As someone who dated the daughter of one of Exxon's top advisers from the 50s-60s* who was also probably very high up in the most powerful fundamentalist christian political cult in the US, yes, they are the definition of evil. I also started my environmental engineering career fighting against Exxon in litigation. They are some of the nastiest motherfuckers in the O&G industry, I have poured through thousands of pages of discovery of internal emails as support for the cases I worked on.

EDIT: Since people are asking, here is the beginning of your rabbit hole adventure into the most powerful fundamentalist Christian political cult in the United States:

Yeah, his name was Paul Temple, he died a couple years ago. I guess he was with Exxon from 1954 to 1961. Here's his wikipedia:

>From 1954 to 1961 he was an international petroleum concessions negotiator for Exxon.

>He helps fund The Fellowship Foundation, a U.S.-based religious and political organization founded in 1935 by Methodist minister Abraham Vereide.[5][6] Paul N. Temple was an insider "core member" of the Fellowship Foundation and/or Institute for Christian Leadership since the 1940s.

And here's the link to the book that was written about the "Fellowship Foundation."

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053

Here's a fun NPR story on it: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, they organize the National Prayer Breakfast every year, which all the most powerful politicians and business leaders attend...

Here's the Wiki for the "Foundation":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)

>D. Michael Lindsay, a former Rice University sociologist who studies the evangelical movement, said "there is no other organization like the Fellowship, especially among religious groups, in terms of its access or clout among the country's leadership."[13] He also reported that lawmakers mentioned the Fellowship more than any other organization when asked to name a ministry with the most influence on their faith.[2] Lindsay interviewed 360 evangelical elites, among whom "One in three mentioned [Doug] Coe or the Fellowship as an important influence."[13] Lindsay reported that it "has relationships with pretty much every world leader—good and bad—and there are not many organizations in the world that can claim that."

>Rob Schenck, founder of the Washington, D.C. ministry Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital, described the Family's influence as "off the charts" in comparison with other fundamentalist groups, specifically compared to Focus on the Family, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, Traditional Values Coalition, and Prison Fellowship.[16] (These last two are associated with the Family: Traditional Values Coalition uses their C Street House[16] and Prison Fellowship was founded by Charles Colson.) Schenck also says that "the mystique of the Fellowship" has helped it "gain entree into almost impossible places in the capital."

>Former Senate Prayer Group member and current Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has described Fellowship members' method of operation: "Typically, one person grows desirous of pursuing an action"—a piece of legislation, a diplomatic strategy—"and the others pull in behind."[25] Brownback has often joined with fellow Family members in pursuing legislation. For example, in 1999 he joined together with fellow Family members, Senators Strom Thurmond and Don Nickles to demand a criminal investigation of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and in 2005 Brownback joined with Fellowship member Sen. Tom Coburn to promote the Houses of Worship Act.

You want to learn about where Christian fundamentalist conservatism in the US comes from? Start with the Fellowship.

And yes, I dated his daughter for over 2 years and we almost ended up engaged. I am glad that did not happen.

EDIT2: Fun fact: Hillary Clinton is an esteemed member:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics/

>Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. “A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation,” says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. “I don’t….there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer.”

>When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian “cell” whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

>Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.

Bingo. Stephen Jay Gould called this "Non-Overlapping Magisteria":


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Non-Overlapping_Magisteria


As a religious person, I view religion as a way of understanding the meaning behind it all, and science as a tool for exploring God's creation. Science is about the pursuit of truth, and God is Truth. How could there be any conflict? If religion has held some view (generally for lack of any better explanation at the time, as it was with Geocentrism) that has since been disproven by science (done correctly, that is), then what is a religious man/woman to do but rejoice? Knowledge is a good thing. If God created the universe, then to study the universe is to learn more about His handiwork.


EDIT: I just wanted to take a moment (since this post has gotten a wee bit of exposure and because this will be extremely relevant to a lot of the response comments) to suggest a book that has been instrumental in shaping my views on evolution and the relationship between religion and science. The book is called "Finding Darwin's God", and it's written by Kenneth Miller. Anyone use the green dragonfly Biology textbook in high school? Yeah, that Kenneth Miller.


http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501


Anyway, this is the book that changed my mind (as a Christian raised with the "evolution is antithetical to our faith" mindset) on evolution. Miller (himself both an accomplished Biologist and a Christian) spends the first 2/3 of the book utterly demolishing every single common argument against evolution. Just... destroys them. "Irreducible complexity", young earth creationism, etc. You name it, he brings it down with logic and relevant examples. Great source for anyone looking for some well-sourced material and examples to bring to a (respectful, let's keep it classy) debate on the subject. Then, with the last 1/3 or so of the book, Miller talks about how embracing science (including evolution, obviously) is actually the only responsible choice for a person of faith. He discusses how the "God of the Gaps" philosophy is really and truly detrimental to belief in a glorious God who created the universe, and talks about how a Christian should not be afraid of new scientific discovery but should instead embrace it.


Anyway. Great book. If I were to list the 5 books that had had the largest impact on my life and views, this one would definitely be in the top 5. Plus it changed my mind on something. It's not often that that happens, especially to pre-college me (I've mellowed out a bit since then). I'd recommend it to anyone, whether you are a person of faith or not.

You should read Going Clear as a companion piece. Holy shit was LRH ever a crazy asshole...

scamming the navy because he was injured in the Pacific front (he never did shit)

dropping depth charges on a log he thought was a u-boat when he finally got a command

beating the shit out of all of his wives

stealing his infant daughter from his (bigamous marriage) wife and running off to Cuba to hide (basically keeping the child in a cage)

becoming convinced SMERSH (yeah from James Bond) was out to get him (also that SMERSH was run by psychiatrists)

locking kids in the anchor compartment of his boat for days on end when they pissed him off

I could keep going forever, I highly recommend the book. The Master was far too kind to him if Going Clear is any indication.

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309

Yes, http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309 .

"Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright. Here's an amazon link.

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (Amazon)

The Fellowship (Wikipedia)

The Family’s Ugandan Project (Harper's)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Study-Bible-Crossway-Bibles/dp/1433502410

My suggestion for a first Bible. The ESV study Bible is loaded with commentary and theologically balanced information for almost every verse. It has a well made binding and comes with color photos and clear print.

Great documentary but I also highly recommend the book

It's phenomenally well-written and a brilliant read

[Continued From Above.]

The TL:DR version of the above article: The Trial of Jesus, as depicted in the Canon Gospels, is not supported in many essential and required elements against the much more credible records of Roman Jurisprudence of the time. The Trial of Jesus, in the Gospels was written by someone that was highly ignorant of the actual system; i.e., "fake news".

And from the low credibility of the Trial of Jesus, even more doubt is cast against the following events as depicted in the Gospels.

• Execution, removal of the body from the death site to a private grave/tomb, and burial claim of the Gospel narratives.... From....
  
  
• How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, by Bart D. Ehrman, HarperOne (March 25, 2014)
  
  From Chapter 4. The Resurrection of Jesus: What We Cannot Know: The Resurrection: What We Cannot Know
  
  [A link to the full argument I posted a couple years ago - warning it is a wall of text]
  
  The Too Effing long;Won't Read: Unless a cause can be made against the burden of proof for Divine Intervention regarding the resurrection narrative, it is more likely that the Roman criminal Jesus was left to rot after death via crucifixion for the birds and other carrion feeding animals and/or the remains buried in a common unmarked grave. The allowance of removal of the body immediately after death was extremely rare and the circumstances of the death of Jesus, and his family, does not correlate with the historical record of those special exceptions. Additionally, if the body was released immediately (unlikely) Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to have provided a tome and burial of Jesus as this represents a contradiction of the resurrection narrative.
  
  The necessary event to support the argument from "An Empty Tomb," i.e., the putting of the dead body of Jesus in a tomb is highly questionable and rather unsupported by the Roman policies and practices of the day. And this non-credible event continues the decrease in the reliability and confidence of the Resurrection claim and narrative.
  
  
• The empty tomb.
  
  The above discussion casts significant unanswered doubts that the Jesus character would have even been placed in an empty tomb to begin with. A disastrous point of contention that undermines the entire "Then how do you explain the empty tomb?" fallacy of reverse burden of proof that apologists pull to support the Gospel narratives as historical and true.
  
  But what of the Gospel narrative of the Empty Tomb - well, there are a great many discrepancies of the Gospel narratives concerning the discovery of the Empty Tomb. And given that there is significance evidence that the later Gospel writers were aware of, and had copies of, the earlier Gospels, the scope and magnitude of these discrepancies completely eclipse the pivotal and essential role of the Empty Tomb in the Resurrection claim and narrative.
  
  And thus, the testimony of the canon Gospels themselves further reduce the reliability and confidence of the Biblical Resurrection claim and narrative, and thus, reduces the credibility of the historicity of Jesus claim.
  
  OP, should I continue?
  
  > Tacitus, .... non-Christian sources supporting the existence of Jesus....
  
  I am aware of the claims of the following historians/histories that are usually called upon to show extra-Biblical support of the historical existence of Jesus.
  
  
• Flavius Josephus
  
  • The Testimonium Flavianum
    
  • “him called Christ”
    
• Suetonius
  
• Pliny the Younger
  
• Tacitus
  
• Mara Bar-Serapion
  
• Lucian of Samosata
  
• The Jewish Talmud
  
• Thallus
  
• Phlegon
  
  
  And against these claims of extra-Biblical support to the partial historicity of the Jesus character (none of these references support, or even begin to approach, a case for FULL historicity) - collectively these sources DO NOT paint a clear and highly convincing picture of a Jewish man named Jesus who truly lived during the AD first century, and DOES NOT support that "researchers agree virtually unanimously."
  
  And what is the text of these historians you mentioned?
  
  sources: The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus, by Earl Doherty, January 1, 2005 and Choking on the Camel, by Ebon Musings/Daylight Atheism
  
  
• Flavius Josephus
  
  Of all the ancient historians claimed to bear witness to the existence of Jesus, Josephus is without a doubt the one cited most frequently by Christians. He was a respected Jewish historian who worked for the Romans under the patronage of Emperor Vespasian; born around 37 CE, he is also the closest to the time of Jesus of all the historians cited by apologists. His two major surviving works are titled The Antiquities of the Jews, a detailed history of the Jewish people based largely on biblical records, and The Jewish War, a history of the disastrous Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem around 70 CE.
  
  Antiquities, book 18, chapter 3, contains the most infamous reference to Jesus to be found in the work of any historian. Few passages have ignited as much debate as this one, the so-called Testimonium Flavianum, whose full text appears below:
  
  >> “Now there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named after him, are not extinct at this day.”
  
  To anyone unfamiliar with the debates swirling around this passage, it might appear to provide startling corroboration of the Gospel stories in virtually every detail. In fact, it seems too fantastic to be true. And indeed, this is the consensus of the overwhelming majority of critical scholars today. No one argues other than that the Testimonium Flavianum is, at least in part, a forgery, a later interpolation into Josephus’ work. We can be certain of this for several reasons. One is that the enthusiastic endorsement of Jesus’ miracles could only have been written by a Christian, and Josephus was not a Christian. He was an orthodox Jew and remained so his entire life. The church father Origen, who quoted freely from Josephus, wrote that he was “not believing in Jesus as the Christ”. Furthermore, in The Jewish War, Josephus specifically states his belief that the Roman emperor Vespasian was the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies – which is what got him his job in the first place.
  
  So, imagine we remove the obvious Christian interpolations – phrases such as “if it be lawful to call him a man”, “he was the Christ”, and “he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold”. Could we let the rest remain, preserving a “reduced” Testimonium in which Josephus testifies to the simple existence of Jesus as a teacher and wise man without touting him as a messiah or a miracle-worker?
  
  This is the position taken by most Christian scholars today, but it too is flawed. For one thing, even the “reduced” Testimonium still praises Jesus highly. This is very unlikely. Elsewhere Josephus does mention other self-proclaimed messiahs of the time, such as Judas of Galilee and Theudas the magician, but he has nothing but evil to say about them. He scorns them as deceivers and deluders, labels them “false prophets”, “impostors” and “cheats”, blames them for wars and famines that afflicted the Jews, and more. This is entirely understandable, since Josephus was writing under Roman patronage, and the Romans did not look highly on the self-proclaimed messiahs of the time since many of them preached about overturning the established order, i.e., Roman rule. (“The meek shall inherit the earth” would have fallen squarely into this category, as would “I came not to send peace, but a sword.”) Some messiah claimants went even further by actively confronting the established authority and sowing dissent (Jesus’ expulsion of the money-changers from the temple comes to mind). The Romans were prone to express their displeasure at these types of activities by executing the messiah claimants, several other examples of which Josephus does tell us about. Had Josephus genuinely written about Jesus he would have been compelled to denounce him, not only because of his orthodox Jewish beliefs but because he had to stay in accord with Roman views or risk being imprisoned or worse. It is all but impossible that he could have written even the “reduced” Testimonium.
  
  [Character Limit. To Be Continued.]

This post is misleading.

Ehrman recently wrote a book called "Did Jesus Exist?" where he argues that Jesus most definitely did exist--an opinion that almost all classicists share.

In the talk you took this from-- I believe this is it--he is questioning the idea that the gospels have been accurately preserved down through the centuries.

It's not a misquote, but this excerpt takes Ehrman's actual point totally out of context, and transforms it into one suggesting that he is contradicting another of his arguments. Perhaps this was not your intent-- but if you weren't trying to do this, I don't know why you'd feel the need to quote Ehrman about a simple fact.

This is the best book I've read on Scientology: http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309 — it gives you an overview of the history, the biography of L. Ron Hubbard, the beginnings, the big moments in Scientology, the core beliefs. Absolutely fascinating, and a pretty riveting read.

The Family

As a Catholic, I can assure you Catholics ARE Christians. Mel Gibson is a Catholic... sort of. He's a Sedevacantist.

Man, call yourself a Christian! I would also recommend looking into the Roman Catholic faith or the Eastern Orthdox faith (we're the OG Christians, lol).

Yes, get a Bible, but DON'T read it cover-to-cover. Once you get to Leviticus, you'll be like, "What the actual f--- is going ON here?" Start with the New Testament, specifically one of the Gospels. I personally love the Gospel of Luke because of how it portrays Mary, but the Gospel of John is quite good, too. It's very symbolic and is perhaps the one you could study the deepest.

if you're finding it hard to understand some of the New Testament of the Bible (the part with Jesus, the letters of Paul, and the Book of Revelation,) I would recommend buying the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. It's an actual, readable Bible that contains commentary throughout. The version I linked is only for the New Testament. The Old Testament analysis is still being compiled, but it's almost done.

Also, listen to Scott Hahn's podcast where he breaks down various sections of the Bible.

As for reading materials outside the Bible, I can highly recommend Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis, Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, and Chesterton's other work The Everlasting Man.

Oh yeah, PRAY! Just have a conversation with God! Talk to him about anything you want! Pray to God, ask the Blessed Mother for intercession, or any of the saints

If you're confused about the various denominations of Christianity, Here's a basic flow chart.

Here's the Nicene Creed, which is a mash-up of what (most) Christians believe

Also, I highly recommend the Podcast Pints with Aquians! It's an analysis of the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who's life mission was to combine faith with human reason and prove that it was not unreasonable to believe in God, but perhaps it is unreasonable to not believe in God.

I, along with everyone on this sub, will be praying for you! Good luck on your faith journey!

You are correct, your professor is a fundamentalist. Check out The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart D. Ehrman and An Introduction to the New Testament by Raymond E. Brown.

Welcome! We believe that the Orthodox Church is the original Church founded by Jesus Christ, yes. The best way to get a good idea of what Orthodoxy is about is to visit a local parish near you, but here are some books that I would recommend:

The Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Way

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

Know the Faith

On the topic of visiting a local parish - do you live in the US? If so, there is a great online search engine to help you locate nearby Orthodox churches.

You wanted to be part of the intelligentsia, but throughout your philosophical journey, you always based your convictions only on authority and tradition instead of on evidence and arguments. Don't you realize that this is the epitome of anti – intellectualism?

It is correct that the New Atheists aren't the pinnacle of atheistic thought and didn't contribute many new ideas to the academic debate of atheism vs. theism or religion. But this was never their goal, and it is also unnecessary, since the academic debate is already over for many decades. If you want to know why the arguments for theism are all complete nonsense and not taken seriously anymore, why Christianity is wrong just about everything and why apologists like Craig are dishonest charlatans who make a living out of fooling people, your reading list shouldn't be New Atheists, but rather something like this:

Colin Howson – Objecting to God

George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God

Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods

Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God

Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science

J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism

J. L. Schellenberg – The Wisdom to Doubt

Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism

Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God

Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God

Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism

Stewart Elliott Guthrie – Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion

Theodore Drange – Nonbelief & Evil



[Avigor Shinan – From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0827609086)

Bart Ehrman – The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

Bart Ehrman – Jesus, Interrupted

Bart Ehrman – Misquoting Jesus

Burton L. Mack – Who Wrote the New Testament?

Helmut Koester – Ancient Christian Gospels

John Barton, John Muddiman – The Oxford Bible Commentary

John Dominic Crossan – Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Karen Armstrong – A History of God

Mark Smith – The Early History of God

Randel McCraw Helms – Who Wrote the Gospels?

Richard Elliott Friedman – Who Wrote the Bible?

Robert Bellah – Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age

Robert Walter Funk – The Gospel of Jesus

Richard Carrier has explored this issue recently in a two-book series (Proving History, and On the Historicity of Jesus. Here is a lecture he gave while the second book was in progress, if you want an overview of the arguments. He's the most prominent historian I know of who considers a mythical Jesus most plausible.

Anyone who has read Going Clear and Beyond Belief has been wondering where the FUCK have the Feds been on this? It's LONG overdue to raid their compounds. To hell with the Judicial nightmare that waits. Justice is supposed to be blind, not turning a blind eye ...

Well, he's not a cessationist, but even cessationists love it: Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology.

Banvinck's is good too.

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679730540/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_dE1KAbJZEKJ0S

If I had to pick one, it would be Finding Darwin's God. It's not the best book for understanding evolution, but it is probably the best book to convince a fundamentalist Christian that scientists are not wrong about where species come from.

Francis Collins who headed the human genome project is one. Also Kenneth Miller, who appeared for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover. I highly recommend his book Finding Darwin's God.

The problem is, a lot of the books that Christians here are recommending are very different in both style and direction than the kinds of books that you're talking about with Dawkins and Hitchens. Which, to be frank, ought to be expected. Detailed philosophical argumentation just isn't something most Christians are worried about or interested in since, once establishing faith, theology and discipleship are far more interesting intellectual pursuits to believers.


In any case, here are a variety of more serious academic responses to the kinds of books you've been reading:


Reasonable Faith By William Lane Craig


Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga


Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga


Why God Won't Go Away: Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? by Alister Mcgrath


Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith by Francis S Collins


God and Stephen Hawking: Whose Design Is It Anyway? by John C Lennox


Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target by John C Lennox


Edit: And don't forget that you don't have to buy any of these books to read them! For serious. Library card + inter-library loan system via internet is the way to win.

I converted from Buddhism, and I learned about the Mass by going to it and just learning all the steps, so to speak. Hang in there, as it really is a thing that you get used to the more you do it.

Eventually, I joined RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults), which is a no-pressure presentation of the Faith. Your local Catholic Church will have one, and it usually runs from Aug/Sept till a month or so after Easter. You can contact your Church and ask more about it. While I entered RCIA in order to become Catholic, there are folks who sit in the classes just to learn about the Faith -- so it's okay either way.

In terms of reading, I got a copy of the Catechism -- free online or print copy or check your public library -- and read the subjects that interested me most. I've never read it straight through (though some have), but I've read the whole thing by reading a little here and a little there. There are other books that explain the Faith, but this is the one that drew me in.

Just curious. I did do some reading on Taoism, especially in my Zen period, but I didn't realize that one could be a Taoist -- or at least there were no Taoist "centers" or temples in my neck of the woods. How does one go about being a Taoist?

EDIT: fixed link! ;)

I've seen people bash him as biased, which basically translates to 'expressing an opinion that isn't mine', but his textbook is used by Yale.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0199757534/ref=pd_sim_b_5?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Q6BZ93J12DD40QV0N3R

I've also never seen him engage in polemic ... the guy maintains an even tone in the face of retards, and acts like a teacher should.

> In my understanding polygamy is not officially gone from church doctrine, but rather just not currently practiced. Reading OD1 seems to confirm this as in no place does it strictly repeal it. Is this true? Will polygamy be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom and would it be practiced again should the laws of marriage in the United States change to permit it?

Yes, it is still doctrinal and does still shape sealing policies. I've been taught that it would be practiced again in the future and that it is practiced in the CK. I don't, however, believe that.

> I've heard rumors and read accounts of prominent Mormon leaders (Joseph Smith & Brigham Young in particular) marrying women who already had husbands that were still living. Is this true? What is the reasoning behind this?

Yes, it's true. I don't know the reason. It's one of the most troubling aspects of the historical practice of polygamy.

> In the afterlife, can someone marry my wife? (We are sealed in the temple)

Who really knows what exactly will happen in the afterlife?

> Brigham Young had children with multiple (like... 15ish?) wives? Why were these children not permitted to have a father they didn't share with so many others? Did Utah Territory have a significantly larger female population than male?

Brigham had children with 16 of his 55 wives. In a lot of cases, I don't really see a significant difference between growing up with Brigham Young or Heber C Kimball as your father and growing up without a father—especially when those fathers spent so much time off on missions. Utah didn't have significantly more females than males. The census actually indicates that there were more men than women. AFAIK, it was only a small number of men that were able to get a large number of wives. Elder Widstoe talks about it in his book "Evidences and Reconciliations", and concludes that they practiced polygamy not because there were surplus women but because they believed that God commanded it.

> D&C 132:62-64. Do we still believe that? Why is that still in the scripture, it seems very... ... not what I learn in Sunday School. Man owning women, man sleeping with many women - women being denied the same, if the original wife disagrees God will "destroy" her... this is a bit concerning, please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.

No, I think that you do understand these verses. I don't know whether or not "we" (the Church) believe them, but I don't accept them. They're in the canon, but any lesson that includes section 132 is usually selective about how it covers it and mostly just covers the blessings of eternal (one man and one woman) marriage.

Polygamy is difficult to understand and easy to judge. There was some good that came out of it (including me), but a lot of it was also done poorly.

If you really want to learn more about polygamy, I would recommend reading history books.

Here are some good ones you could look into:

• Mormon Polygamy
  
• Mormon Enigma
  
• In Sacred Loneliness
  
• Rough Stone Rolling
  
• Joseph Smith's Polygamy
  
  I would also recommend reading what Parley P Pratt wrote about polygamy in his autobiography, as well as this essay that the church recently put out.

Sort of indirectly related to SneerClub subjects, I hope that's ok. Apparently this guy Richard Carrier - of course not himself a New Testament specialist at all - tried to show that Jesus did not exist by waving the Bayes wand. Needless to say, it got rather bad reviews in professional journals. It seems a pretty astonishing example though of the belief that by applying Bayes' formula to any subject, you don't need to actually know anything about it...

Yes, quite a number.

His two peer-reviewed books on the subject:

• Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus
  
• On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt
  
  The first sets the foundation, talks about the flaws of current historical methods, and lays out a different proposed method for analyzing historical claims.
  The second applies that method to the question of whether Jesus existed.
  
  These are hefty, academic tomes, and are not to be approached lightly. I'd recommend my video link above for a primer.
  
  A few other relevant works:
  
  
• Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier 1995-2013. This is a collection of published papers, including ones on unrelated Biblical and non-biblical historical topics. It also includes a couple of recently published papers he cites in his book on historicity:
  
• Thallus and the Darkness at Christ's Death - Why Thallus' report of a eclipse isn't support for the Biblical darkness at the crucifixion
  
• Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 - Why Josephus' purported mentions of Jesus actually aren't.

To expound a bit on /u/tbown's excellent response to /u/RomanticScorpio, the books in the Catholic Bible Reformed Christians do not consider to be part of the canon of scripture are as follows (all in the Old Testament):

• Tobit
  
• Judith
  
• Esther 10:4 – 16:24
  
• Wisdom
  
• Ben Sira
  
• Baruch
  
• Daniel 3:24–90, 13, and 14
  
• 1 Maccabees
  
• 2 Maccabees
  
  Again, there's nothing wrong with reading these books, just don't use them to form your beliefs. For many years they were included in Calvinist Bibles in a separate section labeled "Apocrypha" with a note saying they should be used to establish scripture. All three branches of the Reformation considered them to be useful and good to read, just not inspired scripture.
  
  You also might want to be careful with any explanatory notes (I don't know if your Bible has these or not). These will understandably be from a Catholic perspective. Reformed believers will likely agree with many of them, but others we might disagree.
  
  Other than those two issues, the NAB is a perfectly fine translation. I know several Reformed Christians who use the revised edition as their primary Bible.
  
  If you decide to get a new Bible, the ESV is probably the most popular among Reformed Christians, but there are plenty of good translations out there, such as the NIV, RSV, HCSB, NASB, etc. If you want a Bible with study notes, the Reformation Study Bible and ESV Study Bible are both good choices.
  
  Most importantly, the best Bible is the one you read.

You should read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Catholicism by McBrien, it will be incredibly hard to unpack Catholic tradition and theology from just the Bible itself.

"if you think about it".

Please don't. Instead, do some actual research. There are many good texts out there about the origins of the Jesus mythology.

I enjoyed this one:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

>in the opinion of modern scholars

In the opinion of some modern scholars. The opinions to which you give voice are hardly universal and they're trending toward a minority among contemporary scholars. Such views were much more widely held at the beginning of the 20th Century, for instance, than they are today.

Among the scholars to which you can refer to good scholarship and a less Modernist point of view are N.T. Wright and Scott Hahn. Both are (as far as I know) well regarded scholars of the Bible. There are others but those are the two that spring to mind.

>the disciples didn't really believe Jesus was God (if he existed)

I think this is false on the face of it, and even Bart Ehrman concludes that it was their belief in the resurrection that convinced Jesus' disciples that Jesus was God in the years immediately following the crucifixion. See here for a radio interview with Ehrman about his book, How Jesus Became God.

Ehrman courted the disfavor of his atheist admirers in one of his other recent books, where he took aim at the Jesus mythicists, arguing that Jesus was definitely an historical character.

Again, I would refer you to N.T. Wright and his works on the historicity of the Bible.

> the Bible is a collage of stolen myths

Once again, this is just flatly false and is only believed by the most extreme "scholars" in the Jesus Mythicist camp (as far as I know).

>My second question: is there a term for someone who studies Biblical topics in general? As in one who studies ancient near-east cultures, comparative mythology, languages, Biblical source documents, Jewish literature, archaeology, and other "Biblical Humanities"? That's what I like.

I don't know about a "term", but check out Scott Hahn, the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, this book (if you can find it), and especially (for this question), I would recommend John Walton and his books, The Lost World of Genesis One and Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible.

I would like to point out the very obvious problem with this method; even if the New Testament were mostly or even completely accurate in regards to the naturalistic and historical aspects of the story it portrays, this in no way lends credence to the supernatural and unverified portions. In other words, just because history corroborates many of the key characters, dates, and events of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this does not suddenly make it credible that he hunted vampires.

If you are looking for some good study on the historical authenticity and context of the New Testament, this book by Bart Ehrman has been on my reading list for a while, and is supposed to be quite informative.

Going Clear is a great book. Good winter time reading.

By all means, everyone should read Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. It's incredibly well-researched and beautifully written by one of the greatest journalists of our time, and it is the most calmly, elegantly damning indictment of scientology (and all manipulative cult-like thinking) that I can imagine. The HBO documentary is great too, but the book is on another level.

Fortunately, works like this and others that are coming out are doing some serious damage to Scientology, and they seem to be kind of on the rout as an organization. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

The Revised Standard Version-2nd Catholic Edition is the only current English-language translation that meets the Vatican's translation norms.

https://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Bible-Revised-Standard-Catholic/dp/0898708338/

This is not to be confused with the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version), which is...not nearly as good.

For prayer purposes, you can't get more beautiful than the Douay (Challoner)-Rheims:

https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-Douay-Rheims-Version/dp/1935302051/

Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman:

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532


The best researched biography of Joseph Smith by an award winning historian who taught at Harvard, Columbia and BYU who is also an active believing Latter-day Saint.


Edit: If you like archaeology and the Book of Mormon, then try Mormon Codex by John L. Sorenson:

http://www.amazon.com/Mormons-Codex-Ancient-American-Book/dp/1609073991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450660578&sr=1-1&keywords=Mormon+Codex

> By the methods and standards of the historical community writ large, a historical Jesus existed.

I'm curious if you have any material to back this up. The most (only?) interesting part of the debate to me is whether historical Jesus studies actually uses good historical methods, and it's the topic of the book Carrier just wrote(which i haven't read yet, but have listened to an interview about).

I'm also not a historian, and really haven't looked into this issue, so I'm interested if you have any insights.

(FWIW, I couldn't care less if there was a historical, non-creedal Jesus or not. I'm really quite puzzled why people seem to care so much. But if everyone's gonna talk about it, I might as well learn something. ;-)

This isn't unique to Bannon btw. Of course it extends to the aids he's elevated from Stephen Miller to Sara Hahn.

But it's much bigger than Bannon. Pence, Sessions, Conway, Betsy Devos, and others have all evinced key elements of this ethnonationalist, Christian Dominionist, Clash of Civs ideology.

One center of this group in politics is organized by the CNP, which has included Conway and Bannon in the past. However, it's extremely secretive.

>The CNP is not controversial so much for the conservatives who dominate it — activists of the religious right and the so-called “culture wars,” along with a smattering of wealthy financiers, Congressional operatives, right-wing consultants and Tea Party operatives — as for the many real extremists who are included.

>They include people like Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama “birther” and the propagandist hit man responsible for the “Swift boating” of John Kerry; Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist “news” operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a large number of other similar characters.

>As the SPLC noted when it published the 2014 directory in May of this year, the CNP has every right to keep its membership secret. But, as the SPLC wrote then, “it also provides an important venue in which relatively mainstream conservatives meet and very possibly are influenced by real extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law.”

If you're interested in reading more about this strain of politics in the US gov, you can also check out The Family by Jeff Sharlet.

No it is not. This view is generally seen as discredited.

Having said that there are many many MANY figures in mideastern mythology that were killed and resurrected. So while it is not at all accurate to say that this aspect of the jesus story was merely plagiarized from egyptian mythology, it WOULD be accurate to say that the theme of being killed and then resurrected was a common theme in mideastern mythology at the time. jesus was hardly the only godman to arise in the first century A.D

I would deeply recommend EVERYTHING by Bart Ehrman but especially in this particular case How Jesus became God, the exhaltation of a jewish prophet in which Dr Ehrman discusses how one of the literally DOZENS of apocalyptic preachers wandering around Jerusalem in 30 A.D had a mythology of divinity attached to him later on. Suffice to say that it was common for, for example, emperors to become " gods" after their deaths. Jesus was hardly the only person to become a god after death in the roman empire in the first century.

( Fun Fact: If jesus came back to Earth today the number one thing that would shock him would be that... the EARTH STILL EXISTED. Jesus was convinced that the earth would be destroyed within a human lifetime.the bible expressly attributes this belief to jesus in Matthew 16:28 Sure Christian apolgists now spin this as some kind of methaphor, but when you place jesus within his hsitorical context and realize that apocalyptic beliefs where everywhere in israel in the first century ad and that there where maybe twenty other guys preaching the imminent destruction of the world right there in the same city, then it becomes clear that jesus meant it literally. Anyone listening to him at the time( if he indeed said these words) would have ABSOLUTELY thought he meant them literally.


Tl;Dr: using the bible itself and the historical context of his time and place, Jesus was certain that the world would end at the latest 1900 years ago. )

There is nothing, because there is fucking nothing, nothing, nothing at all, period, zip, zero zilch. There's no books about a guy named jesus who lived at that time. There's no books about jesus that aren't based on the bible. Nothing was written about jesus while he was alive. He is not mentioned.

Nobody can prove jesus existed. Nobody can prove he didn't. Nobody can prove he was based on a real character. Nobody can prove a fucking single thing, period, at all, period. End of conversation.

Many historians agree that the character written about in the books of the new testament probably grew from legends and fables based on a real itinerant apocalyptic preacher. They come to these conclusions based on comparative analysis of the books of the new testament, and their conclusions are not solid, but are merely what they think is most likely.

If you want some scholarship, this book might be interesting
http://smile.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184/

You've asked some pretty big questions. It'd be hard to answer them in a reddit comment. My primary recommendation would be to talk to your priest.

On the other hand, if you're not comfortable with that for some reason, maybe you could try to ask some more specific questions. If you just don't know what to ask, I recommend reading The Orthodox Way.

You can also try listening to some podcasts at Ancient Faith Radio.

If you'll indulge my curiosity - I am a convert, and it seems somewhat astonishing to me that you are asking this question :) How old are you, roughly? How is it that you are here with us (thank God!) and do not have more of an understanding of your faith? Please don't take offense at my question - the parish I attend is about half converts and has a wonderful Sunday School program for the youth. I understand this isn't the norm, but would just like to hear more about your circumstance. Thank you :)

1. YouVersion has some great Bible reading plans. I would suggest McCheyne's
   
2. A great companion for reading in a McCheyne plan is D.A. Carson's For the Love of God Part 1 Part 2
   
3. One of the best pieces of advice I can give you as you read scripture is to look at the big picture. Try to see where the passage you are reading fits into the grand storyline of the Bible.
   
4. May I also suggest picking up a book that will cover Bible doctrines? It's really helpful to have a grasp on what the Bible says about God and how He interacts with His creation. On the layman's level I would suggest Christian Beliefs by Wayne Grudem. If you feel like going a little deeper, check out Grudem's bigger book Bible Doctrine. If you feel like really digging in, go with Grudem's massive Systematic Theology, which I believe is the most readable systematic theology available.
   
5. I'm a Baptist so I think getting rebaptized is great, assuming you are a genuine believer at this point, which I have no cause to doubt. In fact, if I was being a cranky Baptist I would tell you you're not getting rebaptized, you were just a wet sinner the first time. However, I'm only occasionally a cranky Baptist, and have nothing against my paedobaptist brothers (other than thinking they're wrong on this one).
   
6. Get into a good church. I know you mentioned you're following Christ and not a church, but the local church is one of the primary means of doing so. Maybe you already have done this, and I am misinterpreting what you were trying to say. Lone ranger Christians are unhealthy Christians. If you are looking for a good church check with 9Marks and The Gospel Coalition.
   
   I hope this helps.
   
   edit: spelling

That's a false either/or. Christians believe both that the Bible is inspired, and also that it must be interpreted (since all literature must be interpreted). As for how to interpret it, the Christian community must wrestle with the best way to do this. And we have. And we continue to do so.

While the method might appear arbitrary to an outsider, it is anything but. Its too complicated to spell out the actual methodology to you in this format. But if you're interested in how Christians interpret the Bible can you check out primers such as this one or this one. Both of these are good introductory texts in regards to the consistent (i.e. non-arbitrary) manner of biblical interpretation.

The only thing I would add to these books which sometimes doesn't get mentioned enough, is that Christians (the majority of us anyways) believe that interpretation belongs to the theological community in the most technical sense. While we encourage people to read the Bible individually, the theological community serves as a checks-and-balances, or a self-correcting mechanism. If we insist on only interpreting things alone, its too easy to let our own personal biases slip in, and then we are in danger of "picking and choosing." But by doing our interpretation in community (e.g. peer-reviewed journals, etc.), we help to eliminate much of this.

Haha. Thanks for your help man.

He is focused on apologetics. He uses http://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Introduction-Biblical-Doctrine/dp/0310286700 as his main source of arguments.

I've heard him speak briefly. He was a HUGE proponent of the idea that God has "hardwired" a set of morals inside us all.

Biologists virtually all agree that life on this planet has evolved over a period of about 3.7 billion years and that humans and modern fish share a fish-like ancestor (and a single-celled ancestor, for that matter). They have reached these conclusions because they're the best explanations for the evidence we see in the fossil record and in our DNA, among other things. Creationists deny these conclusions because they're not very well-informed or because they're unwilling to let go of a Genesis-based explanation for the existence of life on this planet.

I'm not trying to bash you; it sounds like you have an open mind and that's good. But the "battle" you describe isn't really a meaningful one. The people who know the most about this sort of thing consider the question settled.

I'd encourage you to read up on the subject if you're curious. Richard Dawkins recently released a book full of evidence for evolution. And although I don't recommend it as wholeheartedly, Finding Darwin's God was written by a Christian for Christians to make the case for evolution.

All of these things are majority mainstream views. This is what I was taught a state university.

Bart Ehrman's textbook on the New Testament goes over this exact material.

Bart Erhman wrote a great book on the subject: Did Jesus Exist:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

Tl;dr - Maybe/probably

He never makes an absolute proclamation either way, but presents evidence from both sides. There are several secular sources that mention his existence. Jesus existing as a person is certainly not out of the realm of possibility. But we can be sure, if he did exist, he wasn't a god.

Books:

The Orthodox Church http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Church-New-Edition/dp/0140146563

The Orthodox Way http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Way-Kallistos-Ware/dp/0913836583

Most of it came from classes and lectures. I don't have the class book list and sources anymore. I do hope you really, really like reading!

Forged writingss

Misquoting Jesus A well known book.

Introduction to the new testiment

The new testament: a historical intoduction

Revelation and the End of All Things Also a somewhat popular book

You can also do some Wikipedia reading on Gnosticism and other early Christen sects to get an idea of just how many groups their were and how differing their beliefs could be. Also look for things on the Q, M and L source.

Edit

You can likely find a number of online pod-casts (or whatever you call them) and lectures on these things.

I am not a historian so my access to books and memorized sources is very limited, I am a student and have been accused of reading serial boxes at least once when I accidentally quoted the wrong book name, It was too much fun to make the correction as no one had ever said that too me before and I felt special, like I had hit an academic milestone.

Also, Don't feel bad about asking for sources.

Here is the Amazon link! Like I said, this is the best comprehensive New Testament text book I have come across in my study and research as a budding scholar of religion.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534

The Science vs. Religion debate is a false dilemma. The debate is between world-views. Science is a mode to discover truth, not a world-view (it makes no claims of morality or oughtness - in fact, it can't make them). Scientism is a world-view centered on science that makes certain moral claims (despite the warnings of David Hume). But when someone is debating science and religion what they are usually debating is scientism and theism (though not always). And because the debate often conflates science and scientism, it is often superficial and misleading.

If you want a very good and thorough treatment of this by one of the leading philosophers read "Where the Conflict Really Lies" by Alvin Plantinga.

If you don't want to dive into a decent-sized book, take a look at these lectures by John Lennox which explore this debate to show the logic of theism (and, as a mathematician at Oxford, he uses the term "logic" deliberately):

• Is Belief in the Supernatural Irrational?
  
• God: Fact or Fiction?
  
  This is just the tip of the iceberg on this. But will give someone a good overview of how to properly frame the debate without pigeon-holing into the many false dichotomies/dilemmas people seem to settle into on this.
  
  For more LDS-centric resources, see:
  
  
• Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring - which is more of a biography, but still very informative on the topic
  
• Key to the Science of Theology by Parley P. Pratt
  
  There's also the 2013 Mormon Interpreter Symposium on Science:
  
  
• David H. Bailey on "Science vs. Religion: Can This Marriage Be Saved?" - Mathematician and Computer Scientist who has spent 14 years at NASA's Ames Research Center.
  
  
• Richard N. Williams on "Science, Religion, and Agency" - founding Director of the Wheatley Institution. His specialty areas include the philosophical, theoretical and historical foundations of psychology, with concentration on issues related to human agency, as well the science of psychology and research methods and statistics.
  
  
• John S. Lewis on "The Scale of Creation in Space and Time" - Professor Emeritus of planetary science at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and advisor to NASA and ESA. He was featured in a church video a while back.
  
  
• Ron Hellings on "Joseph Smith and Modern Cosmology" - He has spent twenty-five years as a Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has been on loan to NASA Headquarters in Washington DC to act as Program Scientist for the Astrophysics Theory Program
  
  
• Jani Radebaugh on "The Outer Solar System: A Window to the Creative Breadth of Divinity" - A planetary scientist and Associate Team Member of the Cassini Radar Science Team.
  
  
• Bart J. Kowallis on "From All Eternity to All Eternity: Deep Time and the Gospel" - Associate Dean in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at Brigham Young University.
  
  
• Amy L. Williams on "Answering New Atheism and Seeking a Sure Knowledge of God" - Fifth year Ph.D. student working jointly with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  
  
• Jeffrey M. Bradshaw on "Science and Genesis: A Personal View" - Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Fulbright Senior Scholar at the European Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Engineering (EURISCO), and former chair of the RIACS Science Council for NASA Ames Research Center.
  
  
• Steven L. Peck on "Why Evolution and LDS Thought are Fully Compatible" - Evolutionary ecologist who teaches History and Philosophy of Science and Bioethics at BYU. He has a particular passion for evolution and how to avoid faith crisis. He's also a published science fiction writer.

Read the book. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060560053/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

It's much easier to believe. The author stumbled on this connection as a reporter in the late 80s and the experience changed his entire worldview.

Here's another book he wrote at the time. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316091065/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

You can probably find these in your local library. They are absolutely worth reading.

> I think I'd like to learn more about it.

Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution is a 2000 book by the American cell biologist and Roman Catholic Kenneth R. Miller wherein he argues that evolution does not contradict religious faith.

Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology is popular (if severely flawed).

The JW position is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Greek in John 1. I won't completely rip off Wayne Grudem here, but their translation of:

>Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

to:

>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god

rather than

>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

is incorrect. They say that the lack of a definite article before theos (θεὸς) indicates that it should be translated as the JWs do. This is, frankly, ignorant of basic Greek grammatical rules, which do not require the definite article, instead using the context of the sentence to determine if it should be "was God" or "was a god". The context of the sentence and those around it give every indication that it must be translated to "was God". Watchtower (the JW newsletter) I believe acknowledged the error not too long ago, but stood by their translation, saying something to the effect of "the context of the rest of scripture" supports them.

this is not only irrelevant for translation purposes, but false on its own merit.

Wayne Grudem goes into a lot of detail on this in Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine -- not a cheap book, but it is perhaps the best work of its kind ever written. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Parts are available on google books. There is quite a bit on this issue that isn't available online though.

Desiring God has a nice article on the person of Christ, but not as full and complete.

"Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it" (D&C 135:3)

Seriously, after I read Mormon Polygamy: A History and No Man Knows My History and thought about how I'd been taught to deify Joseph Smith and knew little to nothing about the actual man, it was then that I understood the allegations of cult-like characteristics that are lodged against the Mormon church.

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament was recommended to me, and although I've only started reading it I'd have to agree that it is an excellent resource.

I know you were asking for a web resource and I gave you a book. Sorry, but this really is a great resource for what you're seeking.

• The Orthodox Faith, by Fr. Thomas Hopko, is online and free.
  
  
• The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way, by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, are a pair of very good introductory books.
  
  
• Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology by Fr. Andrew Louth, is another good theological introduction.

For Orthodoxy, you could read Fr. Thomas Hopko's The Orthodox Faith (also called the "Rainbow Series" because the 4 books are published in differently-colored covers). You can buy them, but the text is also on the OCA website here: The Orthodox Faith

It's a general overview of the doctrine and life of the Orthodox Church.

There's also The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way by Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware. These are pretty commonly suggested to a person interested in learning about the Church.

In addition, though, to reading, I would suggest actually attending services at the various churches you're considering. Between the time I left the Southern Baptists and the time I joined the Eastern Orthodox Church, I visited around a number of places and did a good bit of reading and discussing.

In the end, though, I think experiencing Orthodox worship was at least as important to my decision to become Orthodox as my reading was. For me, Orthodoxy just seemed real; there was just something there in the Orthodox services that I didn't sense anywhere else.

If serious, read The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware. He was an Englishman who converted as an adult.

The similarities of the crucifixion and resurrection to pagan stories are usually overstated.

Richard Carrier has one book out and another on the way addressing the issue from a more scholarly direction. Proving History is the first book. The second is due out in a few months if I remember correctly.

Robert M. Price also has a good work on the subject. The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems

Start with those two. They both have talks on YouTube about the historicity of the gospels. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm utterly convinced, but they are pretty compelling. Carrier and Eherman have had a bit of a feud over the issue and again, Carrier seems to have the better argument.

Is this the book you're talking about? The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

At first I thought you were referring to Dominion Theology, and then I thought you might be talking about the Council for National Policy. How many of these fucking Christian shadow organizations are there influencing our country?

Our society is fucked.

EDIT: a brief description of the book:

> Checking in on a friend's brother at Ivenwald, a Washington-based fundamentalist group living communally in Arlington, Va., religion and journalism scholar Sharlet finds a sect whose members refer to Manhattan's Ground Zero as "the ruins of secularism"; intrigued, Sharlet accepts on a whim an invitation to stay at Ivenwald. He's shocked to find himself in the stronghold of a widespread "invisible" network, organized into cells much like Ivenwald, and populated by elite, politically ambitious fundamentalists; Sharlet is present when a leader tells a dozen men living there, "You guys are here to learn how to rule the world." As it turns out, the Family was established in 1935 to oppose FDR's New Deal and the spread of trade unions; since then, it has organized well-attended weekly prayer meetings for members of Congress and annual National Prayer Breakfasts attended by every president since Eisenhower. Further, the Family's international reach ("almost impossible to overstate") has "forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world." In the years since his first encounter, Sharlet has done extensive research, and his thorough account of the Family's life and times is a chilling expose.

NPR's Terry Gross did an interview with Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Political Reach of 'The Family'

This article from Truthout goes into The Family's (aka "The Fellowship") activities, including their influence in Uganda:

> Most vivid is Sharlet's focus on the Fellowship's activities in Uganda, where, in 2009, a bill was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament that would condemn to death individuals convicted of "aggravated homosexuality," which includes "simply sex, more than once," and three years in prison "for failure to report a homosexual within twenty-four hours of learning of his or her crime."
Sharlet draws links between the Family and evangelical church leaders and politicians championing the bill in Uganda (including David Bahati, who introduced the legislation into Parliament); the Family has donated millions of dollars to Uganda for "leadership development" - more, writes Sharlet, than it has invested in any other foreign country.

For your own sake and curiosity, I recommend reading how Kenneth R. Miller argues that the randomness of quantum mechanics is actually how God interacts with the Universe. There's literally no rational explanation for what happens at the quantum level which is why we rationally conclude that it's just meaningless and random. And yet that's how the entire Universe exists in the state that it does - and how every biological mutation occurred in evolutionary theory.

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501

As for your sister, though, she's screwed. She's a liberal and a women's studies major at a secular university. Most people in that demographic suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. She also has strong ulterior motives and you're arguing against her dopamine reward system (living with her boyfriend).

This may help you understand her rather than wasting your breath arguing with her.

> So this hinges on what your definition of “God” is. If God is a collection of attributes (the entire collection being termed his “nature”, or his “God-ness”) and Jesus shares completely in all that particular collection of attributes then we can properly call him “God”. If the Father shares equally in all those attributes of “God-ness” then he is also “God”. These attributes are such things as being creator, uncreated, unlimited, eternal, almighty, lord, etc.

That's impossible. One of those attributes is indivisible unity: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" (Deut. 6:4). There cannot be a separate person that is also God.

Jesus is very clearly depicted as a separate person in the CNT (e.x. by praying to God, by saying that God has forsaken him, etc.). This means Jesus does not participate in the divine attribute of indivisible unity - and thus cannot be God.

A being that shares in some of the divine attributes but not all of them cannot be called "God."

>Firstly, I argue that there are attributes which the “Persons” of God have which we do not consider part of the core collection of attributes which we understand to constitute “God-ness”. These are separate attributes to that “nature” of God, and therefore, as separate attributes, we ascribe them not to the “nature” of “God”, but to the “nature” of one of the "Persons".

That would be well argued if indivisible unity weren't a core attribute of the "nature" of "God." The whole idea of separate "Persons" that participate in God requires abandoning that core theological claim.

At most charitable to the CNT: Jesus was some kind of angelic being. This is what Bart Ehrman argued the earliest Christians believed (see How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from the Galilee). Ehrman even argues that Paul believed this.

The trouble is, there wasn't any orthodox strain of Christianity at the time. Orthodoxy was invented later. In the 2nd century there were lots of (relatively small) Jesus groups presenting a wide array of beliefs that only started to resolve themselves into an orthodox creed after Constantine.

If you want to learn about what early Christian groups were like, and how orthodox ideas formed, you could try Snyder's Ante Pacem, Davidson's Birth of the Church, or Ehrman's How Jesus Became God. Davidson prefers to present orthodox ideas as appearing relatively early, while Ehrman emphasizes the late arrivals, and I haven't actually read Ante Pacem yet (though it's been recommended to me by multiple people).

"The Orthodox Church" By Kallistos Ware. A very readable and comprehensive book by a well respected convert now bishop.

Byzantine Theology by John Meyendorff. He is one of the greatest contemporary Orthodox theologians.

The Way of the Pilgrim Author unknown. This is a classic of Eastern Christian spirituality that brings many people into the Orthodox way.

Hope these help!

Pick up a copy of How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth. It's the book I read in school and it's main point is that the Bible is written in different genres with different rules for each genre. A proverb is apithy saying while a Psalm is a poem. And even with the book of Psalmns there are wisdom psalms, lament psalms etc.... Read accodring to genre. And context. Eventually a good study Bible will help. The ESV Stidy Bible is pretty popular here, and I like the ESV Literary Study Bible (it highlights the litereary aspects of what you're reading).

New Evidence that Demands a Verdict

More Than a Carpenter

Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels On my to read list.

Faith on Trial: An Attorney Analyzes the Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus

The Case for Christ

The Case for Faith

The Case for a Creator

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus On my to read list.

The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ On my to read list.

Besides the apologetics books, you can watch John Lennox on YouTube. He is a very well-spoken and kind (doesn't attack the other debater) debater. Very well thought out responses. The Dawkins vs Lennox debate was awesome! Ditto Gary Habermas as well.

> I was thinking about just showing up at a Catholic church but my co-worker was telling me that would be sort of frowned upon.

Anyone can attend Mass. The first time I went to one I had no idea what was going on.

> Especially if I took part in communion apparently.

Yeah, don't do that. Sit, kneel, shake hands, say the responses as you get to know them -- but don't go up for communion.

>Has anybody else here become Catholic later in life?

I came to the faith in my mid 30s as someone who had never been baptized and was essentially unchurched throughout my entire life.

> This is probably a silly question but is there some sort of process to become a Catholic?

RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults). It runs from fall to the Easter Vigil (where you're officially received into the Church)and a little beyond. Most parishes have a director (probably won't be the priest) that you will contact and tell them what you're going through.

One of the things that really helped me was getting a Catechism and reading through it, as well as just reading a bunch about Catholicism. I also started attending Mass every Sunday.

You need the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Don't neglect the references!

No. True Christians ^^TM stick to the Catechism

Hey, welcome to the sub. :)

First off, you have the right attitude (more than many churchgoers, it seems). You want to understand and wrestle and have it be real. Good news: you're on the right track. Faith is hard, at least most of the time. I'm sorry others looked down on you for asking questions and trying to figure things out; they were wrong to do so.

I agree with what others here are saying: Genesis is probably not the easiest place to start, and you'll get even more bogged down in Numbers or in Chronicles. Start in one of the Gospels. I saw Luke suggested, and I'll throw in John. Luke's writing has more details, and John's might be easier to read.

Starting in the Gospels has a purpose: Jesus is really the major focus. There's a lot to gain from reading his words firsthand, and seeing his actions. You might find it a lot different from what the culture says about him. Take your time and soak it in, and I think you'll find him pretty compelling.

After that, Paul's letters are pretty great. Philippians might be a good one to read first, though they're all really short and won't take long.

I might also suggest reading a different version of the Bible. The NRSV is accurate, but can also be archaic and difficult to understand. There are a lot of debates over Bible versions, but don't sweat them for now; I'd suggest the ESV or the CEB (if you want to study deeper later, the NRSV might be better then).

You'll probably want to find a church. This can be hit-and-miss, depending on so many factors. You won't and shouldn't fit into a church that looks down on you for struggling with faith. To start, even though it might feel silly, talk to God about it. Doesn't have to be fancy, just a conversation asking him to help you find a good church. Visit a couple, and see if they try to follow the Jesus you read about in the Bible.

(And if you're in the Dallas area, let me know... you can visit ours! :D I know a couple other great churches in the area too.)

If you're looking for more resources, it depends on what you're interested in.

• www.biblegateway.com if you want to read the Bible online. Tons of versions (again, I'd go with CEB or ESV). I find it harder to read online, but it's good to have on-hand anyhow.
  
• I second Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It's a great read with some heavy concepts explained simply (Lewis was fantastic at this).
  
• For the Resurrection (central to Christianity), check out Willaim Lane Craig's books, The Son Rises and Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?, and, for a debate, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?
  
• For the creation story, Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation is a must, as there are several viewpoints on Creation (another reason starting with Genesis might be difficult).
  
• For doubt, I recommend Disappointment with God.
  
• How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth is a good one for... well, pretty much what the title says it's for.
  
• Along the lines of Mere Christianity, try G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. It's free, but might be a bit harder to read.
  
  BUT... don't go crazy. Start with the Gospels and maybe Mere Christianity, and go from there.
  
  If you have questions about what you're reading, feel free to come to this sub or /r/TrueChristian and ask. To be fair, there will be several opposing opinions on more controversial issues, which is a double-edged sword sometimes. But most everyone is welcoming, kind, and happy to discuss anything.

> I would just love some advice from you guys, where to go first, maybe some recommendations on reading.

Welcome home, brother!

Here is a listing of parishes that are close to North Dallas (75230 zip code). Hopefully one of those locations are close to where you will live. Once you find a parish, go to Confession and start going to Mass again. If you need help with following the Mass, pick up a missal.

As for what to read, grab yourself a Catholic Study Bible and a Catechism. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask us here at /r/Catholicism.

Some key concepts and interesting facts:

• The deposit of faith comprises not just the Bible, but also sacred tradition. Traditions that have been passed down from the days of the apostles are as authoritative as the Bible.
  
• Catholic Bibles contain 73 books rather than the 66 you're probably used to, with longer versions of Daniel and Esther. The difference is known to Catholics as the deuterocanon, and to Protestants as the Apocrypha.
  
  
• The Catholic hierarchy derives its authority from apostolic succession. Each bishop has been consecrated by another bishop, who was consecrated by another bishop, who was consecrated by another bishop, in a line going all the way back to the twelve apostles, and they have inherited the teaching authority of the apostles.
  
• The Pope is a bishop specially elected to succeed to the place of the apostle Peter, whom Jesus named the head of the apostles and the rock on which he would build his church. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome because that's where Peter was bishop when he died.
  
• The body of bishops, when united with Peter's successor as its head, is infallible. That is, the Holy Spirit will prevent the bishops from teaching an error in faith or morals as binding on the faithful. The Pope individually can also make infallible pronouncements. This doesn't mean that the bishops are free from sin, or that they are infallible on other subjects like physics, economics, or geography.
  
• The Eastern Orthodox Churches believe almost all the same stuff as Catholics and also have valid apostolic succession, but deny that the primacy of the Pope is anything more than honorary. The Anglican Church claims apostolic succession, but Catholics reject the validity of their orders due to changes in the ordination rite in the 16th Century.
  
  
• A saint is anyone who is in heaven. The Church declares some people to be saints after a rigorous investigation, but this isn't meant to imply that no other people are saints.
  
• Catholics honour the Blessed Virgin Mary above all other saints for her special participation in Jesus' mission of salvation. It is Catholic dogma that she was conceived free from original sin, remained sinless her entire life, and was assumed body and soul into heaven. (Note that she didn't ascend of her own power like Jesus, but was assumed.) However, this doesn't mean she didn't require salvation by Jesus.
  
• People have reported Marian apparitions going all the way back to 40 AD (when she was still alive!). The Church declares some of these to be "worthy of belief," but they're considered private revelations no matter how many people witness them, and do not add to the deposit of faith. Catholics are not required to believe in them.
  
• Saints can pray for people on Earth. When Catholics pray for the intercession of saints, they're not asking a saint to make some direct intervention of their own, but to pray to God on their behalf.
  
• Catholics do not worship the saints, nor Mary, nor anything other than God as the Trinity.
  
  
• The Mass is not just an hour or so of worship music, prayers, and a sermon, though all of those are included; Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is re-presented (not represented) in the Eucharist. It is the same sacrifice, in that it is offered by the same person (Jesus), it has the same victim (Jesus), and it has the same effect (the remission of sins).
  
• The doctrine of transubstantiation holds that when the priest holds the bread and wine over the altar at Mass and says the words of consecration (in which moment he acts in persona Christi), they cease to be bread and wine and become the actual body and blood of Jesus, although to the senses they remain indistinguishable from bread and wine.
  
• A consecrated host is often publicly displayed for purposes of Eucharistic adoration, a practice which became popular around the 14th Century. Since the host is Jesus, it is right to worship it.
  
• If you visit a Catholic Mass, you should know that non-Catholics normally aren't supposed to receive the Eucharist.
  
  Further reading:
  
  
• Catholicism for Dummies
  
• Rome Sweet Home
  
• New American Bible
  
• Catechism of the Catholic Church

This book is specific to Joseph Smith, but No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith is fantastic.

I know that the literature you are allowed to read on a mission is very limited. However, before you go, you could do some research on Joseph Smith as a person. He was a very colorful character, and had an extremely interesting life. Sometimes you have to go outside of official church doctrine on him to get the full picture because they don't want their prophet to look like what we all are: flawed human beings.

Myself, I am a non-believer. However, even with the flaws Joseph Smith had, I don't think that precludes anyone from believing that his message has value.

Edit: http://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1405797598&sr=8-4&keywords=joseph+smith

I would STRONGLY recommend this book. I feel it gives a balanced account of his life. It's not a book that tries to demonize JS, nor a book that portrays him as a perfect, godly man. It's just a book that tries to get at what his life was all about.

Most of the books that people are recommending on here are great, especially Jerry Coyne's. If you're going to read Dawkins, his best for explaining the basics of evolution is Greatest Show on Earth. If you want to read a book by a devout Christian who does an outstanding job of explaining evolution, then explains how he reconciles his understanding of evolution with his religious beliefs, try Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller. Good luck on your search, and I salute your hunger for knowledge!

Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth by Bart Ehrman.

Also Ehrman responds to Richard Carrier here

>Where do you draw the line between religion and superstitious nonsense? Frankly, I'm having a difficult time separating them at all. Too many people say, "I don't understand how that works, therefore God."

There are principles for reasonable belief. The three I can think of are:

1. Faith must not conflict with what you know. Faith exceeds knowledge, but it cannot bypass it.
   
2. Make sure your beliefs are internally consistent (you'd be surprised how many Christians ignore this principle)
   
3. Your faith must be living: transforming you into a better person. A faith that makes you into a worse person is a bad faith.
   
   >Assuming that Christianity is correct, how can one know with a little more certainty? I'm willing to make a leap of faith, but without some credible evidence, it's like trying to ford the Mississippi river. Can we bring it a little closer to "caulk the wagon and float it across?"
   
   Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but it's going to require some research on your part, and by research I don't mean a few google searches. Books can be a good friend. Some others here may be able to recommend good books about the historicity of Jesus and the church, but I tend to favor the philosophical and metaphysical.
   
   >Assuming there exists some evidence sufficient to convince me of Christianity's veracity, which version is correct and how can one know? Or does it really matter, since every Christian church agrees on the most important points?
   
   It's incredible unlikely that any given church is correct on every single point of doctrine. The best you can do is take up the protestant ethic by studying for yourself to see which doctrines appear to be the most reasonable. Looking for the "correct" church is a red herring, in my opinion.
   
   Examining your faith can be a very rewarding experience, even if you end up becoming atheist/agnostic. Just don't take in more than you think you are ready for.

Rough Stone Rolling would be a good place for her to start. You might enjoy it as well. It was written by an LDS historian, so it shouldn't be too scary, but it does tell a slightly different story than what we'd typically hear from the Church. It's not a book that's likely to convince her the Church isn't what it claims to be, but it could help her to see that the Church isn't particularly forthcoming with a lot of its history, and get her thinking on those terms.

What Astrokiwi says. Also, Paul's letters come first, and they don't have a hint of making something up. Take a look at Galatians where we find off the cuff remarks about James the Brother of Jesus and Cephas. This means he expects whoever he's writing to to know these people. If it was a concerted effort to make up some dude, it wouldn't be written that way.

Bart Erhman, no friend to orthodoxy, just wrote a book Did Jesus Exist? where he goes over all the evidence with a fine toothed comb. I recommend that if you want to have a taste of what historical studies say about Jesus.

Just because the Gospels say Jesus walked on water, doesn't mean we can't believe them when they said he existed.

Acts and then Eusebius' Church History. Covers from Christ to Constantine. Written in the 4th century (300's).

There is also a nice Penguin Classic version.

After that (or perhaps in place of Eusebius), I recommend the history sections of Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Church - also a Penguin edition. As a former Roman Catholic (now Orthodox), I found his treatment of the pre-Schism history fairly objective (he himself converted from Anglicanism) and very readable.

This book was required reading at my Christian seminary.

Two other relevant, interesting and easy-to-read texts from my M.Div. program were Denzey’s Intro to “Gnosticism” and Ehrmam’s The New Testament

• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
  
• Introduction to “Gnosticism” by Nicola Lewis Denzey
  
• The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman
  

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga addresses this concern in the excellent book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism


From the dust jacket.

"It's astonishing that so many scientists, philosophers, and theologians think there is a serious conflict between science and theistic religion. In this superb book, the world's leading philosopher of religion explains, with characteristic wit and perceptiveness, why none of the main reasons for thinking there is such a conflict are even remotely successful." --Mike Bergmann, Purdue University

The story of Jesus? Water into wine, resurrection, walking on water? Nope.

Do I think it's silly and frankly stupid to pin a historical theory of nonexistence purely on the lack of primary sources? Yep. Do I get into a tiff with people here on /r/exmormon about this every couple months or so? Yep. Is Zeitgeist a terrible movie because it sounds smart and well-founded but is nothing better than the crap usually found on the "History" Channel? Yep. Is the Jesus Myth Hypothesis (no historical individual known as Jesus of Nazareth existed and the Christ mythos that built up was fully imported from traditions outside of Christianity) a real historical theory with serious historians behind it? Yes. Is it currently a minority theory? Yes.

For those who want to talk about this realistically, please get your information from more than YouTube videos or popular documentaries. The issue of where the Christ mythos came from has been debated for centuries and is still unresolved, but there are accepted ways of doing historical research that have arisen in the past few hundred years because they work. Simply parroting somebody who says "There's no mention of Jesus in contemporary records, ergo no historical existence" isn't going to get you very far when talking to real historians of any stripe.

This book is a collection of essays by some of the current leading experts on this issue and includes an essay from one of the few respected historians who promotes the Jesus Myth Hypothesis, Dr. Robert Price, and defends it far more ably than what you usually find floating around on the Internet.

Also, Dr. Bart Ehrman, who is pretty much the biblical studies equivalent of Grant Palmer (ie, while he's a respected researcher and authority, his best skill is in distilling existing research for popular consumption) has recently released his own rebuttal to much of the Jesus Myth arguments.

For me personally, the reason I feel that Jesus of Nazareth was a real individual comes from a careful analysis of early Christian works (the Gospels and the genuine Epistles of Paul, especially Galatians) using them against each other to discern where they have overlap that they would probably have rather not had (usually called the Criterion of Embarrassment). There are many such tools used by historians in biblical and other non-religious historical studies to try and determine facts from biased historical sources through contextual analysis and such secondary research.

Let me put it another way: how many of us feel that every single prophet in the Old Testament, including the folk heroes of Elijah and Elisha, were similarly non-existent? David? Solomon? Do you think that a real box was carried around by ancient Jews and was placed in their temple at Jerusalem? Do you think there was a temple at Jerusalem before some Jews returned from Babylon? A tent that it was patterned on located at Shiloh? Could you describe it's size and layout? Because there's no proof for any of these items at all (well, the Babylonians prided themselves on destroying Jerusalem with its temple, but that's the only external mention of it), and I think most of us would probably be very comfortable with the idea that some actual historical figures and things existed (probably vastly different in real life from how they were remembered). Why should Jesus (a figure with far less time from when his own followers felt he lived and when they started writing their own stories about him) be any different?

First off, Welcome! You are a special snowflake, and don't let anyone tell you different! Also, I love cream cheese brownies and wine. Something in common already :). Secondly, I'm a catechumen (officially in the process of joining the Church) so take anything I say with a grain of salt as I'm definitely still learning. Other more experience Ortho folks will chime in I'm sure.


Having already attended some services with the intention of continuing I'd say you've got the right idea. Others here, like myself, experienced Orthodoxy first in books. It can be easy to read and read while never going to see and experience for yourself. So, good on ya.


If you're interested in supplementing what you're learning in the services and conversations with the priest, there are lots of good books and web resources. A couple books I’d recommend would be “The Orthodox Way” by bishop Kallistos Ware and “The Orthodox Church” by the same author. The first book deals more with Orthodox spirituality and the second starts off with some history in the first half and teaching/doctrine in the second half. Search through this sub-forum and you’ll find a lot of great questions/answers and links to some great articles.


I’m also a big fan of this blog by Fr. Stephen Freeman.
Feel free to ask any questions you have, there are some really great people in the sub-reddit that will be glad to help you out.


ps...My wife's interest in Orthodoxy isn't at the same place as mine. In my opinion it's best not to rush them or try to crame Orthodoxy down their throats in our new found enthusiasm. Pray for them, be patient and trust God to work on her heart is His own timing :)

So I'll recommend two authors, and a blog:

1. This guy named Richard Swinburne wrote a triology of books on the possibility of the existence of God: 1) The Coherence of Theism, 2) The Existence of God, and 3) Faith and Reason.
   
   Here's his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Swinburne
   
   
2. I'll also recommend three books from Alvin Plantiga: 1) The Nature of Necessity where he argues for the ontological argument and against the problem of evil, 2) Where the Conflict Really Lies, which is a book on Christianity and science, and 3) Warrented Christian Belief, where he argues belief in God is a basic belief, akin to the belief in other minds or the external world.
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Necessity-Clarendon-Library-Philosophy/dp/0198244142
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism/dp/0199812098
   
   A PDF of warrented Christian Belief: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/plantinga/warrant3.html
   
   You should be able to get these books through interlibrary loan, if your library has an interlibrary loan service. Basically, this allows you to borrow books from other libraries.
   
   Lastly, this blog might interest you: http://rocketphilosophy.blogspot.com/
   

There's a very hot book circulating right now called Knowledge of God, it's a debate between Tooley, a very notable atheist philosopher of religion, and plantinga, another one, who is theistic. Plantinga also has an excellent book called Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

Basically, there is a trend in philosophy (naturalism) to make topics in philosophy reduced to topics of science (e.g. to clear up areas that philosophy used to cover and turn them into science fields). This trend is usually taken to be anti-theistic in nature, because the general idea is that God is a non-natural concept, which we receive knowledge of through non-natural means (intuition, a priori faculties, all that epistemological good stuff). Some theists are naturalistic about God (spinoza) but the grand majority think you get knowledge of him not with scientific methods, but with philosophical, mathematical, logical, personal, etc methods.

So there is a current in philosophy that those methods can be undermined as proto-science, and should be fixed by philosophers and turned into science. This current is alive and well today, as according to the philpapers survey, most professional philosophers are naturalists (although some of these naturalists, such as timothy williamson, don't think that philosophy is only a linguistic tool that we use to create sciences, but instead has its own objects of study for research. Nevertheless, the general point is that naturalists are very distrusting of "hocus pocus" metaphysics and epistemology. They don't want to speculate about what exists from the armchair, or at least want to do that as little as possible, whereas the non-naturalist wants to make robust claims using only intuition and personal experience, not science).

Most of these are rather aggressive anti-religion sources, rather than covering the more general sort of "basic atheism" that would be a better starting point IMO.

Something that might be of more use and interest to AtheistsM0M would be to dig up a book like The Portable Atheist, which has a a wide variety of essays and other writings from a variety of different philosophers throughout history. I've read some of it and there's some interesting stuff in there.

Which makes it even more scary we got those Seven Mountain Dominionist types in with Trump who love the idea of a theocratic kingdom. For information read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053

Francis Collins, former head of the Humane Genome project.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-God-Scientist-Presents/dp/1416542744

Interesting book.

Here's another good one by the cell biologist Ken Miller.
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427248419&sr=1-1&keywords=finding+darwin%27s+god+by+kenneth+miller

He was also an expert witness in the Dover District school board trial where they tried to introduce Intelligent Design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk

• Why Evolution is True is said to be the "best" layperson-oriented book available on the topic. I haven't read it because I learned this stuff in High School 40 years ago, so this is one of my few recommendations not based on my own reading.
  
• I bought The Magic of Reality for my mother and read it out of interest. It's extremely well written, in a warm friendly tone, with lots of pretty pictures and great explanations. It's aimed at kids as young as 12, but it's not condescending or down-talking at all. Very enjoyable for a factual book on science - recommended!
  
• As a Christian, you may be interested in this book written by Christian biologist Ken Miller: Finding Darwin's God. Can't accuse this guy of being biased against God! Also a great explainer, considered a classic. It's not 100% up to date but most of the information remains valid.

Read How Jesus Became God. That's the history of early Christianity, how Jesus went from a preacher to the figurehead of Christianity. It's not what most people would think.

I'm reading:

Church History in Plain Language

A General introduction To the Bible

Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

And I really learned a lot from William Lane Craig's Defenders Podcast. Over several years he covered the major topics of Christian doctrine in depth. The best part is the Q&A time at the end of the class.

It sounds like you've got a jumble of thoughts there, which isn't all that unusual. I can't really address all your points in my limited time to make this comment, but I can point you to a few things:

1. This article http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.713849 seems to dispute your "no evidence" claim of Jewish peoples in Egypt.
   
   
2. You might want to check out The Case for Christ (book). A journalist goes into an in-depth investigation for the historical reliability of Christianity. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310339308
   
   
3. Much of the rest I do not have handy links to send you or get into a huge discussion about at this time. As a Catholic, though, I find that the Catholic teachings regarding the development of doctrine, salvation of non-believers and its stance towards people who would identify with LGBT to be firm in its commitment to truth while still remaining compassionate to human frailty. It's a huge swath of topics that I'm not prepared to discuss (I have maybe 2 more minutes to devote to this...)

Every single person on this earth has their own idea about what religion is and how it originated, and you will encounter many more people with many ideas contrary to what you believe, so don't let your friends discourage you. You seem like you have a genuine desire to believe in God, so believe in him. In this life we are constantly being presented with new ideas and new experiences that shape the way we view things, the question is how will you chose to go about interpreting these new ideas and new experiences? Will you let something that challenges what you believe mold you and change your convictions, or will you fight to understand what you believe to be true, that there is a God and Jesus is his son? I write this as someone who has doubts everyday. Someone who questions constantly, and struggles with what you are struggling with now. However, I have come to learn that there will be a time to choose. What is it that you believe? And when you know it, fight for it, and hold on to it. Relish in the questions, take joy in the challenges, you are not loosing your faith, you are on the search for Truth, follow His voice.

​

Specifically, I think the most important place to start when trying to understand the miracles of Christ is His resurrection. Bishop Barron has a really good video on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIbmCOm8jFs

I'll list some good books below which have helped me with these questions as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310339308

https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926

​

https://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Bible-Revised-Standard-Catholic/dp/0898708338

I like this one. It's easy to ready without dumbing things down.

I just got this RSE-2CE. I love it!

Mr. Syme has offered a good list to begin. I would like to follow that list up with a number of other good works:

• The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton
  
  
• Theology and Sanity by F.J. Sheed
  
  
• Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic by David Currie
  
  The NAB you have is an approved translation, but I highly recommend using the RSVCE.
  
  It is certainly a good idea to buy Sacred Scriptures and the Catechism right now. These two pieces of literature are essential to any Catholic's library. The Missal is very good for your devotional life, especially if you are converting and have no prior experience with our Church.
  
  Be sure to balance your reading of non-fiction works with some good, rousing fiction as well. The brain needs to find itself in fantasy every now and then. Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis, and Waugh are all good authors.

As a great starting point, I'd recommend the ESV Study Bible. It's very popular and can be found in many stores that sell Bibles, or you can order it from someplace like Amazon. (no affiliate code ;-)

There's been an incredible amount of scholarship done on the Bible. The ESV is one of the most recent translations done from the oldest original language sources by a team of many dozens of historical and linguistic experts over the course of a number of years. It was even updated twice since originally published when other Biblical scholars offered suggestions for minor changes. Similarly, the ESV study Bible includes very detailed notes by various scholars to explain things from the context that would have been known already to the original readers. The general term for Bible editions which include this type of information is "study Bible", but the ESV study Bible includes more detailed notes than any other I've seen. If you actually wanted even more detail than that, you'd want to move into separate commentary volumes, which can range from one to dozens of books going into the most ridiculous level of detail for any given verse.

As an aside, as others have already pointed out, OP was writing with great information on the historical background of the Greek-speaking world, but probably not the same perspective that Paul, a Greek-educated Jew, would have held.

What books was I reading?

The Bible

Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe

God, Marriage, and Family

It depends on what they don't have - if they don't have a Bible, there are some good ones; and even if they do something like the Ignatius Study Bible or the Didache Bible which have wonderful study notes.

And if worse comes to worse, there are always icons.

Start with your interests. You may find that certain topics pique your curiosity more than others. A lot of what I've learned about Catholicism resulted from having a question, and wanting that question answered. Sometimes these questions are the results of selfish desire (ie, "Why can't I just have sex whenever I want?" or "Why do I have to give money to the poor?"), sometimes they're the result of professional interest ("What my employer is asking me to do seems immoral. Am I cooperating in evil?"), and sometimes they've just sounded interesting as I browse an FAQ box on various Catholic websites. Typically these questions will have a simple answer, with as deep an understanding that can be pursued as far as we want to take it (such as the relationship between man and woman being reflective of the Trinity, or the universal destination of goods being such that it isn't wrong for us to want nice things as long as recognize the source and ultimate orientation of those goods). Catholics Come Home may be just the thing for you, whether or not you consider yourself a 'returning Catholic' or a non-Catholic looking for the Truth. They've got some great spots airing on television and radio, one or two of which you may recognize (my personal favorite is Epic - I wish they offered it in high definition).

If you're looking for a video (or series of videos) to watch, Catholicism by Fr Robert Barron is amazing. He also offers a series of short videos on youtube via his Word on Fire ministry.

If you're looking for a Bible or companion thereto, Dr. Scott Hahn has a lot of great resources with links for ordering on his website. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is one that I own and recommend. It's got a lot of great footnotes and embedded resources for really giving you a better understanding of the literal interpretation of Scripture.

If you're looking for simple audio commentary suitable for listen on the way to work, on a plane, or in a train, check out Lighthouse Catholic Media. Lots of very affordable CDs that offer talks in chunks of about an hour from popular Catholic speakers.

Last but not least, you can't go wrong with some primary sources. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a great place for answers, though they may be a bit deeper than someone starting out may feel comfortable with. The latter is especially true of the Code of Canon Law.

And, of course, you're always free to use the search function on /r/Catholicism or post general queries on the sub itself.

Welcome home.

These are the two books I used as my intro to Orthodoxy (aside from the posts from the folks here)

http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-New-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310527893&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Way-Kallistos-Ware/dp/0913836583/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310527939&sr=1-1

I also like this priest's blog:

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/

Don't leave us!!!!!!

The Roman Catholic Catechism is a great tool to understand Catholic beliefs.

Return to Rome is a book about someone who came from being a Protestant to being a Catholic.

The Orthodox Way is a good intro to Orthodox understanding.

Becoming Orthodox is a book about a ton of Protestants converting to Orthodoxy.

The Book of Mormon at 531 pages.

An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon is also interesting, despite its flaws.

Rough Stone Rolling

I'm not sure if your friend already owns or has read this book, but it is a really interesting balanced view of Joseph Smith. It talks about some of the more difficult issues in early Mormonism, but explains them in a way that leaves room for belief.

"Rough Stone Rolling" by Richard Bushman

https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532

My favorite version and why here. It's not that I don't want to put forth effort for you, just that I already have (the comment I've linked too is very thorough). Long story short I've found NASB and ESV to be most literal of the ones I've used.

You might want to consider the ESV Study Bible as it would give you plenty of commentary to go off of. It was awarded 2009 Bible of the Year and Book of the Year by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

I heard someone say not to trust someone if they are too adamant about one version or another. In my case I push NASB or ESV 'cause I've done a good bit of translating for school and in my opinion, they are the most literal.

On The Message and other Paraphrases: This sort of thing would be detestable for any other book. Imagine if someone told you they were reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn except all the cultural references were "updated" to modern ones and anything hard to understand was rewritten so 21st century readers could understand it better? In a way, that might be neat, but that person still hasn't read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. They're reading something altogether different.

Short answer:
Buy one of the new ESV study bibles. It's very readable and has copious notes and references. If you ever want to use external references, a "King James Version", or "KJV" is very handy to have because so many reference works use it.

Less-short answer:
I am not an expert or a professional, but I am an interested amateur. I asked that same question myself a long time ago, and still years later learn more about the issues surrounding "bible versions" every month.

Different translations have different goals. Some are more literal and focus on translation of the words themselves. Some others are called dynamic and translate the intent of the words into modern equivalents. A common example would be the phrase "not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law", which really doesn't have experiential meaning to us today. A literal translation would keep "jot and tittle" (or iota and keraia in Greek, Yod and kots in Hebrew), whereas a dynamic translation might say "dot of an i, or cross of a t", which would have more meaning for us while keeping the spirit of the original and being close in the actual wording as well. Then you have the paraphrase bibles that just reword it into very readable form, but not necessarily keeping the words or structure of the original. In the same example, a paraphrase might say "not even the tinest part". Rather than giving specific examples of each version type, just know that the search phrases would be "dynamic", "literal", and "paraphrase".

Also, if we had a clear "original", there would be far fewer versions. Everything we have is a copy, and there are so many manuscripts and fragments with slightly different readings, and what weight the translators place on the different manuscripts and or manuscript heritage determines what they're translating from, much less how they choose to translate it to the target language. The existence of so many manuscripts with slightly different portions in them has made more than one christian lose his faith. However, once you remove obvious copying errors, like the easy-to-make error of dropping of the end of a sentence and continuing from that same word in a later sentence, the similarities in the manuscripts is far larger than the differences. I have heard 99% is the same, but I don't know for sure.

One thing I'd like to mention is that when asking this question, eventually a KJV-onlyist person will answer, and try to scare you away from any non-KJV versions. Since you're not christian, it probably won't matter to you, but should you ever become a believer, I want to say that many of their arguments for the superiority of the KJV are not good arguments, though I won't go into a big list here. While most (including me) think the KJV is a good translation, KJV-onlyists have the opinion that any versions other than the KJV are designed to fill your head with lies.

Long-answer:
There are many books on this subject, and probably hundreds of Web sites.

Consider buying this one instead:

Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586172506/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1UvzCbGYY27GY

I've posted about it before, but an accompanying book I really enjoyed and found helpful was How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart. It goes through and explains the different types of genres of literature found in the Bible, and the different ways to understand them. From the back of the book it says,
>"In clear, simple language, it helps you accurately understand the different parts of the Bible - their meaning for ancient audiences and their implications for you today."

I found it to be really helpful and an easy read, I would definitely recommend checking it out!

edit: The authors of this book really like the TNIV translation of the Bible, probably because they helped with that translation, but, like a lot of people in this thread are recommending, the ESV is really a great translation and the ESV Study Bible is awesome! I like this book for the descriptions of the genres, but the translation recommendation is definitely a little biased and not why I am recommending the book.

I'm not sure about articles, but Wayne Grudem is an historic pre-millennialist and defends it (rather convincingly) in his Systematic Theology. It's full of references and may help you out.

From simpler to harder:

A Well-Built Faith: A Catholic’s Guide to Knowing and Sharing What We Believe

Short, simple introduction to Catholicism

Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, by Bishop Barron

A very readable overview.

YOUCAT

A book that tries to explain the Catechism to Teens and Young Adults. More thorough than the above books.

United States Catholic Catechism
for Adults

Similar to the above, but targeted to adults

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Really a reference, but included here for completeness

Thanks for mentioning us pre-internet pioneers of exmo-ness.

I left in late 1995. Made the mistake of reading Richard S. Van Wagoner's "Mormon Polygamy: A History"

I felt so guilty for reading that book. But, I just couldn't put it down. It was the first time I felt like someone was giving me a real picture of Joseph Smith the man, not the myth. Decided I needed to balance out what I was getting in Van Wagoner's book with something more "church approved." Went to Deseret Book. Asked the girl working if they had anything on polygamy. She said she thought they had one book- they did. It was the book I was already reading.

That was the moment I took the red pill. There was no turning back and the floodgates were opened. I then read:

• No Man Knows My History
  
• Quest For The Gold Plates
  
• By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus
  
• Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders
  
• Secret Ceremonies
  
• Where Does It Say That?
  
  And then I started checking out copies of Sunstone and Dialogue.
  
  I started checking out some of the articles at Utah Lighthouse Ministries and made one trip to their book store, but I was already becoming an atheist and I didn't really like how they weren't just trying to debunk Mormonism but also trying to sell born again xianity.
  
  By November of 1996 I was already attending a Unitarian Universalist congregation and also pretty much an athiest at that point.
  
  When stuff like MormonThink came along, I was already pretty much post-Mormon. And, when I discovered r/exmormon, I was suddenly surprised at how much I liked watching what was happening here.
  
  I'm always surprised at the announcements people make about being done with this place. But, then I found it when I was already over all the emotional rage at having been deceived. I think I just like watching the train wreck at this point. People's posts here really give me the sense that Mormonism is imploding at a rate faster than this stodgy institution is prepared to deal with- makes me happy.

Bart Ehrman's newest book might be another to add to the list. Obviously, the historical existence of Jesus is a matter of legitimate historical debate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/did-jesus-exist-bart-ehrman_n_1400465.html

http://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602

The wiki for this sub suggests the following:

• How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
  
• The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings
  
• Age of Reason by Thomas Paine - A starting point of many irreconcilable contradictions and errors that lend many scholars to views on multiple authorship.
  
  If any moderators are reading I personally propose adding this to the Wiki, it's excellent:
  
  
• How to Read the Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler also published as How to Read the Jewish Bible.

On 1 Corinthians 14.34-35, see this paper for a good start: "the hallmarks of interpolation are exemplified" in these two verses (inconsistent placement in the text, textual variations, atypical vocab for the author, disruptive to the otherwise natural flow of the text, and early awareness in manuscripts that something was "off" about the passage).

On the pastoral letters, see this book, chapter 24, by Ehrman. Despite some of the sensationalism of his popular level books, his academic books really are well received among scholars, and this book is representative of the cumulative efforts of the field, not just himself.

> Most scholars are reasonably convinced that all three Pastoral epistles were written by the same author. . . . was that [author] the apostle Paul? . . . we do find an inordinate number of non-Pauline words, most of which occur in later Christian writings. Sophisticated studies of the Greek text of these books have come up with with the following data: . . . 848 different words found in the Pastorals; of these, 306 occur nowhere else in the Pauline corpus of the New Testament . . . This means that over one-third of the vocabulary is not Pauline.

Of the vocabulary in common with Paul's authentic letters (faith, righteous, etc.), several are now used with very different definitions. There's more than just vocabulary and style, though, so I recommend reading the full chapter on the issue.

I don't know of any great online sources that directly answer "did Jesus exist?", but if you are interested check out The New Testament by Ehrman. It is a great introduction to "historical Jesus" studies and the origins of the New Testament documents. Also check out this Open Yale course. They both explain the historical tools used to answer these kinds of questions.

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Portable-Atheist-Essential-Non-Believer/dp/0306816083

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

What convinced me of the truth of evolution was hearing a talk from Dr. Kenneth Miller, author of Finding Darwin’s God. He’s a Catholic biologist who not only soundly explains the science of evolution and refutes scientific explanations for creationism, but also believes that rather than conflicting faith, an understanding of evolution enhances faith.

> I feel like we're getting pretty close to the end game in this field

Not by a long shot. There were people saying the same thing five hundred years ago. It's incomprehensible how much remains to be learned. Our models of everything - the physical world, the functioning of biological systems, the nature of the universe - are fairly crude next to what actually goes on.

To put things in perspective, we learned what the pancreas does less than one hundred years ago.

We figured out how to fly a smidge longer ago than that.

We haven't even left our own solar system yet, and we (humans, not robots) have only ever been to one body other than the earth.

You carry computers in your pocket now that are about the thickness of a deck of cards and can accurately track your location to within a few feet, automatically order a sub sandwich for you at the touch of a button, and will allow you to place a telephone call to Shanghai. Ten years ago, that would have been witchcraft. Today it's commonplace.

In biology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, computing science, and a hundred other fields I'm too dumb to even know about... we're still learning.

>The synaptic structure of the brain does NOT explain the mind

Note that you're contradicting yourself here - you just said we're 'nearing the end game' and now you're launching in to how much we don't know.

The synaptic structure of the brain alone doesn't explain the mind. There are neurochemical and other factors to be considered.

It's a highly complex processor, and we don't know what we need to know to accurately model or reproduce it.. yet. But that doesn't mean it won't happen.

Be careful you don't fall into an argument from ignorance fallacy here.

>You trying to convince a christian that a quark behaves depending on whether or not its being observed is about as likely as them trying to convince you that you should act righteous because god is watching.

Are you saying people of faith can't be reasoned with? I'm sure there are a few examples, but by and large... I disagree.

>The only two choices are not science and faith, and I hate to break it to you, but all the arrogant little atheists on reddit come across just as closed minded as somebody who really believes the earth was created in 7 days.

I don't disagree that it's not a dichotomous choice. If you haven't read Ken Miller, I recommend this.

>We need to get faith and science back in bed together.

Erh, I don't think it's so much that as we need to recognize that they're independent and ought to remain as such.

Ken Miller wrote a book called Finding Darwin's God, where he does what you're looking for. He starts with young-earth creationism, moves onto old-earth creationism, and then to intelligent design. It's the best book on evolution I've read so far.

He's a scholar, and you probably find his arguments in detail in his book about the topic.

This CNN article?

More reading on the subject at Wikipedia

Also, Ehrman's book that the CNN article mentions.

Read it first

>Please describe the evidence.

Let me be clear about one thing off the bat. While I studied religion, Christianity, and the Bible in college (a very, very liberal one), I am not a historian or archaeologist by trade.

That said, you seem to be implying that I personally must produce expert-level evidence on the spot, or that somehow the widely accepted historical consensus on Jesus' existence is bullshit. That's not an intellectually honest way to try to win an argument.

Also, your tone is extremely aggressive. You have no idea who I am. I am not a Biblical fundamentalist, which seems to be what you're implying here:

>... and dont just say "the bible is the evidence, because othewise nobody would make up the gospel stories."

First, if you did even the smallest amount of research on your own (LMGTFY), you'd know the "Christ myth" theory is robustly rejected by scholars in the fields of history, archaeology, and (yes) religious studies. It is a fringe theory supported by fringe thinkers. It doesn't stand up to the intellectual scrutiny of the scholarly historical community, nor that which /r/atheism purports to apply to all other topics.

Second, you could fill a book with an answer to your question. Someone has.

In case you're wondering, Bart Ehrman is an agnostic and does not identify as a Christian.

He's also at odds with the Jesus Seminar over elements of the historical Jesus' teachings. While the Seminar believes the historical Jesus never made any Messianic or eschatological claims (being a later addition to his teachings), Ehrman believes Jesus was much more eccentric and believed the end of the world was imminent, and that he would play a key role in it.

Point is: Ehrman's not soft on this stuff. You can hear more about it from him in this recent NPR interview.

Outsider recommended The Orthodox Church which covers the history and beliefs of Orthodoxy. (Well, when I say it like that, it sounds pretty boring - it's not.)

Along with that, I'd recommend The Orthodox Way by the same author. it's meant to give a view into how Orthodox Christians do "spirituality."

> I'm also hoping to find a way to learn more about Orthodoxy in a personal way.

I can help ya there! The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn about Orthodoxy. The author makes no attempt to convert the reader; he just guides the reader through Orthodox history and theology in a very engaging manner. I highly recommend it!

The standard historical introduction is The Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware).

A good theological/spirituality introduction is The Orthodox Way, also by Met. Kallistos.

While I am a Protestant, this book…

http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Church-New-Edition/dp/0140146563/

… does contain a good summary of the early years up to and including the Great Schism. Another book I recommend that is more recent and deals with the time the Catholic Church lost a great deal of political power is…

http://www.amazon.com/Prisoner-Vatican-Garibaldis-Rebels-Struggle/dp/0618619194/

… though it is also focused on Italy Unification. Historically they are linked. Most of my other knowledge comes from general research study to (horribly condensed) films like Luther, so I am anxious to see what others might say.

The simplest answer is that the Roman Catholic doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son directly contradicts what Christ Himself taught: But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me (John 15:26). Who proceeds from the Father is what was affirmed verbatim in the Creed adopted at the 2nd Ecumenical Council in 381: τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον. The Church Fathers later agreed (at the 3rd Ecumenical Council) that no change of any kind was to be introduced into this Creed. Kallistos Ware, in The Orthodox Church, describes how a modification to what was accepted at the 2nd Ecumenical council came to propagate in the west:

"Originally the Creed ran: ‘I believe… in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.’ This, the original form, is recited unchanged by the east to this day. But the west inserted an extra phrase ‘and from the Son’ (in Latin, Filioque), so that the Creed now reads ‘who proceeds from the Father and the Son’. It is not certain when and where this addition was first made, but it seems to have originated in Spain, as a safeguard against Arianism. At any rate the Spanish Church interpolated the Filioque at the third Council of Toledo (589), if not before. From Spain the addition spread to France and thence to Germany, where it was welcomed by Charlemagne and adopted at the semi-Iconoclast Council of Frankfort (794). It was writers at Charlemagne's court who first made the Filioque into an issue of controversy, accusing the Greeks of heresy because they recited the Creed in its original form. But Rome, with typical conservatism, continued to use the Creed without the Filioque until the start of the eleventh century. In 808 Pope Leo III wrote in a letter to Charlemagne that, although he himself believed the Filioque to be doctrinally sound, yet he considered it a mistake to tamper with the wording of the Creed. Leo deliberately had the Creed, without the Filioque, inscribed on silver plaques and set up in St Peter's. For the time being Rome acted as a mediator between the Franks and Byzantium."

The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity (pp.50-51)

Came here to recommend the same Yale course, and combine that with Bart Erhman's book Introduction to the new testament.

Friend, it's time to get into philosophy, because let me tell you, it is FAR from an open and shut case when it comes to whether or not it is logical to believe in God.

It's not an easy or a simple topic, and if you want to defend your faith you're going to need to argue about things like metaphysics.
I'll give you some links to get you started:

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Logic_and_the_Absolute_Platonic_and_Christian_Views-by_Philip_Sherrard.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism/dp/0199812098

http://pitt.edu/~jearman/Earman2000HumeAbjectFailure.pdf

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_and_Other_Minds

On science and evolution:

Genetics is where it's at. There is a ton of good fossil evidence, but genetics actually proves it on paper. Most books you can get through your local library (even by interlibrary loan) so you don't have to shell out for them just to read them.

Books:

The Making of the Fittest outlines many new forensic proofs of evolution. Fossil genes are an important aspect... they prove common ancestry. Did you know that humans have the gene for Vitamin C synthesis? (which would allow us to synthesize Vitamin C from our food instead of having to ingest it directly from fruit?) Many mammals have the same gene, but through a mutation, we lost the functionality, but it still hangs around.

Deep Ancestry proves the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins. It's no longer even a debate. MtDNA and Y-Chromosome DNA can be traced back directly to where our species began.

To give more rounded arguments, Hitchens can't be beat: God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist (which is an overview of the best atheist writings in history, and one which I cannot recommend highly enough). Also, Dawkin's book The Greatest Show on Earth is a good overview of evolution.

General science: Stephen Hawking's books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time are excellent for laying the groundwork from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity through to the modern discovery of Quantum Mechanics.

Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine are also excellent sources for philosophical, humanist, atheist thought; but they are included in the aforementioned Portable Atheist... but I have read much of their writings otherwise, and they are very good.

Also a subscription to a good peer-reviewed journal such as Nature is awesome, but can be expensive and very in depth.

Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is also an excellent look at the human mind and genetics. To understand how the mind works, is almost your most important tool. If you know why people say the horrible things they do, you can see their words for what they are... you can see past what they say and see the mechanisms behind the words.

I've also been studying Zen for about a year. It's non-theistic and classed as "eastern philosophy". The Way of Zen kept me from losing my mind after deconverting and then struggling with the thought of a purposeless life and no future. I found it absolutely necessary to root out the remainder of the harmful indoctrination that still existed in my mind; and finally allowed me to see reality as it is instead of overlaying an ideology or worldview on everything.

Also, learn about the universe. Astronomy has been a useful tool for me. I can point my telescope at a galaxy that is more than 20 million light years away and say to someone, "See that galaxy? It took over 20 million years for the light from that galaxy to reach your eye." Creationists scoff at millions of years and say that it's a fantasy; but the universe provides real proof of "deep time" you can see with your own eyes.

Videos:

I recommend books first, because they are the best way to learn, but there are also very good video series out there.

BestofScience has an amazing series on evolution.

AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism is awesome.

Thunderfoot's Why do people laugh at creationists is good.

Atheistcoffee's Why I am no longer a creationist is also good.

Also check out TheraminTrees for more on the psychology of religion; Potholer54 on The Big Bang to Us Made Easy; and Evid3nc3's series on deconversion.

Also check out the Evolution Documentary Youtube Channel for some of the world's best documentary series on evolution and science.

I'm sure I've overlooked something here... but that's some stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions about anything, or just need to talk, send me a message!

My favorite was Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. I picked it up after reading The Looming Tower (Pulitzer winner), also by Wright.

I thought it was really interesting, there was quite a bit of material on belief systems, and why people look to join groups, that wasn't specific to scientology.

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith Paperback – August 1, 1995

https://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540

You want a free one? I've made the offer on here before, but I've still got a bunch of extra of these, and they're pretty nice. https://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Bible-Revised-Standard-Catholic/dp/0898708338/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=ignatius+bible&qid=1563603128&s=gateway&sprefix=ignatius&sr=8-1

If thou lookest for an Early Modern English translation, especially of the Latin Vulgate, then the Douay-Rheims Bible is what you are looking for. There are editions out there that have both the Latin and the English. Here's one I found on Amazon.

Personally, I use the RSV-2CE which is a great (in my opinion) modern English translation. The Didache Bible uses this translation and features commentary from the Catechism. Also available without the commentary.

The best option is Amazon; other sites will have the same price around it but they won’t include the shipping price until you check out. As for Amazon, if you have prime it’s free shipping. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898708338/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Wy1TAbCBTCVS4

Hello TheEvilAlex! Search google and find a local Catholic Church! Call them and ask to speak with a priest or the parish youth minister! Explain your situation and they will help you!

The best bible out there right now is the RSV:SCE from Ignatius! You can get the hardcover for under $20 here on amazon. You can download the bible for free on your iPhone/iPod/iPad here.

You don't have to sing the Psalms. Most people read them as poetry.

If you have questions, feel free to ask here or you can even text questions to 'Catholic Facts" a small ministry I run that answers questions about the Catholic faith. Our text line number is 810-37-FACTS.

Cheers!

I recommend that you read this article and that you read this book.

An excerpt from the article:
>Sometime after Henry and Zina were married, Joseph told Dimick Huntington, Zina’s brother, the story of why he was compelled to introduce plural marriage, and asked that Dimick tell the story to Zina. As Zina is quoted by one author to have said, “Tell Zina I have put it off and put it off until an angel with a drawn sword has stood before me and told me if I did not establish that principle [plurality of wives] and live it, I would lose my position and my life and the Church could progress no further.”

I would also add that Celestial law supersedes the Levitical law.

I suggest reading those things and go to the Lord about it to give you peace.

I too had questions about this and have been patient in receiving understanding. [D&C 50:40] -
>"Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth."

I recommend the ESV Study Bible. The ESV strives to take as few translation liberties (similar to the NRSV) while remaining accessible to readers. The notes are detailed and robust. I use one for most of my work in Seminary.

In my opinion, single volume commentaries are always going to be frustratingly brief. I usually advise people to study one biblical book and buy one or two good commentaries on that book. Buying a whole series is more expensive and will put books on your shelf you may not use for a while (like that Obadiah commentary....)

Sometimes you are better off with a serious Study Bible, and there are plenty of those. I often recommend the ESV Study Bible, which is mostly conservative. There are many essays in the appendices which are with the price of the book. If you are interested in background material, try the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Also on the conservative side of the spectrum, but it has good notes from John Walton and Craig Keener.

If you insist on a one voume commentary, the venerable Jerome Bible Commentary edited by Raymond Brown (and others) is very good, with a Catholic perspective. It is one of the larger one volume commentaries and can be found used inexpensively.

Hopefully someone else can add their voice to the conversation.

The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels says this:

> Across the Synoptic tradition there is evidence of an interest in angels in Gethsemane. In some manuscripts of Luke 22:43–44 Jesus is strengthened by an angel as he sweats like drops of blood; in Matthew 26:53 Jesus claims that he can call on the help of twelve legions of angels; and in Mark 14:51–52 the “young man” (neaniskos) fleeing naked may be an angel. The first two, and perhaps the third, of these texts reflect the tradition of angelic help offered to righteous heroes in battle.

The Ignatius Catholic Study NT has this to say:

> 14:51 a young man: An unnamed witness that many scholars identify as Mark. If this is the case, the evangelist chose to remain anonymous in light of the episode’s embarrassing details. Ultimately, how we identify this individual has little bearing on the tradition that Mark wrote the second Gospel as a summary of Peter’s preaching, since he could have witnessed the arrest of Jesus without being an eyewitness to his three-year ministry.


As a side note, the Lexham Bible Dictionary uses these verses as evidence of Markan Priority:

> Marcan Priority is generally held to be the stronger theory because it is easier to make sense of the differences between the Synoptics on the assumption that Mark wrote first. The small amount of material unique to Mark—like the blind man of Bethesda in Mark 8:22–26 or the youth fleeing naked in Mark 14:51–2—makes more sense as material mutually omitted by Matthew and Luke than as material specially added by Mark, especially as Mark lacks a lot of apparently congenial material found in Matthew and Luke (like the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer).


***
Edit: I just realized that your username totally checks out.

> Should I recite prayers or make up my own or do a combination?

Combination. I'm currently reading Spe Salvi, and Pope Benedict explains it like this (paragraph 34):

> For prayer to develop this power of purification [to open us up to God], it must on the one hand be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God. On the other hand it must be constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the Church and of the saints, by liturgical prayer, in which the Lord teaches us again and again how to pray properly. [...] Praying must always involve this intermingling of public and personal prayer. This is how we can speak to God and how God speaks to us.

The "formulaic" prayers that we memorize are important, in part because they teach us how to pray. Most likely, you'll go through times in your life where you'll feel "dry", and you'll struggle to know what to say to God, struggle to feel his presence. Especially during these times - but during other times as well - these prayers are a real treasure. We can also pray together with the whole Church when we pray these prayers, because many of them are prayers that the whole Church has in common.

But you need to make up your own personal prayers, too. Ultimately, prayer is talking with God, and prayer is about building up a relationship with God. And just like in any relationship, you need to communicate your own personal (unique to you) hopes, fears, sorrows, longings. So you really do need both types of prayer.

> What are the most common or popular prayers for you guys (other than the prayers involved in the rosary, of course)?

There are so many out there. A morning offering is a good idea (that can be recited or in your own words). There's the Angelus, which is often prayed at noon each day (and sometimes at 6 am and 6 pm as well). It's also good to get in the habit of doing a brief examination of conscience before bed, followed by an Act of Contrition (again, either recited or in your own words).

> How do I achieve meditative prayer?

The rosary is a meditative prayer, so there's that. Personally, I really struggle with the rosary (I tend to get overwhelmed by trying to do so many things all at once: counting with the beads, praying aloud, meditating on the mysteries), but you can also do meditative prayer in other ways: the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Lectio Divina are both meditative prayers, and prayer before icons or before the crucifix can also be meditative.

The Catechism has a good section on expressions of prayer which discusses meditative and contemplative prayer.

> How can I study the bible correctly and be able to recall passages as some of you do in the comments?

I can't speak to recollection (I think some of that just comes with time), but a couple of suggestions for Bible study: Probably the easiest way to start is to find a Bible Study at a local parish. It's also a good practice to read from the Bible regularly, ideally with the help of a good study Bible. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is good, but it's New Testament only. Other resources might be a Navarre Bible or the Didache Bible (also from Ignatius press).

> And finally, how does one properly do the process of Lectio Divina by oneself?

For Lectio Divina, check out this explanation.

It is not just that the OT/NT were written in a language that is foreign to most people but it was written in a historical and cultural context that most "don't get" as well.

As has been said we need to figure out what it meant to those to whom it was originally written. That historical/cultural context must be the baseline for what it means to us today.

Nor Bible is a systematic theological textbook. Each book was written for a specific purpose and if one does not understand that is then they might mis-interpret what is being said.

Nor does each book utilize the same literary genre (and some employ more than one) and if one does not understand that is then they might mis-interpret what is being said.

So it is not just as simple as saying, "read the Bible in its original languages".

Two good summaries of "hermeneutics" - the theory of text interpretation can be found here or here

I'd recommend reading How to Read the Bible for All its Worth by Fee and Stuart if you're not someone familiar with reading ancient texts.

It has a large section dedicated to explaining about how Bible translation works, which is probably more important than giving you a translation recommendation. With that information, you should be able to make your own informed choice.

The sections that introduce you to biblical literature are worth your time as well.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040

Classic

The Bible is a collection of different texts, each one written by different people at different times for different reasons. The concept of "history" wasn't even invented for much of the period of writing, and our modern understanding of genres is only loosely connected to the genres present and recognised at the time. Much of the Bible was never written to be interpreted literally in the first place, it is intended to be read as allegorical, theological, poetry, apocalyptic, prophetic, metaphorical, or parables.

In addition much of scripture was written in one way by the author and later interpreted by the community of the faithful in another sense as well, as people saw that while the writer couldn't have known the deeper meaning of his words, the Holy Spirit can use those words to show later readers a more profound truth. In interpreting the texts, historically the Western Church has considered four general 'Senses' in which any passage can be read. This is an artificial division, but still helpful. These senses are: Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical.

The literal sense is not just a 'plain reading' as some conservative evangelicals would understand it, but covers the sense of the text after being interpreted according to sound, consistent rules, called 'exegesis'.

The Moral sense involves the moral lessons that can be derived from the text, that interpretation which leads us to act justly.

The Allegorical sense is when we look at the text and derive a more profound understanding of how it points us towards Christ, and towards God.

The Anagogical sense (from the Greek: anagoge, “leading”) is the sense of the text that points to realities and events in terms of their eternal significance.

For example, the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea can be interpreted Literally, as a story of God's rescuing of His People in the past, it can be interpreted Morally as an instruction to us today to trust in God's provision during times of trouble. It can be interpreted Allegorically as a sign or type of Christ's salvation and of Baptism, and it can be interpreted Anagogically as pointing towards our final rescue and God's leading us out of this world into the Promised Land of the New Heaven and the New Earth. All four senses can be used on the same passage, though not every passage can be interpreted in all four senses.

This is all to say that the Bible cannot be taken at 'face value' but must always be interpreted. A book I always recommend as an essential starter book is How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee. It gives a good summary of the different genres present in the Bible and how to read them to get the most out of them.

However this is only a starter text. Some would say the bible is so complicated and based on such ancient ideas that are so difficult for modern readers to understand that only certain people are qualified to interpret them, and we must submit our own understanding to that of the Church. Others would say individual 'lay' Christians are capable of interpreting the scriptures correctly but such interpretation requires much serious study, understanding of context and secondary books to guide us. Others would say that all any reader needs is the Holy Spirit and God will ensure our understanding is correct, so we don't need to study at all.

Personally I think both the former and latter extreme positions are flawed, and I think with long study, willingness to learn, serious discussion with other Christians, humbleness, and faith any individual can interpret the scriptures correctly. However we should never be so arrogant as to think that our own understanding is always correct, or that there is not something we can learn from the wider Church and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Nor should we be worried when we don't understand something. While full and accurate understanding of scripture is helpful, it is not essential for salvation, only faith in Christ. A full understanding of the deeper lessons of scripture will often come later, after many years living in faith. If you can't understand something now, just put it to one side, and have faith in God that he will help you to understand it when you're ready to do so.

I haven't read it, but I've only heard great things about How to Read the Bible for All it's Worth, for Gorden Fee and Doug Stuart.

Also, The Last Word, by NT Wright is excellent. It's not necessarily a book strictly about interpreting the bible, but more of a theology of the bible, so to speak. Reading Wright's work has given me a lot more appreciation for what the bible is, which helps a lot with interpreting it.

Are there any particular issues you're interested in, or any books you'd specifically like guidance with? I've got a final suggestion, that deals with making sense of some of the commandments in the old testament. It's called Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, by William Webb. It's an excellent approach to the old testament that reads it in light of the New Testament and is able to make sense of the hard commandments without pretending that they don't exist.

You may find Lee Strobel's book, The Case For Christ somewhat interesting. The book came out of his investigation (as a former atheist) into hard evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ and the claim to his divinity. He chronicles his in-depth interviews with some expert historians and Bible scholars.

Apart from the Gospels, a great piece of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus is the account of 1st Century Roman historian Flavius Josephus, who made mention of Jesus in his account of Jewish history leading up to that point. This is one of many pieces of evidence examined in Strobel's book. He also wrote another book called "The Case for Faith," which may also have some information you're looking for.

What are your goals? Do you want to learn Catholic teaching? Know and understand the Bible stories? Do you want to read casually or do you want to put in some serious study?

If you just plan on using it every so often but are curious to learn more about Catholicism, there's the New Catholic Answer Bible. It's a New American Bible translation, which most of us on here don't like. This Bible has lots of inserts that answer common questions about Catholicism (Why do we confess to a priest? Why do we think Jesus is God? Why do we venerate Mary? What are saints? etc). My parish uses this Bible as the textbook for those in the RCIA program (the class for adults who want to join the Catholic Church), so it's a good way to learn.

If you want to learn the Bible story in an easy to read way-- The Great Adventure Bible just came out and breaks down the story of salvation into an easy to understand narrative. It helps you see how the Old Testament and the New fit together. If you want to really understand the Bible and want to commit to reading through a good chunk of it, this is the one to get (they have you start off with what they believe to be the 14 most important books to the story of salvation and then you can go back and read the "supplementary" books). **It's sold out right now, but it may be worth waiting for if you really want to learn the Bible story.

If you really plan on doing some serious study of Catholicism and putting time into it, get the Didache Bible. It cross-references the Catechism and is a good way to learn Catholic teaching in a more in depth way, but it's not nicely laid out for you like the other two I suggested. You have to be willing to do a lot more work going back and forth to the Catechism.

Either way, I suggest getting a Catechism to go along with your Bible. Ideally you should be going back and forth between the two as the Catechism explains the Catholic applications of the Bible. You can also find the complete Catechism online for free (you can find the Bible online for free, too), but I prefer the physical book.

Are you sure you went to a Catholic school? I went through Catholic school and was taught the Big Bang theory in Theology as what most likely happened.

Was also taught natural selection and evolution in Biology.

>According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#337), the book of Genesis "symbolically" presents God's work of creation. In other words, the Biblical story of creation is like a parable in that the plot does not have to be literally true in order for the story to convey profound religious truths, such as the sequential and increasingly complex nature of God's creative activity. Interestingly, the idea of evolution seems to be supported by Genesis 1:24, which states, "Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures." Genesis does not say that God directly created plants and animals in their final form, only that they came forth from "the earth."

-Source

I would throw in more stuff but I am lazy and at work.

Lots of people here are or have been in the same boat. You are not alone.

Focus on your relationship with your wife and kids. Most people recommend going very slowly with spouses. You will have to bring up your issues some day. If nothing else your wife may notice your change in attitude. The critical thing at that point (or before that point) is to make sure your wife knows that you love her. You are questioning the church, not your marriage. Many TBMs have trouble making that distinction.

The second most important thing is that when you do start talking to your wife about church issues is to make sure she does not run to her family for advice. That is one reason to start slowly at the very edges. Ask that she keep your confidence. Cultivate the idea that this is something that the two of you have to work out together, and that family interference will only make it worse. It is the two of you against the world.

A family member or close friend leaving the church might be an opportunity to talk about why they left. I know you said that your families are uber TBM, but don't be surprised if someone does come out as ex.

One thing you might do is get a copy of No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie. It is an old book. Get it in paperback and let your wife see you reading it. Encourage her to read it with you.

I think the book used to be sold at Deseret Books, but I don't see it on their website. It might still be available in a brick and mortar store. Here is the Amazon link if you can't find it an official church site.

The video says that you wouldn't be able to do research.

That's BS. I didn't watch past that. If they are going to make stipulations like that, assuming Joseph didn't have access to some sort of research, or a pre-written book even, than I could care less what other shit they dribble on about.

If you have time to read a book, No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie covers a lot on the authorship of the BOM. Truthfully though it wouldn't matter what books or websites you gave your brother, as a true believer he has to deny all evidence contrary to his beliefs.

*Grammar

My initial thoughts:

• [No Man Knows My History] (https://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502508499&sr=8-1&keywords=no+man+knows+my+history), by Fawn M. Brodie
  
  
• [An Insider's View of Mormon Origins] (https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502508636&sr=1-1&keywords=an+insider%27s+view+of+mormon+origins), by Grant Palmer
  
  
• [Mormon Polygamy: a history] (https://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Polygamy-Richard-Van-Wagoner/dp/0941214796/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502508741&sr=1-1&keywords=mormon+polygamy), by Richard S. Von Wagoner
  
  
• [The Mountain Meadows Massacre] (https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Meadows-Massacre-Juanita-Brooks/dp/0806123184/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502508843&sr=1-1&keywords=mountain+meadows+massacre+juanita+brooks), by Juanita Brooks
  
  
• [A Gathering of Saints] (https://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Saints-Story-Murder-Deceit/dp/0671651129/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502508882&sr=1-1&keywords=a+gathering+of+saints), by Robert Lindsey
  
  See if any of those pique your interest. I found them all to be fair, with little bias. Happy studying!

I saw a lecture Richard Carrier gave where he gives out about jesus myth authors like this, because although Carrier himself is a notable Jesus myth hypothesis espouser, he finds the nonsense that is published saying Jesus is a myth is so flawed that it damages serious scholarly work which examines the historicity or not of Christ.

His book Proving History is an interesting book. It's more about rigor and methodology in history but he does touch on the historicity of Christ throughout. Worth a read nyway.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1616145595

Please have a look at Richard Carrier's great book that questions the historicity of Jesus. Richard is an athiest scholar who doesn't take it as granted that Jesus was a real person.

Here's how I would put the many Joseph Smith books out there. I would be intrigued with others thoughts:

Joseph Smith 101 - LDS.org / anything put out by the Church (hagiographical with definite faith-promoting angle)

Joseph Smith 201 - Truman G. Madsen's Joseph Smith the Prophet (my first foray into JS while on my mission), things put out by Deseret Book (tend to be more friendly), FAIR Mormon (apologetic, faith-promoting angle)

Joseph Smith 301 - BYU Studies on Joseph Smith (especially the 1970s pieces written during a more "free" time of LDS history access), Donna Hill's Joseph Smith the First Mormon (written by non-Mormon, fairly friendly and objective)

Joseph Smith 401 - Richard Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, Tippets and Avery's "Emma Hale Smith: Mormon Enigma," any Dialogue and Journal of Mormon History article pertaining to Joseph Smith.

Graduate-level Joseph Smith - Joseph Smith Papers for primary source documentation, Dan Vogel's "Early Mormon Documents," (again, source documentation), Fawn Brodie's "No Man Knows My History" (again for source documentation that she had unavailable to us in 2016). Primary sources allow you to begin your own research. I'm not very good in this area, but I do try.

Probably the Vulgate with Douay Rheims in parallel. Here's an online [version] (http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=0&b=1)

My physical Bible for everyday reading is an Ignatius study Bible, like [so] (https://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Bible-Revised-Standard-Catholic/dp/0898708338/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466276455&sr=1-2&keywords=ignatius+study+bibles)

I'd advise the RSVCE. https://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Bible-Revised-Standard-Catholic/dp/0898708338

In that price range, you could pick up the NRSV with Apocrypha (some may find issue with that translation, but I like it for personal use) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061827215/

Or if you want a more reverent translation, the RSV2CE is quite good, keeping in mind it won't have the full Orthodox deuterocanon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0898708338/

Edit: Also, it's my understanding that one can find a KJV with Apocrypha for a decent price

Also, these two books by Timothy (Kallistos) Ware https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Way-Kallistos-Ware/dp/0913836583 and https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/014198063X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480292564&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=the+orthodox+church&dpPl=1&dpID=51exHD4f7sL&ref=plSrch are relatively easy to read and give a good summary of church doctrine and history.

It's an excellent choice. Like others have said, reading more than one book with different viewpoints on Christian fundamentals is a good idea, which is why I love threads like this, so thanks for posting.

Here are some suggestions from my own explorations in the last few years.

---

Mere Christianity

What Christians Believe by the venerable Bishop Ken Myers (im_just_throwing_this_out_there)

Essential Truths of the Christian Faith by R.C. Sproul, for more of a basic Reformed theology perspective

Dogmatics in Outline by Karl Barth, for a Reformed-ish (emphasis on the "ish") perspective sometimes called "neo orthodoxy". It's a summary of a much (much) larger work, and it's probably the toughest read out of the other books I'm recommending, because it encapsulates quite a bit of his very complex thought in a pretty short space.

The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware for an eye-opening perspective and well-written about a tradition I knew nothing about from my American, Baptist/evangelical upbringing.

The Catholic Religion by Vernon Staley, which is actually about the Anglican church. This was recommended to me by an Anglican redditor.

Someone already recommended Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. I'm about halfway through this right now. Being a regular on this sub, where his theology is pretty popular, I wouldn't say it's mind-blowing to me, but your mileage may vary. It's certainly a good read so far; his writing style is clear and easy to read (I think even easier than Lewis), and it seems like a good jumping off point for further exploration (he has other books I want to read, and I figured I'd start with his introductory book first).

Modern:

• Kallistos Ware - The Orthodox Way, How Should We Study Theology
  
  
• Irenei Steenburg - Beginnings of a Life of Prayer
  
  
• Michael Pomazansky - Orthodox Dogmatic Theology
  
  
• Thomas Hopko - Speaking the Truth in Love
  
  
• Dumitru Stăniloae - Orthodox Spirituality,The Meaning of Life and Existence
  
  
• Justin Popovic - Commentary on the Epistles of St. John the Theologian
  
  For the books above, you will see that they all have 4.5 to 5 stars on Amazon. Of all of the above, I most highly recommend the first part of Beginnings of a Life of Prayer - "Taking Stock of Our Struggle". It is life-changing.
  
  From Antiquity:
  
  
• John Cassian (360-435) - Conferences
  
  
• John of Damascus (676-749) - Complete Exposition of the Orthodox Faith - still used as a textbook in many Orthodox seminaries. It uses the term "Orthodox" as "orthodox", not the modern Eastern Orthodox Church. It was written before the widespread splintering of Christianity.
  
  Of the above, I especially recommend Chapter XII from Conference III, "The answer on the economy of Divine Grace, with free will still remaining in us".
  

Not sure if this fits under your definition of "world religions" but Mormonism is currently undergoing an interesting, scholarly reassessment of its history. Mormons have a pretty unique and (if I may say so myself) fascinating cosmology that you may enjoy learning about. If you're interested I would start by reading Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling.

Well there's this which is very basic.

If you want something more there is also this and this for short introductions by two of our foremost scholars. However, if you want to dig deep you will probably like this overview of Mormons in general as well as this standard scholarly work on Joseph Smith and this scholarly work on the Book of Mormon.

So, take your pick what level of intro you want and jump in! (And never forget to read the Book of Mormon itself!.) Good to meet you!

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532 - Rough Stone Rolling - The best biography of JS that I've ever read.
http://mormonthink.com/ - Probably the best researched and least partisan resource.
http://20truths.info/ - 20 Truths about Mormonism

I've put shameless plugs of this Bible on r/Christianity before, because it's just amazing. Every translation is flawed and biased, since ancient hebrew and greek had very limited vocabularies, which included words that have multiple translations to English.

If you want to keep to the KJV, I'd still recommend a more modern translation just for comparison sake. That Bible I linked to contains extensive commentary in the footnotes of each page (here's an example, it's a very large picture).

If you'd rather not go out and spend the money on another Bible, then research commentaries. Look for the least bias, as some denominations or organizations will put out their own commentaries that reflect their personal translational beliefs.

I'd also recommend looking into different plans on how to read the Bible. Obviously you should read Genesis - Deuteronomy together, as well as the Kings, Samuels, and Chronicles. Different sections of the Bible correspond to different events and situations, but it's really up to you.

I find study bibles to be the most helpful because they have very detailed notes at the bottom of each page as well as thorough introductions. That way, if you get hung up on something, there are references. Also, Bible Gateway allows you to type in a verse or book and see what other translations have for that verse. Very nice for comparison

Maybe Orthodox posters can provide a better opttion but on Amazon, this is the top Orthodox study bible

ESV study Bible is a favorite among a lot of r/Christianity posters

Good luck with your journey, brother

Skryym,

To continue with your second point (I was at work, so could only answer the first point):

2) I can't take the Bible literally.

We have to understand what the Bible is. It is first and foremost a collection of books, not a single literary work. Every word is the inspired word of God, however its human authors are spread out over centuries, and contain multiple genres including history, allegory, psalms, gospels, epistles (letters), prophecy, etc. Before we look at a particular book, we have to ask a few questions: Who is the (human) author? What genre is it? What is its intention? Without knowing that, we can't come to a realization of what we are reading. For example, Genesis is not intended as literal history, but as historical allegory. For example, to God, time is meaningless. Time, properly understood, is the breaking up of existence into pieces. A person's existence is never fully grasped, but is known in a succession of moments. God is infinite and eternal, thus he contains the totality of his existence in one single action. Thus to say that creation of this or that thing took place in a "day" is meaningless to God because God is the very action of being and cannot be delineated into measurement of time. But it is sufficient for human readers to grasp the theological points of the text, which is the point. Similarly, Leviticus is written largely as a manual outlining ritual, legal and moral practices to help the Jews grow closer to God, and specifically in the setting of Jewish temple worship. Many of the practices are no longer followed by Christians, such as animal sacrifices, because Christ is the one sufficient burnt offering offered once for all. The books of the bible also have to be looked at in context with the rest of the books. The early church fathers looked at the Old Testament as containing the New Testament in hidden form, for example. The bible is difficult, as you say, which is partly why the church has teaching authority, to help us to understand the bible in its proper contexts. I would recommend a study bible such as The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible.

For study Bibles (if that's what you're referring to) I would recommend the Didache Bible (+ Catechism of the Catholic Church), the Great Adventure Bible (Ascension Press's supplemental material is worth it, too) and the Ignatius New Testament Study Bible. There's also the Douay-Rheims Version with Fr. George Leo Haydock's excellent commentary, or the Navarre Bible series, but good luck finding them without taking out a second mortgage. :)

If you're talking strictly about Biblical background and history from a Catholic perspective, Scott Hahn's Catholic Bible Dictionary should fit the bill.

bad methodology

http://www.amazon.com/Proving-History-Bayess-Theorem-Historical/dp/1616145595

edit: to be fair, you can use the same Bayes analysis the other way - http://www.amazon.com/The-Probability-God-Calculation-Ultimate/dp/1400054788/

Yup everybody should read this https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053

Article spawned this BOOK

NEW article concerning fundamentalism and Somalia

Killing the Buddha website

Finding Darwin's God is a book by a Brown University cell biologist who's unapologetically Christian.

I suggest you do what you're telling others: follow the evidence and educate yourself. In particular, I would recommend Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller. He's a scientist as well as a Christian and does an excellent job of explaining the details which seem to trouble you.

'------------
TL;DR Sorry about the book review. Check out the linked book if you're interested in a rational and well-thought out exploration of the absurd implications of new earth/creationist theories on the nature of God.
'------------

For anyone interested in further reading on this topic, check out the book "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller. (www.amazon.com/dp/0061233501/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_9o7szbXJJD182).

The author -- a practicing Catholic -- goes through several popular new earth/creationist theories and summarily dismantles them as being inconsistent with any notions of the Christian God's character. A chapter titled "God the Charlatan" addresses the theory that God created the earth 6,000 years ago and intentionally left behind false evidence (I.e., fossils, carbon dating, light particles from galaxies not yet created but still placed midway between their apparent point of origin and the earth, etc.) solely for the purpose of hiding his role in the creation.

This book became an early shelf item for me when it was assigned as required reading in my Biology 110 class at BYU. Like most TBMs, I "knew" that evolution was nothing more than a theory created by mankind to explain away God, but I had never stopped to think through the ramifications of worshiping such a deceitful God.

The author ultimately comes to a "faithful" conclusion that leaves the door open to the existence of a divine being by applying a "God of the gaps" approach to the apparent unpredictability of sub-atomic particles. Although I can't say I'm ready to endorse his theory, my agnostic-but-not-quite-atheist self can at least acknowledge that it is a lot less crazy of a theory than anything else I've ever heard.

Edit: fixed formatting

Absolutely. Actually, the correct way to say this is “Is it possible to be a Christian and accept evolution?” We don’t “believe” scientific theories; we accept as (provisionally) true based on the evidence.

Most Christians do accept evolution. (and it is “most” in that the number of Christians who accept evolution is > 50%) Here is a list of statements by various Christian denominations accepting evolution: Statements from Religious Organizations, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/vie...

The way that this is done is very simple and was summarized back in 1890:

"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." Rev. James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, The Religious Aspect of Evolution, 2d ed. 1890, pg 68.

Christians have always held that God has two books: scripture and Creation.

"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy [science]; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both." Bacon: Advancement of Learning

So what happens when there is an apparent conflict between the two books? Christians decided that in 1832:

British evangelicals wrote in the 1830s that "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437

What we have today are some people insisting that their interpretation of the Bible must be paramount. IOW, unless you accept their interpretation and reject evolution, then you can’t be Christian. That’s not the core belief of Christianity. Those core beliefs can be found in the Nicene and Apostle’s Creeds. Nicene Creed - Wikipedia .

They state “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker heaven and earth” or (Apostle’s) “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;” Apostles’ Creed: Traditional and Ecumenical Versions - The United Methodist Church

Those statements of belief do not specify how heaven and earth was made. Thus, as Rev McCosh has pointed out, evolution is simply how God made the diversity of life on the planet.

So the issue becomes: do Christians want some current people to require an additional belief —a belief in their interpretation of scripture contrary to God’s Creation — in order to be “Christian”?

​

Several of the most famous evolutionary biologists, who made significant contributions and additions to the theory of evolution were religious.

For example Theodosius Dobzhansky (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...), who actually is one of the fathers of the modern synthesis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) and who coined the phrase "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". Dobzhansky believed in a personal God who had created though the means of evolution.

Another famous evolutionary biologist was paleontologist Pierre Theilard de Chardin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). He participated in the discovery of Homo erectus in Asia. He was not only religious, he was a Jesuit priest.

Francis Collins, who lead the Human Genome Project at the NIH, and is fervent evangelical Christian, thinks God chose evolution as the mechanism to generate life's diversity, and speaks against Young Earth creationism.

These are just some examples. The erroneous view that religion and the theory of evolution are incompatible views largely stem from a particular flavor of Christianity present in some communities in the USA

But in principle, nothing prevents biologists from believing in God, and there is nothing special about the theory of evolution that denies the existence of God.

I also suggest the following books: Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth Miller. A Christian (Catholic) and a biologist. Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.): Kenneth R. Miller: 9780061233500: Amazon.com: Books

and Can a Darwinian be a Christian?: The Relationship between Science and Religion - Kindle edition by Michael Ruse. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. Michael Ruse is an agnostic, therefore his analysis is more objective and more critical. But his result is the same: absolutely a Christian can accept evolution.

Regarding the bible, for Old Testament I'd recommend The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

And I haven't read it yet, but for New Testament my wife recommends How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Early church fathers from the year 150 aren't really relevant, since by that time plenty of people did think jesus was god. That might seem close to the time of christ, but for an unorganized early religion, a century is a long time.

As far as those quotes, you took them directly from a propaganda site that is trying to convince you of something. Most aren't real historical evidence that he was seen as god. I'll skip the john verses since the book of john was written later after theological changes, but the others in order:

>“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[a] (which means “God with us”).

Nothing about this says he is god. The idea that someone represents someone's presence is a common religious trope.

>28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,[a] which he bought with his own blood.[b]

This is misleading when taken out of context, since in the verses before this he was talking about jesus. So "he" here just refers to jesus again. It only looks like "he" means god when taken out of context.

>Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![a] Amen.

You run into an error here when reading translations by people who are reading their theology into it. Remember that in the original language this would have been more ambiguous punctuation-wiise. The original language says ὧν οἱ πατέρες καὶ ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ἀμήν. And here, the final part can be read as "god who is over all be praised." It only looks like jesus is being called god if you assume that it is one continuous line.

>24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

This says that christ embodies the power of god. But that is not a statement that he is god. Again, a figure embodying the properties or authority of another is a common trope in religion. Especially via greek influence.

>4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

This ties to the above. You should be starting to see a pattern now. Saying that someone represents the authority of god doesn't mean they are god themself. You should notice something else here. None of these verses are saying he literally -is- god. They all say he indirectly represents or embodies the nature of god. So you can actually start to see what happened just from this. The earliest written texts don't say he is god. But they ascribe him special importance of representing god's natures manifested to humanity. Over time, later people were clearly worshiping jesus, and the original meaning was obscured so the idea that he was literally god was seen as necessary to preserve the claim of monotheism.

>who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.

And this verse is very damning. Because it clearly ascribes him an embodiment of god's properties, yet also makes it clear that he is not equal to god, nor did he say he was. Note that your later view that it would be odd for it to word things this way or conflate god and man can't be read into a text that was radical for the time, and before those theologies even existed.

>15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.

This one is even more damning because it explicitly calls jesus a created being. "creation" might be ambiguous to later readers, but it clearly delineates created things. And this shows how many of these early christians saw him. Many thought that he was a unique created being who is second only to god, and kind of divine in his own right. But even here there is no implication of him being equal to god. Only that he is a medium through which god's powers manifest.

>13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ

This is another one people twist based on punctuation. If you are reading it in a language without punctuation you can think it is delineating god and jesus as one, when in actuality it is listing two beings.

>3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Note here the son and god are being delineated as two different things.

>Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God, and our Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

Again, punctuation ambiguity. If you list two names together like this you can read it as if it is two names for one being.

But again notice something here. 1: none of these verses clearly and unambiguously say jesus is god. 2: There is no indication of any new radical understanding of god as a multi-person thing. 3: jesus is presented as a bridge between man and god. Why would he need to be represented in this way if he was god himself? 4: the book of john is the first beginnings of him seemingly conflated with the father, but even there he is not presented as equal. The book of john was also written after these other texts. The early ones take great pains to try to say he was the messiah. Why then do none of them come out and say he is god? Indirect things you can vaguely interpret as saying that don't really count, since they wouldn't have presumed the audience knew who jesus was. So they would need to be clear.

Only in the gospel of john is Jesus depicted as God. In the other gospels, and the writings of paul he is not. And this isn't something that slipped their minds either. They didn't say so because they didn't think so, and him being so wasn't the content of christianity at the time.

Note that even in john, there is no trinitarianism. Jesus is considered a lesser sub aspect of god, who is kind of god, but not the fullness of god.

http://biblehub.com/john/14-28.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A28&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+13%3A32&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+5%3A8&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16-17&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+8%3A6&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1%3A15&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+3%3A14&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20%3A17&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A3&version=ESV

Note that at different times jesus says the father is superior. Disavows omniscience. Says that he is capable of learning. Is called the first creation. Says he is not all good like the father. Calls the father his own god, specifying a lower position, and disavowing full godhood, etc. To the majority of biblical writers Jesus is not god at all. In john he is depicted as kind of god in an emanationist way. He is not the godhead, but an intermediary lesser part of god in between god and humanity.

But here's a book:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

This is really not controversial among historians at all. There is no evidence that any christians saw jesus as literally the same being as the father for quite a lot of decades after his death. Trinitarianism as an idea only shows up around 120 ad, and the first writings on it very definitely were proto versions of the later idea.

Firstly, I wanted to thank you for your interest and hope that you find the answers to your questions. If not, there's plenty of people on this sub that would be happy to help.

In terms of shedding light, there are a number of non-canonical accounts of Jesus, even early ones that were not included into the canon. Many give vastly different accounts of Jesus' nature and teachings, which ultimately is one of the reasons they became rejected, along with dating of when they were written, who by, integrity of the teachings, etc. I think the Didache is a little misrepresented though, many of our early Church fathers were not only aware of it, but clearly reference it.

Ultimately, though our early accounts of Jesus do offer a divine incarnation from the get go, our earliest Gospel, Mark includes many such references as do our earliest writings, the epistles of Paul, hence why the notion of Jesus as merely a human is widely rejected (though there some who self-identify as Christian and might accept a human-only Jesus, this wouldn't be considered orthodox though).

If looking into the historical evidence and various accounts of Jesus as human as well as further reading material you might be better poking your head into /r/AcademicBiblical. You could also look into the companion books How Jesus became God and How God became Jesus to get a good grasp for arguments on both sides.

Peace be upon you!

>Du greifst nur die Talpioth Särge heraus.

Du kannst also nicht bestreiten das in deiner Liste Mist steht. Was sagt das über die Verlässlichkeit der Endaussage?
>Wieso sollten die anderen Argumente nur schlecht und nicht belastend sein?

Weil sie dem Schluss, der daraus gezogen wird, nicht entsprechen.

>Hast du belastende Argumente für diese Sichtweise oder ist es mehr ein Glaube?

Die Historisierung von mythischen Gestalten kommen in der Antike andauernd vor, siehe Äneis oder Gilgamesh. Zudem ist es aus der historischen Abfolge der NT Schriften ersichtlich das eine Historisierung erst im Verlauf der Ausbildung des Christentums zustande kam. Zudem fehlen Hinweise, die man bei einer tatsächlichen historischen Existenz Jesus erwarten würde, vollständig, währen die Hinweise, die wir haben, bestens durch die Existenz einer Gottesgestalt die historisiert wurde erklären lassen ( "Argument der besten Erklärung")
Ich würde dir ja Richard Carrier und als Gegenposition Bart Ehrmann zum Lesen empfehlen, allerdings scheint es mir dass du nichtmal das kritisch gelesen und beurteilt hast was du selbst postest.

> Und eine Abhandlung über die Augenzeugenfrage.

Was als Augenzuegenbreichte in deinen Quellen gelten, wird unter historischen Methoden als "Gerüchte" abgetan.

>Auf Wikipedia heißt es:

Ein Konsens von Forschermeinungen dient dem wissenschaftlichen Prozess, nicht als endgültige Wahrheit. Der Konsens ist in diesem Falle geprägt von nicht belastbaren Argumenten.

>There is no evidence today that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity by those who opposed Christianity

Wenn man da die Bedeutung hineinliest du du wahrscheinlich darin siehst, versteht man den Kontext von Religionen der Antike nicht. Das ist kein üblicher Kritikpunkt und ist daher auch nicht zu erwarten.

http://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602

Thanks, just checking whether there was something new.

Carrier talks about this in his "On the Historicity of Jesus". His claim about Tacitus is that he was probably quoting the Gospels indirectly through Pliny, so Carrier claims it might not be an independent source.

He reviews a bunch more, including Josephus, in his chapter 8 "Extrabiblical Evidence".

If I wanted to fact-check Carrier, I would start by reading both his and Ehrman's blogs when they argue with each other, and both Carrier's and Ehrman's books on the topic.

I don't have a personal opinion on the existence of Jesus either. I asked only because it would be interesting if there were an easy way to poke holes in Carrier's work, since Carrier is so thorough.

Just curious, have you read the 12 things article?

Also, when I visited an Orthodox church, the priest recommended Timothy (Kallistos) Ware's The Orthodox Church as a good introduction for westerners. It's about half history lesson and half explanation of Orthodox practice and belief. It was certainly illuminating.

IMO, MacCulloch's book is quite a commitment, and, I suppose, it would depend on what time frame you are seeking the history of. If you are looking for an in-depth history of the biblical era, this isn't the book for you - only the first few chapters are devoted to anything pre-Jesus, and the life and times of Jesus get another few dozen pages. Perhaps I'm biased as post-biblical era Christianity doesn't interest me, but I view it as more a book of theology rather than history. Make sure you explore the table of contents to make sure you know what you are getting into.

If you are not seeking something devotional, I recommend these Yale Religious Studies courses every chance I get. They will give you the background you need to tackle more specialized books in areas of interest.

If you are looking for books, I'd recommend Kugel's How to Read the Bible or Coogan's Intro for Old Testament, and Ehrman is the standard academic introduction to New Testament.

"History of Christianity" is a pretty broad topic. If there is something specific that interests you, I'll try to come up with more recommendations.

The search for the historical Jesus is a futile endevor. If he existed at all, he certainly doesn't resemble anything that we would recognize as Jesus. All we know is a a spruced up ancient Greco-Roman biography that was synthesized to transmit a new theology by playing on existing tropes.

You would enjoy reading The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings to get some more context for what was going on then and how Christianity formed.

>certainly the Romans killed a lot of Christians back then

Not anywhere as much as martyrdom theology has led you to believe.

For all things science and religion I recommend: Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga and Atheist Delusions by David Bentley Hart (please forgive the title, it was the editor's choice not his).

For the "problem" of Evil I suggest God, Freedom, and Evil again by Plantinga and Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright.

As a general primer on theology and philosophy go look at Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview by JP Morgan Moreland (not the banking institution) and William Lane Craig.

From what I remember, this book is pretty good. I disagree with the conclusions, but they are very well laid out and addressed. After that I would search for responses to Plantinga.

This is an interesting one, but I can't find the full thing for free. I will keep looking.

Another book that might be interesting is The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens. It's a collection of writings and essays from a lot of different people.

The selected work by Ibn Warraq in The Portable Atheist is a pretty good start. I've not done much research about the subject myself, but there are bound to be a few leads either by this particular author or in his footnotes. :)

Edit: Wow, down-voted for sharing a link? Classy.

Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:

• Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great & The Portable Atheist
  
  
• Stephen Hawking - The Grand Design & A Briefer History of Time
  
  
• Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth
  
  
• Carl Sagan - The Demon Haunted World
  
  
• Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape & The End of Faith
  
  
• Richard Panek - The 4 Percent Universe
  
  
• Robert Ingersoll - Some Mistakes of Moses
  
  
• Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
  
  
• Sean Caroll - The Making of the Fittest
  
  
• Spencer Wells - Deep Ancestry
  
  
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
  
  
• Alan Watts - The Way of Zen
  
  Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
  
  The more you know, the more confident you will be.

Great write up. His books are excellent.

I'd like to hear them discuss belief in general. I also really liked Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

Going Clear and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright.

There is a tell all book written by a former Scientologist called Going Clear.

Well yes, Joseph Smith was hated as a con-man, and actually killed by an angry mob. Many religions started in very shady circumstances. It's an interesting field to read about. I recently finished Going Clear, about Scientology. The documentary is also fantastic, though the book of course has much more detail. Under the Banner of Heaven touches on the early history of Mormonism, and is a great book. I'm sure there are more authoritative books on Mormonism, but Krakauer is a great writer and that happens to be the book I read.

Good luck in getting religious believers to see the beginnings of their own religion in modern-day prophets. Generally they just don't look too closely at the beginnings of their religion, or if they do, they write off the weird or disreputable parts as people trying to slander the truth. Religion has ample coping mechanisms, and digging critically into the darker bits will get you shunned by your faith community.

It's called Going Clear

https://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309

Or may have been this. https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Scientology-Americas-Secretive-Religion/dp/0547750358/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0547750358&pd_rd_r=4129GYJ9NWA64VTPTTRE&pd_rd_w=HXcXc&pd_rd_wg=NOaiJ&psc=1&refRID=4129GYJ9NWA64VTPTTRE

Many of these questions are addressed in the amazing book Going Clear by Lawrence Wright. It's incredibly well-researched and well-written, and while it focuses on LRH, it gets into Miscavige's leadership and the modern church as well.

Read this book, HBO is making a documentary of it. IMO people can believe whatever they want, but this organization is run by thugs :

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309

>I suppose to get right down to it, one of the major things that make me unsure about the Bible is because of how it can be so misinterpreted.

I think that this should make you unsure about people, but not the Bible. People twist things, and in fact we are told that people will twist Scripture within the Bible. Beyond that, even people with good motivations are imperfect thinkers. You, myself, and everyone else, when we approach the Bible, we bring with it our own baggage. Our understanding, our lives, and what we think now affects how we read the Bible. This is normal, but we need to recognize it in order for us to get around it and try to see what the Bible actually says (I'll mention this kind of stuff more below). Even with this in mind, this doesn't have any affect on the trust-worthiness of the Bible itself.

>Of course, one of the biggest things we hear about is that homosexuality is a sin. I don't know how many places it's been mentioned, but the only thing I recall about it is the very famous line "Man shall not lie with man as he does with a woman" or something along those lines.

I referenced a few places where homosexuality is brought up, but I'll link them here. The Leviticus passage (which is what you just referenced) is not the only one.

Romans 1:26-27, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.


>But while I was trying to learn and understand more about the Bible, what's real and not etc, I have also read several times that this line was something that was difficult to translate from its original texts, and that it originally referred to "sexual satanic rituals" with large groups of people

This is indeed a route people try to go. On nearly every topic you are going to have people telling you things that seem convincing on both sides. I would recommend looking into hermeneutics techniques (how to read, interpret, and understand the Bible). I'll talk more about this in a bit.

For this specific text, I don't think it holds up. I assume that this case is made because Molech is mentioned in the preceding law. Here is that section:

21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them[b] to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.


The whole chapter is Leviticus 18. The first tip of hermeneutics I'll give you is "Context is King." Always check for context.


This chapter is one long list of things that the Israelites are not commanded to do and which the other nations will be condemned for (this along with the fact that they are restated in the NT are why I think they are still binding).

The law concerning Molech is either in regards to sacrificing children to the false god or dedicate them to him, likely as temple prostitutes. Either way, it does not mean that the following verse is related to Molech, and if it is then we could say the same thing about bestiality, but this (I think you would agree) is obviously sinful. Taken even further, you could argue that incest was okay, but again, this is obviously not the case.

The idea that the immediate context indicates that this is talking about temple sex worship or orgies (I think) is unfounded and it doesn't take the context of the chapter as a whole into account. With that said here is a link to a debate between James White and a guy who holds this view that you are talking about. To be upfront, this is probably the best defense of homosexual acceptance I have ever heard, and he even made me think his arguments were valid for a moment...but as the debate went on and the more I thought about it the less sense it made.

Maybe you'll come away with a different conclusion though.

I'll also link this response post by Preston Sprinkle (who does a lot of work in this with nothing but love). He addresses this concern in point 2. Lastly, here is a short video by John Piper on the topic.

>It's one of those things that make me unsure of what to believe from the Bible.
It's concerning because I keep coming back to thinking "How do any of us know what is really right from the Bible?"

It takes time. My advice to you would be "don't panic, take your time." I have had foundational shifts in my thinking change because of what I realized the Bible was teaching. This is a part of growing and maturing in the faith. Sometimes it can be painful and exhausting but it is worth it and it will help you in the long run.

I think that looking into how to do hermeneutics will be helpful. I'd recommend How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. I'll link a couple of videos that might help as well. Exegesis and Hermeneutics (its a bit choppy, but it has good content). You'll also want to be aware of two fancy-pants words: Exegesis & Eisegesis. Rather than explain those in-depth, I'll just link to this 3 min. vid by Francis Chan that explains the concepts (these are also brought up in the other vid).

The key thing you want to look for is consistency. Is what I believe consistent with this text? the context? the Bible as a whole?

Here is a clip about the textual variants issue I was talking about. I recommend the whole thing, but you'd have to order it.

>I don't want, or plan to give up on my faith, but I'm afraid that even with me believing in God, and that he will save me, I can't help but wonder if he really will save me, or if he even saved departed loved ones who believed in God, but still did small things that seem to sound like they were sinful.



I would again recommend reading Romans 8. And also let me reassure you that we are not saved by our good works or by a perfect understanding of doctrine. We all err in one way or another. Salvation is a gift, we are saved by grace through faith. If you truly wish to seek God, to do as he says, and to love him then there you should take comfort in that. God recognizes that we are not perfect, he has taken that into account. This is the reason he sent Christ. Don't let the fact that you are confused keep you from rejoicing in God. Confusion does not negate salvation.

I second /u/Frankfusion's recommendation to read How to Read the Bible for all It's Worth.

I would also add that maybe the most important thing that you do is to read the Bible with other Christians. If you have a group of friends that attends different kinds of churches, that would be even better, because that would give you some idea of the differing perspectives their traditions will bring to the table. Even if not, I would try to find some people to study it with together, because the Bible was always meant to be a book for the whole church.

As far as how to read it, there will be plenty of other suggestions, I'm sure. I would agree that you may want to start with one of the Gospels, since Jesus is the heart of the Christian faith. Personally I think some of better known Pauline epistles like Romans are really hard to understand until you've read quite a bit from the Law in the OT.

Some of the Psalms are known as "Imprecatory Psalms". In here, the psalmist is expressing his anger verbally to and through God, as a way of channeling those negative emotions rather than letting them out in violent actions, either verbally or physically, to other people or things.

Most of these imprecatory psalms are a part of lament psalms that were written in response to the Israelites' sufferings during that time, such as during their exile (see Psalm 137).

What is important here to note is that these imprecatory psalms do not contradict Jesus' teachings on love. The word "hate" can also mean "to be unable to put up with" and "to reject". So for example 139:22, the psalmist is expressing his inability to put up with those who hate God.

If you're interested in learning more, I recommend these books:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415814178&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+read+the+bible+for+all+its+worth

http://www.amazon.com/Read-Bible-Changing-Times-Understanding/dp/0801072832/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415814197&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+read+the+Bible+in+changing+times

> Wouldn't a considerable chunk of it be lost in translation and also there be possibility of misinterpretation?

This is the greatest challenge with different translations is with trying to understand the original intent of the original author and not misinterpret it. Just as you lose meaning in translating with your friends so we lose meaning with biblical translation. Each of the arguing groups all are arguing that their translation loses the least (or no) meaning. You probably doubt that. So do I. But just because each has maybe (we don't really no) lost something in translation doesn't mean we can't work to recover the original meaning and hopefully do our best to mitigate our own biases.

> They interpret it according to their own unique situation.

The great debate you usually see between which translation is best has to do with this and is usually aligned along a number of factors:

• proximity to the original source,
  
• biases of the translators,
  
• the translation approach adopted (in itself a debate)
  
  If you are interested in looking into it further I'd recommend Fee and Stuarts text on hermeneutics: How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth

I think I've heard more than one systematic theologian define it as the effort to make Christian doctrine comprehensible to a contemporary audience. That definition may be technically a good one, but I think it's also potentially misleading. It makes it sound as though systematic theology is almost a form of evangelism, where theologians try to address their audience's "felt needs." That's not a good description.

If you actually read a work of systematic theology, such these by Wayne Grudem or Louis Berkhof, you'll see that they are a topic-by-topic explanation of what, in the view of the author, Christianity teaches. Conventionally they begin with "theology proper", which is the study of God himself: the doctrine of the Trinity, God's perfection, His omniscience, omnipotence, etc. They'll cover things like the nature of revelation, creation, the fall, salvation, and so on. Usually it's not just the author sharing his thoughts. He's interacting with and responding to the work of his contemporaries and to concerns that contemporary people have with respect to Christian doctrines.

The Case for Christ - Once past the first chapter or so, this book falls into stride, and has interviews with lots of really intelligent people. As a former athiest, seeing/interacting with people more intelligent than myself that are Christians was the largest contributing factor to me opening up to the idea of God. Either way, bravo for at least wanting to see what all the fuss is about!

Books: (I would double-check to make sure they don't already have some of these prior to purchase, though)

• Nice hardback version of the Catechism
  
• Good Catholic Study Bible (Pope-Urban-III mentioned some good ones)
  
• Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn
  
• Priority of Christ by Bishop Robert Barron
  
• subscription to Magnificat
  
• Book about or written by their confirmation saint
  
• Good Catholic Prayer Book
  
• Letters to a Young Catholic by George Weigel (if they're younger)
  
• Finding True Happiness by Dr. Robert Spitzer, SJ
  
  Not books:
  
  
• A nice rosary (a Catholic can never have too many rosaries)
  
• A wall crucifix (as in one they can hang on the wall at home)
  
• A necklace with a crucifix on it
  
• A nice nativity set
  
• An artistic picture of the pope? (a great gift if they're a fan of Pope Francis--if they aren't, find out what Pope they are a fan of and get a picture of that pope)
  

u/TC1827 https://www.amazon.com/Catechism-Catholic-Church-Second-U-S/dp/0385508190/

If God wasn't real, why would you be here? ;)

The Catholic Church is the biggest, most loving family on Earth. This book contains the summary of our beliefs, but you can learn a lot about Catholicism by lurking here on this sub.

There's a Catechism book for adults too, that covers pretty much all of what we believe, in case you didn't know about it. Every Catholic household should have a copy in my opinion.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385508190/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_EC.Yzb3MPNVJC

Edit: I think you can view this version for free online too: http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/

There is no standardized curriculum for RCIA, so it may be beneficial to receive it all in the same place. At the same time, it is possible for priests/bishops to waive attendance to RCIA if you learn the faith on your own. (I was given the option to skip RCIA, but I considered it an important humbling experience to submit to the ordinary method of entering the Church.)

So, in theory, you could go to RCIA in multiple parishes (even though they won't line up consistently) and speak to a chaplain (assuming he's Catholic) or other priest and learn what you need to know. You could also pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to read on your own.

RCIA typically starts in the fall and runs on a weekly or biweekly fortnightly basis until Holy Week, at the end of which you would be received into the Church. But again, variation is possible depending on your circumstances; any priest worth his salt will do whatever he can to get you into the Church, provided you learn about it and know what you're doing. I have heard of folks being baptized and confirmed at other times of the year, too, but that's less common.

And as others have mentioned, Mass attendance is highly recommended, but do not receive the Eucharist until after you have formally entered the Church.

They don't even know Joseph Smith.

Get started here. http://mormonthink.com/ Then check out this book. http://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540 Next I'd move onto http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

and This is a big help for developing some critical thinking skills: http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469

Pick up a copy of the book "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth". That will help.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040

Reading the whole Bible is a really admirable aim, and worthwhile. If you're wanting to get the most out of this, I would encourage you to consider reading a guide before you jump. Just as you'll get a lot more out of visiting a city if you've looked at a map or read a guidebook beforehand, a guide is a good way to get a sense of the unfamiliar genres that you'll be reading, and the structure of the whole collection.

Two good books to consider are:

Fee & Stuart, How to read the Bible for all its worth
or
Goheen & Bartholemew, The Drama of Scripture

The textbook I used in my hermeneutics class was [Grasping God's Word] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0310492572/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=30968505261&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11654403599380140192&hvpone=22.16&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1x21vrvqwq_b) with a supplement text of [How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth] (http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040). Both I would suggest, they take a position of inerrancy and do an excellent job of teaching Scriptural study.

You read the Bible as the story of God reaching out to humanity. It has a few specific sections: in the beginning it is the story of God calling and creating the nation of Israel, and central to that story is the promise of a chosen people and an eventual savior.

In the middle, it is the story of that nation wandering and coming back to God, God's judgment and mercy upon them, and his communication through the prophets, and some poets. Again, the promise of an eventual savior is central to the message.

Then there's the New Testament when the savior appears. It tells the story of his ministry, the history of his disciples after his death and resurrection, and the letters from the apostles to the churches.

Here's a pretty good book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310246040

One of the most important things to avoid is reading the Bible as a list of commands for us to follow. There are some of those, but most Biblical commands are products of a specific situation for a specific group of people.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth or How to Read the Bible Book by Book might be what you are looking for. They are both by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. I don't remember which school used which, but they have both been used by my undergraduate school and seminary as introductions to academic Biblical Studies.

Edit: Sorry you are getting downvoted! You are asking earnest questions and that should be appreciated even if people here don't agree with your sources. My advice to you is to get support from an academic Christian community of some kind, whether that be at your church or school. I doubt you will be content with answers from people who are not prepared to approach the Bible critically. Keep in mind that the Bible was not written with a modern perspective. It may contain plenty of history, but it is not a history book in the sense that we would expect today. It is theological, but it contains no systematic theology. It was written over hundreds of years and was shaped by generations of faith communities. The Bible's authors had contexts very different than ours, but that does not mean their witness does not contain truth for us today.

Nah, I'm totally with you on the importance of semantics. My old grad school mentor was really particular about it and I now see why. You're also dead on about the whole need for language/Japanese-speaking/etc example. I've just run into some people who confuse nature with ability so I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.

The book I was actually referring to is actually called "Systematic Theology" by Wayne Grudem. (genius title, right?) I got a chance to read it in college and I found it to be useful. Granted, that was 10 years ago and I'm sure the whole field has progressed but as far as I know, it's still relevant. You probably can find it cheap on half.com as well. It's quite a huge book but I found it to be quite interesting.

I have an excellent reference for you! Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem

This book really helped answer most of my questions.

I had to use three different ones at a SBC seminary (2006) and my favorite is Wayne Grudem's. It's not specifically Presbyterian but it is reformed.

I like it because it is written in such a way that highschoolers can understand it. It's not as deep as you can get but it's not entry-level either...somewhat in the middle. You can probably find a used one in good condition at a low price.

I found this one through a friend in Seminary School. Great resource.

http://www.amazon.com/Systematic-Theology-Introduction-Biblical-Doctrine/dp/0310286700

Well, I actually grew up in the Pentecostal tradition. I converted to Southern Baptist about two years ago, and made the switch to reformed theology about one year ago.

It really depends on the church with Baptists; they're highly variable. Some groups, like free-will baptists, are emphatically opposed to Calvin and the like. Others, like self-proclaimed reformed baptists, welcome and celebrate Calvin and his contemporaries' contributions to Protestantism. I've never attended a baptist church that wasn't at least implicitly Calvinist, though I only recently started attending a properly reformed Church that observed the 2nd London Baptist Confession. Hence, it's kind of difficult to give much advice, as I've always been in friendly territory.

If you just want to get a better feel for reformed theology in-general, there are a couple of routes. Depending on your reading comprehension and Biblical competence, I would recommend a few books.

Novice: Bible Doctrine, Grudem.

This is a decent, modern introduction to systematic theology in-general. Grudem is not what many would call reformed, but he leans that way. Whatever the case, it is a helpful look into the terminology that theologians have utilized over the years. Good place to get your feet wet.

Adept: Systematic Theology, Grudem

Reformed Dogmatics, Bavinck

These ones are a bit more academically oriented, so if you're not used to reading this sort of thing, they might be difficult to read. Bavinck's work is highly recommended, and is properly reformed, though it takes a greater reading comprehension than Grudem.

Advanced: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin

Anything else earlier than the 20th Century (Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, etc.)

This is the bedrock of reformed theology, which I'm sure you're probably aware of. The only problem is that it can be very difficult to read. In some cases, much more than the content of modern academia. This is really a very very distilled list. There is literally so much good material out there, but these are some of the big names that I hear often.

As regards general advice, two things come to mind:

1. I would keep in mind the primacy of the text of Scripture itself. This might seem obvious, but one of the pitfalls of the reformation is the romance with systematic theology. Though ST is a wonderful thing, some reformed guys do it at the expense of the textual significance of the Scriptures themselves. We must always ask ourselves if we, in our exposition, are doing justice to what the Scriptures themselves are saying. Again, this seems obvious, but it is rarely borne out the praxis of our theology and exegesis.
   
   
2. Do not make Calvinism or Reformed theology the locus of your Christianity or your identity. Though reformed soteriology is seminal to our faith and practice, we must ultimately identify ourselves as the covenant people of God; those united to Christ through faith in His death and resurrection. Rest in the substance of your faith, not in its explanation.
   
   I'll be praying that you heed the Scriptures in all things, and that your life coheres with the will of God. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions or concerns as relates the reformation, theology, Scripture, or anything!
   
   Soli deo Gloria

I highly recommend Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. It sounds like just the thing you are looking for. I would also recommend Tim Keller's Reason for God.

Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology Podcast is worth a listen.

I also used to listen to the Mars Hill Podcast when Rob Bell was there.

I use Bible Gateway for searching for scriptures.

I have to be honest, though, my resources are mainly offline. I read my Bible daily, pray daily, read theological books and other Christian books.

Of course, this and any Christian stuff can only be effective when God is at the centre of it.

I would definitely benefit from a directory of reliable Christian sources, for when debating. I also think some kind of directory on How best to reach people of each religion/school of thought/life position (not just a resource on how to tear someone apart for their beliefs).

I like the idea of your post for sure :-)

Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ was a really good read that might give you some talking points. It was written by a skeptic journalist's journey looking for historical evidence of Christ and the Bible in general.

I found it interesting in how the Hebrew and Greek are both not really bothered by word order, in conveying the correct meanings. Part of the structure that helped keep the truth in place in the Bible.

I'm trying to learn enough solid Biblical truth and historical truth to help counteract the Atheism that often occurs to previous Cult members that finally escape an abusive spiritual situation. This violent reaction from your roommate makes me wonder about his spiritual past.

Have you sat down and asked about his previous experience with religion? It is possible that he received religious experience that was not about the love of Christ, but about the fear and judgement of a mean God.

Part 3: Book recommendations:

If you want to dig deep into this topic, here are some book recommendations. Perhaps you would want to read N.T. Wright's Christian Origins and the Question of God series (this is very heavy, scholarly reading). N.T. Wright is the foremost scholar on the New Testament and this is possibly the most thorough literature on the historical Jesus, early Christianity and the Apostle Paul:

https://www.logos.com/product/37361/christian-origins-and-the-question-of-god-series

Anything by N.T. Wright is well worth reading (Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope would be good introductions). Likewise, anything by Ravi Zacharias.

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona: https://www.amazon.ca/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas/dp/0825427886

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Nabeel-Qureshi/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ANabeel%20Qureshi

No God But One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi: https://www.amazon.com/God-but-One-Investigates-Christianity/dp/0310522552/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517050609&sr=1-2&refinements=p_27%3ANabeel+Qureshi

On Guard by William Lane Craig: https://www.amazon.ca/Guard-William-Lane-Craig/dp/1434764885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526542104&sr=8-1&keywords=on+guard+william+lane+craig

The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus by Lee Strobel: https://www.amazon.ca/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310339308

Bonus reading: Heaven by Randy Alcorn: https://www.amazon.ca/Heaven-Randy-Alcorn/dp/0842379428/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526542237&sr=1-1&keywords=randy+alcorn+heaven

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: https://www.amazon.ca/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926

Read anything by G.K. Chesterton, especially, The Everlasting Man


Answers to Common Objections and Questions:

Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins: http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/jesus-resurrection-and-christian-origins/

The Evidence for Jesus: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-evidence-for-jesus/

The Resurrection of Jesus: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-resurrection-of-jesus/

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ as Christianity's Centerpiece: http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/The_Resurrection_of_Jesus_Christ_as_Christianitys_Centerpiece_FullArticle?fbclid=IwAR0oE22vtBvR2u--R78tSyW-51OpIbWBfWDNH2Ep8miBc9W6uUJMwMsz0yk

Origin, Meaning, Morality and Destiny: http://rzim.org/just-thinking/think-again-deep-questions/

Accompanying video to the link above: Why is Christianity True?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5qJPZySo7A

How Do You Know Christianity Is the One True Way of Living? | Abdu Murray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ze_SVg-0E&app=desktop

What makes Christianity unique among the world’s religions? Verifiability is a Christian Distinctive: https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/verifiability-is-a-christian-distinctive/

Is Jesus God? (Feat. Craig, Strobel, Habermas, Licona, Qureshi...): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dLoKCyDDAg&app=desktop

How Can Understanding Eyewitness Testimony Help Us Evaluate the Gospels?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tCDDsPXQSQ&app=desktop

Historical Evidence for the Resurrection - Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection? - Nabeel Qureshi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hD7w1Uja2o

‪Questioning Jesus: Critically Considering Christian Claims with Dr. Nabeel Qureshi‬: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UpuEDp4ObA

Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? | Yale 2014 | William Lane Craig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NAOc6ctw1s&app=desktop

Historical Resurrection of Christ?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Dc01HVlaM

‪Are The New Testament Documents Historically Credible?: ‬https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdsIaqFAp4

Are the Gospels Accurate?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxrDy_G8h88

(Answer to the common objection: ‘the gospels are anonymous’)
Gospel Authorship—Who Cares?: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P40/gospel-authorshipwho-cares

What is the Evidence That Jesus Appeared Alive After His Death?: https://youtu.be/96WIa3pZISE

On Extra-Biblical Sources for Jesus' Post-Mortem Appearances: https://youtu.be/-Dbx7PPIIsQ

Did Jesus Rise From The Dead Or Was It A Hoax By His Followers?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aELRKdxV7Wk

Follow up to the previous video: ‪Did Jesus rise from the dead, or was it hallucinations by his followers?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29224I3x_M0&feature=youtu.be‬

‪Did the Disciples Invent the Resurrection?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOHUWsNDPZc‬

‪‬Facts to show the Resurrection is not fiction, by William Lane Craig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AduPVkqbis

‪‬Did Paul actually see the risen Jesus, or did he simply have some sort of vision?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yNdynwqtWI&t

What Do You Mean By ‘Literal?’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQpFosrTUk

Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection: https://youtu.be/4iyxR8uE9GQ?t=1s

Death, Resurrection and Afterlife: https://youtu.be/HXAc_x_egk4?t=1s

Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?: https://youtu.be/KnkNKIJ_dnw?t=1s

4 Historical Facts That Prove Jesus Really Did Rise From The Dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmKg62GDqF4

‪What About Pre-Christ Resurrection Myths?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrCYVk6xrXg‬

Jesus and Pagan Mythology: Is Jesus A Copied Myth or Real Person?: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/jesus-and-pagan-mythology/

Zeitgeist - Is Jesus A Myth: https://alwaysbeready.com/zeitgeist-the-movie

Did Greco-Roman myths influence the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pt9rlG7ABo&app=desktop

‪Does the Resurrection Require Extraordinary Evidence?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLN30A0vmlo‬

Moral Argument For God’s Existence: How Can A Good God Allow Evil? Does Life Have Meaning?: https://youtu.be/it7mhQ8fEq0

‪Are there Inconsistencies Between the Four Gospels?: https://youtu.be/sgdsIaqFAp4‬

‪Why Are There Differences in the Resurrection Accounts?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtz2lVGmXFI‬

Don't the Gospels Contradict One Another?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gt9kCwttVY

Why Differences Between the Gospels Demonstrate Their Reliability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zimP8m3_hCk

Why the Gospels Can Differ, Yet Still Be Reliable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An5wU2hxIfM

Four Reasons the New Testament Gospels Are Reliable: http://coldcasechristianity.com/2015/four-reasons-the-new-testament-gospels-are-reliable/

Find Contradictions in the Bible All You Want: https://www.thepoachedegg.net/2019/05/apologetics-find-contradictions-in-the-bible-all-you-want.html

The Case for the Historicity and Deity of Jesus: https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/the-case-for-the-historicity-and-deity-of-jesus/

Bart Ehrman is one of the world's most renowned ancient historians/New Testament scholars, and he is an atheist. Listen to what he has to say on the matter of Jesus' existence: ‪The Historical Jesus DID Exist - Bart Ehrman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43mDuIN5-ww‬

‪Bart D Ehrman About the Historical Jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6U6TJ4cwSo‬

Extra-Biblical evidence: In addition to the gospel accounts and the letters from the Apostle Paul, we have sources outside the New Testament with references to Jesus in the writings of Josephus, Tacitus, Thallus, the Jewish Talmud, etc:

http://coldcasechristianity.com/2017/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible/

Is There Extrabiblical Evidence About Jesus' Life?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzP0Kz9eT_U&app=desktop

How do we know Jesus was really who he said he was?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ksvhHEoMLM&app=desktop


YouTube Channels to browse:

William Lane Craig - ReasonableFaithOrg: https://www.youtube.com/user/ReasonableFaithOrg?app=desktop

drcraigvideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/drcraigvideos?app=desktop

Ravi Zacharias - Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: https://www.youtube.com/user/rzimmedia?app=desktop

J. Warner Wallace - Cold-Case Christianity with J. Warner Wallace: https://www.youtube.com/user/pleaseconvinceme/featured?disable_polymer=1

The Bible Project: https://www.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject

Unbelievable?: https://www.youtube.com/user/PremierUnbelievable

David Wood - Acts17Apologetics: https://www.youtube.com/user/Acts17Apologetics

Nabeel Qureshi - NQMinistries: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCepxnLs6GWAxAyI8m2U9s7A/featured?disable_polymer=1

Randy Alcorn - Eternal Perspective Ministries with Randy Alcorn: https://www.youtube.com/user/eternalperspectives?app=desktop

Frank Turek - Cross Examined: https://www.youtube.com/user/TurekVideo

Brian Holdsworth: https://www.youtube.com/user/holdsworthdesign

I think /u/betweentwosuns comment is good and an excellent place to start. Once one gets past the fact that Christ was a real historical figure that actually existed, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are reliable testimonies of what He said and did, then one comes to a crossroads. He must either reject His claims, either by simply ignoring them or outright disagreeing with them, or accept His claims by faith. One of the books that is often recommend for studying these things is Strobel's The Case for Christ and there is also a newer book out called Cold Case Christianity which is also good.

Nein das habe ich nicht geschrieben. Mir gefällt die Idee aber gut und ich kann nur jedem empfehlen dem historischen Gehalt der entsprechenden Quellen mal gründlich auf den Zahn zu fühlen und sich nicht allein von populären, auf den ersten Blick überzeugenden Meinungen leiten zu lassen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).

Ace,
I’m sorry for the delay. Here I go.

A tiny bit about my religious history – raised Catholic, sort of against my will, got confirmed, stopped going to church for 8 years, found God/became a Christian, attended Baptist and Pentecostal churches for a while, and eventually settled on Episcopalian. And love it – if for no other reason than as an Episcopalian, I feel like I can be myself.

Worship – very similar to the Catholic Church. I believe it could be very easy for a person with Catholic background to feel comfortable in an Episcopalian church; after I had been there for a little while, I had to ask a friend what made the Episcopal Church any different than the Catholic, because they seemed almost the same! We rely a lot on the Book of Common Prayer, as was previously mentioned, which is fine and at least helps to standardize things. Personally, I believe Scripture to be a more authoritative source, but there isn’t anything controversial I’ve found about the BCP. Incidentally, on the online version (http://www.bcponline.org/) you can click on “The Catechism” (about ¾ of the way down), which is also entitled “An Outline of the Faith”. But overall, the belief system will probably look pretty familiar to you.

There are a couple points, I think, where the faiths diverge with some significance. One is in the level of tolerance and inclusion in the Episcopal Church – where I believe they are largely leading the charge among all denominations. In the Episcopal Church, there can be (and have been) gay and women priests and bishops, and in fact our former Presiding Bishop, who presided over the entire Episcopal Church in the U.S., was a woman (Katharine Schori). Our new Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is African-American – and for some inspiring words, I encourage you to look up some of his soundbites (here is my favorite): http://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/video/jesus-movement. TEC USA is actually so inclusive that they were “sanctioned” by the Anglican primates - link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/world/europe/anglican-archbishops-sanction-us-episcopal-church-over-gay-marriages.html?_r=0
Of course, some individual parishes are different than others – varying degrees of inclusion to be sure – but the odds are pretty good that you can find an Episcopal church where people can just be people. Which, to me, is kinda the idea.

The second difference, of course, is that there’s no Pope. I won't get into THAT debate, but since Christ preached that we could come to Him directly as our intercessor (Romans 8:34), perhaps it would be euphemistic to say there’s a little less bureaucracy necessary in the Episcopal Church. :)

Your point about TEC “dying”, statistically, is probably true, though I’d say it’s being pruned. I’d submit that it’s probably also true that typical church attendance nation-wide is suffering the same fate. Businesses talk about competitive advantage, though, and it is probably fair to say that TEC’s advantage is indeed its genuine confession that all are welcome.

For now, I’ll table the discussion about the scriptural arguments for/against homosexuality, and/or women as priests. I’d rather sum it all up – for now – with Romans 14:4: “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” As someone who’s pretty interested in theological debate, though, and who's (I think) pretty open-minded to new viewpoints, I came across this link which you might find informative: http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/no_fems_no_fairies.html

At the risk of this post becoming TL;DR (thanks, by the way), there are a couple other points I’d like to make. First, as you search for the answers you seem to be seeking so earnestly, I submit that the only true answer is Jesus. This sounds hokey, Bible-thumpy, and trite, but I also believe it’s completely true. (I refer again to the title of Bishop Curry’s NYC sidewalk sermon.) A book that sounds totally cool, but which I haven’t read, is called The Case for Christ. (https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310339308) I’ll let you do some research, but I think my version of Christianity can be summed up thusly: Christianity is simply about Christ. The rest are just details. Denominations, I think, are generally worship styles, and each individual church is its own unique organism, many of which you’d probably enjoy equally well. There’s no perfect denomination, and no perfect church…but there has been one perfect Man, who also happened – and happens – to be a perfect God.

Finally, with regards to your family dilemma, I’d have to just be up front and say that Christianity does come with a cost. Matthew 10:37 says, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Disciples and followers of Jesus through the years have been tortured, executed, cast out, etc. Discipleship isn’t always easy. My own story isn’t particularly exciting or theatrical, but I can say that I’ve experienced some of the cost. I can also say that it’s so, so worth it.

OK, friend, I think I outdid your post length - but only because this was what I needed to say. I’ll look periodically to see if you have any other thoughts, but wanted to get this over to you because it was important. I appreciate your desire for answers, and pray you find everything you’re looking for. Peace!

Drew

You could try this book that is refuting this book. Although I haven't read either.

We all have doubts. It's part of being human and being a Christian. As you mentioned you are still looking for truth and are open to the idea of theism. I would just recommend a few books for reading that are great intellectual reading about the subject. That being: The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism and The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus
as well as anything by CS Lewis notably [Mere Christianity] (http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425281260&sr=1-1&keywords=mere+christianity+cs+lewis) and Screwtape Letters.

All the best in finding truth friend, and although you may doubt Him (even as Apostles, greatest evangelists, martyrs, missionaries also did) I would not advise ruling out Christ just yet.

I want to repeat what others have said in gratitude for your respectful approach to our faith and your position. It says very good things about you as a person, and it means a lot to us as a community.

I don't have much to recommend for your kids, but I can suggest a few things for you.

First, although it is a bit odd to recommend a Protestant to introduce you to Catholicism, I do recommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It is a very good introduction to some of the essential ideas of Christianity, and as a bonus it is written by C.S. Lewis, so it is very enjoyable to read.

Another thing I recommend is trying to make sense of the liturgical calendar. The big themes of Catholicism are given space on the calendar to help Catholics absorb them in a regular and balanced way. As a teacher, you will have opportunities to talk to the kids about what's currently going on last Sunday/the coming Sunday/this current season, and I imagine you can find ways to tie in the lessons you already had planned. If you can get your hands on a missal, it will give you relatively detailed information on the liturgical calendar and the scheduled scripture readings, and I'm guessing Catholicism for Dummies, which someone else mentioned, probably has a good summary for each liturgical season. Once you get a sense of what each season is, you might google reflections based on each Sunday's readings to see how different parts of the Bible fit into the season's broader themes.

You might also want to get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a reference book. If you have time, reading through the whole thing would teach you an enormous amount, but it would take some time to read. Each section has a little summary at the end, so you might start by just reading all of the summaries. Regardless of whether you get around to reading the whole thing, it can be very useful as a reference tool. If you don't want to buy a hard copy and/or you want to be able to search faster, you can find it online here. There's also a chance that there's a copy around the school somewhere.

The US Catholic Church uses the New American Bible, so that's the translation you'll be hearing at Mass if you're in the US. So, just search New American Bible and go with that. I would even recommend getting a study Bible to help you understand what's happening and how things relate to other parts of the Bible, because it can be confusing. Just as a recommendation, this one is fantastic.


There are quite a few sources on understanding the Mass. I would look up the Order of the Mass and maybe try reading through that and following along during Mass, so you understand what is being said and also know what to say.


The Catechism is fantastic. Here is a pretty safe bet on getting started with reading that and something to use as reference.


If you're interested in reading the Summa Theologica, there are shorter versions like Summa of the Summa, which, while still not too short, condense down the most important information and make it easier for somebody without as much time to at least get the general idea.


Good luck on your journey, as I am currently doing the same and am in RCIA, but I've been doing my research for quite a while and am very excited for the coming year!

If you have $10 to spare or $0.99 on kindle then you should pick up the CCC and try to read it cover to cover and see for yourself if the Anglican Church is more legalistic than Rome. Anyways I'm not set on anything I'm taking my making time making sure I join a true bible based church with no additions one that uses the KJV.

Well there are many in my experience in Catholicism that live a dry faith, meaning they don't feel fancy feelings rather they know through knowledge and study.

I cannot of course say that my feelings are more valid than another's we're all biased but that would be a terrible thing to say overall. As if someone else's personal feeling are less important than my own. However, I cannot also say that my feelings are no different from a muslim or mormon or any other religious because then it would seem that other religious feel the same as I do, so therefore something must be amiss as if there is a true religion in this world, feelings such as those should under reasoning only happen with that particular one.

I do not deny their feelings or doubt my own so what else do I have up my sleeve.

I'm a Catholic as you can probably tell from my username (also I hope you enjoy your time I reddit since I think you're new?). This means that along with feelings of ecstasy or not, how would I ever believe the Catholic Church to be the one correct religion.

Catholicism is easy to understand at a basic level, but going further reveals a large web of complicated reasoning dating back hundreds even over a thousand years ago.

1. The Church's age, the Catholic Church by most estimates date it back to the early 1st century. Church teaching says the official church was founded at Pentecost would be ~33 CE. This means that by age alone, The Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the West, surviving Romans, the early Umayyad Caliphate as well as the ones afterwards in the wake of the founding of Islam, the black death which came from the East, and even modern dangers such as fascism from Mussolini, Nazism from Hitler and company and communism from eastern Europe.
   
   
2. Through these almost ~2,000 years, the church has not taught against itself, in that I mean contradicting or changing a teaching. The day that the church changes a teaching is the day I am no longer a Catholic and more likely an agnostic or perhaps a deist and living my life in peace.
   
   
3. Unlike a lot of other religions, Catholicism (and Christianity in general for the most part) talk about giving things up in our current earthly life to receive rewards in the afterlife as opposed to receiving material rewards while still alive here on this Earth.
   
   Honestly I could ramble all day, verring off topic at the slightest thought, but I'll stop here and just give some resources if that may interest you.
   
   The first is New Advent which is a completely free site where you can have access to church documents (in the library) access to the bible in both Greek, Latin and English, a full version of the Summa written by Thomas Aquinas and many other writing of some early Christian figures that helped define many of the beliefs of Christianity in the world of the 1st century and onward.
   
   The second is r/Catholicism, assuming you don't spam (I believe the limit is 3 posts a week) you can ask all the questions you like from people who may correct misunderstandings or give additional resources.
   
   For two book recommendations I recommend The Catechism of the Catholic Church which can found online for free on the Vatican's website keep in the mind it's a very small font or by buying it from Amazon which also offers a kindle version for very cheap and an audiobook if that is more your thing.
   
   The other is (the less subtlety named) Answering Atheism which I've heard many good things about from some friends of mine and folks from r/Catholicism.
   
   I thank you most of all for being polite and courteous and I hope our exchange was educational for both of us. Always feel free to DM me for anything else.

Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin

https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Species-150th-Anniversary/dp/0451529065

No man knows my history, by Fawn Brodie

https://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485453081&sr=1-1&keywords=No+man+knows+my+history

If I can find it in the UK I'm sure you must be able to find it in the USA: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0679730540/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_NKdjub0M3YDAK

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, you might as well read the book that started it all No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie.

I always thought the only known photograph of Smith was the one used on the cover of No Man Knows My History (got to love the hair do). We had someone do a presentation about this one at our temple visitor's center. He also compared the facial features in the photo to the death mask. Note, the version on the book cover is a painted replica.

Absolutely best historical account of it all coming to be is "No Man Knows my History" by Fawn Brodie.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Man-Knows-My-History/dp/0679730540

Worth reading every page.

If you haven't studied "anti-Mormon" sources, you can't claim you aren't any of those things, because that's part of it. The constant reminders to only get your information from the church. That is one of the biggest elements of indoctrination, brainwashing, and sheltering.

They're preventing you from doing thorough research and frankly, it's not our job to digest all of for you. The problems with the church are so numerous there is no way anyone is going to be able to lay them all out for you in a comment on a reddit post. Asking us to tell you why we left is not evidence you weren't indoctrinated if you refuse to go do the study yourself.

Most active members have no idea just how much information there is and that no, it is not spun. Here's a little bit of the history on why and how the real history the church is now trying to manage finally came out. There is a couple in Provo who have a Christian ministry basically dedicated to taking down the Mormon church. Around 1990 they published a pamphlet that talked about some serious stuff the vast majority of members didn't know, like Joseph's Smith polygamy. Normally the church wouldn't respond to these things, but they felt the claims were worrisome enough (getting questions from members) they needed to publish a response, so they invited two BYU historians into the archives (you know the ones in the mountain) to study ALL of the historical documents they had and write a refutation debunking the Tanner's claims.

For about two years Michael Quinn and Dan Vogel studied every document and took photos of each one, with the church's blessing. Problem was, not only did what they find back up the Tanner's claims, but the actual history was much worse (things like Polyandry). They did write a rebuttal, but it was rejected by the Q15 and they were told not to publish anything at all, ever. More than twenty years later the essays on lds.org the church finally published to at least be a little bit honest are right out of Vogel and Quinns essays. By being a little bit I mean, if you not only read the essays, but then follow the footnotes, well. It's not good. The Saints book is the same way. It doesn't out and out lie, but talk about out of context and leaving out very important information if it's too faith challenging. It's still not fully honest. Not even remotely. Shouldn't the church have to be as honest as they expect the membership?

Being historians, not publishing and keeping it all a secret didn't sit well with them and they published anyway. In fact, Dan Vogel made all those facsimiles of all those documents, thousands and thousands of them, available to any other scholar wanting to pour through them and publish their own findings. For their trouble they were excommunicated as part of the September Six (google it).

Many (maybe most on church history) of the anti-Mormon books out there directly source these documents and you can even get them yourself. Dan Vogel published all of them in several volumes called, "Early Mormon Documents." The goal was to publish all the source material he and Quinn had collected without editorial comment. I'm not sure how much more objective it can get or how any Mormon can claim the stacks of books that came out of these are not sourced or dishonest.

If you want a summary list of the major issues, and it's a long one, you should download the free pdf version of the CES letter on cesletter.org. Then read the rebuttals over on Fair Mormon. Then read the rebuttals to the rebuttals.

When I left, a nice summary didn't exist, so I had to read books and boy did I read a lot of them. I happened to start with Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, which is well sourced out of the RLDS archives, but I also read Grant Palmer's, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins. Incidentally, he was another BYU professor excommunicated for publishing the irrefutable truth. Keep in mind, these people were active members. They were not trying to tear down the church. They simply felt it was morally wrong to continue to have blatant and significant inaccuracies in teaching manuals, in conference talks, in Seminary, in well......everything.

My reading list (those I can remember at least):

Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith

An Insider's View of Mormon Origins

Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (A Biography)

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power

Mormon America: The Power and the Promise

If you still think everything other than what is directly published by the church are anti-Mormon lies or tricks, well I can help you there at too. How deep have you gotten into Journal of Discourses? It's almost worse than anything written by an anti-Mormon. So much worse than a couple of troublesome quotes. I also re-read the D&C while reading Teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith in tandem. It was a lot harder to swallow that way to say the least and both of those are obviously considered faithful study.

​

If you want to claim you aren't brainwashed or indoctrinated you have to do the work. Saying "I posted on Reddit and no one convinced me," or the other favorite, "people much smarter than me have already studied all that and say its fine," are not valid arguments. They're lazy cop outs.

​

Good luck on your search for truth. I encourage you to study it out from ALL sources, including faithful sources you haven't yet studied.

​

edited to add: Forgot one of the most important. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith

edited edited to add: If you want something a little more biased for the church you can even just read Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. If you're going to read the D&C and Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith at the same time as I did, I recommend at least reading this one first. It's going to be much clearer if you've read at least one of the biographies and Rough Stone Rolling was published by Deseret Book.

>They are calling them the family even though I have been deep in this shit for years and never heard that stupid name

Thats funny, because it has been known about for years. Jeff Sharlet even wrote a couple of books about them C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy was published in 2010, and The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power was published in 2009. He wrote a famous piece in Salon about this issue in 2009 as well.

https://www.salon.com/2009/07/21/c_street/

The nexus of right wing Christianity and fascism in American politics has been a running theme for decades.

You're probably thinking about this:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/12/sharlet

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053/

"The Family" by Jeff Sharlet

I bring you the banal collection of The Family. Complete with Jesus+ nothing (not even your life)

...the family..."

As in... The Family?

Book about Prayer Breakfast.

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053

Apart from highschool (No one should count highschool lol) I've had two years of science studies, both from classes from biology to chemistry so I know a bit about both. I also regularly talk to science teachers I've had as well as frequent science forums when I can. For fun I read things such as

“Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution”
http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God.../dp/0061233501
This was written by a scientist who is a Christian.

To:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001QEQRJW/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Why Evolution is True By Jerry A. Coyne

& then I also peruse news networks because every so often people make claims about evolution which leads me down the path of looking at their sources and how they reached that conclusion :)

So I'm stupid but not THAT stupid lol I just have honest questions that confuse me :)

>Why not just call your religion Science or Darwinism?

As mentioned before, this really depends on the definition of religion. We need to be able to use this term without capturing political parties, sport team fans, charity groups, or hobby clubs.

Your question creates a false dilemma too. There are millions of Christians who agree with the general scientific consensus and Darwin's theory of speciation through natural selection (evolution).

While a majority of atheists tend to support Modern evolutionary synthesis (not "Darwinism"), there's no rule that demands the odd atheist cannot reject evolution, by positing something like space aliens.

Besides that, do you really want to place science and religion on opposition? To say that the scientist is a priest? Consider which "priests" creates reliable cures to disease. Which "priests" sends men to the moon and machines to mars?



>I've also made it my personal business to seek out arguments on both ends.

This statement is too vague. Which ends? The existence of god(s)? The veracity of Evolutionary theory? The strengths and weaknesses of the Scientific Method?

Please list the books/topic you're talking about and perhaps readers here can comment better on this subject.



>Anything that's provable. I get it! I love me some science.

Well, that's not wrong, but I think you're pushing this a bit too far. A better way to put it is that for any given number of statements about the world, those with repeatable, verifiable evidence for those statements we can place a greater confidence in.



>One must choose to believe pretty much all things or basically be nihilist.

This doesn't sound right and reads in my mind as a sloppy statement (and another false dilemma). But I'm not a philosopher, so I can't exactly point out where you go wrong.

As a layman I'll try to at least mention there's a middle ground to be found between absolute gullibility and absolute skepticism. We can grant Fallibilism and move towards creating a system of thought that attempts to filter out statements that are meaningless or false, and hone statements we think are true to better model and predict the world around us.

That's why a lot of atheists appreciate the Scientific Method. Plagued as it is by certain philosophical problems (like induction), the Scientific Method tries to at least reach soundness by testing predictions of a certain hypothesis against the actual world itself.

See Richard Feynman on the Scientific Method for more.



P.S. I'm mostly a Humanist. I say "mostly" because I don't go to Humanist meetings, or tithe donations to Humanist organizations. Their listed values just seem the closest to what I'd describe to someone.

Edit: P.P.S. I think you may be interested in the book Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056455F0

I'm also going through all those old Will Durant history books for a nice refresher, as audiobooks, peppered liberally with readings from its sources when I'm not plugged in and listening.

I'll try to give an unbiased view:

1. Yes, before and after, as you can see here. The most famous of which is Simon bar Kochba, though he was slightly after Jesus. It is also the mainstream historical view that Jesus did not claim to be Messiah (though there are some that disagree).
   The main thing about Jesus is that, even though he was executed, his followers (mostly Peter and Mary, and Paul later) had visions of him. This allowed it to be continued after his death.
   Another major thing is that Christians (especially through Paul) reached out to Gentiles. Paul said that Gentiles did not need to conform to any Jewish law to be Christian. This made it much easier for others to convert, and in just a few hundred years, we see tons and tons of Gentile Christian writers.
   
   
2. Christianity was known in the time, though it was a type different that what was in the west (though both types are equally old). The makeup of Arabia varied. There were Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Arabs. Arabs worshiped lesser divinities (that is, not the supreme God), or they were monotheistic hanifs. There were also non-Arab polytheists.
   As far as I know, Muhammad's early community was made up of mostly Arabs, and no Jews. Though he did view Jews as People of the Book (Jews were given 3 of the 4 major books in Islam: Moses, David, and Jesus). It's hard to explain why an individual Jew would convert to Islam, as religion is tied up with politics and culture. But Muhammad's early community didn't have any Jews in it (I think).
   
   
3. As far as I know, Muhammad didn't claim to be the Messiah. In Islam, Jesus is still the Messiah. The difference is that he is not God. As for Jews and Jesus, you can read some reasons here. The Gospel writers had their own view of the prophecies. They seemed to make the story of Jesus fit into the prophecies, even if those prophecies are based on a bad translation, or even if those prophecies aren't even talking about the Messiah. There are unfulfilled prophecies. Modern Christians say they will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. This is not in the Tanakh, and Jews don't seem to believe in the Second Coming.
   The reason Jews generally don't think the Messiah went unknown is because the prophecies have some extravagant claims (as you can see in the link). The whole world will have knowledge of Yahweh and worship him.
   
   For question 1, you can read more in the book How Jesus Became God. For question 2, you can read more in the book No god but God.

To claim that the disciples' visions were of a true miracle would fall outside the scope of what historians can say about the past. So I guess my question is: What do you mean by mass hallucination theory?

I mean, barring evidence of purposeful deception, all miraculous visions are, by definition, non-veridical when analyzed within a historical context (non-veridical being a less loaded term for hallucination.)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as...

> “an experience which seems exactly like a veridical perception of an ordinary object but where there is no such object there to be perceived. Like illusions, hallucinations in this sense do not necessarily involve deception.”

Using this definition it's totally possible to talk about the real visions the disciples had of an unreal event. This is how Ehrman chose to approach the topic in his book: How Jesus Became God.

As far as problems with this approach, I guess it boils down to whether or not you think these visions had anything to do with the origin of Christianity. What's certaintly not up for (historical) debate is whether these visions were of an actual miracle—Bayesian apologetics notwithstanding.

---

If you're interested in visions of the recently deceased outside of an academicbiblical context, there's plenty of scholarship on bereavement visions. The author provides a generous list of suggested readings at the end.

Agreed. According to Bart Erhman -- the scholar who wrote the textbook on early Christianity that Yale uses -- the "human sacrifice" angle was likely a retrofitted philosophy after it started being apparent that Jesus wasn't coming back in their lifetimes to free Judea, raise shadow ppl from the dirt, etc.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

Many early Christians were satisfied that his big miracle was his spiritual resurrection. (To modernize that a bit, the first man to realize his self outside of spacetime.)

What is yours and other academic's take on Bart Ehrman's book: "How Jesus Became God :The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee"

What book would you recommend if I wanted a historically accurate version of Jesus's life and the foundations of Christianity?

https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

Funny you should ask, since that is the subject of his latest book.

In short, yes, Ehrman believes that there was a first-century Jewish man named "Yeshua" (the proper English transliteration of the Aramaic ישוע, which we incorrectly call "Jesus") who made messianic claims, garnered a sizable following among his fellow Jews, and was probably crucified.

However, Ehrman has made a career out of demonstrating exactly how the New Testament is unreliable as a source of historical information (see for example, Misquoting Jesus or Jesus Interrupted).

If you're interested to learn more about his new book, here is a brief reading he did for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more on Ehrman's opinion on the reliability of the Gospels, see his debate with fellow New Testament scholar Craig Evans.

Hope that helps!

I thought that the evidence that Jesus of Nazareth's life was at least similar to the Gospels was overwhelming. Still don't know if I buy the whole Jesus Myth hypothesis, but I do know the Gospels aren't as accurate as I thought they were.

And no, the Jesus myth belief is not universal even among non-theists. I still need to read up more on it, but school and work both hate me right now. I can't really state an intelligent opinion either way.

no

Read Bart Ehrman's book.

I recall Richard Carrier wrote a book precisely about that matter.

Proving History: Bayes' Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus.

Bayes' Theorem is an interesting method when applied to ancient history.

Additionally, you may be interested in Richard Carrier's discussion of the topic, and his new book Proving History and the upcoming On the Historicity of Jesus Christ.

Absolutely, Komponisto is the man too! Also, Richard Carrier's video on youtube is fantastic, and his new book Proving History has helped me to organize and answer epistemic worries that I have been struggling with for years. More and more I'm coming to understand why it truly is a revolution for rationality.

If you happen to like reading, and are interested in more on the history of Mormonism, I once read this biography of Joseph Smith called No Man Knows My History. It was actually recommended to me by a District Overseer I knew a long time ago, (he knew how much I loved to read) which was really the only reason I got away with reading it at the time. People would see me reading it and ask what I thought I was doing and I would just tell them the D.O recommended it to me and they would shut up. Anyway, it was fascinating, well written, and really just an interesting perspective on the history of the church.

I found my way out by reading about church history over the course of many months (I didn't know about about the CES Letter at the time). The issues never seemed to end and never had good explanations, and I finally could not keep trying to dig the church out of the pit it had created for itself.

Nothing can definitively prove that the church isn't true. I still can't prove it isn't true, but I have overwhelming evidence that it isn't. If you're 1) a reasonable, open-minded person; 2) read about problems in the church/church history; and 3) realize that it is illogical that a supreme being would allow and perpetuate these problems, then you'll find peace of mind in leaving the church. Try picking up a copy of "No Man Knows My History" by Fawn Brodie from the library. Hide it under your bed when you're not reading it--that's what I did :)

Leaving has removed an enormous burden that I didn't even know I was carrying.

1- Bible: Any Bible with the word "Catholic" on the front (and without words like "Story", "Picture", "For Little Ones", etc) will suit your purposes. Your best bet is either the NRSV-CE or the New American Bible. Beyond that, it's completely up to you - different editions have different features. Just go to a Catholic bookstore and see which one you like best. This blog has some information on the different editions.

For the NRSV-CE, take a look at the Ignatius Bible

For New American, take a look at a St Joseph edition. I've also heard a recommendation for the Fireside editions.

Either one of those might fit the bill for "quintessential"

2 - For learning the prayers of the Mass, get a St Joseph Sunday Missal. Any edition will have the basic prayers. If you get the inexpensive paperback "2015" book, it will have the prayers of the Mass, but the Bible readings won't pick up until the new Church year starts in late November.

For learning more about the whys and wherefores of the Mass, the Catechism has a good start on this information. You might also like to check out Scott Hahn's The Lamb's Supper

3- printed Catechism - Get this one. If it looks intimidating, get one of its little sisters, the Compendium or even the YouCat

4 - Philosophy - The Catechism itself will have references. I like Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed

Hope this is helpful! Welcome aboard!

Ok, thanks. So something like [this](Catholic Bible: Revised Standard Version https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0898708338/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_lV-tub0CPW06M) [or this](Revised Standard Version Catholic Bible: Compact Edition https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0195288564/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_GY-tub14XVE37) ?

Theres also [this](Catholic Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Anglicised edition with the Grail Psalms (Bible Nrsv) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007414099/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_mZ-tub1D9YMTJ) . Whats the difference between NRSV and RSV?

Sorry if I'm being a pest with all these questions.

The Ancient Commentary on Scripture Series (published by InterVarsity) has in-depth patristic commentary on individual books of the Bible. It goes verse-by-verse, so it sounds like what you're looking for. If you want patristic/medieval commentary for free, this site is quite good: https://sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home .

As for Bible translations, Fr. Thomas Hopko once recommended the RSV (plus the apocrypha) for balancing readability and literalness. I myself like the KJV, but the RSV is quite good: Ignatius press publishes a good edition.


Fr. Laurent Cleenewerck, an OCA (?) priest, is working on translating the Bible from the official Greek of the Orthodox Church. He has only finished the New Testament. But you can pair it with Lancelot Brenton's (old) translation of the Septuagint.


For what its worth, Richard Hays has recently published a book explaining figural exegesis (the method for interpreting the bible that the Fathers use), called [Reading Backward] (https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Backwards-Figural-Christology-Fourfold/dp/1481302337/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1500494710&sr=8-3&keywords=richard+hayes).

This is rather popular. You can also just read it at Bible Gateway.

Light From the Christian East by James R. Payton - written by a non-Orthodox scholar who is sensitive to accurately describing Orthodox theology while making them accessible to non-Orthodox.

The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware - not to be confused with his older classic, The Orthodox Church, which describes the historical development of the tradition. This work is more personal because of its focus on how Orthodox theology applies to the life of a Christian. Ware is an Orthodox bishop who has been famous for decades for his attempts to introduce Eastern Christianity to a popular audience.

Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology by Andrew Louth - Louth is a gifted Russian Orthodox scholar and priest who writes ably on a number of topics.

The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky - Lossky is one of the most influential Russian Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. This book is a classic introduction published in the 50s, and also advocates for a certain understanding of Orthodoxy that emphasizes its distinctiveness (the "mystical" part) from Western theology.

Orthodoxwiki.org is a pretty good go-to site for specific topics from an Orthodox perspective. Wikipedia for that matter is excellent if you want a more secular perspective.

Also, this is a great pair of books (by the same author, incidentally) on both the history and practices of the Orthodox Church. Though keep in mind they're written by an Orthodox bishop, not a secular historian.

The Orthodox Church (this one's the history book)

The Orthodox Way

I was able to find a copy of The Orthodox Church at a local library.

Also, this is a great podcast about Byzantine history. It isn't really about the Church specifically, rather the Byzantine Empire, which was intimately tied to the Eastern Orthodox Church for many many years (history's kind of a side interest of mine).

Just finished reading this, fantastic book. The Orthodox Way, by Kallistos Ware amazon link

I think Pope Francis is sincere, but I also think that it is more complicated than merely "doing what is needed to heal the breach." The Schism is as much about people as it is about theology. Human beings and the relationships between them are complicated at the best of times. The self-understanding of these two communities has been distinct for so long that it is easier to argue than to find common ground. There are currently "Byzantine" Churches in communion with Rome and it hasn't worked out terribly well for a lot of them (though there have been bright spots).

If I might be so bold, the "liberal" people (I don't like that word, but I don't have another one) in both camps can hardly see the point in being separate, though they would like to change things in both their Churches in other ways that would make them unrecognizable. The challenge is to have the "conservative" people satisfied with the process and expected result of re-approachment, enough to establish common cause between them. A traditional Catholic has to see that the Orthodox showing up won't force them to budge on things that they are fighting with progressives in their own Church about. The same with the Orthodox. The famous resistor of "false union" Bishop Mark of Ephesus doesn't just appeal to those seeking to preserve the Orthodox faith, but also traditionally committed Catholics.

And what happens if the Catholics are willing to compromise on a great many things, but the Orthodox get difficult on some point? Would not the Catholics feel abused? "We've come all this way and it hurts us and you still won't give up on point 9?" This has been the problem with the Miaphysites. It looks like all the theological issues have been resolved, but we seem to be left with Saints and Anathemas on both sides that have rooted the problem beyond reconciliation. We seem to be "right there" except we have beloved saints on both sides that effectively said, "you can never go there." What do we do with these saints? How do we understand them?

As for something to read. There are several books depending on your interest in using big words. :)

Lossky would be the heavy weight: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311/

Though I much prefer Zizioulas, more approachable and puts apophatic theology in balance: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Communion-Personhood-Contemporary-Theologians/dp/0881410292/

Of course Bishop Timothy Ware's book is the usual "internet standard recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Way-Kallistos-Ware/dp/0913836583/

If you want something very approachable (almost no technical terms) and a little more "what does this mean" you might try an introduction to sacramental theology in general: http://www.amazon.com/For-Life-World-Sacraments-Orthodoxy/dp/0913836087/

And probably the least "theological" but I think this is both my wife and my favorite: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Water-Wine-Oil-Experience/dp/1888212918/

Read the LDS "Gospel Principles" manual, located here.

You could also read "Rough Stone Rolling" to learn more about Joseph Smith and the Church's founding. Rough Stone Rolling is generally considered a reasonable account, by both ex mormons and active mormons.

SECTION | CONTENT
:--|:--
Title | Jehovah's Witnesses v. Mormons - Ep. 1 - Faith versus Faith (with Jonathan Streeter)
Description | In this new series I explore the similarities and differences between Jehovah's Witnesses and other high control groups. First up are the Mormons, with ex-Mormon vlogger and blogger Jonathan Streeter answering my questions about the various beliefs and practices of the LDS Church. Resources mentioned in the video: 1. LDS.org Official Gospel Topics Essays: https://www.lds.org/topics/essays?lang=eng&old=true Essay acknowledging that Joseph Smith married 14-year-olds and other men's wives: https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng&old=true 2. Rough Stone Rolling: sold in official church bookstore here: https://deseretbook.com/p/joseph-smith-rough-stone-rolling-richard-l-bushman-5351?variant_id=104298-paperback On amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532 3. Insider view on Mormon Origins, on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SP990KXWHKW4G8ZH8G8S  4. CES Letter: http://cesletter.com/ 5. "Letter for my wife and children" - similar to CES letter above, but with a softer tone. More accessible. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B18W3AgWXw6zMUllRW85bXc0RWc/view 6. FAIRMormon Apologetic website: https://www.fairmormon.org/ 7. Exmormon Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/ 8. Mormon Stories Podcast: http://www.mormonstories.org/ 9. Jonathan’s Website: http://thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVTCFh3uDMH0GZlwl1JOoHQ FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/ThoughtsOnThingsAndStuff/ 10: Mormon Spectrum (for finding local support groups): http://www.mormonspectrum.org/  Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/cedars Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cedarsjwsurvey Buy my book, "The Reluctant Apostate": http://a.co/5qFN4JU
Length | 1:30:08






****

^(I am a bot, this is an auto-generated reply | )^Info ^| ^Feedback ^| ^(Reply STOP to opt out permanently)

Others have given good suggestions, but I'll add my own thoughts. First, let me recommend "Joseph Smith--History" which you can read here, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng. That is the canonical description of the initial events (visions, angelic visitations, etc.) that led him to found the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was written by Joseph Smith himself in the mid 1830s. If you have downloaded the LDS "Gospel Library" app for Android/iPhone, it's also available via Scriptures->Pearl of Great Price->Joseph Smith--History. It's just a few pages long.

Secondly, I recommend the Book of Mormon, which we view as a book of ancient holy scripture like the Bible. According to Joseph Smith's account, he was given the ancient record from an angel of God and translated it miraculously in 1829 (when he was 23), then returned the ancient record to the angel when complete. It describes God's dealings with a branch of the Israelites who migrated to the Americas around 600 BC. It's named after Mormon, who (according to the book) lived around 400 AD and was instrumental in compiling the records of the various prophets before him in addition to adding his own account. This book is core to my own personal witness that he was a true prophet. It's around 450 pages long, and as scripture it is fairly dense, so it's not just something you can read in an afternoon. You can read it online here, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng, or in the "Gospel Library" app via Scriptures->Book of Mormon. Or, if you would like a hard copy, you can request a free copy here: https://www.comeuntochrist.org/beliefs/book-of-mormon-request. (Free books are made possible by donations of church members.) Someone else recommended a few chapters to begin with, which sounded good to me. I'll add a suggestion, namely 3rd Nephi chapters 11-27 where it presents an account of Jesus visiting these people after his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. And starting from the beginning is also not a bad plan. Certainly read the modern introduction and the testimony of the various witnesses who said Joseph Smith showed them the ancient plates from which the book was translated.

Thirdly, for a more in-depth historical view, I strongly recommend Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman, https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400077532. He's an award-winning biographer, and this is a fantastic book with a very complete description of Joseph Smith's life. (Also quite lengthy, but I found it easy to read.) To me it strikes a great balance between being respectful towards Joseph Smith and those who view him as a prophet (Bushman himself is a believer), and being historical and not afraid to talk about things Joseph Smith did which were somewhat questionable. It made Joseph Smith a very human figure to me. Most other accounts of Joseph Smith's life by contrast are very one sided--presenting only the good about Smith to argue that he was a true prophet, or presenting only the bad about Smith to argue that he was a fraud.

Good luck in your quest to learn more! Don't hesitate to ask more questions here.

Here is a multi-volume work of the history if the LDS church written by B.H. Roberts. It's like 80 years old so it is a bit outdated in a few areas.

Rough Stone Rolling is a biography of Joseph Smith written by Richard Bushman. It is generally considered to be the pretty good historically and is pretty well cited.

I also find Wikipedia to be a pretty good starting point for studying different topics in LDS history. Apparently there does end up being some editing wars for a lot topics so you have to be careful.

A new 4 volume narrative history of the LDS church has also been announced and will start coming out next year. That might end up being good.

Edit: just realised I didn't read your post well enough. I just gave you general history sources when you were asking for specific leads. Sorry about that. I hope someone else the info you're looking for.

Kolob is the first explanation. This is directly from the LDS scriptures on their site

Rough Stone Rolling is the best book about Joseph Smith there is

Rough Stone Rolling. The author is a retired Ivy League (Columbia) history professor and a Mormon. The idea behind the biography is to tell the whole story of Joseph Smith, warts and all. The author cites extensively to journal entries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. written during Joseph Smith's life. This biography discusses many unflattering aspects of the founder of Mormonism, including Smith's: (i) polygamous marriages, (ii) marriages to underage girls; (iii) secret marriages to ployandrous women; (iv) the use of a magic rock and a hat to translate the Book of Mormon; (v) criminal charges for fraud; (vi) erroneous "translation" of Egyptian scrolls said to be written by Moses, later found to be common Egyptian funerary scrolls; (vii) substantial debts, the result of several failed business ventures; and (viii) Smith's lying and attempts to cover up all of the foregoing, which ultimately lead to his death.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400077532?pc_redir=1413704830&robot_redir=1

Get a study Bible. The bottom third of the page is explanations of the text above and it gives you a lot of background information on the book before you read it. I have the ESV study Bible. It's pretty sweet.

A lot depends upon the resources that you have at your disposal. If you don't have any physical resources (books, commentaries, etc) then you can find most of what you need online. So let's start with resources and then go on to techniques. I'm going to assume that you don't know things, so please don't be offended if I explain something that you already know.

There's a great program available for PC called e-Sword and it allows you to have access to a ton of different Bible translations, commentaries, word studies, and other resources all for free. You also have the option of purchasing additional study material from within the program, but I've found that the free options are quite extensive.

I highly recommend buying at least one study Bible if you don't already have one. The one that I currently use is the ESV Study Bible. There's a Kindle version if you don't want a physical copy, but I prefer a physical copy.

I used to have a hard-copy concordance, but I actually got rid of it because I found myself using electronic versions more. If you don't already know, a concordance is just a giant index. It lets you look up a word (baptism, salvation, propitiation, whatever...) and it gives you a list of all the verses in the Bible that use that word. It can be very useful if you're doing a word study (more on that later). You can find them online or download them (like e-Sword or any other similar tool), so a physical copy isn't necessary.

Once you have those, you're ready to start. So now what?

Well, there are several different ways to study the Bible. If you don't already have a copy, I highly recommend Rick Warren's Bible Study Methods. Regardless of what you think about Rick Warren, that book is a very practical hands-on discussion of different methods of studying the Bible. If memory serves, he covers most (if not all) of the methods I'll talk about.

Now, onward!

• Word study - This is basically taking a word and seeing how it's used in the Bible. Suppose you're studying baptism. You get a concordance (as discussed above) and look up "Baptism" and it'll give you a giant list of verses. Then you'll probably want "Baptize", "Baptizing", etc. Take all of the verses and start going. If you want to take it a step further, start to look at the underlying Greek/Hebrew words. That's where tools like e-Sword come in handy. You can find a Bible that lets you click the English word and it'll tell you the Greek word. So then you can search the Bible for all other times that the same Greek word is used. That can be useful because the same Greek word can be translated several different ways.
  
• Personal Application - This is a quasi-study method. It's basically what the Life Journal uses. You do a series of readings and, using the SOAP acronym, find personal application. I say quasi-study because you're not really using tools to "study", per se. It's extremely useful, though, because if you're journaling every day you'll start to see themes emerge. That's where the study comes from. You can see how God has been guiding you and how God is speaking. At any rate, SOAP stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. So you find a scripture and write about it (i.e. provide context, what it's saying, etc) and then how you can personally apply it to your life (not "I believe it means X" but "I ought to do X as a result of this") and then a prayer (obviously related to the scripture/application). It's also nice because you end up reading a lot of Scripture and the Bible is its own best commentary.
  
• Book study - This is where you read an entire book and then study that book. Let's choose Ephesians. You read the entire book in one sitting. You then outline the book. It's an epistle (fancy word for letter) so who wrote it? Who was it written to? What are the themes? After you do that, then you read it again and start to pull out verses/passages that apply directly to your life. If you have access to commentaries/tools then you'd also use them to read about the history of Ephesus, the context of the letter, and other background information.
  
• Theme study - This requires a bit more work because you need access to a lot of tools. You'll be studying something like "reconciliation" or "salvation" and then doing A LOT of reading. Unless you have the entire Bible memorized you'll need to find tools that will give you passages to read based upon that theme. A lot of study Bibles will have a theme index that will help you. At this point you'll also find commentaries useful because they'll frequently reference other passages and then you'll find yourself bouncing all over the Bible. Taking good notes is required for this, because otherwise you can forgot where you were or why you ended up in Ecclesiastes.
  
  There are other methods, of course, but that should give you a good start. Hopefully this is helpful.

Agreed I 100% reccommend the ESV

This Study Bible is absolutely amazing for such a great price! It has so much study content to better understand the bible, and is great for people new to english as well

However KJV and NIV are prefectly fine, KJV is quite hard to understand, because it uses much older slang I guess is the word. NIV is great as well, I just find ESV more useful. I do see many teenagers and grade schoolers utilizing NIV as it is found in bibles like the message and a popular teenage bible that I forget the name of.

In conclusion I reccomend ESV :)

The ESV study bible is a great one

http://smile.amazon.com/ESV-Study-Bible-Crossway-Bibles/dp/1433502410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450746634&sr=1-1&keywords=esv+study+bible

This is one that I really like a lot. A ton of background information for any verse or passage out there.

I would highly recommend the ESV Study Bible, it's a pretty big Bible so not exactly a pocket version but it is packed full of great information to help in your Bible study!

I apologize in advance if this seems preachy or me trying to influence you, that's not my intention. I just want to help you understand what Christianity really is. There's lots of confusion.

-----

First, you don't have to be baptized to get saved, or go to heaven (Jesus told one of the criminals on the cross that "today you will be with me in paradise.", and he didn't get baptized). Baptism is a demonstration of your faith, but not a prerequisite to salvation.

Second, be careful any time you start adding/removing parts of the Bible, that you aren't doing so just because you don't like it. Because if that's the case, you will end up worshiping a god of your own creation, rather than the God of all Creation. (not saying that there are no transcription/translation errors in the Bible, but just be careful, and make sure you have substantial evidence [not just the opinions of random guys on the internet] supporting your decision).

 

But to address your worry about not being a "true Christian" for a while: Christianity is not about following rules, going to church, or trying to do good. These are all byproducts of Christianity, but if you try to just go after these, you WILL fail (1). Being a Christian is just about making a decision that you will give the creator of the universe complete and total control of your life (2).

The benefits of this, is that when we seek after God (try to get to know him better through prayer and reading the Bible), all those things people think are Christianity will start to show up in your life. You don't have to stop drinking, but you'll want to at some point once you have spent time with God.

 

And as far as finding a denomination, I'd suggest a careful, methodical approach: be incredibly suspicious of anything the pastor says, and do your own research. Pastor says healing is not for today? Go up to him after service and ask him (politely) where you can find more reading about how he came to that opinion. Pastor says healing is for today, but not for everyone? Same thing. Pastor says healing is for today, but and is for everyone? Ditto.

Combine that with constant prayer asking God to show you the right church for you, and you should find the right one in God's time. (I personally had to do this, since I grew up non-denominational, and then moved out of state to a small-ish city for work, and had to find a new church to go to). You may not find a church you 100% agree with, but before leaving after a small disagreement, ask yourself how important your disagreement is. Is the pastor saying Jesus wasn't actually the Christ? Probably time to find a new church (is that even a church at that point?). Does the pastor say God's favorite color is red? Maybe not a big deal.

Another thing to look at is the results of the ministry. (3) If the church is changing peoples lives for the better, then it's probably a good church (maybe not your church, but a good church none the less).

Make sure you take time observing any church you go to though. You can't tell how good or bad a car is in a glance. Sure you can notice if something's really bad, but some problems don't show up unless you take your time to really examine the car, and/or give them time to exasperate.

 

Bottom line is, think analytically about scripture, compare that to what's being preached, and judge (examine) the ministry by the effects they have on those around them.

 

P.S. Strong's Concordance, and a good study Bible (4) are essential tools to study and understand the original text, to check for translation errors. I prefer physical copies, but you can find Strong's and plenty of free study bibles here. The Strong's is like a Dictionary for Greek and Hebrew words, so if aren't sure of the meaning of a word, you can look it up there. Study Bibles are great resources for looking up if a verse or group of verses mean what you think they mean (obviously this one is more subject to the author's opinion).

 

-----

(1) "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God", Rom 3:23. The Greek word translated sin means continuous, habitual, intentional disobedience to God.

(2) The Greek word translated "Lord" in Romans 10:9 is the same word used to describe slave-masters. So we should consider God in this way. We submit our lives to him, not on a case-by-case basis, but overall, in every area. Note that this does not become a reality immediately, but is instead a continuous process of change.

(3) "You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. [...] A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit." Matt 7:16-17.

(4) the link is to my favorite (and a theologically neutral) study bible. It puts things into context, giving you insight into the culture of the time, and scholar's notes on events and their significance. Obviously remember that the study texts are the opinions of a man, or group of men, and are not infallible.

It depends on how you want to read it. Most (if not all) Christians read the old testament through the lens of Jesus, so it may be beneficial to read the new testament first. On the other hand Christianity comes out of Jewish tradition so it would also be good to read O.T. first.

Some people find bible study plans where you read a book of the O.T. then switch to a book of the N.T.

Any way you choose, I suggest getting a study bible. They are great for giving cultural context and background to what you are reading. Try the ESV (English Standard Version) Study bible.

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/1433502410

Mark Shea's Making Sense of Scripture was a good start for me. Also a good study Bible with commentary is helpful.

There are many. The Haydock Bible and the Didache Bible are good, and the Ignatius Study Bible is amazing.

And if you've not heard of Aquinas's commentaries and the Catena Aurea you're in for a treat. You can find copies online on the right hand side.

My favorites Scripture Scholars are:

1. Brant Pitre
   
2. Scott Hahn
   
3. John Bergsma
   
   ​
   
   They all have Bible Studies in specific topics (Eucharist, Priesthood, Covenants, specific Books) or more general. For Old Testament, I'd check out Brant Pitre and John Bergsma's somewhat recently released A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament. They have a New Testament one coming, but not sure on the date. But you do have Scott Hahn's Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament to cover your bases there! You can also look into Navarre Study Bibles, it's best to get them used on sites like Ebay or Amazon as they're pricey but worth it in commentary. Brant Pitre and John Bergsma has a lot of their work available at Catholic Productions. Scott Hahn has the St. Paul Center, which even has some online study course available free like The Lamb's Supper: The Bible and the Mass.

• The YouVersion Bible App. (www.bible.com)
  I used to use Glo but it kinda sucks and they didn't update or keep up with new features. I can bookmark/highlight passages, create quotes and media, read and participate with my wife and friends in Bible plans not just readings but media built in. It's great and 100% free.
  
  
• I own a St. Joseph's New American Edition of the Bible which I really like
  
• I also own a St. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible which is amazing
  
  

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195298047

Its an NAB Bible, comes with a bookmark and is pretty small, so it's convenient to carry around. Text is small (I don't mind small text, so depends on how you feel) but all the standard footnotes are pushed to the end of the chapters, making reading easier because they aren't distracting. Also has prayers, the rosary mysteries (with relevant readings), stations of the cross, and the daily readings calendar. No maps or essays though.

I also have a bunch of the Ignatius Study Bible books (the single book versions like this https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/383025651069) and those I really like as well. If anyone else has the Ignatius New Testament Bible (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1586172506) and could confirm its all those wrapped up, I'd definitely get that too. New Testament only though

Nice. I use this because I like the extensive footnotes. I hope they plan on doing the Old Testament.

Like other's have suggested, a study bible would be good. I recommend this one for the New Testament:

http://www.amazon.com/Ignatius-Catholic-Study-Bible-Testament/dp/1586172506

Also, I recommend the following free bible study programs:

St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology: Online Bible Study Courses

St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology: Audio Courses

>You seem to lean quite heavily on Bayesian Methodology. If you're interested, I'd like to discuss this a little bit more. You seem to be willing to apply probabilities to historic events.

Here is an outline of Bayes Theorem and its relevance to Histoical analysis.

http://www.richardcarrier.info/CarrierDec08.pdf

I recommend anything Richard Carrier.

Here is a book with the methodology in action.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1616145595

I probably suffer from some extreme confirmation bias as I was completely sold on this method before I ever heard of Richard Carrier. The New Testament was the first book in the canon that are started looking at using bayesian reasoning and it was a result of that analysis that I left Mormonism. I had stopped believing in Jesus before I began examining Mormon unique topics.

When I found Richard Carrier it was simply a validation on the way I aproached the question, he just did it way better than myself.

But I guess you can thank my BYU professors for my atheism. They sold me on statistics (although I was already taking statistics courses in highschool). Statistics has always been very intuitive for me. Learning it formally was such a delight.

If you are new to Bayes Theorem I would say start here. Best explanation I have found online for beginners.

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes

Good to hear there are still open-minded people out there. I think Richard Carrier is closer to the truth though 1, 2.

I personally don't know much about the subject, but I do know that Richard Carrier has written a book about using Bayes' Theorem for examining the historicity of Jesus. I haven't read it, though.

edit: However, a review on amazon states that "Dr. Carrier is writing a second book to follow up this one called "On the Historicity of Jesus Christ" that will address that question. He does touch on the subject somewhat in this book, but the purpose of this book is to lay the theoretical groundwork for the next volume."

I believe it's this one: https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-New-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Well, the proof is in the pudding, not in the list of ingredients on the side of the packaging of the pudding. To me, by the time I came to the point where I was asking myself what I really believe about the Eucharist, I had for the most part already seen enough to take the word of, not only the Church, but the earliest Christians, considering that's all we have to really go on. I mean, we're not just talking about some random people here but 2nd generation Christians, those who were taught by the Apostles themselves. If that is to come under scrutiny, then why not any other number of things they tell us? Why accept Christ's divinity or the doctrine of the Trinity or the Resurrection? All these things which were taught by the Apostles.

At some point, you become convinced of not just single subject matters, but of the legitimacy of the Church as a whole, you believe in the Church - not the individuals per se, but the body of teachings, and, more importantly, the transformative power of the way of living.

I would encourage you to more fully explore the links given in the thread I linked to, there is a wealth of information there which can take several months to take in and digest. And don't get hung up on single things like this, continue to investigate the Church as a whole. Have you read this book yet? It is probably the best introduction to the Church, both theologically and socially/historically.

Peace in Christ.

What you are seeking I think would in my opinion be found in Orthodox Christianity.

1. We Orthodox call them Spiritual Fathers. These can be your priest, your confessor or a monk. Usually it is your priest or confessor as they will get to know you very well. The job of a spiritual Father is to help instruct and guide you on your spiritual path towards salvation. He will answer questions, offer advice with life problems and is the person you can talk to when you are troubled.
   
2. We have hesychasm and prayer rules. They help bring spiritual order into our lives so that we can better live out the faith.
   
3. The Orthodox teaching of hell is that at the judgement all souls (saved and unsaved) will experience God's love. A soul which has rejected God will experience God in a dreadful way entirely as a result of his own choice. God will show him his love but because he has cut off himself from him and rejected him he will not welcome that presence.
   
4. The term denominations refers to all the protestant splinter groups which were created by Martin Luther 1500 years after Christ. Apart from those Christianity has many sects such as Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Copts etc. The way you would discover which is the true one is through research. Look at the Church history, which one teaches and practices the same things as the early Church? Paul told us to hold fast to the traditions we have been given. I can only instruct point you towards the Orthodox Church as we were founded by the Apostles and have kept the teachings and traditions they gave us.
   
5. Prayers to saints is not a necessity, we pray to them to ask them to pray for us just like we would other Christians because God is not the god of the dead and of the living. Christ showed us that they are alive at his transfiguration.
   
6. The attitude towards the different sects changes between churches. Some believe anything flies as long as your praise Jesus. Some, like us, believe that there is only one faith that we were instructed to keep, and to change it is to depart from the church.
   
7. With regards to tradition, you will find its fullness in the Orthodox Church. We were instructed to keep it, and so we did.
   
8. KJV is a good translation, but you can also google about which one is the best. Being translations, they all have issues. We Orthodox believe scripture should not be read alone because the reader will come to his own conclusions rather than what was given to us. Scripture is not just the written word but the overall context and teaching.
   
9. At the end of all this, this is but what our church claims. You can only get to the bottom of it through research. I can point you to the Orthodox Church.
   
   
   A good book to read is this.

Welcome to the Orthodox Church by Frederica Mathewes-Green

The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware

are both good books on the subject.

I can dump a few lectures on YouTube if you want.

They aren't Orthodox theologians, but:

• Christianity: The First 3000 Years - can't beat this for an academic, accessible, comprehensive, and fair point of view of every corner of the Christian world in history. Literally every corner. You can skip chapters/parts that don't apply to Orthodoxy if you wish.
  
  
• A Short History of Byzantium -
  focuses more on the Byzantine Empire and so leaves out a lot of stuff, but it does cover the Ecumenical Councils and a lot of Orthodox history. There is also a harder-to-find 3 part trilogy of this abridged book.
  
  Orthodox Writings:
  
  
• Bishop Ware's The Orthodox Church has an overview, but it's pretty light.
  
  
• Orthodox Alaska provides a historical look at the history of Orthodoxy in Alaska, which is pretty great (and super interesting).
  
  There are probably not many good histories of the Church by Orthodox theologians, to be honest.
  
  

Mountain of Silence - by Kyriakos Markides

https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Silence-Search-Orthodox-Spirituality/dp/0385500920

​

Fr Arseny: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father

https://www.amazon.com/Father-Arseny-1893-1973-Narratives-Concerning/dp/0881411809

​

The Orthodox Church - Timothy Ware

https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-New-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563

​

Byzantine Thought and Art - Constantine Cavarnos

https://www.amazon.com/Byzantine-Thought-Art-Constantine-Cavarnos/dp/0914744224

Yes, a really good read is 'The Orthodox Church' by Kallistos Ware which gives you a great overview of the History of the early church before and after the schism, focusing primary on the Eastern Churches and what was going on there rather than West. It's not exhaustive but covers all the major events and key figures, as well some chapters on Orthodox theology and spirituality, which you will find interesting, especially if you come from another tradition.

https://www.amazon.ca/Orthodox-Church-Second-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481928799&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Orthodox+Church

This book is seen as pretty much the gold standard when it comes to introducing the Orthodox Church. I'd also recommend the "Orthodox Study Bible."

If I recall correctly, their two primary issues with the Catholic Church was the Roman Pope's primacy and something with the Nicene Creed. They've diverged significantly since then, though. The Orthodox tend to be much more spiritual, use a lot more symbols and more incense, and a whole lot less legalistic.

Mere Christianity is excellent.

I happen to like Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church, for obvious reasons.

Thanks. I have his book The New Testament which is excellent if you want to see all the early strains of "Christianity" and the way they all had differing versions and how that came to eventually be unified and people who didn't hold to the adopted version were persecuted:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534/ref=asap_B001I9RR7G_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414348600&sr=1-3

I don't think there's such a thing as a "Christian scholar" or a "Muslim scholar". That's an oxymoron, really. Faith has no place in the methodology of science.

Now, one can be a scholar of Christianity or a scholar of Islam. And indeed, there are many of these. Although some of them are religious, most are atheists and agnostics. This should not be surprising, it's my experience that studying religion makes one give up their faith.

So I repeat, wide scholarly consensus is that Mark was in some form composed either late in The Great Revolt. Soon after at the latest. If you're interested in why you could start here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0199757534

It's written biblical scholar who used to be a Christian but is now an atheist/agnostic. He's writing for a low level college class, and is careful to only include content with wide consensus around it.

Now, of course they could be wrong. And history is a soft science at that. This point is, you shouldn't deny the results just because you don't like them. That is something a "Christian scholar", "diaper scholar", or even an "atheist scholar" might do.

John Lennox is a great resource on the Christian vs. Science debate. Here is one of my favorite speeches by him. He explains why and how popularizers of atheism today enjoy forcing people to choose between science and God. In his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, Alvin Plantinga argues that the real debate of religion vs. science is Naturalism vs. Science. He defends the idea that Naturalism has become a religion, rather than a state of temporal ignorance--it is meant to be an assumption until indications of the supernatural arise, though now people will accept both premises and the conclusion of arguments such as the Kalam (for example, Richard Dawkins and Danniel Dennet)--but then deny it once they learn it has theological implications. So he attempts to move the debate to the view most scientists today hold, and then presents his own defeater for naturalism to add to the list that almost expelled it from academia until it was preserved in a sort of pretension by modern scientists. Why? Because academia has secularized on the basis of a misrepresentation of Christianity--that God is something to be found within His creation, instead of "outside of it" (immaterial, spaceless, timeless, uncaused...).

Alvin Plantinga also wrote Knowledge and Christian Belief (a more approachable version of his Warranted Christian Belief), which is part of how he restored intellectual credibility to the Christian worldview within academia. He has since caused a resurgence in Christian theism in the anglo American collegiate realm. Here he explains that argues that belief in Jesus is a properly basic belief, meaning that it is one that we arrive at without reference to anything else within reality. For example, you believe that you are not a brain in a vat being controlled by a mad scientist to think you are here---but you can't prove it! It is a metaphysical (the philosophy of existence) assumption that is epistemologically (the philosophy of what is justified/warranted as knowledge) justified. Thus, wholly apart from evidence besides the revelation of the Holy Spirit (perhaps noncommunicable), and in the absence of a defeater for Christian theism, belief in Jesus is an epistemologically warranted metaphysical initiative.

> They're having me read it because I'm asking them to read The God Delusion. I feel like it's a fair trade off.

I don't think the book they're giving you is a fair trade. Science and the existence of God are not even in the same categories. What you need is PHILOSOPHY and METAPHYSICS. I suggest you read: Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga. Plantinga is one of the greatest Christian philosophers alive and in short his theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.

I've been thinking about this. The works which first pop to mind are probably too technical for general interest as they are written to be read by other professional philosophers. I'm trying to think of what might be interest to the educated person who isn't a Philosophy major.
*****

Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft writes a lot of things for a general audience. He is a Catholic philosopher at Boston College. He often speaks at other universities, and has even been part of a debate with a former professor of mine, so he is at least pretty well-known in philosophical circles. He has a bunch of free readings on the "featured readings" and "more featured readings" pages of his site, which also has lectures and such. Here is his author page on Amazon. His books are also mostly intended for a general audience. I've read a handful of them, so if you're thinking of ordering one, or finding it at a library, let me know and I'll give you my two cents. The Sea Within: Waves and the Meaning of All Things is interesting. He is fairly old, and a lifelong surfer. In that book he draws analogies between the natural pull the ocean has on us and the pull God has on us. He also has many Socrates Meets... books which don't have so much to do with religion, but provide accessible introductions to various philosophers (e.g. Socrates Meets Sartre).
*****

Alvin Plantinga

Alvin Plantinga is a very prominent philosopher, and a Christian. Much of his writing is intended for the professional philosophical audience, but some if it might be accessible to a general audience. Here is his Amazon author page. Let me know if you're thinking about checking out any of his stuff. Like I said, a lot of it is more technical than Kreeft's. Also, he is in the analytic tradition, whereas Kreeft is more in the continental tradition. I think that further distances him from the casual reader.

Some of Plantinga's works which might be good:

• God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God is pretty much what it's long title says.
  
  
• I see a brand new book, which I might get myself! It's on a topic which often comes up in this very forum, science and religion. (Anybody want to read it with me?!) Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Publisher's blurb:
  
  >This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates -- the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
  
  *****
  

  Søren Kierkegaard
  

  
  If you're thinking more historically, I think Kierkegaard can be very interesting. He is considered by many to be a proto-existentialist (a sort of existentialist before existentialism existed as a movement). Fear and Trembling is relatively easy to read, short, and probably his most read work. I recommend it. Also, here is his Amazon author page.
  
  *****
  

  Others
  

  
  Those three were just a few of the many Christian philosophers I find interesting. There are a whole lot more, some more accessible than others to a general audience. This is still just a fraction of the historical Christian philosophical scene, but I think it will give you a good start. These are all of them off of the top of my head whom I have studied to some extent.
  
  

  Contemporary:
  

  
  

• John Hick (Amazon) (Website) (Wiki): Primarily a philosopher of religion and theologian, comes from a rather liberal, mystic Christian perspective.
  
  
• Bas van Fraassen (Wiki): Doesn't actually do much on religion, just a prominent philosopher who happens to be a theist. In fact, many would not guess him to be a theist due to his ultra-empiricism.
  
  
• Peter van Inwagen (Wiki): A prominent philosopher in both philosophy of religion, and other areas. Some would argue he's even a better philosopher than Plantinga (heresy among some Christian philosophers, lol).
  
  
• J.P. Moreland (Wiki): Christian philosopher, does a lot of apologetics.
  
  
• William Lane Craig (Wiki): Well-known, but not well-liked by many philosophers, does a lot of apologetics and travels the world doing public debates with atheists. Has also done a good deal of publishing.
  
  
• Cornell West (Wiki): Awesome guy!
  
  
• Richard Swinburne: (Wiki) (Amazon Author Page): Has written many books more geared towards a general audience I believe.
  
  

  Historical
  

  
  

• Francis of Assisi
  
  
• Augustine of Hippo
  
  
• Peter Abelard
  
  
• Thomas Aquinas
  
  
• Renee Descartes
  
  
• John Locke
  
  
• George Berkeley
  
  
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  
  
• Blaise Pascal
  
  
• Johann Gotlieb Fichte
  
  
• Immanuel Kant
  
  
• William James: One badass mo'fo in my humble opinion. Early twentieth century American philosopher, part of the pragmatist school, and a defender of faith.
  
  ****
  Author's Note: I've been working on this entry for about 45 minutes now. I hope someone reads some of it. Time for a break. If you have any questions, or wanna talk philosophy, let me know, it's in my blood.*
  
  

I would read this if you get a chance

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism/dp/0199812098

I don't have the exact quote now but, christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga said something like "our interpretation of scripture and science are different ways to approach the objetive truth, thus, when they disagree about something, there may be a misunderstanding/error in one or both that we need to work out"

He wrote a book on the subject for those interested in a philosophical, more deep take on the issue.

For those more into YT, I strongly reccomend the movie [Evolution vs God](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ
).

The supposed conflict of science vs religion is false. The conflict is scientism vs religion. True Science deals with observation, theorizing and experimentation.

But it would be naive to think that what is sold today as science is free from bias and ideology.

My personal views on the subject are:

There is no macro evolution, and all species were created as they are, but are somehow making little adjustments tru dna combinations within the same kind.

Only life can create life, non organic chemicals cannot create the information imbued in the DNA of the living beings.

I got not strong stance on the age of the earth. It could be 6~7000 years or 4.5 Billions (radiometric dating has some issues..). Whatever the age doesn't change the fact that God did it.

Finally, I keep in mind that the ultimate truth will never be fully acknowledged by humans The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever Dt 29:29.

My humble opinion/understanding

Since you know about Richard Carrier I would assume you already have read some of the well known Anti-religionists like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennet, Stenger, etc. If you are talking about secular biblical scholarship and historical analysis there isn't anyone who keeps me interested as much as Carrier, but I haven't read much in that subject. Some others include Robert Price and Bart Erhman.

There are several good essay compilations by John Loftus which are more generally directed at Christianity. They include essays by Carrier and Robert Price and a number of other secular thinkers. The Christian Delusion I think is the first in that series. Hitchens's The Portable Atheist is another good collection which includes older writing aimed at all religion. Bertrand Russell is a great, too.

Old dead classical dudes are always good. I ransack Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius for good ideas and advice fairly regularly. There are some excellent secular philosophers and thinkers out there. I enjoy Sam Harris' work the most. One of my favorite reference books is The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of secular philosophers, edited by Hitchens.

To get a sense of your place in the universe, try to find an old full-color hardback copy of Cosmos.^1 For your place in the Human story, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and your place in the American story with A People's History.


[1] As a minor biographical note, I credit this version of Cosmos for getting me through horrible angsty teenager time.

Edit: Also, good question.

It took me a couple minutes to figure this out.

I see this quote attributed to

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.

Christopher Hitchens was the editor, but it's a collection of essays from many people, apparently including Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

- http://www.amazon.com/The-Portable-Atheist-Essential-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083 -

- http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/rh2j7/the_only_position_that_leaves_me_with_no/c45r38s -

>Atheism is not a religion.

Really?

>We have no doctrine.

I'm almost positive that that's not the case.

>No creed.

From PZ Myers himself.

>No hymns.

Really? Are you so very certain?

So...are you positive that atheism has not taken on all the trappings of a religion? I would say you even have apostles - Dawkins, Hitchins, Harris.

Finally - I would urge you to look up state atheism and then tell me that certain people didn't kill in the name of atheism.

The Portable Atheist, edited by Christopher Hitchens, is an invaluable resource and a full-on greatest hits of nonbeliever writing, tracing the chronology of freethinkers all the way from to Lucretius to H.P. Lovecraft to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I'm constantly going back to it, especially because there are essays for all sorts of atheism-related subjects, like the refutation of miracles or the source of morality.

Also, I know you said you're not looking for anti-Christian media, but Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian is a classic for a reason - it's comprehensive and expertly-crafted without being vitriolic. As influential as Dawkins has been for me, he can't hold a candle to Russell.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "light", as one man's leisurely reading could be another man's first excursion into an epic magnum-opus.

I will give you what I believe is a good "entry point" into atheist/secular literature. It is artfully written and prepared by none other than my personal inspiration and role model: Christopher Hitchens.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Portable-Atheist-Essential-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083

"The Portable Atheist" is collection of poignant and brilliant selections and snippets from many different authors, philosophers and some of the foremost contemporary writers of our time. The Amazon description of the book provides an apt and thorough description of the book's contents.

The book does include some quotations from Rushdie, though. I would personally advise against shying away from reading someone's work based on their facial features alone.

If one argued that the works of Galileo, Newton, Hawking, Shakespeare, Twain, Hemingway and Sagan were not worth reading because they weren't exactly the prettiest lilies in the pond, then modern society wouldn't be that much better off now, would it :) ?

This is a very good book about Scientology.

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309

If you enjoyed that article -- and I agree that it is very good -- you should take the time to read the entire book that it inspired, Going Clear. As you might expect, a 500-page book has a lot more detail than an article does. (The movie is good as well, but the book is better. As is usually the case.)

I have 40 years of experience with the subject, and am fully aware of both its plusses and minuses. There's more to it than any single article can cover.

Read the book Going Clear. I cannot recommend it enough. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0307745309/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1481120292&sr=1-1

No, I meant like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602

Nothing in that article makes me think Ehrman doesn’t believe what he’s saying.

did jesus exist?

http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Church-New-Timothy-Ware/dp/0140146563

I got these:

The Orthodox Church by Kallistos Ware

The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware

The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos C. Markides

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

I'm still reading them but I hear that this selection will cover a lot of bases. Check eBay too, they can found pretty cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534

great Book!

You can look at religion (in my example religious text) from an academic lens (ex:Bart D. Ehrman’s textbook on the New Testament) where using historical fragments of manuscript you can see what portions were likely edited or added later. You factor in writing styles and other variables and evaluate it as a historical text that changes over time (and why those changes occur). This evaluation let’s you see that say some authors may have influenced the writing of other later writers who may have added elements they thought weren’t sufficiently elaborated (ex: resurrection) which then led to later editors adding that to the earlier authors so they all were in agreement. It can actually be really interesting to look at the text in this way.

Within Catholicism, the Jesuits are particularly interested in science / academia which has sometimes created theological debate where they push / publish something at odds with a historically held position. They’ve actually contributed to several areas of science (ex: experimental physics in the 17th century), but someone with more background would need to speak more to this.

Comparing a class I had in primary school (the equivalent of 6th grade) to later classes outside of school in the US there were notable differences. The first emphasized ethics and pulled in history and science as tools to help explain and answer “why is this the case” or “how does this work” questions while the second was more “this is what is true and anything that conflicts must not be true” which threw out a lot of history / science that didn’t agree (ex: evolution).

It’s the difference between allowing scientific knowledge to influence your beliefs so that you see evolution as an even greater and more powerful miracle than a simple creation as is vs. ignoring science and seeing evolution as fiction because it wasn’t in the book.

Honestly, it's not something I've put a lot of thought in to... His textbook on the New Testament is the one we used for our class, and it is actually a pretty good analysis of the history, structure, etc of the New Testament, but it isn't a theological text that attempts to confirm/deny the validity of Christianity.

Now, I'm assuming (but correct me if I'm wrong) that the "beliefs" you asked about are his beliefs that the Bible has been corrupted over time and is therefore unreliable as a theological text. And, by extension, if the Bible is unreliable, the things it says about God must be false. I think this is one of the big problems one runs in to when using Bible as the sole source of your faith, as many of our protestant brothers & sisters do. In Catholicism, we base our beliefs on not only what the Bible says, but on the teachings & traditions that have been passed down to us since apostolic times. Indeed, I'd say the we tend to give primacy to the teachings & traditions that are handed down over those put forth in the Bible, which is a good thing since books/passages in the Bible often have multiple interpretations (on a side note, that's why there are 20,000+ protestant denominations).

So, say that Mr. Ehrman was able to 100% prove that the Bible was corrupted and is entirely false -- impossible, but play along for sake of discussion. Would it cause some theological difficulties? Sure. But would it affect the teachings & traditions of Christianity? Not so much, unless the Bible was your sole source of theology (applies to many protestant denominations, not Catholicism).

I hope this makes sense. If not, feel free to ask for more info.

Who Wrote the New Testament and The New Testament a Historical Introduction are both good places to start. The latter is by Bart Ehrman, who Bikewer mentioned.

If you need to do school work, you should totally not read The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings by Bart Ehrman. This is his text book for an intro class.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199757534/ref=la_B001I9RR7G_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521610864&sr=1-15&refinements=p_82%3AB001I9RR7G

You just have to be smart enough to go to a university library and use a terminal.

Here is a good place to start.

This is like a YEC creationist asking where they should begin researching the scientific view of biology. Remove your head from your own ass and look literally anywhere that discusses the subject. Nobody with a degree in the field makes the claims you do. You sound like a rube.

You copied this list directly from this wiki page about a book that advances Jesus mythicism, the notion that there was no historical Jesus, a thesis that is rightly dismissed by every tenured professor at leading research universities who study first century Judaism and Christianity.

Even Richard Carrier, the most prominent Christ mythicist, calls the book "unreliable," citing damning methodological problems.

>In general, even when the evidence is real, it often only appears many years after Christianity began, and thus might be evidence of diffusion in the other direction. . . . [then he cites several other methodological problems]

>All this is not to say Graves didn't have some things right. But you will never be able to tell what he has right from what he has wrong without totally redoing all his research and beyond, which makes him utterly useless to historians as a source. For example, almost all his sources on Krishna long postdate Christian-Nestorian influence on India. No pre-Christian texts on Krishna contain the details crucial to his case, apart from those few that were common among many gods everywhere. Can you tell from Graves which details are attested by early evidence, and which by late? That's a problem.

When even Carrier, who is largely dismissed by the academic community, dismisses something as unreliable and utterly useless, you know it's bad.

If you want to study how early Christianity was related to other systems of belief contemporary to it, go to the scholars who are well regarded in the field, and avoid sensational, popular-level books. Bart Ehrman wrote a good, undergraduate-level textbook on the New Testament and early Christianity.

>> That's what this conversation is about.

> It's a simple enough problem: If Jesus existed and is not a deity, then the people who claim he is immortal might well be wrong about every word they've said about him, which calls the entire bible (and any other "sacred" or "holy" works) into question.

No, please read the wikipedia article on the Historicity of Jesus that I linked. The article explains the process by which modern, secular scholarship studies secular and non-secular sources to conclude that a historical Jesus existed.

For further reading, see Bart Ehrman's textbook, (The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings )[http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0199757534]. It goes into some detail on the question of a historical Jesus. (Sidenote: I recommend this book to you because Bart Ehrman is not a Christian.)

I'd recommend Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, & Naturalism. It's a very dense and complex book, but you're asking some of the deeper questions of life, so don't be too surprised. CS Lewis also has a good book on miracles that's a shorter and more accessible read, if you like the time to chew through Plantinga's arcane tome.

Specifically related to your question about miracles, he advocates that a Christian cosmology views the universe as an open system, in contrast to the closed system cosmology of pure naturalism.

What do we owe them? Perhaps a recommendation to check out Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism from a local library. It is a devastating and witty dismembering of arguments contained in the works of Dennet, Dawkins, et al.

(Plantinga writes from a Reformed, rather than Catholic, background, but he's a top-notch philosopher and this book is a gem.)

Nice! On my list now. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism/dp/0199812098

No worries. Glad I can be of assistance. A couple quick comments to make, however.

>I wasn't even sure that god was real. I mean, the logical part says that he's probably not. But the instinct part feels uncomfortable with the idea. To outright state that God does not exist bothers me for some unknown reason.

First of all, I think that this is a common misconception among many people today for a couple of reasons. First of all, logic as far as I understand it has gone both ways. Yes, a number of philosophers and scientists today are convinced of a lack of God, but there are also a number of thinkers who are using logic to demonstrate his existence. A really good one to check out if you're interested is Alvin Plantinga, a very well respected analytic philosopher who's also a Christian. I'm not trying to convert you, but rather would like to give you some options if you're interested in being rational and religious. And he's got a couple books you may find interesting. 1 and 2. I've only read parts of the first one, and found it very interesting. I'd recommend reading his essays on reformed epistemology, and his work on naturalism being irrational. Very good reading, and not terribly technical, so you should be able to get into it just fine.

And on the note of instinctual belief in God, I'd say don't be afraid to trust in your instincts. As one of my profs told me, gut-feeling's don't make for great philosophical arguments in themselves, but they do often indicate that there's the possibility of an argument being made. You often know a lot more than you realize; all the reading, studying and analysis is simply finding ways to express it to others. So yeah, don't be so hesitant to trust yourself. Good luck.

The space-time thing is honestly absurd, I don't see how it could not make sense for a necessary being (insofar as He exists) to not exist. There being no space-time wouldn't matter seeing as how He is a fundamentally immutable and incorporeal being?

As for the supposed witness of other faiths, at that point you have to get into the trenches and quibble logically and philosophically. And I feel that Christianity most definitely wins those battles.

The "problem" of evil isn't really a problem at all. If you read any Plantinga you will become familiar with the free will defense and the moral responsibility (in many forms) defense to that claim. What are the contradictory omni-claims? If you are speaking of how God can be omni-just and omni-forgiving, in Christian theology these adjectives are used to describe qualitative intrinsic maximums, not quantitative infinites, thus there is no conflict.

What is the problem with Atonement, the Trinity, and God's special revelation in the OT+NT? The Gospel is God speaking to everyone who reads it, right now. His Revelation culminated with Jesus Christ, and that was infinitely sufficient. Why would He need to continue talking directly to people, in light of this grand special revelation and His general revelation, not to mention His manifestation through the Holy Spirit throughout our lives? (You'll have to be more specific about the "problems" with atonement and the trinity in order for me to respond to them.)

And I most certainly do see a huge amount of change in my life and the lives of those around me through Christ; I feel that I have gained a true Christian witness in the past year, and since that point my life has become infinitely better and more fulfilling (not to mention religious experiences I and others have had). What are some of the things that Christ told His disciples they could do that believers cannot do? Link specifically to scripture if you want to sustain this objection.

Also, you should read Where the Conflict Really Lies by Alvin Plantinga. It is another fantastic book.

God bless.

If you want some books to read on how science and faith can be reconciled, I recommend The Language of God and Where the conflict really lies.

This video on God and evolution is really cool

Also, William Lane Craig did a podcast on the topic of Creationism and Evolution

Also, see this answer from WLC: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/evolutionary-theory-and-theism

A few read worthy books on this topic:

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

Alvin Plantinga - Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

Vishal Mangalwadi - The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization

Craig A. Evans - Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels

You can find longer list over at r/ christianapologetics

Check out “Where the Conflict Really Lies” by Alvin Plantinga. I found it interesting and helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism/dp/0199812098

Lewis is a Christian apologist and fiction author beloved by many Christians, but many posts here on /r/atheism are (deservedly) making a mockery of his many fallacies. He's a popular hack, basically.

I'm more upset at people like Alvin Plantinga. A well-regarded professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, this guy makes similar arguments to Lewis but he manages to wrap them into a lot of philosophical smoke and mirrors reminiscent of Thomas Aquinas.

Plantinga's latest big work (that I know of) is a book wherein he purports to refute Naturalism by saying that if our senses and reason are naturally evolved and not divinely created, then they are unrealiable and so is every conclusion we draw with them, and therefore Naturalism proves itself unsupportable.

Agreed. Alvin Plantina's book on the subject strongly affected my thoughts on the matter.

You might want to try /r/debateachristian. And Alvin Plantinga has written a book with some very good arguments against naturalism called Where the Problem Really Lies, if you really want to challenge yourself on this issue. It is pretty heady though, I will warn, and some of it is nearly indecipherable without some higher education in philosophy.

First off, it's atheism, not Atheism for the same reason it's theism not Theism. Neither theism nor atheism are religions or formalized ideologies.

To understand atheism, there's one core idea you must know: what is theism.

• theist - someone who thinks one or more gods exist.
  
  
• atheist - someone who is not a theist.
  
  Just as you can not say much for certain about any random theist, the problem is harder with any random atheist.
  
  That's about it. Almost everything else said about atheists tells you more about the person speaking than any random atheist.
  
  Now, with that aside, I don't know what you already think so I don't know what gaps in knowledge or interests you might have. That limits me to resources that you may not benefit from, even though they are excellent resources in themselves.
  
  Related;
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-People-Give-Believing-God/dp/1591025672
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Portable-Atheist-Essential-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083

Just by posting this, you've already surpassed my parents in open-mindedness and understanding. Your kids are lucky to have you as a parent.

For me, the best thing my parents could have done is just said something to the effect of "This is one belief among many. Some people believe in x, others believe in y, and others don't believe in religion at all, and those are all alright." Just the acknowledgement that different beliefs are right for different people could have prevented years of bitterness and confusion. Whatever their decision, they'll come to it on their own no matter what you actively expose them to. In my opinion, there's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing them up in your faith and encouraging to participate in something that has brought you joy as long as you inform them that other faiths are an option at all. I wouldn't worry about their disinterest in the services. Most kids would rather play their gameboys than sit through a religious service.

As for a good book I can suggest, I really like The Portable Atheist because it has a good variety of texts and perspectives. It's a good starting point, and it was compiled by Christopher Hitchens, who is awesome. Dawkins is amazing, but he can come off a bit strong sometimes, which can turn non-atheist readers off sometimes and give the easily offended the wrong impression. Even though I'm an assertive atheist, I find myself avoiding books that serve as a sort of atheist pulpit. Just as I don't like theists telling me how to be religious, I don't like atheists telling me how to be nonreligious.

It all depends on the goal. If OP wants to send a message, then choosing The God Delusion or God Is Not Great would certainly send that message. If OP wants a book that's a good read, both are still good choices, but now there're other books that are equally good choices.

The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, The Portable Atheist, On Bullshit, On Truth, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, The Moral Landscape, The Demon Haunted World, Religion and Science, and many others are excellent reads, but don't send that little (possibly unnecessary) jab.

I just found about him this year, but reading him (specially his essays on "arguably" or stuff edited by him, like "the portable atheist") has inspired me not only to be more foursquare and vocal in my stance against the religion I apostatized from, but to rekindle my lukewarm, dormant and forlorn love for poetry and literature, he was an eloquent man, and he has inspired me to be eloquent (and proud of being circumloquent) again, despite my engineering degree and technical day-job.

Adieu, Hitch.

Great idea, but check out Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist

I don't actively look for metal lyrics. When I look for intelligent anti theistic writing, I read what philosophers and other great writers have said. If you are interested, I cannot recommend this compilation enough: http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Atheist-Essential-Readings-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Burn the church, kill everyone, your god is dead satanic black metal lyrics. But to say they are intelligently written? I have not come across anything like that. I'm not trying to put down metal here, if anyone can show me some honestly poetically written, intelligent, mature metal lyrics, I would love to see them.

I actually think South of Heaven by Slayer has some pretty decent lyrics come to think of it.

1 book: The Portable Atheist.

For further reading: God Is Not Great and The God Delusion.

Here is an excellent anthology of atheist writings through the ages: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Atheist-Essential-Readings-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083

I really like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Atheist-Essential-Readings-Nonbeliever/dp/0306816083/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1289022608&sr=8-2-fkmr1

I recommend Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist

If you're really interested, pick up a copy of Going Clear ...Hoffman's character is based on L. Ron Hubbard.

Worth mentioning that the book goes into a lot more detail, especially with the history of the church and all of Mr. Hubbard's misadventures. Hubbard was a fascinating guy, flawed and fucked up, but he definitely makes for an interesting read.

Amazon link

Going Clear Amazon link that helps support the TYT network

If you go through this link it won't cost any extra but a small percentage will be given to The Young Turks, who are trying to get money out of politics and create a new media that actually questions government power.

Win win.

I understand you're asking about Scientology as primarily, but you mentioned why the Catholic Church isn't being considered a cult because of actions they've committed in the past.

As for the FBI, there is some precedent to believe that Scientology are under investigation currently. That precedent being that there have been multiple investigations in the past, increased recent public scrutiny (Louis Theroux, Leah Remini) and a recent suspicious death of a Scientology member, it's kinda unlikely to believe that they aren't under investigation, albeit not publicly.

For the longest time they weren't classified as a religion until they wore down the IRS to give them the tax-exempt status of a religion. Until there is video evidence of SeaOrg members torturing and imprisoning members in which those same tortured members are willing to testify against Scientology in court and say they were held against their will, then it's going to take a domestic terror situation to make the government do something about this cult (as is the case in many countries that have their own unique cults).

Obviously you're curious for a real in depth look into Scientology and how it relates to organized religion and whatnot so here's a few book recommendations so you can go beyond Reddit where you definitely won't get the detailed look you might yearn for (BUT WITH BOOKS YOU CAN :D).


Going Clear

Bare-faced Messiah

Combatting Cult Mind Control

A classmate of mine from LA whose parents were well-connected in the entertainment industry told me this fifteen years ago.

This book details the claims and there is a documentary of the same title as well:

(http://www.amazon.com/Going-Clear-Scientology-Hollywood-Prison/dp/0307745309)

No we shouldn't.

The controversy is that the evidence for Jesus is from Christian sources, and none of the evidence is from a time when he was said to have lived. There's also no record that he was mentioned in Roman Court, which is very very strange because 1.) Paul was tried at court, and it was not for following Christ even though he was at that time period. and 2.) Pontius Pilate supposedly executed him, and there would be a very bold record of that.


Currently the best source on these theiries are Richard Carrier, and mind you, he is an actual historian, not some crazy dude on the street. Check out his latest book if you're curious: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1616145595

These are theories by actual historians, that are just as qualified and respected as Christian Scholars.

I'm not going to debate you because neither of us are qualified to do so, but please realize that there are other world views than your own, and that doesn't mean they're wrong.

You can't cite the non-existence of a source, unless you sit down and read every book that's ever been written.

The most popular "source" that Christians cite for the historicity of Jesus is Josephus. However a number of historians have shown that those passages in Josephus (along with some others) were inserted after the fact.

Ultimately, though, the argument from skeptics and atheists is this: There is no historical evidence to back up the claims made in the Bible about Jesus. Being such extraordinary claims, one would expect these startling events to have been recorded by contemporary historians, but they were not. Therefore, until better evidence comes along, we are forced to conclude that Jesus -- at least, the Jesus of the Bible -- did not exist.

Here's a couple of good skeptical sources on the historicity of Jesus:

• Video: David Fitzgerald: "Ten Beautiful Lies About Jesus"
  
• Video: Richard Carrier: "You're All Gonna Die! How the Jews Kept Failing to Predict Doomsday and Created Christianity Instead"
  
• Video: David Fitzgerald: "Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus" (Skepticon 3)
  
• Book: David Fitzgerald: "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All"
  
• Book: Richard Carrier: "Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus"
  
  (Disclaimer: I haven't done much research into the question of the historicity of Jesus because I think the nonexistence of deities is so obvious that the question is pointless. So Fitzgerald and Carrier are the only resources I'm familiar with; Loftus, I think, is also good, but I'm not familiar with him.)

I called it that because I didn't elaborate on the effect of the Great Awakenings. Their push back against the enlightenment I think started the ball rolling.

More recently the organized infiltration of religious fundamentalists into government positions has normalized violations of church and state. See C Street and The Family

This noir anthology kept me entertained while I was bedbound with a broken leg.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. Very fun to read, funny, insightful. He was pretty great.

This book is creeeepy but fascinating.

Also, try r/books. It's what they're about over there, after all.

Thanks so much. I've been racking my brain for that term of weeks now. I read about the trend in I think Harpers when I was on vacation awhile back and promptly forgot the term but held on to the concept. Whew.

Reference

Also

• Rick Perlstein, Nixonland
  
• Frederick Clarkson Eternal Hostility
  
• Jeff Sharlet The Family
  
• Michelle Goldberg Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
  
• Chris Hedges American Fascists
  
  There are more, but I forget them at the moment, and I really can't speak highly enough of the ones I've listed already. Nixonland is more a study of the conservative movement in general, and damned thorough one too. The rest are more focused on the religious right proper. I'd start with Eternal Hostility and The Family and work your way from there.

I've been meaning to read this book since Rachel Maddow first started talking about it. The whole thing just seems so weird to me. It just sounds like it must be a conspiracy theory, but the whole thing is just so ridiculously well documented, it's obviously the truth.

I'm really can't wrap my head around how something like this can exist.

Has anyone read this book and would you recommend it?

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

"Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world."

PingTiao: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

"Behind the scenes at every National Prayer Breakfast since 1953 has been the Family, an elite network dedicated to a religion of power for the powerful. Their goal is "Jesus plus nothing." Their method is backroom diplomacy. The Family is the startling story of how their faith—part free-market fundamentalism, part imperial ambition—has come to be interwoven with the affairs of nations around the world."

Has anyone read The Family by Jeff Sharlet

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secret-Fundamentalism-Heart-American/dp/0060560053/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Hey, well I would expect them to biased towards the Bible, as people who believe the Bible want to support it :) Just as atheists want to tear it down. Do you think an atheist would want to explain the contradictions in the Bible? Of course not, they want to find theories that will discredit it. (confirmation bias, we all have it, I know atheists say they don't but I can see how mad often they are at God, that is a bias in itself.) Perhaps the Bible is just mankind's way of trying to understand God, by assigning him human qualities.

I think this is a pretty comprehensive summary of the contradictions:

http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/bible.htm

http://www.comereason.org/bible-contradictions-explained.asp

Ok, I wish I could address all of this but I am pretty new to the subject myself! I just try to keep an open mind and I am always reading and researching. I don't 100% believe the Bible is true, I think I will always have questions, but right now God makes a lot more sense to me than that the universe came into being out of nowhere. I too have trouble comprehending the evil and suffering in the world, but the fact that there IS evil doesn't mean that there isn't a God. A God who can create all this knows a lot more than we do, and maybe he has a much better plan than we can comprehend. I recommend The Privileged Planet (book and DVD) which describes the extreme fine tuning of our planet and our universe.

Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller is on my (ever growing) to read list.

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8MWM3P3QW7V54VQ94S6F

https://www.amazon.com/Only-Theory-Evolution-Battle-Americas/dp/0143115669

Here is a good interview, make sure you read page 4 where he talks about the Bible.

http://www.godofevolution.com/interview-with-biologist-ken-miller-part-1/

I really do recommend John Lennox also

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=john+lennox

Have you attended any churches? I've found them to be so very different from the Kingdom hall. It gives you an entirely different idea of what it is to be a Christian and worship God (I find church enjoyable, uplifting and encouraging).

If you want something "religion compatible" you could look at Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller. It's not perfect and has an erroneous section on the arrangement of the optic nerve; but, it's a decent read (I completely skipped the religious apologetics chapters). It should be easily digestible by anyone who vaguely remembers high school biology. I'm not sure it really explains evolution, though - it's been quite a while since I read it.

If he'll be turned off by light scientific jargon and criticism of religion you should definitely steer him clear of Why Evolution is True, as Coyne is pretty hard on religion - I mean, I agree with him but I think it occasionally detracts from an otherwise excellent book by straying a bit from the topic at hand.

If you are interested in a religion friendly review of evolution that is 100% on board with the scientific consensus on evolution, I highly recommend Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution"

He is a devout catholic, molecular biologist, and textbook author. He spends the first half of the book explaining why scientific consensus views evolution as a fact, and why they are right about that. He spends the second half of the book explaining why that shouldn't threaten anyone's belief in God.

I read Dawkins' book on evolution, "The Greatest Show on Earth" and liked it, but I think Miller is actually more convincing and intelligible on the truth of evolution in probably a third of the space. He also has the added benefit of not being an evangelical atheist or a retarded young earth creationist.

I can't add much to what has been said by others in this thread, but I had similar experiences and feelings to you for a long time from a young age and did eventually get over them. I feel like you need to develop a more sophisticated understanding of both Catholic doctrine and the arguments for it and praxis - let me tell you, Christian praxis goes well beyond "being a decent person" to a wholesome life-view that strengthens you as an individual, as a member of your community, and in relation to God, and is inexorably linked with sound, devout doctrine. I would advise reading some Catholic apologetics or theology to start. Since you're trained in Biology you may find Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God a good starting point. Also, if you're not already, make a sincere effort to attend Mass at least weekly, go to Confession regularly, and following the Church's moral and spiritual guidelines even if they don't seem to be directly related to "being a decent person". It may feel like you're only "going through the motions," but you never know what benefit you might find! The final author I'd recommend is Søren Kierkegaard - let me be clear, his books aren't easy reads and I take issue with a lot he says, but I found his presentation of Christian praxis and ethics (particularly Either/Or) one of the most beautiful I've ever read and I credit him with giving the death knell to my doubts. I don't have the link handy, but Julia Watkin's book on him in the Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series is an excellent place to start if you find him interesting.

> Creating technology is a biological thing.

>My beard example is by definition an adaptation. You adapt to a cold environment by growing your beard.

"Adaptation, in biology, process by which an animal or plant species becomes fitted to its environment; it is the result of natural selection’s acting upon heritable variation."

It is not the relevant definition of adaption though. You are equivocating. Using 1 word but different definitions of it to muddy the waters. Adapting with technology or growing beards is NOT the evolutionary examples you read in here that you dismissed as mere adaption and you damn well know that.

>The entire reason evolution was latched onto was because people wanted a way to explain life without the need for a super natural Creator.

Another lie, the vast majority of Christians accept evolution.

Even within the religion creationism is a minority position. The evidence led to evolution.

>People want to feel like they don’t have to answer to a higher power like God.

Accepting reality has absolutely nothing to do with this.

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501

A Christian Biologist wrote that. The entire point is that the ToE is compatible with gods and I assume specifically the Christian god.(note: I've never actually read it. [Edit: but I have seen it recommended to people who couldn't reconcile the two]. It wasn't until after I left Christianity and theism altogether that I first discovered people actually rejected the ToE for a literal reading of two contradicting stories in Genesis, so I never had a reason to) On his wikipedia page it lists "Criticism of creationism" as what he's known for.

>You said that there are tons of examples of “missing links.” What are they? As far as I’m aware there are like 2 somewhat viable organisms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

It's been a long while since I've read this book, but I remember this subject being at least a major part of it:

http://smile.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501

As a science-loving Christian, this is the book I had always wanted to write before realizing someone already had. There's a lot of speculation, of course, but I remember it provoking a lot of thought, at the very least.

Finding Darwin's God is an introduction to evolution by a Christian scientist. It's a great option.

Richard Dawkins is also very good. He's a militant atheist, but his writings on evolution are wonderful, clear, and beautiful. The Selfish Gene or The Greatest Show on Earth are both very good options.

Also this:

http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Darwins-God-Scientists-Evolution/dp/0061233501

Was it this one?

Logged comment posted by /u/ThisIsMyRedditLogin at 08/22/13 13:11:51:

> > or how even now basic science education is decried as sinful by many sects.
>
> All this does is cause kids to leave Christianity once they start reading about science on the internet. The evolution deniers are losing their most precious resource - it's young people - by continuing to argue that evolution is wrong. The exodus of young Evangelicals is already starting to leave many Churches looking like old folks homes.

... in response to comment posted by /u/GreyWulfen at 08/22/13 03:52:57:

> Its a nice read and is factual, regarding the beginnings of science. However, as science has pulled back the curtain, and explained more and more of what was supernatural, religion has had to ceed more and more ground.
>
> Lightning rods were against God's power, not they are normal. Earthquakes and plagues were God's punishment. Now they are moving plates and bacteria/viruses.
>
> Look how the claim that AIDS was a plague from God, or how even now basic science education is decried as sinful by many sects.

____

Logged comment posted by /u/ThisIsMyRedditLogin at 08/22/13 13:16:12:

> Was it this one?

... in response to comment posted by /u/namer98 at 08/22/13 13:06:11:

> I don't remember. :(
>
> Not a textbook. It was for a "science and religion" class.

I think you should watch this lecture by Ken Miller, who also wrote the book Finding Darwins God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution

> expanding my view and having my views challenged

Two books that come to mind -- which are accessible to a layperson like yourself -- that will help you better understand the historical context of early Christianity and how it spread:

[How Jesus Became God] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184) by Bart Ehrman

[Paul: A Very Short Introduction] (https://www.amazon.com/Paul-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192854518) by E.P. Sanders

I got zero Mormon theology in me. Well respected biblical scholars agree - it all came later.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Jesus-Became-Bart-Ehrman/dp/0061778184

There would have been zero need for a the council of Nicea if it weren’t a big topic for the prior 300 years.

Read Chapter 1 of Bart Ehrman's book "How Jesus became God." It gives a good understanding of how religion and gods were perceived in a polytheistic world.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184/ref=la_B001I9RR7G_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414167595&sr=1-1

Indeed. A good read is How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee which explores how gods and myths came about, merged and how, if he existed, jesus was likely some minor priest who was turned into the god of the religion. Quite an interesting read.

> did Jesus ever claim to be God?

That's a complicated question.

You might be interested in these lectures on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IPAKsGbqcg

He also wrote a book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184

If you want a complete answer, this book by Bart Ehrman is a good read. In short, no, the trinity is not in the Bible. Jesus being, in a sense, divine, is. The church needed some way of reconciling a divine Jesus with a not-Yahweh Jesus, and still be monotheists. There were a number of competing views, and the trinity won out.

Read How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart Ehrman if you are sincerely curious and not just attempting dawa. Bart Ehrman is a very respected scholar who has written a number of books for non-scholars and since you are from a Muslim background, all of his works in general will address the question of the textual history and development of Christian beliefs and scriptures (its "corruption"). He is now an agnostic atheist, so none of his books for a general audience will be trying to convert you to Christianity or hide uncomfortable facts about Christianity.

Not intending to change your view here. Just wanted to comment on the following:

>The fact that we are judged if we don't follow God denotes that humans weren't really bestowed with freedom; our fates were already determined: follow Him or face consequences.

You might be interested in Bart Ehrman's How Jesus Became God. In one chapter of the book Erhman said that, historically, religion was never about policing people's morals in order for them to gain access to an afterlife (e.g. "be saved or be damned"). The premise of an eternal life was only an innovation that gained ground during the early years of Christianity, something which was discussed in great detail in that book.

(That, among others, is why the book was titled "How Jesus Became God"...it did not address the question of whether Jesus is god or not, but discusses how that came to be.)

Essential reading (though it presumes Jesus was a real person): How Jesus Became God, by Bart Ehrman

Non-mobile: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061778184/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1426874765&sr=8-1&keywords=bart+ehrman&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=41xWxwwWRRL&ref=plSrch

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

Bart Ehrman covers the Jesus/Horus connection in his latest book. I could be the has footnotes. I'm listening to the audiobook so I can't check.

My understanding is that Zeitgeist trampled all over the truth, but some I'd the Horus/Jesus connections are still true.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061778184/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1397217934&sr=8-1

Interesting link. Thanks. Former evangelical, now I'm in the Bart Ehrman camp:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061778184/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1426874765&sr=8-1&keywords=bart+ehrman&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=41xWxwwWRRL&ref=plSrch

Nah, your skepticism just doesn't have wide support from any reputed academic community. Atheism and denying Jesus' divinity doesn't necessitate denying there was a human being named Yeshua. Your belief is more like a conspiracy theory. If you actually want to find why he was likely a real person you won't have to look far:


http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8265.html#evendors


https://books.google.com/books?id=c2Tu1Yp3n0EC&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q&f=false


https://books.google.com/books?id=c2Tu1Yp3n0EC&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q&f=false


https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZU97DQMH6UC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false


https://books.google.com/books?id=lwzliMSRGGkC&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false


https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602

> Right now, I'm trying to understand, was there ever a God, a Jesus? And is anything true, what about old religions?

It is almost certain there was a man named Jesus and some of the physical events took place. Most of the events are either very embellished or completely manufactured in the centuries after. There is a very interesting book, Did Jesus Exist?, written by Bart Ehrman, the book is a fantastic exploration and investigation into the historicity of Jesus, Ehrman is agnostic and dismisses the spiritual aspect and focuses on the actual real historical question.

If you're trying to figure out the real histories of what is taught around christianity Bart Ehrman's books are an excellent place to start reading and understanding the truth behind the myths.

Yes, I suppose everything is a matter of opinion. This just happens to be the matter of opinion by almost everyone within the field of historical-critical textual analysis, including atheist/agnostic scholars.

>I have read much to support the contrary,

If you have something compelling, I'd love to read it. The stuff by Price, Hitchens, Thompson, etc. is not compelling in the least. The mythicist argument takes so much supposition and relies on some very .. questionable assumptions. For example, arguments for textual variants without compelling reason other than it contradicts the mythicist claim, dying-rising gods cited to someone who doesn't cite any ancient texts or information, etc. The argument for historicity is simply a better explanation, fits the facts better and requires far less supposition. Bart Ehrman does a fantastic job of addressing these arguments in his most recent book Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.

As far as I know, no mythicist has published anything of any sort in any peer-reviewed journal or scholarly body. Until they do, their opinions remain a fringe minority and for good reason. So far, none of it has been able to stand up to professional scrutiny.

I can see why the position is enticing, especially to atheists with an axe to grind against religion, which seems to be exactly what is going on with these bloggers and atheists involved in the modern mythicist movement. In the end, there are many things about mainstream Christianity of almost any denomination that can take a flogging from historical-critical analysis. The historicity of Jesus is not one of them.

As for Jesus being an Essene (I think that is what you meant by Asceen?), that does not fit the profile we have. For example, the Essenes were radical in many ways, most importantly for this, they lived in seclusion (that is, avoided the impure world) whereas Jesus did the exact opposite, directly associating with those the Essenes avoided and saw as corrupt. Also, the Essenes, while radical, weren't very violent. Perhaps you're thinking of what Josephus called simply "The Fourth Philosophy?" I don't really know much about that, but as far as I know, they were in favor of violent rebellion.

I mean, all of these are compelling in their own way. Namely, that they go against established conventions. The modern understanding of Jesus, the actual person, also does that, but does it without the need for conspiracy theories, tin foil hats and information from people who can't seem to produce real scholarship on the matter.

The Bible never claims that slaves built the pyramids, no Nazareth != no Jesus, and have you read Bart Ehrman's book on the subject?

Bart Ehrman recently published a book named "Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth".

I haven't read it myself, perhaps there's some new information in it? He also gave an interview about it on NPR the other day.

Bible scholar Bart Ehrman has written a book about this. I haven't read it yet, but I've found his other works fascinating and very well researched. Seems to me that the historicity of Jesus as an actual person is well-documented, and not just in religious texts.

> I think some guy did die to start a movement

If you want to challenge your opinion on that diffuse gut feeling, read something from the opposing side, for example Jesus, Neither God no man by Earl Doherty. This is basically the most comprehensive overview of the mythicist argument to date. Its an page turner and eye opener.

To compare the quality of the arguments, read Did Jesus exist? by Bart Ehrman, which is basically the opposite, a comprehensive rebuttal of mythicism and overview of the historicity case.

After you've read both, make up your own mind, dont let the "scholarly consensus" impress you. But do read both.

> You’ve asserted that three times now and still won’t back it up with anything more than an online encyclopedia where the whole of epistemology can change at the click of a mouse.

I recommend Forged by Bart Ehrman. If you don't want to spend money and would like a quick version, here's a lecture he gives at Cambridge on the subject. Ehrman's not only a distinguished scholar in the field, but he's just a great character -- he was a fundamentalist Christian (like I was!) who became an agnostic atheist through intense, obsessive study of the Bible, while still retaining an incredible enthusiasm for and appreciation of Christianity and its history.

I honestly get into just as many debates with atheists who subscribe to the Jesus Myth hypothesis, a fringe concept that Ehrman vehemently opposes. He even wrote a book defending the historicity of Jesus. The state of Bible scholarship is really interesting, and Ehrman does a great job of relating it to casual readers, e.g. people who don't speak ancient Hebrew.

Book recommendations? I don't know what you mean exactly. A supplement or resource? The following resources can probably be found in your church, public, university libraries. Often, you CANNOT check out these types of resources, so you may want to consider investing in a few books. Until then, check out biblehub.com. It is a little odd to navigate, but it is FREE!

Resource Standards (A serious must)

1. The Commentary Why you need these explained here
   
   A single edition condensed commentary as well as a set of solid commentaries such as The NAC and HarperCollins. There are several solid choices.
   
   
2. Systematic Theology Explained here
   
   I HIGHLY recommend one of the following: Christian Theology(used in many seminaries/MDiv OR Intro to Christian Doctrine
   
   3.Biblical Dictionary
   
   Holman's and Unger's are two well received one volume editions.
   
   The three aforementioned tools are in the libraries of every single minister I know. The names do matter, but there are plenty of fine, scholarly companies that produce up-to-date, relevant versions of very similar, but not identical, resources. Above is a minimal (and I mean minimal) list for putting together a 4-10 lesson study of Job. If you would like to learn more about hermeneutics, you should read How To Read the Bible For All Its Worth as a primer. There are several other required resources to add to your library if proper exegesis is something you are passionate about. I taught/lectured on systematic theology, intensive studies, and church history to a well-educated group of adults (some of which were my professors). Even so, remember this always-
   
   >HEB 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
   
   Job: Interesting observations/thoughts to consider
   
   
3. Regarding the person of Job, the author, the date (probably 1st penned book), history, etc HERE IS THIS
   
   
4. Was Job a parable (mythology)? Research this point.
   
   
5. Was Satan trying to tempt God anywhere in Job, and if so why?