Five Reasons Christian Parents “Lose” Their Children

While reading reddit recently, I stumbled upon an article about parents who are afraid their children will leave their faith. It gives 5 mistakes parents commonly make in this regard, let's take a look at the list

source

1) Falling into the temptation of using religion to control their children through guilt and shame.

How do you even have Christianity without guilt and shame? It's a religion built around "you are all so evil you deserve to be tortured for eternity, but God killed his son to give you a loophole out of that fate." It's all about making you feel guilty for the things you've done and shaming you into acting they way they want. The article talks about parents who use God to win conflicts with their children "God wouldn't want you to do that" and "Jesus is watching", I heard these types of things from church. From talking with many Christians, this doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary. Telling parents not to use these same methods seems a bit disingenuous.

2) The parents seem to be afraid of the world, instead of empowered to live in it.

Many Christians talk about the world as if it is an evil, malevolent, dangerous place and should be avoided as much as possible. Again, I personally got this type of attitude from my parents, but equally as much from my church. They were always talking about how bad the outside world was. Granted, I think it was a mistake for my parents to have that perspective, but it came directly from the church. Something I found interesting is why this is supposedly bad, the article says:

"If a parent lives in fear of the world, the children will pick up on that and will naturally seek alternative beliefs."

I think that is the wrong reason this is a problem. What happened for me is my family was always terrified of the things out in the world, therefore I was scared of them as well. When I was forced to go out into the world I realized just how wrong they were, it made me question everything else they had told me.

3) The children do not see the parents drawing any joy from their faith.

My parents tried pretty hard on this count, but church sucks. I hated going, and even though they tried putting a good face forward, I could tell that most of the time they dreaded church as much as I did. It's not their fault that church sucks.

4) The children are discouraged from finding answers to their questions.

 Not only discouraged, but yelled at for asking sensitive questions. I learned very early on to keep my questions to myself. One thing I found really funny here was this line

No one needs to have all the answers. Children will not only respect a “I don’t know, let’s find out together,” they will remember such journey’s for the rest of their lives.

 I love this attitude, but it seems to be the opposite attitude I see in most Christians. They don't look for answers, they have all of the answers already. If you challenge any of their answers they will simply cite faith.

5) The children believe they have nothing to offer the Christian community.

This last item is saying that parents should lead by example and be involved in the church so their children will want to as well. My parents at least did this one right, they were involved in their church, and so was I. I was never worried about not contributing to the church, my question was always "what does the church offer me?"

What Does Knowledge Really Mean?

When talking about atheism/theism and arguing with theists, there is a lot of talk about knowledge and belief. Many atheists tend to adopt the agnostic atheist label, saying they don't believe that gods exist but also saying that they don't know for sure. This leads me to the obvious question, what do we mean when we say we know something? What is knowledge?

In a certain sense we don't know anything. I could be a brain in a vat connected to the matrix, you might not exist at all, but are merely a figment of my imagination, we could both just be a part of someone's dream. We can never be sure that some craziness like this isn't happening, in that sense we don't know anything. But this definition of knowledge isn't useful, and it's not really the way we use the word except when we talk about god or perhaps during drunk philosophical conversations (seriously, I throw great parties).

If I hold a pencil out at eye level and let go, it is possible that a glitch in the matrix will make it hover, it is possible that an alien has a tractor beam on it that will pull it to the ceiling when I let go, it is possible that god will perform a miracle and make it fly against the wall instead of toward the floor. In this sense, there are incredibly low probability things that could happen and we can't say with 100% certainty what will happen next, and yet we are all comfortable saying that we know the pencil will simply fall to the ground. Why is it that in this example everyone is perfectly happy to say they know for sure what will happen to the pencil, but when we talk about god people are so quick to fall into this "we can't know anything for sure" nonsense?

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We all know Santa doesn't exist, we know the easter bunny doesn't exist, we know that Zeus isn't real, in all of these other examples we don't bend over backwards to quality everything. Nobody says "We can't be 100% sure where the presents under this tree came from", we all know that the parents bought them and put them there while their kids slept. I know that my parents did this when I was a kid. Nobody will take me to task for making that statement. Why is it so taboo, even among other atheists, to say that I know that God doesn't exist?

The only other wrinkle here is what is meant by a God. In these discussions people will often back up to a deist God who created the universe and then was hands off. They have a point there, in relation to that God it makes sense to be an agnostic atheist. But let's be honest, that is not the God we are usually talking about. We are talking about Yahweh, a God who knows everything, has absolute power, cares about us, and interferes in our lives. This God doesn't exist, it just doesn't make any sense.

I think for any reasonable definition of knowledge, I can safely say that I know Yahweh doesn't exist. Am I going to start calling myself a gnostic atheist? I don't know, I imagine it would cause more problems than it would solve even though I think it is accurate. I can hear it now, people would say that I now have accepted the burden of proof and have to prove that God doesn't exist. But let's think back to our examples of Santa and the easter bunny. We are all perfectly comfortable saying we know they don't exist. We are gnostic a-santa-ists, we are gnostic a-bunists, where is our burden of proof there? I imagine we are all happy with the lack of evidence where we would expect evidence to be. Why isn't that enough for yahweh?

Genesis 10 & 11: God Doesn't Want You to Succeed

Check out today's episode

Nations Descended from Noah (ch. 10 v. 1-32)

A huge worthless list of genealogies, guess I'll do two chapters today. The only thing in this chapter that was even mildly interesting was that Ham the ancestor of Canaan, Sodom, and Gomorrah. All places that were "evil" and eventually will suffer a bad fate at the hand of God. 

Oh, also in the middle there is a guy named Nimrod who was the first "mighty man", whatever that means.

The Tower of Babel (ch. 11 v. 1-9)

The section starts off by describing the material that the bricks and mortar would be made from. I didn't mention it myself as I thought it was uninteresting, but Guzik says that they are waterproof, and this is evidence that the people didn't believe God when he said he wouldn't flood the earth again. That seem idiotic to me, do you really think a tower would stand a global flood just because it is waterproof? And if it would that God couldn't just strike it with lightning or something.

Everyone spoke the same language, and a bunch of people settled in the land of Shinar. They said they wanted to build a huge tower with the top in the heavens, otherwise they would be dispersed over the whole earth.

I'm not really sure how these 2 things are connected, the way this reads there are 2 options, either build a tower to the heavens or spread out on the earth. Is this tower full of condos? That might make sense "we need to build a bunch of condos, otherwise we will have to spread out to find a place to live". Seriously though, it seems like a weird dichotomy to me. Also, it doesn't say "tower to heaven", it says "tower with a top in the heavens". I'm not totally sure of the significance here, but it seems important.

Guzik definitely focuses on this detail, these people are being disobedient to God as they are building the tower instead of dispersing.

He also addresses the heaven vs heavens thing...sorta. I'll just quote it as it is hilarious

The top of the tower was intended to be in the heavens. It is doubtful they thought they could build a tower to heaven. It is more likely they built the tower as an observation point of the heavens.

Yeah, it's not ridiculous now. He also says

If they really wanted to build a tower to reach heaven, it is unlikely they would start on the plain of Shinar, which is about Sea Level. Common sense says they would start on one of the a nearby mountains.

Fair enough, but doesn't that logic also hold if they are trying to avoid a global flood? 

God came down to see the city and the tower, he said that this is just the beginning and that nothing will be impossible for them. Therefore, he came down and confused everyone's speech so they couldn't understand one another. They dispersed instead of building the city and the tower.

First, God is clearly not omniscient in this story, as he had to come down to check out the city and the tower. 

Second, why does he not want people to be able to do stuff? It very specifically says that God confuses their language because they will be able to accomplish anything they want if he doesn't. It's not because they are trying to reach heaven, it's because they will be able to do anything. What is god afraid of here?

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The way Guzik tries to explain this is that God is putting a check on the power of the fallen nature of man. He then cites the evils of 20th century men. So basically, God just delayed these things, he didn't actually stop it. Well done. He also says this is more mercy than judgement, again, if this were true wouldn't God have to come back and do this over and over again as soon as a critical mass of people speak the same language?

Third, who is God talking to? verse 7 "let us go down and confuse their language". I'm guessing Christians will say that he is talking to angels, but I bet he's supposed to be talking to other Gods.

Guzik goes a different way than I was expecting, he say it is a reference to the trinity. He also says that when God came down he was in the form of Jesus, I love how they just make this stuff up.

Guzik talks for 3 paragraphs about how language must be from God and can't be man figuring it out on his own. He says that the only way linguists can explain it without God is if language went through and evolutionary process. Yeah, no shit. I guess if you don't believe in evolution that argument looks like a slam dunk, but really it just makes him look stupid.

Guzik also mentions that after people spread out they have to get by in different environments and have different stresses and with small populations their small genetic differences spread quickly. He's basically describing evolution, well done. I'm sure he would say "it's micro-evolution not macro-evolution", of course what he doesn't understand is that they are the same thing on different time scales.

Finally, Guzik says that man rebelling shows that people are no better after the flood than they were before it.  Now God will start to make man better by starting with a man who will do his will. Why didn't he just do that with Noah then? If people are just as evil now as they were before then what was the whole point of the Noah story?

What is good about this story?

This is a new thing I'm trying, which I mentioned a few days ago. I want to try to find a good angle on the story, or at least explain why people have thought it valuable for thousands of years. The only thing I can really think of here is that it attempts to explains why we have languages. For people who don't understand how language could evolve, this would give them an answer. That's basically what all old myths are for right? To give an explanation when the real answer is out of reach.

Shem's Descendants (ch. 11 v. 10-26)

Just a bunch of genealogies. I suppose one interesting bit is that people seem to be living shorter lives as time goes on.

Terah's Descendants (ch 11 v. 27-32)

There is nothing of value here.

For the "verses of note" post:

--Knowledge--

Genesis 11:6-7 God wants you to fail

"And the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.'"

--Obedience--

Genesis 11:4 They didn't want to follow God's command to spread out on the earth

"Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'"

--Properties of God--

Genesis 11:5 God is not omniscient or omnipresent

"And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built."

Genesis 2: Humans are Created

Check out today's episode

The Seventh Day, God Rests (v. 1-3)

God had finished creating the heavens and earth and everything in them, and he rested. Then he tells us three times that the reason he was resting was because of all the work he had done.

This redundant book is really redundant, God seems to like to say the same thing over and over because he is a redundant god of redundancy.

The Creation of Man and Woman (v. 4-25)

God created man out of dust and breathed life into his nostrils.

This whole this has got to be really interpretive anyway, why can't people say this is God describing abiogenesis? I'll admit that it is a somewhat silly argument, but yesterday we say Guzik make the claim that light is partly supernatural. Given that baseline why not just say this is evidence from God of abiogenesis?

Out of the ground God made every tree which looks nice and is good for food, as well as the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why would God make the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What purpose does it have other than to set Adam and Eve up to fail? 

Guzik says that the tree was there as a temptation tree. Again, why would God put that there?

Matthew Henry says that the tree did not grant the knowledge of good and evil, but rather it is a way for God to test Adam to see whether he was morally good or evil. Of course he then defines good and evil to be following God or not. Seems like a pretty crazy explanation to me. Why does God need to test Adam if he is all knowing? And the tree of life gives life, you would think the tree of knowledge would give knowledge.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown also say it is just a test of obedience. That really does seem to be the one thing God cares about.

I have a minor anecdote here, when I was leaving Christianity I remember focusing on the tree of knowledge pretty intensely and being disgusted that the biggest sin ever committed was to gain knowledge. It's actually pretty significant symbolically.

We get way too much detail about some rivers that keep Eden watered, then God tells Adam that he can eat anything he wants except for the tree of knowledge. The day he eats it he will surely die.

I didn't realize that God told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit before Eve was created. I will be interested to see if he tells them again not to eat that fruit. Also, as we are presumably all familiar with the broad strokes of this story, we know that they don't die the day they eat the fruit. So what's up with that?

From Guzik

The presence of this tree - the presence of a choice for Adam - was good because for Adam to be a creature of free will, there had to be a choice, some opportunity to rebel against God. If there is never a command or never something forbidden there can then never be choice. God wants our love and obedience to Him to be the love and obedience of choice.

If Adam has yet to eat from the tree, then he doesn't understand good an evil. So when God tells him not to eat he is really telling him that eating from the tree is bad, and Adam doesn't understand what that means. No, Adam is being set up to fail here, which is also evident by the fact that God forbids the eating of the fruit before Eve is there, which Guzik also mentions

God made this command originally to Adam, not to Eve; God had not yet brought woman out of man.

Right, I'll be interested to see if god makes this proclamation again when Eve is around, I guess I'll see tomorrow. And one more thing from Guzik

God not only made His command clear to Adam, but He also clearly explained the consequences for disobedience.

Yeah, except that doesn't happen. I suppose they will try to spin that as mercy. 

God brought forth all of the animals to try to find Adam "a helper fit for him". Adam "gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field"

Let's stop there for a minute, I'm not exactly sure what animals fit into this, what counts as livestock and what counts as "beast of the field"? but it certainly says that he named every bird. How many birds are there? This would have taken a long time, although I guess there is no death yet, so it could have taken 100 years *shrug*

More from Guzik, he's a treasure trove today

For the first time, God saw something that was not good - the aloneness of man. God never intended for man to be alone, either in the marital or social sense.
i. Marriage, in particular, has a blessed “civilizing” influence on man. The most wild, violent, sociopathic men in history have always been single, never under the plan God gave to influence men for good. This is not good!

There's no way this is true. A very quick google search got me to John Wayne Gacy who was married when he committed at least some of his crimes. I love the internet, it's so easy to call people on their bullshit.

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No helper was found among all of the animals (shocking) so God put him to sleep and created woman out of one of his ribs.

If man was created out of dust why did God need one of Adam's ribs?

Guzik claims that God had Adam name the animals to see that they came in pairs and show him that he needed a mate. Seems to me that he is reading something that isn't there, unless I'm missing something. It doesn't say anything about the animals coming in pairs.

It is important to realize that there are not two beginnings to the human race, one in Adam and one in Eve. There was one beginning of the human race in Adam.

Didn't take too long to get to the sexism inherently in the bible did it?

So a man shall leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife.

So what, this is the moral of the story? Clearly this is a fairy tale of an ancient primitive group of people. If this was really the account of the creation of man and woman, why would this line be in there?

More from Guzik:

They shall become one flesh: This passage forms the foundation for the Bible’s understanding of marriage and family. Both Jesus (Matthew 19: 5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) quoted it in reference to marriage.

Just like I was complaining about yesterday with creationism and evolution, the basis for this stuff is practically nothing. It's so short and there is almost nothing here. Is this really what we should base marriage on?

The man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.

Why would they be ashamed? I never thought about this before, but why would they be ashamed? Why would a husband and wife be ashamed of being naked?

And one more from Guzik

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were both naked . . . and not ashamed. The idea of “nakedness” is far more than mere nudity. It has the sense of being totally open and exposed as a person before God and man. To be naked . . . and not ashamed means you have no sin, nothing to be rightly ashamed of, nothing to hide.

Again, when it comes to just a husband and wife, I think it is totally normal to be completely "exposed as a person" to each other. There's no reason for 2 married people to be ashamed of their nakedness, even this expanded definition of nakedness.

For the Verses of Note page:

--Abiogenesis--

Genesis 2:7 God creates life from non-life

"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

--Knowledge--

Genesis 2:17 God threatens death to learning

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

--Marriage--

Genesis 2:24 Supposedly this is the basis for marriage

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

--Women--

Genesis 2:21-22 Women are less than men

"So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man."

Jude: When all else fails, use fear

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Back to wikipedia, apparently the authenticity of this book was never doubted, but it's canon status was. "The links between the Epistle and 2 Peter, its use of the Apocryphal Books, and its brevity raised concern." The links between Jude and 2 Peter are that they are too similar, and either one was copied from the other, or they both used a common source.

Greeting (v. 1-2)

Jude identifies himself as the writer and he says he is writing to those who believe in Jesus.

Judgment on False Teachers (v. 3-16)

Be careful, some ungodly people have crept in to the church hierarchy to pervert it.

Now this is interesting, it is basically admitting that there are bad people within the church and that you should be wary of that. I know there have been previous messages about false prophets and such, but this explicitly says that are from within the church, which wasn't the message I got before. I'm not sure if it wasn't implied before or if I was just being thick.

Don't forget, Jesus saved a people out of Egypt, but also destroyed those who did not believe. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities served as an example of those who deserve a punishment of fire.

It was Sodom and gomorrah and surrounding cities? I don't think I've ever heard that before. Also, I'd like to point out that in this version of the story it is Jesus who is doing these things. I guess this is consistent if Jesus=God.

Don't forget about the angels who sinned and are being kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until judgment day.

Whoa, I'm guessing stuff like this is why the canon of this book is questioned.

These people, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious one.

Interesting what is chosen as the horrible thing to do, defile flesh (sex), reject authority and blaspheme. These really don't seem like the worst sins to commit to me.

According to Guzik, the bit about their dreams means that they were dreamers out of touch with reality. It also could mean that they were relying on supposedly prophetic dreams. Seems like a reasonable enough interpretation to me.

v10 "these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively."

This verse really jumped out at me. Does it really make sense for blasphemy to be so horrible if the person doing it doesn't understand what they are doing? It's one thing to understand what God is and blaspheme against him, at least that makes sense for God to get irritated by. But if someone doesn't even understand it and blasphemes, it is basically on accident right? I mean, if a young child or a mentally deficient person commits a crime which they don't understand, we don't punish them in the same way we punish an adult who knows what they are doing. You are being punished for ignorance. Furthermore, you are punished for you animal instincts, which presumably God gave you. Seems pretty damn unfair to me.

Enoch prophesied that Jesus would come with 10,000 holy ones to execute judgment on the ungodly.

Why does God need such a posse?

A Call to Persevere (v. 17-23)

Remember that Jesus said there would be scoffers in the last time. Keep yourselves in the in the love of God.  Wait for the mercy of Jesus that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt and save them from the fire. To others "show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh."

Again, it seems that the end times are said to be near, although this one is less solid than many others we have seen in the past. Also, I'm not sure what that last line means, but it sounds like we are supposed to save those we can and fear those we can't. 

According to Guzik  this second group must be saved with fear. They need to be confronted more strongly but with the right approach can be saved. I suppose this is consistent with the reading.

Doxology (v. 24-25)

Jesus is great.

For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

Jude 4 Be aware of enemies in your midst

"For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."

Jude 22 Help those who need it

"And have mercy on those who doubt"

Bad:

Jude 8 Sex, disobedience, and blasphemy are the worst sins

"Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones."

Jude 10 Punished for ignorance and following God given instincts

"But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively."

Jude 18-19 End times prediction

"They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."

Jude 23 Use fear tactics if necessary

"save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh."

2 Peter 3

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The Day of the Lord Will Come (v. 1-13)

You should remember the prophecies that said that heaven and earth would perish and be replaced by a new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells.

This type of thing I find interesting, I'm not really even sure what to make of it. I remember hearing this as a kid and just being confused, and never really getting a good answer to what it means. Heaven is eternal, so why do we need a new heaven? Is the new earth where we go when we go to "heaven"? Does heaven have it's own sky and that is the new heaven of the new earth? Perhaps the confusion comes from the double use of the word heaven, for the place we go when we die and also for the sky. That's the best explanation I can come up with, but I really don't get this. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Christian commentaries have to say here.

Well, I'm disappointed, Guzik basically says nothing here. Gill just talks about things dissolving away and being replaced with something that isn't corrupted like our earth, but what about heaven? Matthew Henry similarly doesn't really explain this. Maybe I'm just missing something.

Scoffers will come in the last days and ask why Jesus hasn't returned yet. But for the lord 1000 years is like a day.

This is an answer I have seen a few times out in 'the wild' and also it has come up at least once before in the bible itself as well. It is a defense for the fact that the return of Jesus is talked about in the bible as if it was about to happen, and yet it has been 2000 years and nothing. It seems like some pretty obvious patchwork trying to cover up an obvious problem, but apart from that, I would argue that if it is correct it is still a problem.

Think about their claim, the argument is that it was the bible does indeed say that Jesus is going to come back soon, but for the lord a thousand years and a day are basically the same thing, so soon for him might be a long time for us. This demonstrates a pretty huge communication failure. Jesus was trying to tell people that he was coming back in thousands of years, and he gave them the impression that he was returning in their lifetimes. How can we trust anything else that is written in this book if such a basic thing cannot be communicated properly? You might come back at me with "He wasn't trying to tell them he was coming back in thousands of years, he wanted them to think he was coming back sooner", in that case, he was lying to them and my question still stands.

These scoffers also had something else to say that interested me, "For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation"

I'm not completely sure what this means, but I'm guessing the claim is that no miracles happen any more. If that is correct I think it is a very good question. Also, who are those fathers?

Gill says that these fathers are the first men to walk on the earth. If I'm understanding correctly, he is saying that before that time, things were different as God was creating the world, but after that things settled into business as usual which is what we see now.

Final Words (v. 14-18)

As you wait for Jesus, make sure that when he finds you, you will be without blemish and at peace.

I like the idea of being at peace, and always trying to be "without blemish" is good, sort of a catch all "be good all the time" command. Not particularly instructive but good nonetheless.

Consider the fact that he is taking so long to come back as patience on his part to let more people be saved.

I suppose there might be some logic to this idea, still hard to imagine the immense amount of time that has passed for this to still hold.

The letter of Paul, as well as the other scriptures, are sometimes hard to understand, and so the lawless can twist them to their own ends, be careful not to be swept up with those people.

This is a defense mechanism for the religion. I would also argue that it is an admission that the book is not perfect and divinely inspired. If it were, I would expect it to be constructed in such a way that it can't be used for nefarious ends.

For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

3:14 Be good and at peace at all times

"Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace."

Bad:

3:8 God can't tell a day from a millenium

"But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."