To be furious at local church carol service

[YogaGrinch]

With our new "fundamentalist " vicar who included genesis 3 16

And other misogynistic patriarchal quotes and suggestions throughout the service -

Listening to the King's college Cambridge service tonight was a completely different service although there too there were some dated patriarchal views shared?

And basically using opportunity of a full church to preach hellfire and brimstone snd call us all hypocrites and sinners rather than preaching love kindness beauty

Never heard anything like it

Was absolutely 💔

if that was true then we would be following the old testerment etc seems humans have been rewriting the bibles since they were originally made

besides what sinning did humans do other than do what we were designed to do, go forth and be human and make more humans seems to be the original core ideas

I understand why this story can feel shocking — it can seem like God is vengeful rather than loving. What Acts 5 shows, though, is God’s justice in protecting his people and the covenant community. Ananias and Sapphira weren’t punished arbitrarily; their deceit threatened the integrity of a fragile early church. Scripture consistently shows God acting decisively against wrongdoing that harms others or undermines his purposes (Exodus 1–14, Psalm 146:7).

At the same time, Jesus’ death reveals God’s ultimate mercy and forgiveness — sin is dealt with, reconciliation is offered, and love is shown for all who turn to him (Romans 5:8, 1 John 2:2). Acts 5 isn’t about cruelty; it’s about the seriousness of living faithfully within God’s covenant, while Jesus shows us that God’s justice and mercy meet together perfectly in his character.

That’s a common question. The key is that the Old and New Testaments aren’t two separate, competing books — they’re two parts of one continuous story. Genesis introduces creation, the fall, and humanity’s need for salvation. The Old Testament then shows God working with his people through covenants, laws, and prophets, all pointing forward to a saviour (e.g., Isaiah 53, Psalm 22).

Jesus didn’t come to “rewrite” the Old Testament; he came to fulfil it. He repeatedly shows how the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms all testify about him (Luke 24:27, John 5:39, Matthew 5:17–18). Reading the New Testament alongside the Old doesn’t erase or replace it — it illuminates the purpose of what came before.

When we read Genesis and see the reality of sin, it’s not about arbitrary rules or outdated laws — it’s seeing the foundation for God’s plan of salvation, which culminates in Jesus. And while humans have translated and transmitted the Bible over centuries, the core story has been faithfully preserved. Scholars rely on thousands of manuscripts, early translations (like the Septuagint), and discoveries such as the Dead Sea Scrolls to confirm the reliability of both Old and New Testament texts. Even though there are minor variations, the central message remains intact: God creates, humans fall, and God provides redemption through Christ.

But why did god kill off all the Dinosaurs? That just isn't addressed in the bible at all.

I hear what you’re saying — it can feel like “sin” is just being human, since God created us to live, reproduce, and enjoy life. Genesis does present those as part of our calling. But the story of the Fall isn’t about living or having children; it’s about choosing against God’s good design — seeking life on our own terms rather than in relationship with him (Genesis 3:1–7). Sin isn’t simply being human; it’s turning away from the source of life and goodness.

Even so, the Bible doesn’t leave us there. God’s response is mercy: he promises restoration and points to Jesus as the one who fixes what went wrong, reconciling humans back to their purpose. So while we are made to go forth and be human, the call is to do it in harmony with God’s design, not in rebellion against it.

Haha, fair question — the Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs! That’s because it isn’t a textbook on biology or the history of every creature on Earth. Its focus is on God, his relationship with humanity, and his plan for the world, rather than the life cycle of every species.

We can enjoy science to understand how dinosaurs and the natural world worked, while the Bible gives us the bigger picture: why God created, why humans matter, and how he’s caring for the world he made.

I think apparently there’s no mention of cats in the Bible too…

You’ve given a theological explanation, but it doesn’t really address what I was saying. If we’re talking about God’s actual words, then only the very earliest parts of scripture claim that level of authority. Everything after that especially the New Testament is written, selected, translated, and interpreted by humans. That’s not me being cynical

The New Testament isn’t a rewrite of the Old Testament; it’s the fulfillment of what God promised. Both were written by humans under God’s inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20–21), not just the Old Testament, so while humans physically wrote the words, God guided the message. The Old Testament lays the foundation — creation, the fall, covenants, laws, and prophecies — and the New Testament shows how God’s promises and plans are fulfilled in Jesus.

They’re meant to be read together: the Old Testament points forward, the New Testament points back. For example:

• Isaiah 53:5 speaks of the suffering servant being pierced and crushed for our sins; the New Testament shows this fulfilled in Jesus’ crucifixion (1 Peter 2:24).
• Psalm 22:18 says, “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment,” which is precisely what happened at the cross (John 19:23–24).

So rather than discarding or rewriting the Old Testament, the New Testament fulfills and illuminates it, revealing God’s consistent plan of redemption. Both together tell one continuous, God-breathed story. Does that help?

I get what you’re saying. My point wasn’t about whether Christians believe the New Testament ‘fulfils’ the Old. That’s a theological interpretation, not a historical fact.

The issue is this: If we’re talking about God’s literal words, only the earliest material even claims that level of direct revelation. Everything else including the New Testament is written, selected, copied, translated, and canon‑approved by humans. Saying those humans were ‘inspired’ doesn’t change the fact that they were still humans making decisions about what went in, what stayed out, and how it was interpreted.

That’s why I said the New Testament isn’t on the same footing as the earliest texts. It’s not about whether it ‘fulfils’ anything it’s about the simple reality that it’s a human constructed collection of writings, shaped by politics, and centuries of translation.

The Old and New Testaments are both human-written texts guided by divine inspiration. The Old Testament was written by prophets and others under God’s direction, and the New Testament records eyewitness testimony, letters, and — importantly — the words and actions of Jesus himself, who is God and historically lived and taught in first-century Judea (John 1:1, John 8:58, Matthew 28:18).

While humans wrote, copied, translated, and canonized the texts, historical evidence from thousands of manuscripts, early translations like the Septuagint and Vulgate, and archaeological discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that the core message has been faithfully preserved. Together, the Old and New Testaments form one continuous, God-breathed story: the Old Testament points forward to God’s promises and prophecies, and the New Testament shows their fulfillment in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Sorry, I’m confused about the argument that the New Testament doesn’t contain God’s direct word - because it explicitly quotes Jesus (God, in human form).

The problem is : once a text is written by humans, it can only ever reflect a human perspective unless God is the one directly speaking.

The New Testament does not make that claim about itself. It is:

• written decades after the events
• by different human authors
• in a different language
• based on memory, oral tradition, and interpretation
• selected and canonised by councils
• transmitted through scribes and translations

None of that equals ‘God’s own words’. It equals human testimony about God.
Saying those humans were ‘inspired’ is a belief, not evidence. Inspiration doesn’t turn a human perspective into God’s literal perspective it just means believers trust the writers got it right.
That’s the whole distinction I’m making:

Direct revelation = God speaking directly and even through Jesus that's still a person interpreting gods message etc

Human authorship = humans speaking about God.

Once you’re in the second category, you’ve already left the realm of God’s direct perspective and entered the realm of human interpretation no matter how sincere or spiritually meaningful it may be.

That’s why the New Testament can’t be treated as God’s literal words in the same way some of the earliest texts claim to be.

If God exists, the only part that could be divine is the original encounter. Everything after that is human.
That doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It just means it’s not literal dictation from a higher being. and basically when we follow the religion we follow other humans and not God in the truest sense

No way am I being patronising.
Being brought up a Christian is not a guarantee of knowing anything much about Christianity.
The Christian God is not a ‘sadistic, powerless God’.
I don’t even understand how God can be both sadistic and powerless. It doesn’t make sense.
Sadism is a perversion of power.
So is God powerful or powerless?

I think that is largely true up to the point where it moves from being passive to evangelical.

Absolutely this

The point is that Genesis 3:16 isn't a pattern for life, or a command for how we are supposed to live. It's part of a curse on humankind for their sin, a curse which affects not just childbirth but work, and relationships, and ultimately leads to death for everyone, male or female.

The point of Christmas is that Jesus comes to live as a man, God humbling himself in human form, so he can willingly die in our place, taking the curse of Genesis 3 upon his own head on the cross. That is why Christmas is such good news, it means the curse can be lifted.

Of course if you think the Bible is tosh you won't believe any of that, but if you're going to go to a church you kind of need to expect them to teach the message at the heart of the thing...

Fantastic list of starting points, just what I wanted, thank you. I’ve never heard of Alpha, but will have a look on YouTube for that as well, thanks again.

Yeah. Thing is, I have spent a long long time on this. Deconversion is not instant, as you might know. And I am not here to de-convert anyone. But I will debate back :-)

You said : "Scripture consistently shows God acting decisively against wrongdoing that harms others or undermines his purposes (Exodus 1–14, Psalm 146:7)."

Exodus 1:14 says " and make their lives bitter in hard service, in clay, and in brick, and in every [kind] of service in the field; all their service in which they have served [is] with rigor." (LSV)

Psalm 146:7 says "Doing judgment for the oppressed, || Giving bread to the hungry." (LSV)

Did you just type those verse number at random ? " I see no connection at all between wrongdoing and these verses you referenced.

Maybe you should have picked Joshua 7:25-26 " And Joshua says, "Why have you troubled us? YHWH troubles you this day!" And all Israel cast stone at him, and they burn them with fire, and they stone them with stones, and they raise up a great heap of stones over him to this day, and YHWH turns back from the heat of His anger, therefore [one] has called the name of that place "Valley of Achor" until this day." (LSV)

That's how God deals with a thief, exact same as Ananias and Sapphira, post Jesus and his sermon on the mount.

You also said : At the same time, Jesus’ death reveals God’s ultimate mercy and forgiveness"

Why ? It appears that God sacrificed his own son. How does that show mercy ?

And is Jesus dead ? The Bible said he rose again, and is not dead. So how can he have seen a sacrifice at all if he came back ?

Jephthah of course did actually sacrifice his daughter. Judges 11.

Judges 11:38-39 -"and he says, "Go"; and he sends her away [for] two months, and she goes, she and her friends, and she weeps for her virginity on the hills;
and it comes to pass at the end of two months that she turns back to her father, and he does to her his vow which he has vowed, and she did not know a man; and it is a statute in Israel:" (LSV)

She never came back, that's a real sacrifice. No a long Easter weekend break for her. In fact, the Bible does not even mention her name.

Romans 5.8 you mention : "and God commends His own love to us, that, in our being still sinners, Christ died for us;" (LSV)

He still killed Ananias and Sapphira.

You also mention John 2:2 - " and He is [the] propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the whole world," (LSV)

He still killed Ananias and Sapphira.

Why did he kill them ?

Birds are dinosaurs. They live with us.

:-)

The rule that a text stops being God’s word once humans are involved isn’t historical, surely? What text wouldn’t be written by humans? The Old Testament was also written decades (often centuries) after events, edited, and transmitted by scribes. If human mediation disqualifies divine speech, the OT collapses along with the NT, surely?

The New Testament does claim divine authority. And crucially, it does not present Jesus as a person merely interpreting God’s message. Jesus speaks as God, not about God (“You have heard… but I say”; “My words will not pass away”). He forgives sins, redefines Torah, and identifies himself with God’s own authority — things no prophet does.

Saying “Jesus is still a human interpreting God” simply assumes the conclusion. The NT’s central claim is the incarnation: God speaking in human nature. If that claim is false, then reject Christianity outright — but you can’t accept Jesus’ role and deny the claim he makes about himself.

This is the doctrinal fault line. Judaism rejects the NT precisely because it rejects the incarnation — not because the NT lacks claims to divine authority, but because it makes too strong a claim.

“Written decades later” isn’t a defeater. By ancient standards the NT is exceptionally early, with core creeds dating within years of the events and circulation while eyewitnesses were alive.

On transmission, the NT is among the best-attested texts of antiquity. By comparison, Tacitus, Thucydides, Plato, or Caesar survive in far fewer manuscripts, often copied centuries later, yet no one dismisses them as “merely human testimony” on that basis.

Canon councils didn’t invent authority — they recognised books already functioning as authoritative across the early church.

And the hard divide between “direct revelation” and “human interpretation” doesn’t work. All revelation uses human language. If God cannot speak through human means, then revelation is impossible.

Christianity’s claim isn’t that God bypassed humanity — it’s that God entered it. And that is shown by God (Jesus) directly speaking in the NT to say who he is. But a lot of people wouldn’t think Jesus is God and that would undermine any sort of trust in his Word - if one only trusts the OT human authors as transmitting God’s word, and haven’t examined that the NT isn’t just a rewrite, and is God’s word also transmitted by human had like the OT.

But when humans rewrite a new set of books or views thats like making a copy of a film and then its inspired by and then that becomes the new religion ect, overall its all interpretation and at best guess work, because if you went into a business meeting and then afterwards everyone was asked to write down excatly what they thought was discussed etc

then you expand that to years etc

Thank you for explaining where you’re coming from — genuinely. I know deconversion isn’t casual or flippant, and I’m not assuming bad faith on your part. I also hear that you’re not trying to de-convert anyone, just to think honestly and push back. I respect that.

Let me take this in pieces, because you’ve raised real questions, not cheap ones.

On the verses I cited - You’re right to call me on Exodus 1:14 and Psalm 146:7 if they felt randomly dropped in — that wasn’t my intention. I wasn’t pointing to those verses as “proof texts” for punishment, but to the broader biblical pattern they sit within: God siding with the oppressed and acting against systems and actions that destroy others. That’s on me for not making that clearer. Sorry! I was trying to type with one hand whilst breastfeeding my baby!

Joshua 7 is a more direct example of divine judgment, and I can’t dodge that. Achan’s sin isn’t portrayed as private theft but as covenant-breaking that endangers the whole community. That doesn’t make it emotionally easy I don’t think — but biblically, it’s not arbitrary cruelty either I would say.

On Ananias and Sapphira - This is one of the hardest NT passages, and I don’t think it’s meant to be softened. What stands out to me is that Peter explicitly says they weren’t punished for withholding money, but for lying — and not just socially, but “to God.” It happens at the birth of the church, where integrity and truthfulness are being established as foundational. It’s closer to Nadab it seems to me, than to everyday moral failure. I may be fallible in this reading, of course.

That still doesn’t make it comfortable. But I don’t think the text presents God as capricious — it presents holiness as dangerous when treated lightly.

On mercy, sacrifice, and Jesus’ death
You ask a fair question: how is it mercy if Jesus rises again?

The Christian claim isn’t that death only “counts” if it’s permanent. It’s that Jesus truly enters death — abandonment, suffering, execution — and does so voluntarily. Resurrection doesn’t erase crucifixion any more than survival erases torture. The point is not duration, but self-giving.

And crucially, Christianity claims God doesn’t demand a sacrifice from someone else — God bears the cost himself. That’s the moral distinction being claimed, whether one accepts it or not.

Re: Jephthah’s daughter- This story is horrific. I don’t defend it, and I don’t think the Bible asks us to admire it. Judges repeatedly says, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” The text records the act, but doesn’t commend it — and the silence, including the absence of her name, feels intentional rather than careless. It reads like a tragedy, not a model.

That’s very different from the way Jesus’ death is framed — not as a human trying to bargain with God, but as God acting to end the sacrificial logic altogether.

“He still killed Ananias and Sapphira” Yes — and this is where I think the tension really sits. The Bible never claims that mercy means the end of judgment. It claims that mercy opens a way through judgment. Romans 5 isn’t saying God stops caring about holiness; it’s saying God absorbs the cost of restoring relationship instead of abandoning humanity to self-destruction.

If anything, Ananias and Sapphira show that the NT doesn’t present a softened, harmless deity. It presents the same God — but now acting to save rather than abandon, without pretending evil doesn’t matter.

Why did God kill them? I don’t think the honest answer is “because God is nice” or “because God is cruel.” I think the text presents God as deadly serious about truth, community, and holiness — and simultaneously committed to mercy in a way that culminates in the cross.

You may still reject that synthesis — many do, and that’s not ignorance or laziness. But I don’t think the Bible is internally unaware of the tension you’re pointing out. It lives in it.

I appreciate you debating back. I really do.

I think this is where the real issue sits. If Jesus is understood as only a human teacher whose words were later remembered, interpreted, and reshaped by others, then the Bible will inevitably feel like layers of human guesswork. That’s a consistent position — but it isn’t the claim the New Testament itself makes. I can’t make sense of the NT without the OT and vice versa.

The authority of the whole Bible flows from the identity of Jesus. Jesus didn’t merely offer ethical teaching; he claimed divine authority, forgave sins, redefined Israel’s Scriptures around himself, and commissioned his apostles with the promise that God’s Spirit would guide them into truth (John 14–16). If Jesus is God incarnate, then his words, his actions, and his endorsement of the Scriptures give the NT its authority.

So the way in which I see it: if someone does not accept Jesus’ divine identity, then trusting the Bible as God’s word will never really cohere — Christianity becomes just another human religious tradition. But if Jesus is who he claimed to be, then the NT isn’t a later rewrite of divine truth; it is the faithful witness to God speaking and acting in history, culminating in Christ himself. But that is what is a core tenet of Christianity.

This is why it all seems such a farce to me tbh. Once you sanitise it for modern audiences it's not really the same belief system or ethos as it originally was so what's the point really?

but then the whole issue is if a "jesus" appeared today and preached what he did, then we would think he needed medical or psychological help etc, so how or why do we place so much faith in older humans ?