Religion

My reply to another blogger

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After I had written my post about “my walk with Jesus” I received notice that another blogger though my post was awesome enough to like it
But on visiting that blogger’s blog run by Robert, I found it to be Atheist in content, as its content and reply comments made by Robert were criticism about Christianity
So I commented on his blog and this is what I wrote

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I found it strange that you came to my blog post about “my walk with Jesus” and liked my post and yet in your blog you write so much criticism about Christianity and in the process denying Christ
As without Jesus Christ there would have never have been any Christianity
You also limited the discussion to Christians and ignoring the Jews!
By doing that you miss out the 1st part of the Bible the Old Testament which belonged to the Jewish people long before the New Testament – also Jesus was born into their faith and only later on after his death did Christianity start
As the Old Testament is where the story of creation of man’s as unique is told, and his domination over all other creatures
You say Christians cannot accept reality, well the reality is Christians are human and every human being is such capable of good or evil and yes I include myself
You too are just as capable of good or evil, whatever you choose you are still capable of either
Yes the church and its leader of the past have been guilty of suppressing the truth, but not Christianity itself only those who were meant to represent the faith

As to evolution being supported by evidence, but it lack any reasoning to why the whole process should have taken place
I suggest you read my post https://storybookwriter.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/a-question-of-faith/

My walk with Jesus

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Sometime ago I was asked by someone write an article for the church newsletter, it was suggested I write about my journey in life with God

As you will see I titled it my walk with Jesus, although it’s been more of a meander than a walk.
As to the straight and narrow path of my journey, all too often that straight path has been side tracked – twisted and diverted, sorry about that Lord I am just human with all our short comings.

The thing is Jesus and I go back a long way we grew up together – well kind of, I was told years ago I attended Sunday school although I have no memory of that
But I suppose some of the lessons must have sunk in, it wasn’t until I went to secondary school I began learn about God and creation with was taught through Bible readings

This may sound dated but in those days schools read passages of the Bible every morning at assembly, starting at the very beginning of creation with Genesis
I’m unsure of the length of time before they got to the New Testament and the stories of Jesus, but somehow it seemed as if I at least was being allowed to be present at His birth – through the power of imagination of course

Continuing to watch Him grow and mature later on into sinless man, experiencing with Him the trials and tribulations of His life, only to be restricted by my imagination to turn the spoken word into vivid images
I experience an intense feeling of sadness and anger and frustration, at the way His own disciples turn away from Him, and how such cruelty was inflicted on Him before He was taken from our world
But of course that thankfully was not the end of His story, even though His disciples failed to understand this and they didn’t even recognise Him until their eyes were opened
Although I considered myself a Christian and Jesus as a close friend, it wasn’t until much later on in my life I accepted Him as my Saviour; He still remains a true friend even when I am not

A friend who is always ready to listen and help me and advise me, with what most of the time must seem like so trivial matters to Him, yet He is patient and understanding
May God touch your hearts Bless you all, at least as much as God has blessed me

A Question of Faith

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This is my update about a group of videos on YouTube, uploaded by a group of Atheists, who run a live phone in debate programme, and video them so they can get a wider audience watching

Who ask for believers to phone and have discussion about why they believe, and then proceed to try to make the believer seem silly or stupid or blinded by what they term fairy stories

Even going as far as stating the there is no proof that Jesus actually lived at all, and boldly claiming there is no heavily supreme god

They also question why the believer thinks the Bible is true and ask what proof the believer can offer

But when any believer say “it’s by faith I believe”, the Atheists disregard this by saying to the believer they need to wake up to reality

So why do I continue to watch these videos you may well ask, because those Atheist radio phone in programmes only serve to make me more determined to prove them wrong, even at times I can see valid arguments against religion as a whole

 

As there have been many occasions in history that Christianity has been used in a self-righteous way by a man’s vanity to be superior over of the races

Killing or enslaving many others in the name of Christ, although this was totally wrong and against Christ’s teaching, this was because of man’s inability to interpret capital God’s will

The Pharisees of the Old Testament often by adding to their own regulations which became burdensome to the people they were meant to be teaching

Pharisees well-known for this form of self-righteousness, Jesus frequently chastised them for almost completely turning away from the rules that there have been given by God

As to the remark by the atheists that Jesus was never born and the story of his birth history as another fairy story within the holy Bible which according to them is full of for fairy stories

Many are the atheist’s claim that the holy Bible has been proven to be wrong and it was written by nomadic tribes of a superstitious nature and therefore has no truth in it in

However this argument by the atheist’s falls short Internet the Bible is in two sections, the first being the Old Testament and the other the New Testament

New Testament was written by the apostles, including the devout zealous Jew, Paul who before he became a Christian put many of Christ’s followers to death until the day Jesus appeared to him until the day he would accept Christ as his saviour

 

As to the atheists statement that Jesus was never even born, and purely a fictional character they failed to provide any reason why stories of Jesus

Why would anyone produce such stories and include them in what was to become the New Testament of the Holly Bible book?

Furthermore if Jesus was not in life had never been born and lived and died on the cross or tree as explained in the gospels, then how is it possible that so many people’s lives have been transformed when it pray to Jesus coming to you, into their lives?

For example the founder of the salvation army William Booth was stronger convinced that the word of god needed to be taken to those who needed the gospels taught to them and he went into the east end of London which was in those days unsuitable place to go preaching

As there were many vices were rife, also there was no compassion within that community

Even so he went ahead and preached frequently although there was great opposition to his and his speaking and all did not go well but he persisted

Overtime conversions to the faith began and grew, for many would transform from their worthless and pointless lives into more fulfilled and happier lives

Even in these present days, many lives have been totally transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, after accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour

 

When I was young and foolish, I never knew my heart

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This is the first line of a song I wrote, which I mention further on in this article
I was brought up as a Christian, I was told by my mother I went to Sunday school even though I don’t remember that, but I do remember school ensembles
School in those days was where the Holy Bible was read aloud by the headmaster, I’m unsure how many other boys listen, but I found the stories fascinating and believable
This may have been due to my Sunday school lessons, I guess some of those must have stuck in my memory more than I thought
Later on in my youth, I also heard other stories about fictional people, who had become legends and touched my impressionable mind so they became my heroes
Sometimes later around the 1960s, I acquired an interest in science fiction and bought many “strange tales of the unexpected” comics
It would not be until many years later in my young adult life, I would become curious enough to start reading the Holy Bible and much later on after doing a scripture Bible study and decided to get baptised
I got to a point in my studying the “word” I could find passages for all kinds of situations without effort, but sadly my enthusiasm for reading and studying the Bible lost its appeal or I got too distracted
Perhaps as a result, even after a short while away from studying the Bible, I found even though I tried I no longer had that ability to find suitable passages
My one saving grace was the Hymns I had learnt from my school days, even though I really did not appreciate their power, which I will explain more about later on
Shamefully I grew further away from any worship or study, not even allowing myself time to pray and more importantly to listen for answers
This was a very dark time in my life, one that led me to experiment with things best left alone, that only gave fleeting pleasure, then emptiness inside
I found that giving into self-indulgences only dragged me further down into a dark depressive lonely place, void of hope love or joy
I’m unsure how long this period of time lasted, in my desperation I used a song I wrote as a prayer but that was more of a plea for help
Our heavenly father graciously listened and forgave and lifted me up
Even though I still allow myself to entertain strange thoughts and visit Agnostic discussion television programs that they recorded and uploaded to YouTube videos, which plant seeds of doubt in my mind, as they demand that callers provide proof that the Bible is true and what proof do we Christians have the there is a heavenly god
My response would now be, that I have no real proof, except my own experiences, for there have been many people in the past who have written songs of praise and Hymns
When sung they lift up our flagging spirits, and our hopes and fill us with a love so deep and perfect that it is proof enough for all Christian believers

No disbeliever or atheist or anyone else can rob us of this precious gift, if we don’t allow them too

Life without Religion

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To begin with, allow me to explain I have been a Christian all of my life, and this year I will be 67 years old, I was christened as  a baby at a local church, and later went there for Sunday school, although I have no memory of this

Later on, as a child, I attended a local school, where every morning pupils had to attend the morning assembly, where passages of the bible were read out by the headmaster

I was fascinated by these stories, perhaps this was due to my earlier Sunday school lesson and a vivid imagination

I was able to picture the scenes depicted in my mind, so those stories and the characters became as real to me as everyday people to the extent that I never doubted the truth of the bible

Time passed and soon I was leaving school and began looking for a job, a place of work which wasn’t easy as I had no idea what work I wanted to do

My only thought was I wanted to do something using my hands, which is what I told my carers officer, much to the amusement of other boys at school when I told them what I had said

I won’t bore you with the exact details of all the jobs I started, sufficient to say there where I didn’t last that long employed

For assorted reasons I was dismissed for being unsuitable or found myself unable to work in noisy environments

I suppose thinking back it was at that time when I began to forget my interest in bible stories and any belief  I had acquired in my school days

Life goes on and time past more quickly than it seems to do, the next milestone in my life was to be when I got married to a young girl of 19 ten years young than myself

This event took place in Hall Green Methodist Church, as we had invited 150 guests and needed a church large enough to seat them all and it also had a hall for the reception afterwards

So it was on June 12th 1982 we were married and started our new life together in a small one-bedroom house locally, life was not a bed of roses far from it, as my new wife suffers from epileptic seizures

Although I knew in advance about the condition, it really didn’t prepare me for the struggle and heart ace of watching helplessly when my wife went into major fits, not to mention all the medication I had to get used to organizing for her

Sometime during our 1st year of marriage which was hard to deal with, a young couple came calling that belonged to the Jehovah’s witness group

I was desperate for the company at the time, even though I didn’t admit it even to myself, so I invited them in even though they immediately began preaching about serving the right god, I listen and replied when the occasion arose

Drawing on my past knowledge of the bible, I remember shaking at times unsure why though, they continued for many weeks to come until maybe someone in higher authority decided to send two other JW’s

These were two ladies in place of the married couple who came first, these ladies were pleasant enough but somehow I was unable to feel at ease in the same way as before in sharing my faith and ideas with them

To be continued

Moving day:

After only one year at the house where we had lived, my wife told me she was pregnant and since that house only had one bedroom we decided to move to a two-bedroom house

So we applied and fortunately, a suitable house was offered not too far away from the old one, that also meant it was the time we had any of those JW’s visiting us

Then on June the 9th 1983, our daughter was born and yet another change was to begin, due the medication my wife takes she either slept or had seizures as the medication didn’t always control the epilepsy

I had to take over the feeding and generally looking after our daughter, but she was worth any sacrifice

Sometime when we had settled into our new home and lifestyle, we found a local Congregational church where we attend Sunday services and allowed our daughter to go to Sunday school

Time moves on and years fled by and before we knew it, we were celebrating our 25th anniversary so took that opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to each other and went through a second marriage service

The years fly past and I spend too much free time at my computer, catching up with friends on Facebook and watching videos on YouTube

This brings me to the title of this piece, as I was listening to Christian music and  happened to glance at some of the comments and dared to respond to atheists complaining about the video being too long and boring

As if they would have watched it, however, I didn’t retaliate just merely asked why they bothered coming to a Christian praise video in the first place

I digress, while looking around my eye was caught by videos put up by an Atheists group who did live radio chats and recorded them in video format too so they could add them to their YouTube channel (subject or another posting)

Having watched a number of them, I came across a whole series of videos on Creationist v Evolution by AronRa, who turn out to be a good education scientific-minded man, with a wealth of knowledge on many subjects

But watching all 14 of them along with ongoing counter comments concerning my view on the praise video, took its toll and found myself becoming disheartened and disillusioned about my belief in god 

Such was the power of the arguments against religion in general, but more so those who believed in the creation of everything by God, that many questions persisted in my mind late at night disturbing any chance of a peaceful sleep

The thing is I already knew some things about evolution, as I used to watch a T.V program called “The origin of species” and later on “The naked ape” but they never upset me or challenged my belief in creation by god

But Aron’s videos certainly did, perhaps it was because he was so knowledgeable about so many subjects with many I had not even heard of, or just his persistence in the production of so many videos hammering home the same message be it in a slightly altered version of the same material, plus other videos he uploaded in which he directly attacked the bible and belittle Jesus and the miracles he did

Whatever it was, the effect made me doubt my faith and I allowed myself to think of giving up believing in god giving up my faith and therefore my religion

I find it hard to put into mere words the emptiness and sadness I experienced during those dark days, but perhaps in a strange way Aron did me a favour because of him I had the opportunity to experience what my life would be like without religion without my faith

I doubt if any atheist would ever begin to know or care about the vast empty void, or the all-consuming bitterness a believer would endure if they turned away from god

Also atheist would ever begin to know what pure joy and love far beyond our human experience god give to us so freely, even though we could not expect it or imagine it even in our wildest thought  

To all believers in the God of creation, hold fast to what you have and never give up, as God will never give up on you – God loves you in such a perfect way His love will fill all emptiness