Has religion served its purpose?

@fmf said
But, KellyJay, I didn't believe I was a hamburger, a dog, a woman, a horse, or an angel. I believed I had "a relationship with God through Jesus Christ".

Did you have one, or were you mistaken?

@kellyjay said
The phony, fake, heart far from God so-called Christians are the merely walking around without ever coming to God, their religion, their community of like-minded people, everyone can spot, they act one way in some places and another in other places, there is nothing authentic about them.

What does this have to do with me?

@kellyjay said
Did you have one, or were you mistaken?

It seemed very real to me back then.

Obviously, I am an atheist now.

Doesn't your "relationship with God through Jesus" seem very real to you?

@fmf said
But, KellyJay, I didn't believe I was a hamburger, a dog, a woman, a horse, or an angel. I believed I had "a relationship with God through Jesus Christ".

How often were you praying?

How often were you reading the Holy Bible?

Were you interested in hearing sermons?

Did you enjoy fellowshipping with other Christians in venues like church and Bible study?

Those are good questions to consider, imo, when trying to determine if you had a relationship with Jesus Christ.

@kellyjay said
The sad thing about them is they are all self-deceived; nothing about them is real; it is all just a head game; they have just enough religion to make them think they are good with God without ever getting good with God.

How do you, or how does anyone, know for sure this isn't true about you?

@fmf said
It seemed very real to me back then.

Obviously, I am an atheist now.

Doesn't your "relationship with God through Jesus" seem very real to you?

What caused you to abandon your faith?

That’s another important question to consider when trying to determine if you had a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Did you just wake up one day and no longer believe? If that’s the case, I’d question whether you were a Christian to begin with.

@fmf said
How do you, or how does anyone, know for sure this isn't true about you?

If you have to ask that question, I would say (could be wrong of course) that you did not ever have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

You’re asking how he knows he has a relationship with Jesus Christ? How did you know? That’s the question. You said you had a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. How did you know?

@fmf said
I truly believed I had Christ in my life and that belief included an unconditional acceptance of what I [at that time] was convinced the Bible told all Christians about the identity of Christ and the significance of his life and death. You are struggling to substantiate your assertion that I was "never a Christian".

I am not asserting anything about you; some started with Christ and walked away from Him. Reality shows us if we can be turned away, we were never really there, if the sorrows of this life, even the pleasures of this life are more important to us than Christ, then this life will reveal it. Picking up our crosses and following Him, putting Him first overall, means that come what may be abiding in Him, He will see us through, this life may be a roller coaster of good and bad, but He is a sure foundation, standing on a sure foundation means the ground underneath our feet isn't shifting sand that we cannot rely on.

Our Christian life, the most important part of it is God, if it is us then we are playing church, we put our faith in faith, we are going through the motions. Sadly the best part of Christianity is God, and we put so many things between us and Him, or we think to ourselves if I were God I'd do it this way so God isn't real because He doesn't.

Luke 8
4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

@kellyjay said
I am not asserting anything about you;

Aren't you?

@kellyjay said
Our Christian life, the most important part of it is God, if it is us then we are playing church, we put our faith in faith, we are going through the motions. Sadly the best part of Christianity is God, and we put so many things between us and Him, or we think to ourselves if I were God I'd do it this way so God isn't real because He doesn't.

Yes, I believed all this kind of stuff too, back then, like you currently do.

@fmf said
So why are you contorting yourself to assert that I was "never a Christian"? And why are you asking me if "Jesus Christ is in [my] life"? I am an agnostic atheist as you know full well.

I believe you are an atheist, you deny God, and your little spin on adding agnostic to your belief system, okay fine, sure. I'm not the one jumping through hoops here; that would be you; you were once this now that, the two are incompatible with each other. You are the one stressing two things that cannot be true at that same are. Either Christ was in you, either you had a relationship with God, or you didn't, right now you say it cannot be real for me because it wasn't for you, which tells me, it wasn't for you, it was a label you gave yourself, all the way up to when you took on another label which is a contradiction to the first one you had. All the contorting here is you, I'm not the one asserting things about your life, you are.

@fmf said
Yes, I believed all this kind of stuff too, back then, like you currently do.

Sounds to me like you’re trying to weaken Kelly Jay’s faith in God.

I don’t think these are sincere questions at all, particularly in the way you frame them, trying to equate yourself with him.

@pb1022 said
You said you had a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. How did you know?

Because of my faith. I was convinced I had a relationship with God, just like KellyJay [still] is. I have a feeling you don't understand the actual point KellyJay are disputing. How many times KellyJay goes to church or prays or how many times I went to church or prayed is neither here nor there.

@pb1022 said
Sounds to me like you’re trying to weaken Kelly Jay’s faith in God.
.

Not at all. This is a Sprituality Forum not a Christian Forum. His faith seems extremely strong to me. We're all bound to find ourselves on different sides of issues in a community like this.

@fmf said
Because of my faith. I was convinced I had a relationship with God, just like KellyJay [still] is. I have a feeling you don't understand the actual point KellyJay are disputing. How many times KellyJay goes to church or prays or how many times I went to church or prayed is neither here nor there.

Yeah it is.

Because if you weren’t communicating with God through prayer and reading His Word and if you didn’t enjoy worshipping God then you didn’t have a relationship with Him.

What do you think constitutes having a relationship with God?