From the portal

 Pulpit Talk at Pulpit Rock

 I was continually amazed at the many debates I witnessed about whether God existed or not, all without anyone ever defining what each debater argued who God was that they were advocating.

I was an atheist in those pompous days. My arguments were largely based on the people I witnessed attending churches, and not on God at all. Eventually I realized my position was wallowing in a logical fallacy. The fallacy of the misplaced authority.

I incorrectly assumed the pastor and elders of my church were authorities and that God was in on it with them. This was from my idea as a child that God was in with the "other" adults. 

Today I constantly am meeting atheists who maintain their atheism on their position as an atheist solely because of church people. My view is that the devil of doubt fosters these attacks on the churches. 

This is the reason for the Pulpit Rock blog. Churches spin off atheists from the age of fourteen, only for them to be eaten alive by the time they get to college, where they become educated. (See for the sake of the children at Pulpit Rock)

From the portal

 Problems in Groups

I believe there will come a time when evidence from the unseen world will be more seen in the seen world. It seems inevitable this would happen. Nothing stays the same. Utopian political entities zero in on the concept word, same, as an example of their attempt to strengthen the group but which weakens creativity.

The difference between the political and the religious are not that dissimilar. The religious parties have not done a bangup job of teaching their members, young or old, anything much at all. Even in the time of Jesus, Jesus could suggest in the parable of the unjust servant, that the children of the light were not as smart as the children of the world.

When people gather together in groups, they seem to me to hesitate to engage each other as individuals, preferring to form even smaller cliques. Individuals enjoy agreement by in large, this is their 'never quite fatal' flaw. 

Nevertheless groups, no matter their size, never approach the creativity of the individual. Rather the creative individual can be expelled if they seem too far afield. Some churches emphasize singular differences, like baptism while never engendering an interest in any other focus that might naturally follow. This then becomes their distinction.

It is a point to remember; that Jesus ran against a church clique of His day. Reading the history of the early primitive church is less than awesome as when opposition brought martyrdoms. 

The Cross? Only a symbol?

And Off They Went

The devil is seldom seen in the barroom. Those kind folks can wait on themselves. The devil goes right to the head of the class in churches, religious schools, and especially seminaries.

For as long as my entire lifetime, professors in seminaries only confess to believing the easy part. Anything that takes too much faith they make no effort, avoiding belief in the hard parts. Since then, the polls have only kept growing this trend.

I was astounded to find as a child, that the adults only believed in God for the sake of the children. I overheard adults talking about pulpit talk. When I grew up I did not have to believe any of it. Most of the other kids decided fourteen was grown up. And off they went.

Pleasures of the Flesh wear out and many pleasures demonically turn on and consume their host. The event is often called accidental, but I think rather many were driven to it by demons for relief from exact pleasures turned too painful, like some sort of Venus fly trap.

Children played church on Pulpit Rock just like the adults on Sunday.

Testing My Faith

From the time I was deciding whether Santa Claus existed or not, the adults in church made me wonder the same about Jesus Christ. I eventually learned everything from the adults, who I concluded, were in with God. The verdict was the adults were pretending for the benefit of the children. 

This lesson of pretense was drummed into me, in the church I was born into, to the Christian high school I graduated from, to the religious college I attended where I finally decided I was an avowed atheist. After seven years I became tired of that crowd. The extent of their awareness seemed to be all rejoicing when a church burned down. 

Playing Church

From the church I was born into, to the church I was married in, to the church where they normally put on a celebration when one dies, religion was either for the "benefit of the children" or for "clicks". 

Pretending Church

It was well known, since I heard it often enough from the adults, about pulpit talk. It was just for the children, the adults put no stock in it. All this even as far as my 12th grade in high school where I was told, literally now, it was all for the benefit of the children. 

Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. In my experience, few in church prominence even know or give any recognition of what the commandments are. Many in churches I attended, the lay people preached or taught from books they read. They never said what they themselves believed or mentioned how they came to believe in Jesus. 

If the great doubter cannot shake anyone from their belief in Jesus, he will settle for shaking their belief in the power of Jesus. 

One can only imagine how many fourteen old boys graduate from the coloring books of church and enter college. There they are told, by professors in college, and they agree, when they are told, if you are educated you do not believe in God.

One double negative equal one positive, negative?

I recall an incident, I'll never forget it either, I actually heard someone say a particular preacher they did not like, did not believe in something or the other. Here is the kicker. This was true because this preacher never said that they did not believe it. Amazing how some folks can tangle themselves up in their double negatives. Of course, I suspect not a few talk about me being that way. 

  Only grace will get us into heaven

One preacher I heard, declared only those with a soul will be in heaven. So that left out a little boy who asked if his dog will be with him in heaven. No dog? Not much of a heaven for that little boy. 

Having a soul will not get anyone in heaven. Only grace gets one in heaven if they accept it. If the little boy wants his dog in heaven, then his dog will be in heaven. What kind of a heaven is it for the little boy, without his dog? Is he to watch the lion lay down with the sheep without his dog? This is an example of doctrinaire-like nonsense coming from some pompous pulpits. 

Question about the cross

Early on, I had a question about the cross, or perhaps should say I had a problem understanding why, if Jesus went to the cross, we did too. This idea, vouched for in the Bible, begs an explanation I've never seen forth coming or even discussed anywhere in clerical circles.

We are encouraged to pick up our cross and follow Him. First we are encouraged to become a Christian for the pure joy and rewards of eternal life. Then, somewhat surprisingly to me, we hear we are going to find it is not all so easy, once we are roped in, that there will be lots of suffering involved. In fact we are going to look forward now, not so much in great joy, but picking up a cross yet. How quickly and how badly can events turn?

Searching

So well now, which is it? Sounds like a typical bait and switch to me. Looked like rather not a few had a good case of Billy Graham envy. I found myself explaining BG was a slave of Christ doing what he was told. He was surely a profitable servant but he did not save, Jesus did. The Holy Spirit convicts, not Billy Graham. My view.

Some pastors were vocally opposed to Billy stealing their congregations. From the treasure of their heart their mouth spoke.

Where are we then? Some preachers seem more interested in leading people to Christ than getting them saved. I heard one particular stock sermon delivered twice in my lifetime, so far that is. First to children in the lower grades in a Christian high school. The second time to advanced elderly in a densely populated retirement church. 

Both sermons were identical in purpose which was to just generate an extreme emotional reaction. The first detailed an ungrateful son, the other forgiveness for a wayward daughter. No mention of Jesus or anything about choosing Jesus as one's savior. 

The ungrateful son racked up nearly 100% rededications in the lower grades. The 11th & 12th grades were asked to leave the chapel for study rooms while all this transpired. 

The telescope and the telepathic

I told our supervising teacher as we waited, that is not right. She put her forefinger to her lips and said audibly, shs shs, for the sake of the children. Bang! It all finally hit me with full force. I had grown up and joined the adults! Hello hypocrisy!

The adults did not believe a word of any of it all. It was merely play church of pulpit talk at pulpit rock. In the Sunday School coloring book years I rebelled and was allowed to join the men behind the blue curtain of the choir. There I learned in my first class the stories in the Bible where not true, just the meaning was true.

Later learning about the sh sh and about to graduate from high school I was introduced into the adult world that not just Sainty Claus was for the children. I concluded it all was the entire ball of wax. Just one well booted Santy, pretty ga ga Easter-eggs and the hallow chocolate bunny. 

While this was most likely quite true, the premise that the pastor and elders (as adults) were on the inside with God Himself was my gross error by way of believing a logical fallacy, misplaced authority.

But the fallacy snuck in and harmonized with many other, more severe, events. I am convinced to this day that churches produce more fourteen year old atheists than even a devil can completely appreciate. In a church setting one's faith, if one has any, is severely strained under fire. 

Demons of the devil are not parading into the barrooms, they are marching up and down the corridors of churches. 

Pulpit Rock in the making

 As a child, in the first four grades, I went to a two room school house.  I had to descend a gravel lane used for foot traffic to reach the school on the same location as one of the earliest school houses in the city. 

Along the lane, we passed what was called, by generations of students, Pulpit Rock. This was a huge rock with what appeared to be a pulpit and choir loft. We climbed up in it and pretended to deliver sermons, and sang in the "choir." There were accounts of similar generations of students doing the same as far back as the 1700s, almost 250 years. I read accounts of those days in the old newspapers at the city library.  

As we grew up it became quite evident to me that the adults were still playing pretend church as grown ups. Hence the title of this blog. 

Later they built homes along the lane and Pulpit Rock was blown up.  

where faith enters the seen

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.  Ps 27:4

Setbacks can provide the stage to reach higher ground amid successes I did not envision at the time. So does it not say somewhere that the Lord turns evil into good? Fear not what any man can do to the body, fear what one can do to your spirit.

Fallacy of the misplaced authority tripped me up.....

 Since I was an atheist perhaps about seven years until the curtain went down on my college swing, I reflected recently, opposed  to rather belatedly, on the carte blanc moral foundation atheism offered me in the " timely" middle of my young time of life just when I knew so much with so little experience. 

I was free of the ten commandments and there was no obligation on me group-wise to live up to the guidance of any other standard except my own individual twist.  Collectively there stands a hodge podge up against the Christian outlook for me to reconsider. I wonder now how I did it. 

I did it by letting a fallacy slip by me unnoticed until I found myself under pressure which set me loose finally. Pressure can lurk in your mind for a long time before you even recognize it. It took me to my concluding college years to throw off a misjudgment I fell into when I was much younger beginning as a child. 

I thought erroneously that God was in with the adults. I even told God that if He was in with the pastor and those deacons I wanted no part of it even if He did exist. Then I was a child on my way atheism to immerge as a believer from college, where one of my better college professors told us if we were educated we would not believe in God. 

Later I was embarrassed but relieved to read that God forgave David because he was honest with Him. I grabbed ahold of that idea. I certainly was honest. Honest but dumb.

Mega churches

Church for Sale

 I've always wondered why Christians need huge, and elaborate expensive churches. The largest church with the most members in the world I last heard about was located in South Korea. Members get together in their houses, a comfortable group once a week. Every so often they hold large group gatherings. But it is in small groups, in small human sized settings, their own houses, which promote close interaction through conversational exchanges without one controlling leader standing up in front of them directing everything to his single view. This provides a close familiar learning exchanges of how to witness and increase their knowledge of Jesus Christ........ hope to elaborate later.....

Objections to churches....

I have no objections to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work.  Brooks Atkinson

Christians are steadily shrinking ......

 I've never seen a poll yet where Christians were expanding.  My experience is that the boys yearn for the day when they can "grow up" and leave Sunday School coloring books, and boring church services as well, at 14. 

Aware children learn early that their adults say one thing in the pulpit and quite another the rest of the time. They call it Pulpit talk, meaning it is a lot of  "pretend for the kids talk." I've experienced this as late as the eleventh grade in a Christian High School.  

 

There is a confusion in some minds connecting God as a church. When a chilld I had the erroneous view, later I learned was one of the fallacies, that the pastor and deacons were in with God, and therefore I blamed God for their behavior. It was in churches where crimes were committed against Jesus  and later on many unfortunates. A situation some blame on St Paul who was himself a zealot against early Christians and later the same in favor. There are those in many churches who gather perceived power to themselves. They relate more to those they can see because the Spirit they cannot see or even conceive. The devil is not in barrooms. He sends his minions rather directly to churches where they seduce many.

Achilles heel of Christianity defeated

Problem with Jonah  believability erased simply by realizing Jonah died in the fish and his flesh restored after three days as a purcurser of Jesus in the Old and authenticated by Him in the New. Jesus preached in hell to those lost in the Flood and  Jonah prayed to God, both while dead in the flesh. Believing Jesus rose from the dead is central to believers. If you can believe it possible for Jesus then it is possible to believe the Jonah story as well

Attacking belief in Jesus....

If Jonah is unbelievable thru the intellect then one has to believe Jonah never died but rather continued alive praying inside the whale which the atheist view suggests is impossible for Jesus as well.

So Jesus did not rise from the dead because He, like Jonah did not die in the first place. This is the doubt some attempt to build. But Jonah was not said to live in the flesh inside the whale while he prayed. He died, like Jesus died, and then Jonah was spewed in flesh on the beach. Jesus was not the only one to rise from the dead, nor was He the first one. After Jonah, recall Lazarus? There were others, less prominent, as well. Big difference with Jesus was He, as a man gave Himself as the last sacrifice voluntarily, knowing everything beforehand.

If one does  not believe in Jesus  power to rise again they resemble Christians who think they believe but not in His power, his ability to rise again, in the flesh. It is as though the doubters want us to believe Jesus was the only one rise, unbelieably, from the dead into eternal life. We, this view suggests, will not. Only faith can counteract subtle opposing and erroneous arguments.

Resolving Jonah.......

I only recently resolved my  long standing problems concerning Jonah in an unexpected way. Jonah is a purcurser to Jesus, according to Jesus Himself. Yet another connection between the new and the old Testaments. If this is (obviously) true then why depart from it?   

This ironically ties in directly to my experience asking about the people drowned in the Flood. First of all if Jonah (possible) was swallowed by a whale then he eiither drowned, suffocated, or digested, probably all. Then he was after three days spewed up on the beach alive and talking after praying  inside the whale. Why not?

Did not Jesus go down into hell and preach to those lost in the flood? He, like Jonah, was dead but his Spirit was alive. The spirit once released from God never dies. It quickens the body and sometimes departs before the body is completely dead.   Getting off topic, Later...

Stumbling blocks.....coming

The weak heel of Christianity is often said by the athiest world to be the story about Jonah.  More later....

Increasing and decreasing one's faith....

I'll wager there are many chuches who send their children off to college like lambs to professors who impress upon them the fact that if one is educated then they are atheists. In church many pastors only mention the easy passages and never tackle  anything that will test ones faith.

In fact it will leave them defenseless and convince them their professors are right. I include here religious colleges and Christian high schools,  both of which I attended.  Most atheists I meet became atheists because of church experiences.

And that is what happened to me. I was an atheist seven years.