Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
In Jesus' day, there were Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem, both with "Biblical worldview" but quite different from each other. And out in the desert were the Essenes, who'd withdrawn so that they could be alone with their Biblical worldview, which was different still.
This continued upon the spread of Christianity: some in the Corinth church apparently didn't believe into the resurrection from the dead, to hear Paul in 1 Cor 15:12. Some Jerusalem disciples remained Pharisaic with their legalistic requirements per Acts 15:5: "You must be circumcised".
Now, having said that, I suppose one who doesn't believe in God can simply reject a Biblical view in any shape or form. But to reject God simply because their past Biblical worldview engaged imaginary schema with little critical basis is perhaps to sell oneself short. I think the LC really set themselves up in this regard. They insisted on such monolithic and implausible schema that many of their children leave, where they not only reject the LC but also God. When they get the conceptual rug yanked out everything's gone, except implacable and resolute denial.
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My Chinese wife dropped it all. She went back to her cradle beliefs, or non-beliefs ... atheism. When our son died, she went to a spiritual reader, to get in touch with him. She was told that he had work to do here, finished it, and had work to do in the afterlife. That provided comfort during her grieving period.
And I have a very good friend from Jr. high days, who lived with me back in the day. My mother took her in for about a year. For the record I never 'knew' her in the Biblical sense, and have never -- tho friends of mine did, before the LC and afterwards. After I got the boot she considered me a serpent. Five yrs later she and her husband got the boot just like me -- for the same reason : Lee MOTA. After she left the LC she dropped it all. And she's bubbly happy all the time. Let's face it, the supernatural world is hard and a lot of work to keep up with. It's suppose to bring happiness, but instead can get you down. Isn't this natural life overload enough?
But most that I know, don't drop it all. Like me, they try to find other believers to meet with. If that doesn't work then they start dropping things. But I'm here to tell you, whichever you do, it ain't easy dropping the local church. From what I've seen there's like a deprogramming period, that may take years ... with thousands of questions, doubts, and all, plaguing you.
And dropping all that may result in dropping God. Otherwise it could drive one crazy.
I don't see it as a big deal to drop God. After all, the same needs and impulses that drew you to God in the first place, still exist. Those will still plague you. In the end God is much harder to drop than the LC. If you do He'll likely be back.
Then, like the differing Biblical worldviews, as you say, during Jesus' day, what shape will your worldview take, Biblical or otherwise? Like this postmodern age, everyone's will be different. I find that to be true for exLCer's that I know, and have known, too. They go ever which way.
I still love them, no matter what, atheists or not (even to in the LC loving each other was forbidden as soulish -- I guess I've dropped that ... thank God).