Posted: Sep 30, 2017 12:19 pm
Zadocfish2 wrote:Hi! I've been gone a while, because I re-converted to Christianity.
Let me explain how it happened: Going back and forth, I finally ended up praying, "It's so contradictory; what parts of the Bible should I believe, Lord?" On a weird hunch, I looked up a Verse of the Day site. It said, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." 3 Timothy 16-17
The words themselves, I had some issues with (clearly Leviticus isn't meant to extend to modern Christians, and the epistle writers didn't consider their own work "scripture," seeing as they were just letters at the time, and a few other things). But, it just so happened that I got a response that was a word-for-word, properly-phrased answer to the question I had asked in prayer, on that exact day, at that exact time (after the daily verse switch at 9 pm).
How, exactly, does one explain that sort of thing as coincidence? The odds are just too astronomical. Not the last time that happened, either, there are times when I would get passages from the same book from 2 different random verse generators and a verse of the day all in the same night, or I would be leafing through Bible passages and read one at random, and find the verse of the day was from one chapter previous, etc...
Honestly, I still struggle, because the basic problems that made me leave the faith last time haven't quite gone away... But each time something like that happens, the odds are so absurdly impossible that I can't help but think of it as a message. On the other hand, I also note that the same thing probably happens to Muslims and any other religion with an established scripture, and that this kind of thing is what bolsters their faith, too (maybe? If this only happens to Christians, you have to admit that's pretty strange).
So, once again I'm stuck. What do you guys think of such weirdly specific coincidences in a believer's life? Don't you think it's strange at all?
The whole purpose of prayer is to till the earth in such a way, that a billion random seeds may sprout one good seedling, and be noticed, then cultivated. Astronomical odds pare down quickly when you are in a state of noticing.
Never ceases to amaze me how crap our minds are at dealing with complexity and probability.
Why not just accept the fruits and let go of the stage where you adopt nonsense belief?