Please. It is juvenille to blame religion as the source of oppression and tyranny. These are the basic states of man: to oppress and terrorize others. It did not take religion to do that through the majority of instances in history.
Rather, Christian Faith helps people overcome the oppression and tyranny.
I appreciate the compliment, however I don’t want to mislead. The Bible IS the word of God. It is not just a collection of stories. True, it is a man-created Document of historical truths and guidance from God. But everything in the Old Testament points to the Coming of Jesus Christ, who is God!
When we see the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah for instance, we see how a depraved people suffer God’s wrath, but how Abraham appeals to God for reprieve for Sodom if even twenty righteous can be found. Thus people who repented were spared until its ultimate destruction.
There are countless stories of the Jews being chosen and then rejection God and the being saved again.
Then The New Testament gives the New covenant when Jesus Redeems us for our sins.
You speak much of needing Proof and logic as the basis of determining reality. That is true for the tangible before us. God has given us reason to find temporal and spatial truths in our world. He has given us free will to choose good from Evil.,
He has also given us faith – because there are things that are not visible to us, but are real: like his grace and mercy.
I am not sure I am following all your responses, but I did want to put out there that Faith and God are real. Embracing them is a path to a better life. Faith and Reason work together as well. After decades as an atheist, it was by reason that I opened my heart to the Holy Spirit and found my faith. But I had to humble myself to a higher higher authority – God.
Well, I have found that everyone worships something. Each of us needs something to fill that “God Shaped Hole in our hearts”. Something will always be worshipped. It will either be the the Divine, or a human substitute that always equates to self-aggrandizement in the end. Man likes to believe he can “perfect” society, with just the right centrally planned construct. OR, he knows he can’t, but likes to con others with the idea that Utopia is just around the corner, if the “right” people are in charge.
Thus, Dictatorships, Collectivism (socialism, fascism) and rule of man over rule of law based on natural, (God-Given) rights. When Men think that other men can “grant them their rights” ,then they are often alarmed when people try to oppress those rights. This is how Atheism always turns out: Rule of Man based on their arbitrary whims.
These differences are not meaningful. They are merely different numbering. There is no numbering in scripture. So this is a whiny complaint by atheists seeking to damage faith.
Please. It is juvenille to blame religion as the source of oppression and tyranny. These are the basic states of man: to oppress and terrorize others. It did not take religion to do that through the majority of instances in history.
Rather, Christian Faith helps people overcome the oppression and tyranny.