entitlement as: a clinical Narcissist would. More specifically: as someone whose words it would be "wrong" to doubt, refute, dismiss (or find serious fault with); - especially when you are trying to get someone to unreasonably doubt their own mind. The only real differences between that vs regular old Narcissists: 1. You have a "God said so" premise. and 2. You might not actually be a Narcissist. I'm just going to assume you aren't. But since your religious culture trains everyone to emulate that disorder, that makes it usually-impossible for outsiders to know for sure. As a result, the "real facts" are always: whatever you say they are. Anything that calls your perceptions into question (specifically: about anything you crutch your identify and worth upon) must automatically be wrong;

-even if the speaker is extremely-more qualified on the subject matter. and - even if the strength of their arguments is far stronger. Look at what's happening in the video we are commenting under. That young woman ignored his points, and then kept acting like he never even made those points. She was also clearly assuming he spent his college, university, and professional career ... screwing off. So here she comes, mere minutes into adulthood, with no formal training under her belt, schooling not only Dan Maclellan but also thousands of his peers across the world. And why? Because apparently they TOO just spent decades screwing off in school and at work. -- Besides being textbook Dunning-Kruger, all of that gaslighting is a subtle form of psychological violence. She just kept gaslighting him (and his audience, and her own audience) "for Jesus".

If you dig deep down enough, you'll discover that an unearned sense of superiority (hiding under a thick layer of badly faked humility) supporting it all; because: In this world, there are billions of earnest believers in different sects, religions, cults, etc.. But according to people in your religion/cult, ... Everyone who isn't in a tiny subset of Christianity has been tricked. But not "you" (any random fundamentalist). That's how great you are; assuming you take any credit for choosing to be in whichever religion and subset you're in. Whatever character traits everyone else suffers from that made them so vulnerable to being tricked ... you obviously must not lack. How can we know that? Because you couldn't be tricked. Now, I realize that I too think 99% of humans are currently being tricked and I'm not. But there are some very important differences in play here. You are obligated to assume and judge them all as being character-deficient; worse yet, so-much-so that they deserve to die (or worse). You also think they are "freely choosing" to be not humble enough, not modest enough, not loving enough, or some such virtue. Why? Because your religion claims that the "separating" (wheat from chaff; sheep from goats, etc) is determined by: Every individual's exercise of free will. That means that everyone who hears enough of "the message" and either * misunderstands, * rejects it, or * doesn't care about it ... is assumed to be "free willing" those positions AS expressions of bad moral character. That would (automatically) mean that all "real Christians" have superior moral character compared to all those other people. -If your religion is correct about all that. You MUST take that position. Because here are the only alternatives: If you admit they were tricked via no fault of their own, then you won't be able to justify the idea of your "God" holding their incorrect faith against them. Whereas, if you do NOT think your deity will hold that against them, then that's the same as admitting nobody needs to be a Christian for anything important. But you can't just come right out and openly admit to all of that. A good salesman knows there is such a thing as "too much honesty" and so "let's not look too closely at the fine print". And that brings me back to all that gaslighting that you are are contractually obligated to perform. Someone gaslighted into you into all of that. But they knew they couldn't always be there to keep your thoughts in line with theirs. So they trained you to gaslight yourself every day. Going back further in the chain, someone did that to them, and someone earlier in the chain did the same, etc etc.. In fact, we don't even have to trace that back very far to discover where it started for most persons of color.

You can pretend you are really open to being proven wrong. But you've already decided you can't be wrong. So that makes you a Bad Faith Actor in any such dialogue. I am open to changing my mind about anything. All of my 'perceptions', for me, are: just that. Perceptions. Everything I perceive to be true is evaluated on probabilities. It's all based on data I have collected (and continue to collect). Those data points are evaluated per my best currently-available mental faculties. I'm not faulting you for having a feeling of certainty. I enjoy that feeling too. I'm not faulting you for having perceptions that seem real and are accepted as real. I have perceptions that seem real to me too, and which I accept as real. But there are some very important differences. Among those: 1. How I scale my confidence with the evidence. 2. How I refuse to take a personal oath of loyalty to any stories (or story elements). Earlier, you admitted this is a good point; inferring it's something you adhere to as well. But then you spent every WORD you spoke after that ... expressing your oath of loyalty to a narrative. It's like you have multiple personalities and they all have a different take on things.

3. How well informed I am about: many/various matters of health-vs-unhealth. 4. How scientifically literate I am (I don't set the curve. But I do pretty well) and how I apply that to my view of the world and myself. 5. How much (Not perfectly; but pretty well) I manage to avoid using logical fallacies. 6. I manage to avoid invoking a double-standard. 7. I accept full ownership and responsibility for every thoughts, every feelings, and ever action. I am not the sole cause of the thoughts and feelings I experience. Nobody is. But I recognize those as being: my own (once they happen). As such, I am fully/solely responsible for what I do with those. I'm never going to say "Hey, don't blame me. I'm just the messenger". Nor am I ever going to give my thoughts/feelings more weight than yours by invoking "because a God said so". I abide by the same standards I expect of others. Thus, one of my personal mottos is "Step to me as an equal. Or don't step to me at all." I just have to remember that Christians can't abide by this. Their religion won't let them.

-- I understand what it's like for you. I used to be under that effect (<-- link). It all works exactly the same way for people in other other fundamentalist, authoritarian religions/cults. They all enjoy the same "spirit"; the same experiential states and attitudes. They are all operating per the same psychological mechanisms as all other equally 'certain' believers in different religions and sects. ------------------------------------------- (penelope's words)
"Dying to ourselves" -- (me) I do that every day. We all do; to varying degrees but continually. Even if we try not to, it will still happen. -------------------------------------- (penelope's words)
"... because in the truth is being born again. "

-- (me) The truth is: We all do this too, every new day; no matter if we want to or not. We are, all of us, living storms; racing across a shared sky, as everything that defines us is constantly changing and redefining us. Not even The Ship Of Theseus could compete with all the changes that we must all keep going through. At least that ship will look and function the same every time a piece is replaced. We won't. ------------- (penelope's words) "Crucifying the flesh" -- (me) Or you could learn to have more respect for the "flesh" you believe you "God" both: gifted to you and fashioned in his own likeness. --------------------------------------- (penelope's words) "...and being born in the Spirit." -- (me) That depends on what you mean by "Spirit". ----------------------------------------- (penelope's words) "We know this flesh is going to die but our soul lives on forever" -- (me) That is actually not what Bibles teach. Anyone could point out the same problem. They just need to be an objective reader. I'll let a qualified Bible scholar explain. You won't learn from it. You aren't allowed to. But I'll share it anyways. ---------------------- (penelope's words) "... which is why knowing the truth now and pursuing it now is crucial." -- No. And this is honestly one of the most disgusting things Christian and Islamic fundamentalists get wrong. Love is patient. Eternal love is eternally patient. My life is not a gameshow. My children's lives are not a gameshow. The very notion of an end-game buzzer where everyone is out of chances to "get it right" (whatever "it" is. Any premise for a final judgement whatsoever) is malevolently unfair. One person dies 30 seconds before they reach the "age of accountability". Another dies 30 seconds after. Both of them heard your Religious' subset's version of "the message" while they were growing up. Another person dies at age 104. But they became your idea of a proper Christian at age 94. Another person dies at age 84 without being in your "faith"-type BUT they only heard sloppy expressions of "the message" from people that you yourself wouldn't consider to be "real" Christians. Another person converts to your type/sub-type of Christianity at age 85. Billions of other people lived and died in cultures where they heard nothing about your religion. Billions more live and die in cultures where they heard of Christianity as a general idea. But most of those people get indoctrinated into Hinduism, or Islam, or Native American spiritualty-narratives, etc. before Christian missionaries get to 'take a shot' at converting them. As a result of their social/cultural conditioning, your religious narrative doesn't seem natural or reasonable to the people who were raised to think in different ways. Catholicism is not LESS crazy than Scientology. Scientology is not MORE crazy than Protestantism. But what determines how likely-vs-unlikely a religious narrative will sound to the listener ... is usually determined by how familiar-vs-alien the ideas are. And THAT is determined, in large part, by the culture and family a person grew up in (or around). Other factors that determine how credible a religious idea/sale-pitch will seem when a person hears it include: How much sleep they had that week. How good of quality that sleep was. Personality quirks, personality disorders, and specific facets of mental illness vs mental health. What else? Raw intelligence. emotional intelligence, hopes, fears, dreams. coping skills, blood chemistry, recent diet, exercise, mood, past traumas, how well they've healed form those traumas, how much sense they could (or couldn't) make of those traumas, the language they think with, how various words in their vocabulary are neurologically wired (mentally associated) with other concepts, prior/formative life experiences, if they feel literally hot or cold, if they seat they are sitting in is hard or cushiony, etc etc Meanwhile, the person will have absolutely no awareness about how most of those things are affecting their cognitions. Meanwhile, exactly none of those things are caused by being "rebellious" or "non-humble" in regards to any deity. What seems obvious to you only seems obvious to you because all the same factors; factors which happened differently to you. *Countless factors of biology (including neurophysiology) * impacted by personal experiences (including the experiences generated by merely existing in the environments you found yourself in) ... determined WHAT you heard, how it sounded, and how you felt when you heard it. All of that determined what you perceived as good, bad, important, unimportant, credible, noncredible, real, or unreal. Each layer of perceptions influences the next layer that forms. This is why scientific literacy is a threat to fundamentalist religions. The people who profit (off of their followers' faiths) do not want you learning anything that fosters growth beyond their simplistic explanations for why people think and feel as they do. --------------------------- (penelope's words) "Satan" --- is a fictional character created by Christians. They misunderstood who and what the "serpent" was in Genesis. They also misunderstood who and what "ha-satan" was in the Hebrew religion. "Satan" "The Devil" is a Christianity idea. And it's ridiculous. Something seeming real to you doesn't mean it's real. -------------------------------- (penelope's words) "... has counterfeited everything of God's." -- (me) You can say that. But Christianity did not introduce concepts for other religions to twist. Christianity stole and altered concepts they got from other religions. Meanwhile, IF any human, in the entire Earth, has ever had a real conversation with any Universe-Creating Super-Entities, you and I have no way know about it. Rumors don't count as verification. ------------------------------ (penelope's words) "The best way to recognize the counterfeits is to know the authentic." -- (me) Yep. The Jewish Rabbi "Tovia Singer" makes this HIS point, every time he explains to Christians how Christianity gets everything about the Hebrew texts and Hebrew "God" wrong. He streams all of it on his channel. And he always, always, always proves the Christians fail to "know the authentic". If his religion is TRUE, then yours is false. If his religion is FALSE, then yours is still false. ----------------------------- (penelope's words) "Satan is real" -- (me) Yep. Him and Darth Vader; always messing it up for everyone. ------------------------------ (penelope's words) "and really active upon the earth, stealing, killing and destroying" -- (me) In that case, it's funny how he so often uses Christianity for that. ------------------------------ (penelope) ".. but looking so beautiful whilst doing it." -- (me) It couldn't hurt. ------------------------------- (penelope) We are easily deceived without the power of God and His infinite wisdom. -- (me) All religions/cults say that. But they/you are just using that statement to prop up a lie. It's like saying "We are easily deceived without the power of The King of the Leprechauns and His infinite wisdom.". You first had to assume a specific magical being is real. You trusted in the humans who told you about him. And then you set out to confirm that bias. But you can't have it both ways. Saying "We are easily deceived without the power of God and His infinite wisdom." means: "To avoid being deceived, we must take a personal vow of loyalty to a STORY about "God". And then let that guide all of our discoveries." ----------------------------------- (penelope) Thank you for sharing. May GOD bless you richly with knowledge, truth and wisdom! (the AUTHENTIC) --- (me) No human has ever been qualified to relay a perfect message; not from any source. They would just mess it up and than blame their audience for being unimpressed. "How DARE you wrong GOD by being unconvinced that he sent me here to tell you something he couldn't be bothered to tell you personally?!!!" -- -- Never send a human to do a God's job.