Reddit mentions: The best christian inspirational books

Pre-script (I guess that's the opposite of a post-script?): One of the biggest flaws to secular ethics, to me, is why. I would appreciate any and all input on that topic, as well as feedback on the rest of this morass.

There's bound to be some pithy quote I could insert here about being a critic because that's easier than being a creator, and I'm a big fan of pithy quotes and cliches.

Perhaps a paraphrase: "Those who can teach philosophy, do; those who can't, critique those who do."

That was the longer way to say: nope, I got nothin'. Or rather, not absolutely nothing, but nothing so extensive as I would like to provide. It's one of the big projects that I chip away at slowly.

What follows is a meandering exploration of thoughts on the topic; I'm planning on starting a blog in the not too distant future and will be exploring this somewhat more systematically, and I'll link it here.

TL;DR of the below: A system that says "here's good traits, do those" is likely going to produce better long-term results than a system that says "constantly attempt impossible math to decide what to do."

I lean towards some form of virtue ethics; Kreeft's Back to Virtue was great for me. But it's also a deeply Christian approach, and I think it's possible to create an approach that works for secular and religious people more or less evenly (why I think so when people have been trying for centuries, if not millennia... I guess I'm a little more idealistic than I like to admit).

Virtue ethics (VE) (and I'd lump in Stoicism as a related topic of interest) shares at least one flaw of Scott's consequentialism (SC): how do you define good? Consequentialism enjoys it's woo-woo math about utilons or utility points, but since there's no grand utilometer, is it that different from Marcus Aurelius writing "You know what is good, do it"? You're still relying on your intuitions about what is good, which does bother me about VE still.

Part of the appeal of the virtue ethics/Stoicism approach to me is the same as Peterson phrased it: Clean your room! VE is, to me, a much more personal, human, humane ethic than SC. I think it is important to be a good person first, and that will 'ripple out' to create a better world. Scott called it Newtonian ethics, but I think that misses something; it's not that "deservingness" decreases with distance, but complications increase with geographic and cultural distance. This concentric localism reduces the "bang for your buck" compared to SC (and thus EA), but I think it also reduces the failure mode risks.

What SC says about doing good changes based on any number of factors: how you rate different kinds of suffering, what you think does the most good, what you think generates the most utilons, what time scale you're judging everything on, etc. You can be an awful, hateful person but still "do a lot of good" under SC, which depending on perspective could be good or bad, but I think that possibility leaves a lot of room for SC to burn itself out by ignoring the interpersonal effects (Organized EA seems to have recognized this and started to deal with it, although Rob Wiblin at least still acknowledges it as an integral component of the philosophy that most can't live up to).

I also think VE involves more flexibility innately, whereas flexibility of SC is contingent on a peace treaty of sorts. Scott says outright SC should lead to one answer of what is right. This should mean that everyone following SC is doing the exact same thing: we can look at EA to show this is not currently happening, which means SC is failing to provide that one obvious answer. I recognize I decried the wishy-washy "my feels" as a flaw of SC, and this is part of why- if it is supposed to provide one answer, but doesn't, is it doing its goal? The variety of missions operating under EA indicate that SC is not that good at providing answers, and that those involved aren't particularly consequentialist. VE on the other hand has the flexibility of allowing personal definitions of good: this can be abused by selfish definitions of "good" but also gives that variety without violating its ideal. Your good is not quite the same as my good, simply because we're different people in different situations, but we can acknowledge we are both being good. This only occurs in SC because of a peace treaty of accepted dissent; were it taken seriously, anyone not following your specific good is dooming the universe (a la Bostrom's calculations) (This might be my least favorite paragraph of my rambling; I think there's an important point here but the way I'm phrasing it sounds very self-serving. I'm leaving it in hopes of figuring it out eventually)

I'll stop here because my rambling isn't really clarifying anything at this point, I don't think. But I would add an excerpt from a comment on one of Scott's old blogs against virtue ethics:

>I feel like, in saying “virtue ethics is bad”, based on the specific virtue ethics you’ve encountered, you’re doing something akin to saying “consequentialism is bad” after reading consequentialist writing by Clippy. Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are not moral frameworks; they are categories of moral frameworks, or rather, categories that individual fragments of moral knowledge fall into, according to whether they do their good/bad classification on events, on actions, or on people.

>My position is that consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics are all valid, and any complete moral framework must gracefully handle fragments of moral knowledge in all three forms. I think a surprisingly large amount of our moral knowledge comes from hero/villain classifications given to us in fiction, spread across weak-evidence relations like “the goals of good people are good”.

I'd pretty much agree with that. There's useful aspects to each, and distinctly saying one is good or bad is to overlook the advantages of the others, and the flaws of the one you've picked. My second-biggest issue with Scott's ethical writings is that he handwaves over the gaps of his consequentialism without digging, in a satisfying manner, into them (digging into gaps is not the best turn of phrase, I know). He tries, sort of, but I don't find the answers even remotely solid (hence I said I dismiss them for being specific to Scott, not to the broader philosophy). The "why" question posed at the top would be the biggest. He wants to good because he wants to do good; is it a virtuous tautology and we can't answer more than that?

Thank you for the indepth reply.

God has revealed Himself through creation:

>For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Rom 1:20)

I won't discuss a generic creator or pantheon because those are not my beliefs. Just the Christian God to which denomination doesn't matter provided the person accepts that they are a sinner and that they may receive the gift of freedom from sin and it's consequences through Christ alone.

Do you ever feel out of place? Or like things are wrong? Christians agree! We believe that because of sin, creation is corrupt bringing about all kinds of pain and frustration. This is another way that God reveals Himself to some people.

But really, existence is a pretty good argument for God. We exist in the "Goldilocks zone" that is one of very few places in the known universe that can support life. Not only that, but life actually appeared here. Just having the ability to support life doesn't automatically make it happen. In addition, we have intelligent, self-aware life. The math for this to occur is impossible. it can't happen. And yet we're here.

The debates are only necessary because God loves you and called His people to love you as well. There wouldn't be a debate if nobody cared.

God isn't a trickster nor an angry child not careless. His perspective as Creator and master of creation is wildly different from ours but always perfect. That includes a perfect love and a perfect sense of Justice.

If you want to know more about the reliability of eye witness accounts of Christ, I'd recommend Cold Case Christianity where an evidence-based approach is used on the gospels and supporting data. Man, Myth, Messiah also touches on this (and if only $1.99 on Kindle right now). And I understand that The Case for Christ written by an investigative reporter also looks into this but I haven't read that book myself yet.

Religious people don't have that much power. People who claim to be religious might. While 70% of Americans claim a "Christian heritage" only 40% of those people attend church. And only 45% of church attenders read the Bible away from church. Believe me, if more people who claimed to be Christian, actually knew the tenants of the faith you wouldn't have any problem with them being in power. The basics for Christianity start with: love God, love your neighbor, and love your enemy. Christians aren't called to hate gays, but to love them just like everyone else.

The instances of Christians being anti-science is mostly media hype. The scientific process began in the church as a method to explore and understand God's miraculous creation. The Bible isn't a science textbook, it's a collection of books and letters that form a singular narrative. It needs to be read and interpreted from that context.

And science has a lot of holes to be filled, including internal contradictions: quantum mechanics says the Big Bang is bunk, for example. Scientists and philosophers have been working for decades on a way to unify those pursuits called "the theory of everything". Science has faith that will happen. Some of what's called "science" really isn't. For science to be accurate it needs to be observable and repeatable. Here again, the Big Bang fails the test. I'm not anti science, and I suspect the Big Bang is valid, but I see it in Genesis:

> In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. [...] And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

Maybe that describes Big Bang? Maybe not.

As to how well I know Christ the answer is, "not well enough." Christ followers start by accepting Christ as our Lord and savior for the forgiveness of our sins. Then we change. That change is called sanctification and it happens by getting in relationship and learning from Christ. I mean this literally through prayer and by studying the Bible. God wants to be in relationship with us. The change is to make us more Christ-like. You assume Christ is unaccessible which isn't true. He's alive right now, today. And I am constantly surprised by him and his compassion and sacrifice.

There's a lot of misconceptions about the faith. I'm considering a project to combat that both in popular culture and within the church. That's why I started this thread.

Great question. Part time missionary here, headed towards full time someday. I'd like to share some about my experiences on short term trips (2wk) and some of what several of my Full Time missionary friends have told me. Full Disclosure: I haven't fully read the other responses to your post, so I'm probably repeating at least something.

First off, let me break down the $2k. It is a lot of money. Know that most of that money is to get you into the area. The last flight I booked to Guatemala was $1200 a seat -- group rate, booked 3 months in advance. My most recent trip, to Eastern Europe rang in at over $1600 -- single ticket, booked 4 mo ahead. Now, I'm single, so I don't have to think about doubling that like you do, but just know that $2k isn't some number they pull out of the air. By the time you roll up airfare and food alone, you're pushing that budget. Throw in ground transportation and lodging and you're going to need a miracle. That said, before you go short or mid term with any organization, get a cost breakdown of where your money is going. The team leaders should be fully financially supported, as well as the rest of the organizational infrastructure. ( I ran a HipMunk search on Denver to Cairo, because I live in CO and I picked Cairo, and came up with estimated airfare of $1200, for Nov1 - Nov15 ).

In the thread currently at the top, you mention "it would be more beneficial to just send that money to those in need." You're probably right, especially if you're thinking of paying for this out of pocket yourself. But you shouldn't be doing that. A HUGE part of missions is fundraising, and so sharing your experience with people that don't feel called to go, but instead to send (Romans 10:15ish). Fundraising is hard, but it is a huge blessing. Your church should be a part of this. (You are a member of a church, right?) I also believe that you should contribute a nontrivial percentage of your trip funds. Paul was a tentmaker and he payed for much of his ministry by working hard, but not all of it.

Second, a note about the duration of trips Short term -- the 2wk variety -- is more about you than the people you're serving. Its about getting out of the comfort of your daily life and witnessing God work in the lives of other people in different ways. You work for the people you're visiting, but 2 weeks is far to short to have a lasting spiritual impact. Mid term -- from 3 months to 2 years -- is starting to shift the focus. If your target is 3 months, then you'll be on the ground just long enough to start to understand what is going on and what needs you can fill when you leave. Not long enough to do language school, and not long enough to really get to know people. Beyond that, well, you get the picture. Most 3-month programs are "Summer programs," but they're not exactly geared towards college students.

Third, how I would go about it given my today-knowledge

• Make sure you're both members at a church...one that already supports FT missionaries is preferable. If you're not, Start now! Go, do the membership class, sign the statement of faith, and attend the services.
  
• Get in contact with missionaries. Send them emails, care packages, money. (Peanut butter goes a long way to winning the heart of many expats.) Most missionaries have emails they send out monthly or weekly and they're stoked to add you to their list. This is important as it keeps missions right in your face even after you go and have your missions-honeymoon-hoorah. If you're at a church that supports missionaries, ask for a list of email addresses and just fire off 10 emails asking to be put on their email lists. If you want a list of missionaries looking for people to send letters to, PM me, I know many -- no donation to me or them required.
  
• Decide where you want to go. For help here, read 'Before you go', by Hempfling and 'Just do Something' by DeYoung.' Both are short, 100ish page books. If you only read one, I prefer Just Do Something. Some like Africa, others prefer Central/South America. Some want risky and opt for some Christianity-prohibited regions in Asia (or wherever). Personally, I'm finding I prefer the Eastern Europe region, but I haven't yet been to Asia.
  
• Decide what you want to do. Not "I want to build 3 houses for orphans turned widows now supporting ex-military kids" type of decision, but Medical vs Construction vs Language vs Social work.
  
• Ask the missionaries that are now sending you letters if there are teams coming to help them, or if you can do a mid-term trip to help them. They're the ones that know how you're going to best further the Gospel by your service, they're on the ground doing the work day in and day out.
  
• If you must, Scour google. Unfortunately, missions organizations aren't usually known for their web presence. Its far easier to find teams going where you want if you can first get ahold of a missionary that is already there, but sometimes its just difficult to do that.
  
  Edit: Link formatting, Hipmunk link.
  Bottom line - Get out there and do it, because way too many people just let it slide by and always think, "I should have XXX." Your personal Faith will be better off for going. The people you serve, including the missionary, will have a new house, less dental problems, better english skills, or whatever and, hopefully, will see Jesus in your heart of service.
  
  If you have any questions, feel free to send me a PM directly.
  
  Yay missions!

This is an important question. It really depends on a lot of things...I'm assuming that you believe God still speaks and He speaks through more than just Scripture.

I don't necessarily believe that you can take a word simply by the content that the word gives without testing it. Deception often starts with something that's basically true and moves into something blatantly false. For example:

• "I feel the Lord is telling me He wants me to be at peace with Him"
  
  
• "I feel that my marriage is difficult and causing me a lack of peace"
  
  
• "I feel that the Lord is leading me to leave my marriage so that I can better glorify Him with a stronger one" - wrong!
  
  The heart of deception is this: the end-game is all about you rather than God. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve with knowledge to enrich their understanding. Satan tempted Jesus with Scripture to take matters into His own hands and do things His way. Deception takes a truth or half-truth and tries to make you live your own way rather than by "every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Jesus' answer to Satan in Matthew 4:4).
  
  As per the driving example - I simply don't know. I would ask if the person is in community and has been asking those more mature in the faith if they believe He's walking with God. I would also ask if the fruit of the Spirit is growing in His life - if this is God who's been speaking to him, then surely the fruit of God would be more and more evident. Is he experiencing greater victory over sin? Is he becoming more like Christ?
  
  Notice what the Old Testament prophets did - they called for radical repentance before God. That's not something Satan does.
  
  Here are 10 steps I summarized from a book that help me try and determine God's will. Very helpful for me in these situations:
  
  
• Have you prayed about it? Prayer is a first-down huddle, not a fourth-down punt. Ask God for His plans not ours.
  
  
• Is it consistent with the Word of God? With resourcing abounding, there is no excuse for not researching the issue.
  
  
• Can I do it and still be a positive Christian witness? Would I watch this show or do this activity if Jesus was here?
  
  
• Will the Lord be glorified? Am I seeking the glory of man or the glory of God? Those sent from God glorify Him.
  
  
• Am I acting responsibly? Seek to develop your life and message and God will develop your ministry.
  
  
• Is it reasonable? God expects us to think – God operates through your mind (1 Corinthians 14:20)
  
  
• Does a realistic opportunity exist? If opportunity exists and all other factors align, step out in faith.
  
  
• Are unbiased, spiritually-sensitive associates in agreement? Your advisors need to ask hard questions.
  
  
• Do I have a sanctified desire? Is this a desire to satisfy a lust of the flesh or see the Kingdom established?
  
  
• Do I have a peace about it? God’s presence brings conviction when we are out of His will and peace when in it.
  
  
• From this book: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Spiritually-Deceptive-Bondage-Breaker/dp/0736912207/

If you are praying Morning, Evening, and/or Night Prayer, I'd recommend you starting with Shorter Christian Prayer. It's the one I started with before moving on to [Christian Prayer](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0899424066].

The St Joseph Guide to Christian Prayer is very helpful in navigating this book (note that there is no St Joseph Guide for SCP).

Christian Prayer gives you room to learn how to more fully pray the Hours. You'll also be able to pray a one-week psalter for Daytime Prayer. There's also a four-week psalter for the Office of Readings, but the 1st and 2nd readings are just a selection (I use iBreviary for the OR). You'll also learn how to use the ribbons and learn how to flip around the book. Not too hard to learn, but it takes patience and experience to learn how to get through certain seasons (such as the period between Christmas and Ephiphany -- though the St Joseph Guide helps a lot).

There is, of course, the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours, but I wouldn't recommend that for beginners. I've been praying the Hours on-and-off again for about fifteen years and I still don't have a copy of it; I'll probably get one when the revisions are done sometime around/after 2020. I use Christian Prayer for MP, EP, and NP and iBreviary for everything else (Office of Readings, Daytime Prayer -- though I recently acquired a standalone book for Daytime Prayer that has the 4-week psalter).

Praying the Hours through an app is great. iBreviary is excellent and free and super easy to use.

For more about the Hours, I'll recommend three books: Daria Sockey's Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, which is a nuts and bolts approach to it (her blog Coffee and Canticles is good reading); Fr Timothy Gallagher's Praying The Liturgy of the Hours: A Personal Journey, which is a great testament to the power of this prayer; John Brook's The School of Prayer: An Introduction to the Divine Office for All Christians, which is a bit of nuts and bolts but with a commentary on all the psalms and canticles of MP, EP, and NP -- it also deals with the spirituality of the Hours and more topics.

Note that my recommendations are assuming that you are attending the Ordinary Form of the Mass. The Mass is the jewel, and the Hours are its setting. If you go to the EF, you'll probably want to get the older form of the Hours, which I don't have a clue about.

EDIT: link

Hey friend - just to encourage you, I didn't date a woman until the age of 19 and we only dated for 2 months...and that was my total dating experience before college.

I think you might really benefit from reading some biblical manliness books and messages. This will help you understand what a Christian man believes and seeks to practice in marriage. These will help you work on your character and make you a stronger person of greater integrity, if you let them.

First, I'd encourage you to listen to some sermons about biblical manhood. It will teach you how to grow towards becoming what the Bible considers to be a man. I'd recommend these talks

• Matt Chandler - Manhood Restored
  
• Paul Washer - Are you Ready for a Relationship Part I and Part II
  
  And if you're the reading type, I'd suggest looking at some items from our resources page. Here's some good ones focused specifically on marriage:
  
  
• The Exemplary Husband: A Biblical Perspective - Stuart Scott
  
• Disciplines of a Godly Man - R. Kent Hughes
  
  >How can I as a young man, find a woman with these Christian relationship values?
  
  I commend you for coming here and posting - this is awesome that you're reaching out for advice! If I could suggest, the best place to find people with Christian values is to consider relationships with Christians. And, I would encourage you to continue to examine the Christian claims and message. In particular, a really good starting book to consider our faith would be The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.
  
  Happy to talk about anything you'd like related to relationships, dating, Christianity and all of the above.

1 & 2) I'm saying that morality, etc, comes from God, without him you can't have it. You say "ah, but i do have it". Right, because you aren't without God. You are actually living in God's universe which is why it makes sense that you are a moral person, as this universe was created by a moral, first-cause, person. So the question for you is according to your worldview how do you account for an objective morality, for personhood, etc. It's not enough to simply assert that you believe in them. I agree that you do, I just think you don't believe in the foundation for them.

3) Your understanding of Christianity is pretty ad hoc. God is referred to as the one true God, the only God, and the living God, implying the other "gods" are false, nonexistent, or "dead" by comparison. You shall have no other gods before me is extremely relevant as the recipients of the commandment then go on to worship other gods again and again. I think we both agree that worshiping something doesn't make it real.

Ba'al makes no appearances. He is worshipped, he has followers, he has prophets, but he is never portrayed as being a being. Obviously Ba'al worshippers would believe him to be, but that's not the position of the bible. The story of Elisha on mt carmel is relevant for Yahweh vs Ba'al.

Dagon is a fish god and the god of philistines, sea people, but also of Ninevahites. We see dagon's temple destroyed by samson, we see dagon's statue toppled by God in 1 Samuel 5, and we see a metaphoric defeat of dagon when Jonah, swallowed by a great fish (dagon?) is then spit out on land and ninevah repents and follows Yahweh. The great fish was of course just an animal used by God and not another deity.

I don't understand your reference to the Moabites. Ahab is a wicked king, but nonetheless Elisha says that God will give them victory over the moabites...then they go and slaughter a bunch of moabites. That's hardly an example of yahweh losing.

I'll admit the Jacob wrestling thing is weird. He loses the wrestling match, but somehow also has the power to strike Jacob's hip and make him lame? Also God doesn't have a body so how's a wrestling match work? Regardless Jacob is a follower and worshipper of God so he doesn't seem to have lost respect for Yahweh in their tussle?

Chariots of iron: Unstoppable! I think it's clear that Judah is the one who is stopped by the chariots and not God. Of course the question is if God is with him to conquer the one spot, then why not the other? I don't know. It's a side note and not a main story line. There are tens if not hundreds of examples of God giving his people military victory in a large variety of ways, so it doesn't seem like the point of the text was to indicate God having a specific weakness like cryptonite.

The Bible clearly teaches that God knows and sees all. You are smart enough to know that asking questions does not indicate you don't know something...or are you?

As far as evidence for the resurrection you can read Lee Strobel's The case for christ

Also Ravi giving a more eloquent treatment than I can

Just FYI the apostle Paul is with people when he sees his vision, immediately goes to stay with other Christians (who he was on his way to persecute), and then later meets up and argues theology with Jesus's apostles. At no point is he alone or murdering people who disagree with him or enforcing conversion by sword point or marrying a dozen wives, or burning cities. Very much different than Mohammed.

I'm sort of similar to you. Except I was never a Christian before, I've recently taken up an interest and a desire to learn about it. So far, I've learned a LOT, and whereas before I would call myself probably an agnostic? Now I would say that I believe there is a creator, and that if that's true, it's probably also true that Jesus died and was resurrected..

Anyway, that's beside the point. What I was going to suggest is that reading the bible is great, and of course is the most important thing. But may I suggest some other things that I've read and watched alongside it that helped me understand? It really helps to listen to some arguments from historians, scientists, and people that have spent their lives researching these matters.

For me, I was very concerned about the historical reliability of things etc, such as when the gospels were written, who by. I'm a person that places value on evidence and really struggle to just "believe" things... I wish it wasn't so, but there you go.

Of course, I can only suggest things I've read and watched so far so admittedly this.

The Case for Christ. A journalist sets out to disprove Christianity by interviewing many well respected scholars, and ends up becoming a Christian. There's also a movie based on this which was very good.

More Than A Carpenter. This talks about the life and evidence for Jesus, as well as the reliability of the gospels.

Evidence That Demands a Verdict Admittedly I haven't read much of this yet, its the next one I'm going to tackle. It's quite a difficult read and has a LOT in it.

Cold Case Reliability of the Gospels. A video where a Cold Case detective discusses whether the gospels would stand up to the same scrutiny that he applies to cold cases. Very interesting if a bit long (I urge you to power through the beginning, I was a bit put off when he started talking about his daughter being a Marine).

Hugh Ross. If you have a more scientific mind and struggle to come to terms with Genesis and the Flood etc, Hugh Ross is a great man to watch. He's an astrophysicist that became a Christian, and has many scientific ways to back up whats stated in the bible. There's many videos of him.

From there, you could find many more sources and things to read. By reading Case for Christ, I've decided to read some of the books that are mentioned in it (although I'm still waiting on delivery). I bought a couple of Hugh Ross' books, although only one arrived yet and its very scientific and I don't think its quite what I need to read right now, I'm awaiting another one "The Creator and the Cosmos" and I'd love to read his "A Matter of Days" too which talks about the Genesis days. I also ordered This yesterday which I'm excited to read.

Sorry for the overly log post but I hope it helps. Also this is my first time putting hyperlinks on reddit so I really hope it works properly!

Uh... I went to look at this in detail, as I worked before doing paralegal work and it triggered a few alarm bells. Keep in mind that this evidence list and description was put together by the prosecutors, it's designed to paint a false picture.

First, we know that the jury heard their case and examined most of this evidence (we will too), and threw them out. Secondly, most of these books are clearly described not as featuring children. Third, an Amazon search clearly shows the that many of these are artsy photo books, and only a handful (out of thousands) happens to feature children at play, not children having sex nor are they ever pornographic material. Furthermore prosecutors purposely do these kind of findings in this way to paint a distorted picture. I'll explain how:

My dad took photos of me when I was kid playing. Often I was with my mom, some of them are me, nude in the bathtub with my toys as a child. But he's a photographer, not a pedophile. In this finding that photo would be listed as something like:

>"Photograph: A photograph of a young boy in a bathtub; fully nude"

...which would be absolutely out of context, part of the intent by the lawyers to introduce bias. Sure, you can trust me, but you should verify. So lets see the evidence:

>"Boys will be Boys", containing photographs of boys under the age of 14; full frontal nudity. This book is personally inscribed by Michael Jackson.

Holy shit, that sounds pretty awful and incriminating right? Now see the actual book on Amazon and laugh your head off at how poorly this case was put together (100% Safe For Work): [Amazon link]. Then there's the other book, described as the following by prosecutors:

>"In Search of Young Beauty" containing photographs of children, both boys and girls".


Wow that sounds pretty awful. The book is subtitled, "A venture into photographic art". This is what is contained inside (100% Safe For Work): [Ebay Photo Link]. I think this is enough to convince you how silly this was. But there's more:

>"Room to play" Photos of children that are altered, morphed head on older bodies, kids made to look sexualized. Some are nude photos of kids;

Woah. That sounds like weirdo smut. Lets see what it looks like on Amazon (100% Safe for Work): [Amazon Link]. Okay well you don't get much of a preview of what's inside right? No problem, lets see what the photographer's other books look like: [Photographer's Published Books]. Alright, at this point I think the prosecutors were grasping at straws and hoping the jury would be dumb as rocks, too bad their hopes were dashed. I have other points below:

• I also noticed that it says all this was found in the "Master Bedroom Suite", a description that makes me think it must be in a moderate sized bedroom so I went to search what that meant because Michael Jackson was a rich eccentric. Remember, Michael Jackson also had a "bed" in a large complex that was basically entirely made of bed in the Neverland Ranch for sick children to sleep nearby. This was described by accusers in the media as Jackson sleeping in the same bed with children even though he could have slept 50 feet from any of them because no one thinks of a two story monstrosity when someone says, "bed". Apparently his master bedroom suite appears to be a separate private building (nowhere near the aforementioned "bed") with a huge library of books. It's also not put in context of what other books were in there or what percentage of these selected smut material was. From the item numbers in this finding, there are at least 1000+ photography or book related items in there, of which only 3 hard cover books and 2 photographs, published in stores mind-you, that they had as 'incriminating evidence'; all of which was later dismissed by the jury because as you saw above, it was ridiculously stupid. The main 'evidence' was tacitly hidden among a sprinkling of porn to add rhetorical bias.
  
  
• That listing of 'multiple visits to the following websites' is an especially heinous piece of work because it groups, "www.varsityteens.com" which was an adult site back in the 2000's (thanks to Internet Archive), with "www.adoptablekids.com" and "www.adoption.com" to give the impression that these were the only three sites that Michael Jackson visited. I've seen lawyers use browser history against people because if you selected 3 or 4 out of an entire history, you can really paint bad ideas of people. For example, given how popular and highly rated the show, "How to get away with Murder" is, one can imagine how that might make anyone look conveniently guilty for a desperate prosecutor with a flimsy case.
  
  
• The discussion portion of this case presented by the prosecution is highly biased and feeds off homophobia. The description says, "Many items described above are all-male erotica" which is untrue because most of these photo books from an Amazon search are not really erotica at all and a quick number count shows that most of these that happens to be pornography featuring legal female porn. The trick is that in law, there is a lot of rhetorical semantics, more than three can be considered "Many". There's also a heavy emphasis on 'teens' in this list, the problem is, 'teens' in the porn categories of popular sites happens to be the most popular world wide. Hustler sells a series featuring 'teens' and their "Barely Legal" series happens to be one of their best sellers and it apparently regularly wins adult industry awards. It's not a really good argument to say that Michael Jackson enjoying popular pornography and owning a large number of photography books somehow makes him an automatic pedophile. Using that kind of faulty broken logic, one is also arguing that Barnes and Noble and Amazon are dealers catering to pedophiles since this material is available there, which is untrue.
  
  Remember, these guys lost the case and couldn't prove their case once the evidence was examined:
  
  >At approximately 2:25 pm PDT (21:25 UTC) on June 13, 2005, the jury of the Superior Court of the State of California, held in and for the County of Santa Barbara, determined that Jackson was not guilty on all 10 felony and all 4 misdemeanor charges.

I started praying night prayer (or "Compline") this past Lent, and I love it, even if there was a bit of a learning curve...

If you are interested in a online source, divineoffice.org is a great place to start - and they have audio so that you can listen along. What I don't know, though, is whether it's still possible to access their website. They have some copyright issues they need to work out, and they're planning to close the site to new users sometime in the very near future. If you are still able to register, that's probably where I'd recommend starting.

If not (or if you want to be able to pray from your smartphone), there's also an app called iBreviary. You can get night prayer on there as well, and it is, again, really straightforward to use. (There are other apps for the LotH, but that's the one I'm most familiar with).

If you are interested in a print resource, I'd recommend The Office of Compline. It's a book just for night prayer, contains the English and Latin (if that matters to you), and has notation for chanting. That's what I've been using, and it's really pretty simple to use. Having just Compline in the book made things a lot easier to figure out, because there were fewer page turns and simpler instructions.

If you think you might branch out and pray more than just night prayer in the future, you could also consider a book that contains the other hours. Christian Prayer also contains Morning and Evening prayer (Lauds and Vespers), as well as shortened versions of the other hours. If you're interested in chanting/singing the prayers, then The Mundelein Psalter is another option - I've just started praying Lauds using this one, and so far it's working well for me, although there's no way this book could be described as portable. It makes my Bible look small.

In terms of general "how-to" resources, I'd suggest checking out /r/divineoffice - there are LOTS of questions already answered over there, and some decent suggestions for outside resources.

Paul F Knitter wrote a book called “Without Buddha I could not be a Christian” that I (a former Christian but now in search mode) have read twice in the last 6 months. It’s unreal! It’s so good and I couldn’t help but think you a Catholic may really enjoy it, he is a former catholic university teacher too so it’s not a Protestant (which is the brand of Christianity I grew up) so his Catholicism and love for Buddhism may really connect with you. I hope you get a chance to read the book and it helps you on your journey! This post has some great comments! Glad I could read through them!

Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian https://www.amazon.com/dp/185168963X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_IUhMBb0DWPA4N

It makes the most sense if I believe the Bible is truly given from God. -- So I have inspected the Bible looking for "God's Fingerprints" to see if he wrote it.

It's full of prophecies that have come true:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0849919703 (Has God Spoken?: Memorable Proof of the Bible's Divine Inspiration)

It's about Jesus who veritably rose from the dead according to the testimony of history

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310350034 (The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus)

So why isn't everyone who is sincere in a faith that recommends doing good works going to heaven? IDK who is going to heaven. God will have as much mercy as He wants:

>What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. (Romans 9:15)

Every other major religion has that same problem. Why believe in Allah because he condemns Christians and Jews?

Does that mean these religions are faulty? If you inspect them closely I think only Christianity makes sense. God made a perfect world. Adam chose rebellion. Adam knew that in the Garden of Eden he was going to die if he chose the Fruit that gave him knowledge of Good and Evil. He wanted to know evil, because he saw God and spoke with him face to face. He was in a pristine environment .
He knew good and could live eternally knowing more and more good. But, he wanted to know evil. Therefore, God should have killed him right there... God said: "In the day you eat of it, you will surely die" - He didn't die. He lived on because God made another promise that from the seed of a woman (virgin birth through Mary) Christ would come and defeat the serpent (devil) that caused him to sin. If you follow these thoughts, you wind up realizing that God doesn't need to have compassion on any of the human race. He simply could have stopped it after Adam and re-started. But he story of Christianity shows that God is merciful, loving - but willing to allow his children to NOT choose him and pay the price. He lets them choose - and after centuries of choosing wrongly...we have false religions in addition to the one true one. It's OUR invention to explain God away... it's not God's problem to fix it - but he does out of mercy in his divinely appointed time.

But see... if we want to explore tough questions like this, it's going to take a LOT more learning, exploration etc. These are not easy questions and Christians regularly disagree on them and STILL remain with faith in Jesus who died and rose for their sins.

That's the focus. Find out if Jesus is who he said he is... the rest comes as you walk the walk of faith.

Blessings upon you my friend.

Oh man.

Okay, so when I was younger, I went to a big church - and I mean a big church, like ~700-800 people each in two services when we started going, and that was when I was in fourth grade (it's probably at least four times that size now). There were... I want to say four youth pastors for about a hundred and fifty high schoolers and a similar number of middle schoolers.

Two of those pastors, one of whom I was very close with, started getting into some "radical" stuff by the time my freshman year rolled around - stuff like "what if Jesus actually meant all that stuff He said about selling your possessions and giving to the poor and bringing the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth?" Eventually they got bold enough to ask questions like whether the Gospel really stopped at the part about being born again so you could go to Heaven when you die - the problem being "that doesn't cover too much of life. The word 'Gospel' means 'good news,' and if that's the Gospel, that's not really good news, because it doesn't do anything for here."

And let me tell you, to this day I have never felt so alive, so excited by what the Bible had in store for my life and the lives of everyone around me than I was when I was learning about how Jesus' commands could actually be put into action, making a difference in the world around me - not just learning about how to increase my own sense of piety and self-righteousness.

Well, long story short, the leadership didn't like their take on things, and they were both let go. The one I was close with is involved with a Mennonite church in Chicago (a denomination I would strongly suggest you check out); not sure what ever became of the other one.

I really think you need to read a book by Shane Claiborne called The Irresistible Revolution. Haven't seen one person read that book and come away from it anything short of brilliantly excited. (I managed to find a very long interview with him on public radio that you can either read or listen to if you want; it gives a pretty good sense of who he is and what he's about).

Hope you can find a better church than the "churches" you've been to. Please do keep us updated on how your search progresses. :)

I'm so glad to hear you are a Christian now. If you haven't heard of them before, this kid has an amazing testimony, just thought it would bless you since you were raised Mormon.

LInk here

Also, his mom, Lynn Wilder, wrote Unveiling Grace on their journey out of Mormonism. If you look her and Micah up on youtube there are lots of great videos. I enjoyed it! Glad to hear you have some good friends who are believers. I'd love to hear your testimony if you want to share. I pray God continues to bless you <3

You're right: no one can convince you to have faith. And while it does take a certain amount of faith to believe, we don't have blind faith. There is plenty of evidence, both historical and archaeological, to support what is written in the Bible.

​

I would suggest 4 things:

​

• Read the Bible. God's Word is powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Start with the Gospel of John and go forward from there, and when you get to the end then start with the Old Testament in Genesis. This will give you the best basis for discovering your faith.
  
  
• Pray and tell God how you feel. Tell Him you're not sure if He even exists, and ask Him to reveal Himself to you.
  
  
• Read The Case for Christ, which is the best breakdown of the evidence, by interviewed experts, that I've ever read. The author started out as an atheist who set out to disprove Christianity once and for all. He ended up becoming a believer through what he discovered.
  
  
• Understand the Gospel - this is where sinful man recognizes his need for God's forgiveness through what Jesus did on the cross. Most of us have heard the spiel many times before, but most have not heard it presented in this way. You may not believe it, but you will finally understand why God did it the way He did.
  
  ​
  
  Feel free to ask questions if you like. My inbox is always open as well. May God bless you in your search to find Him and trust in Him!

I know your questions were rhetorical but I'd like to get a bit of insight into this.

> Also there are a lot of stories in the bible that have been proven factually inaccurate. If it's wrong about those why would I trust it's stance on whether or not there's a god, or who it is?

The majority of Christians don't believe in the bible literally. Specifically, Catholics make up about 2/3s of Christians and they treat large sections of the Old Testament as allegorical, symbolic, etc... A typical example would be the story about Jonah and the Whale. How do you feel about that, and about those Christian denominations?

> And lastly, as a westerner I can easily dismiss all religions besides Christianity because they were never presented to me as fact. If they're obviously false, what makes Christianity special?

I'd like to answer this question and then have your reflections. Christianity is different from religions like Islam and Mormonism. In those religions the main vehicle for revelation comes from a man who is claiming that God speaks directly to (usually) him and he is just reporting it. For Christians, the main message is coming from a guy called Jesus who claims he IS God, and then does stuff to prove it. A pretty good analysis of this is presented by Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ. While this isn't peer review evidence, the author provides many other sources and further reading. There is ample evidence for establishing the historicity of the New Testament, both from inside and outside the bible. If we can find that Jesus didn't perform those miracles he reported then it is easy to say he lied about everything. But if there is evidence that they occurred, wouldn't that require more attention?

>>Ok, Jackson was a 'boy enthusiast'
>
> But with that statement you are claiming people cannot be interested in children in a loving way nor can people be interested in art books...


False. Mr Rogers exemplifies how wrong you are. Probably because he didn't rape kids. No, these are not art books. They're books for pedophiles lumped in with porn.



> he had 10.000 books in his possession,

Except these were in his bedroom



> the book Boys Will Be Boys had an inscription written by Michael himself (probably meant for the fan), stating: "Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys’ faces. This is the spirit of boyhood, a life I never had and will always dream of. This is the life I want for my children, MJ.";

Sounds like he loved the book. Better mix it in with gay and straight porn. That's what I do with all my favorite books.



>To come back to your original comment, who is Petitioner? I don’t see how that person is related to the book “Boys Will Be Boys” by Jim Daly. What was his role in the book?



This is the wrong book

This is the correct book, found at Jackson's made by pedophiles Georges St. Martin/Martin Swithinbank and Ronald C. Nelson/Ronald Drew using pen names. Swithinbank is the petitioner.

> How have you, experienced minimalists, handled situations like this?

I've been a minimalist for 5 years and I've experienced the same.

Many of my friends just didn't get it, so they attacked the idea. I figured it's a typical response to attack what you don't know or understand. At first I talked a lot about it, but for most people that didn't help. However, over time they say I was happier, and that they couldn't argue with. After a while I just stopped arguing with them, or trying to explain it (unless they asked), but rather showed them my life being better for it.

They could still text me to invite me to events. I did miss a few events (no FB) and heard about them later. I just simply asked that they would text me about them next time. If they didn't, or felt that was too much to ask, then I didn't complain. I decided if I wasn't worth texting (or calling) about an event then I didn't want to go, because I wasn't wanted enough. Why spend time with people who don't want you. With that my friends shifted a bit and I ended up with less 'friends' but better relationships.

Now, I've been traveling for the past 2 years and my friends have shifted again. Many of the people who's events I missed I don't even talk to anymore. I have made new friends, again less 'friends' and stronger relationships with the real friends who stuck around and new friends I've made.

I never recall ever being unsupported by family. Though my parents have been packrats since I was born. I haven't seen them for much over the last two years, but I heard two month ago that my mom read a book I suggested and now is giving away a bunch of stuff every week to thrift stores, so that's a huge plus!

TL;DR I exchanged my big group of 'friends' for real friendships with a smaller group.

You asked for recommended reading, so here are a few:

The Gospels, with no commentary help, just the text, to get to know Jesus as the Bible alone shows Him. Plenty of readable English versions to choose from in the free YouVersion app (has like 250 million downloads)

Galatians - easy 15 minute read

https://www.amazon.com/Unveiling-Grace-Story-Mormon-Church/dp/0310331129
(written by ex Mormon Lynn Wilder, former BYU prof). Maybe 250 pages, but reads easy as it's just her story.

https://www.amazon.com/Prodigal-God-Recovering-Heart-Christian/dp/1594484023

• Nothing directly about Mormonism, but fantastic look at the well known parable. 130ish pages
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Truth-Paradox-Responding-Christlike-ebook/dp/B002GKGB0K
  
• Again, nothing directly about Mormonism. Simply going of the idea that Jesus was "full of grace and truth". Even smaller book
  
  I'd be happy to send you copies of any or all of the books, if you like. Let me know.

One of my favorites on the subject of science and faith is Edgar Andrews' Who Made God?. From the description: "A book by a distinguished scientist about the existence of God, with chapter headings like 'Steam engine to the stars' and 'The tidy pachyderm'..."

I'd also recommend Dr. Holly Ordway's Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. It details one woman's personal journey from being an atheist college professor to finding Jesus.

EDIT: After reading a few more of the other responses:

A lot of these are great recommendations. I've read a lot of them and like a lot of them. But I think something we need to remember is that God is a personal being. If you really want to know if God exists, then as you read, try to pray. Ask God to reveal himself and to give you wisdom and insight.

I ran across a book recently that spoke to this: Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. by Kevin DeYoung. The author is a Calvinist, so despite how the title might sound, he's not at all casual about God's will.

From a review posted a couple weeks ago:

> DeYoung offers some welcome wisdom to Christians paralyzed by an absence of divine guidance, or by conflicting omens. Instead of guessing at the hidden divine meaning of circumstances (essentially a kind of divination) or gullibly taking every passing thought or imagination as a Word or Vision From God... DeYoung suggests making intelligent decisions in accordance with what we know from scripture to be godly goals and wisdom, and then working out those decisions with diligence. Radical, huh?

> He distinguishes between God's secret will (or will of decree), God's revealed will (will of desire) and God's will for our lives (will of direction). God's will of decree is his secret will, ordained from all of time--a will that is going to come to pass and that no man can thwart. God's will of desire is his will as revealed in Scripture--a will we sometimes obey and at other times disobey. God's will of direction is the one that answers those questions we have about jobs and spouses and houses and all the rest. Here's the real heart of the matter, according to DeYoung. "Does God have a secret will of direction that He expects us to figure out before we do anything? And the answer is no." Though we are free to ask for his direction and though we ought to be devoted to prayer in all matters, God does not burden us with seeking his will of direction ahead of our decisions. "God does have a specific plan for our lives, but it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision." "Trusting in God's will of decree is good. Following his will of desire is obedient. Waiting for God's will of direction is a mess."

You might or might not feel like buying the book But do read the comments at Amazon - you're not the only one who's had these questions, or who's got stuck in a place of guilt or paralysis by people who teach God is a secretive micromanager.

I am half way through an amazing book called "Soul Survivor:How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church" by Phillip Yancey
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Survivor-Thirteen-Unlikely-Mentors/dp/1578568188

That book would really help them both I believe. Yancey was raised in a very fundamental and judgmental church and found himself questioning everything too. He gives C.S. Lewis some love, as well as Chesterton in the book and Martin Luther King. But it is a great approach to Him seeing the love and grace of our Lord and not a rules/pride based kind of faith.

If you're really, really interested about this topic. I'd suggest you two books, even after the fact of the interview:

Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hanh, everyone's favorite :)

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Buddha-Christ-Thich-Nhat/dp/1573220183


Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian:

http://www.amazon.com/Without-Buddha-Could-Not-Christian/dp/185168963X


I think reading on how two perspectives try to bridge each other is the best way for someone who is surrounded by Christianity mostly will be introduced to it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With that being said, I was born a Christian, but I got engaged in Buddhism since high school. I do often get questions from friends about this topic. Your interview is how they did it in my high school right, as in over the internet through something like skype? If so, I could definitely try lending a voice. I try not to overflow too much about Buddhism to someone who doesn't know too much, like explaining the different sects in one sitting.

I could explain them of course, and don't feel intimidated by the information being presented here. Yes, there are many sects, and the Buddhist sects are more different than are Christian denominations towards each other, but at the end of the day, they are "Buddhist" sects for a reason.

There was none, which is why he was never charged of possessing any. He had legal art photography books that had images of nude children and adults of both sexes.


(1) "The Boy: A Photographic Essay" was inscribed with "From your fan, xxxooo, Rhonda."
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/photographic-Ronald-Nelson-Editors-Georges/dp/B000ID41XQ

Library of Congress: https://lccn.loc.gov/65000007


(2) "Boys will be Boys" inscribed with ""Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys' faces, this is the spirit of Boyhood. A life I never had and will always dream of. This is the life I want for my children. MJ."
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Will-Be-Celebrating-Adventurous/dp/0736913122

Library of Congress: https://lccn.loc.gov/66001965


The prosecution's thirst was REAL. Luckily, justice prevailed.

I don't read much fiction (baseball or otherwise) but I like biographies and autobiographies. RA Dickey's book Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball was great. He's a talented writer with a compelling story to tell.

Fearless is probably the best book I've ever read. Unbroken is also an excellent book, and the movie is being released in December I believe. If you like longer epic fantasy novels I suggest Game of Thrones. Cliche but fantastic books. Haven't read them all but I'm watching the show right now. But seriously Fearless should be required reading for every human being. Absolutely outstanding book. Highly recommend to anyone.

Great question, only problem is there is way to much to be said about that to give a detailed answer here. This is something you could right volumes of books on (which already exist) so I'll do my best to summarize what I've found. To start we first need to look at the historical reliability of the bible, particularly the gospels. Here we have a number of things we can check.

• First to check is the skeptic claim that the manuscript copies we have now are unreliable. The reason they give is because the bible has been copied over and over again with countless errors being introduced and texts intentionally being altered to fit a particular theology or purpose. However, there is overwhelming evidence to show the copies we have now are accurate representations of what was originally written (99.5% accurate to be precise with the remaining 0.5% having no impact on any of the Christian teachings/doctrines).
  
  
• Next there is plenty of evidence to show the gospels were written relatively early (with the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) being dated within 30 years of Jesus' death. We also have plenty of evidence to show the gospels were in fact written by the authors traditionally ascribed to them (that is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) which means they were written by eye witnesses or close associates of the eye witnesses to the events. The evidence for these two points far outweigh the evidence I've see for alternate theories.
  
  
• Next thing we can check is the large amount of evidence from external 1st century non-christian sources that corroborate many of the events described in the gospels.
  
  
• Not only is there plenty of external evidence for the gospels, but there is also plenty of internal evidence as well. These come from undesigned/unexpected coincidences found within the gospels that corroborate the different gospel narratives. That is details given in different gospels under different contexts that unexpectedly line up and explain things in each other in interesting ways. The most extensive work I'm aware of lists 17 volumes worth of these.
  
  
• From here we need to examine the counterarguments to the previous two points. The first being external evidence that show supposed historical mistakes made in the gospels. The second being to examine the internal inconsistencies/contradictions within the bible. Every single one of these I have looked at has failed to stand of to the evidence and critique with many leaving you almost shocked that people actually present them as arguments.
  
  
• Finally there is plenty of evidence that the resurrection teaching is from extremely early on. Even non-Christian scholars date the earliest reference to this teaching that we have to within 3-5 years of Jesus' death.
  
  Now everything so far is simply setting up the foundation to show the gospels are in fact historically reliable. From examining all the evidence above we see that the gospels and resurrection story were not simply made up and are not merely myths and legends added long after the fact by people far removed from the actual events. From all this evidence we can see the gospels should be trusted at least as much as any other trusted ancient historical writings. From this foundation we can move on to looking specifically at the resurrection.
  
  
• To start we can first example the evidence that Jesus was crucified. From our foundation above and from non-christian 1st century documents we know this to be true and very few scholars challenge this position.
  
  
• Next we can examine a large amount of evidence supporting two important points. The first being that Jesus' tomb was in fact found empty and the second being that the apostles truly believed they saw the risen Jesus.
  
  When coming from the beginning of the foundation to the previous two points (the empty tomb and apostles genuine belief in seeing a risen Jesus) we are left with only on explanation, that Jesus was in fact risen from the dead. I've looked at a number of popular naturalistic explanations, such as:
  
  
• The apostles hallucinated the resurrection appearances
  
  
• they stole the body and lied about the resurrection
  
  
• Jesus never really died. He just appeared dead and woke up later and showed himself to the apostles.
  
  None of these or other natural explanations I've seen explain all the evidence, rather they can only explain bits and pieces leaving them lacking in explanatory power. Now if that wasn't enough there is still one more thing to consider, being the conversion of Paul. Paul began as a persecutor of Christian and somehow became a prominent leader in the early Church. If went from being a well of Jew to enduring severe persecution and hardships for the teaching he once persecuted others for having. According to his own writings it was through his own encounter with a risen Jesus that he became a Christian and his conversion remains one of the greatest evidences for the resurrection.
  
  If you have any more questions feel free to ask. You can also check out some of these sources for more details:
  
  
• historical reliability or the longer series here
  
  *Some books you can read are Who Moved the Stone. The author originally set out to disprove the resurrection but eventually became a believer after examining the evidence. Some other good resources are 7 Truths that changed the world chapters 1-2 and Evidence for God chapters 27, 33-36
  
  In addition you can simply good some of these things looking into both what skeptics and Christian apologists have to say on the issue.

I see your article and raise you an entire book: The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rp0YAbAB552XY

I've read this book, enough of the Bible, your article, and many others, to know that there is so much out there and so many conflicting views that eventually you just have to go with what you feel is the right answer. I feel that I've had my prayers answered, I feel that the miracle of life is more complex and amazing than can just happen without a divine creator, I feel that there are things out there that just can't be measured by science like love and happiness that we know are real. We could go back and forth forever and never come to an agreement, hence what faith is for.

Now I also have plenty of skepticism and doubt over what's in the Bible. I take what works, makes sense, and is applicable and helpful to my life, and forget the rest. For example I don't believe that there's anything wrong or sinful with homosexuality, or that Noah put all those animals on one boat. But there's plenty in the Bible that are good lessons and good reminders to take with you in your day to day interactions.

I appreciate the article, I do. But I'll continue to say that it just doesn't seem plausible that so many of the people of that time claim to have met this man that we now base our entire standard of telling what year it is off of how long it's been since he lived.

Who Moved the Stone by Frank Morison. Here's an excerpt from the back cover:

>The strangeness of the Resurrection story had captured his attention, and, influenced by skeptic thinkers at the turn of the century, he set out to prove that the story of Christ's Resurrection was only a myth.

It's a fascinating book and comes from a point of view that you may appreciate. Granted, his conclusion is a Christian one but... that's what you're asking for.

edit: looks like it's actually available for free here... it's an old book. Here's a quote from the first chapter I like, and feel sets up the tone of the rest of the book:

>When, as a very young man, I first began seriously to study the life of Christ, I did so with a very definite feeling that, if I may so put it, His history rested on very insecure foundations.

edit 2: I started reading it again for the first time in a long time. I should mention that this book assumes a knowledge of Christianity that many people do not already have. There are references to the Jewish Mishna, many Hebrew laws, and copious Bible verses. Also it was written in the 1920s. When he refers to "the nineties" he's talking about the 1890s. OP sounds like he's pretty well versed in Christianity already, so I still stand by this recommendation.

>What is the general consensus on things such as the Little Office of Our Lady?

As a layperson, you can pray any office you wish. I love the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially the one from Baronius Press.

I started praying the LOTH with Shorter Christian Prayer. It's a good way to get into it without all the page flipping. I know priests who use this as their travel edition. ;)

Universalis (app or website) is a good resource for praying the office. There's 6 times per day that a professed religious stops and prays the psalms in the Office, but for laypeople the best ones are probably Lauds (in the morning), Vespers (after work), and Compline (before bed).

Breviaries like this one can help laypeople pray the office.

I just read this book a couple days ago. It short and sweet, and it hooked me in so I ended up reading it all in a day.

Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers by Joshua Harris and Kevin L DeYoung

I'll try and summarize it:

God has a sovereign will for our lives, not a single man, or animal, or atom deviates from this will.

But God does not expect us to try and sense what this will is via feelings/dreams/signs and obey it. If anything this way of living is not a life of faith; a life of faith is to say that "I do not know what my future hold but God does, and I trust that what is in store for me is good". We live by faith, not by sight.

God does not give us instructions every day of what decisions to make (toast or cereal, TV or conversation, walk by or intervene), He instead gives us wisdom and His Word which we should mull over and struggle with so that with the Spirit it transforms us into someone whose desires are Gods desires.

Gods will is the sanctification of our souls, not just for us to make all the correct choices now.

EDIT: I can answer any question you have on the subject that the book covers if you want.

I've gone through a similar struggle recently. My pastoral care at my church directed me to read a book called "Just Do Something" found here. Essentially the point is there is not one solid path you have to travel in life which if you veer off you're screwed. Whatever decisions you make, God will find a way to work them into his plans. There are not always sign posts along the way. God has a plan that he often doesn't reveal to us and we only see it's shape in hindsight. More often than not with life matters, I've had to pray and place my trust in God and then take a leap of faith by making a decision.

Best of luck on everything either way!

Christianity is weak but for so many reasons, including the corruption. I think you were taught about corruption in the Bible because the Quran is well-preserved and faith-based religious teachers are always trying to one-up each other.

Keep in mind that many Christians will tell you that their version of the bible (among hundreds of versions and translations) was perfectly preserved. How lucky they are to have the exact right version! God has truly blessed them.

I've read the book, The Case for Christ, and it was given to me as the best argument for Christianity. But it only taught me more about how weak of a foundation it is. If you want, you could read that for the "strongest case".

Christianity's main focus is the stories of Jesus and claim that he died and rose from the dead to save humanity from going to hell. These stories, collectively known as The Gospels, were then expanded upon by some other writers who compiled what is now known as the New Testament.

In my opinion, it's extremely weak. They begin, at best, as rumors from unknown, anonymous authors, taking the word of others who claimed to be eyewitnesses, writing about events over 30 years late.

The stories themselves would be very heavily scrutinized if told today. There is no modern medical record of dead coming back to life after 3 days, and no known theoretical mechanism to even allow such a thing (aside from convenient Divine Intervention). The same goes for like 100 other miracles reportedly performed.

There are plenty of direct quotes from Jesus. How is any quote possible 30 years after he said it? So these anonymous authors just memorized the Sermon on the Mount on the spot, but didn't write it down until after 30 years. Along with everything else he said. If it were so important to memorize, can't they just get like, one guy who knows how to read and write? Isn't it really important that future generations know exactly what Jesus said?

Kevin DeYoung wrote a great book on this concept called Just Do Something.

While it is an excellent, quick read, the tl;dr is that God is less focused on what we do, than how we do it. For instance, employment. He is less concerned about what are job is than whether we are doing it for his glory or our own.

I'd like to recommend two books which changed my perspective on Atheism, and towards faith. The first was [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FEECHO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) followed by [this book] (https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1503870167&sr=1-1&keywords=lee+strobel+the+case+for+christ)

God Bless, faithful Pede!

-/u/sesquipedalienator, parent

This subreddit and bot are not in any way affiliated with the moderators of /r/The_Donald. Direct questions about removal to them.

First off, think of Minimalism as a tool. A tool can be used for good or bad. Example: A hammer can build a house or bash in someone's head. So yeah minimalism can be bad.

Secondly, You can only change yourself. You can encourage others by showing them the way you live makes you happier, makes life simpler and easier, but it's up to them to adopt that lifestyle too.

Thirdly, Imposing any belief or lifestyle on someone is a slippery slope. If you push your boyfriend too hard he may start to dislike you to the point of ending the relationship. Remember he has feeling too, just because you've learned quickly to live a certain way doesn't mean he will.

Example 1: My extended family tried for 20 years to get my packrat mom to realize her house is full of junk. Oddly enough the thing that convinced her was a book written by a guy in a simple living community I lived in while traveling. Nothing we said I've those 20 years changed her mind and actually it just made her come up with more reasons justify the junk. Finally an outside perspective worked. After about a year of decluttering, tons of bags donated, we can finally see progress in my parents house, but they've got a ton more to do.

Example 2: Lastly, when I started becoming a minimalist 9 years ago my friends thought I was crazy. I tried to argue why, but it didn't work. In the end I gave up on arguing and decided to show them why. A year later I had a couple friends, who originally thought I was crazy, now defending why I'm a minimalist, because they see how much happier I am.

Edit: Since 3 people asked me here's a link to the book I mentioned:
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Anyone claiming that Jesus was invented or that the Jesus worshiped by Christianity today is an accumulation of legends has to at least contend with these facts:

1. The mountain of manuscripts. The extant documents comprising what we now call the New Testament number upwards of 5,600 in the original Greek. Hundreds of these are from the first few centuries AD. When you add in translations to Syriac, Coptic, and Aramaic, you have more than 25,000 documents available. Simply put, there is more attestation for the life and teachings of Jesus than any other person of that era. If you believe Alexander the Great was a real person based on what little we have left of his early biographies (which were written centuries after his death), you have to accept the New Testament accounts of Jesus. For questions on the historical reliability of these documents, see Craig Blomberg's Historical Reliability of the New Testament.
   
   
2. The early dates. Christianity was flourishing within a few years of Jesus's death in (of all places!) Jerusalem, the city that saw him publicly crucified. If these events never occurred, it would be absurd to start a religion in the very place that was best equipped to refute your claims. Bruce Shelley's Church History in Plain Language is a great overview from the start of Christianity all the way up to the modern era.
   
   
3. The spread of Christianity in spite of violent persecution. This in and of itself does not prove the truth claims made by Christianity, but it does show that the early adopters sincerely believed what they were preaching. And since many of them claimed to be eyewitnesses of the events in question, we would have to conclude that they were either lying, delusional, or telling the truth. I think the third best fits the evidence.
   
   
4. The lack of contemporary rebuttals. If Jesus never existed or if he were a collection of legends on top of a failed Messiah that everyone forgot about, it would have been much easier to start a religion after everyone of that time had died and could no longer refute your claims. But Christianity started in the 30s AD! Why then do we not see refutations of the events surrounding Jesus's life, death, and resurrection? I would think that even in the first century it would be nigh impossible to start a religion based on historical events if those events never actually took place.
   
   These are just some of the points in favor of the actual, historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. If you want to dive deeper, Lee Strobel's Case for Christ is a favorite of mine and is a book that I like to hand out to our local missionaries.

The problem is the people that are complaining about them have never read the books. My mother was very against them and I had to fight to be able to the movies with my drama classmates. My parents believed some popular religious figures that said the magic was similar to Wiccans and was therefore evil.

After reading the books for myself, I realized that the magic in Harry Potter really wasn't any different than the magic in Narnia or Lord of the Rings, books that are praised in religious circles. It's really just a vehicle to tell a story of a young boy's triumph over evil. My mother had also heard that the true allegiance of one character (I'm assuming Snape) was constantly changing, and therefore that made the books terrible as well. I however see this as very true to life. There are many people in the world that aren't necessarily nice, but are not evil. People are also betrayed by those they think are their friends (Pettigrew). Even those that we consider great always have flaws. James, though he grew into a brave and honorable man was not really a nice boy. It took the death of his sister for Dumbledore to realize that power on domination are not admirable qualities.

It seems the loudest Harry Potter critics didn't really have much to complain about once the last book came out. In the end, the book has wonderful Christian themes. So much so, that there are several books written about it. (really an interesting read even if you aren't religious).

Well, I guess this is much longer than I intended. I would say the only possible controversy would be having children read it when they're too young. They're pretty intense especially after book 4. I would suggest keeping children at around the same age as Harry is in the book through at least the first couple books.

I find your wording confusing . . . I mean I went through a similar period of doubt but after much study came to the conclusion I could choose to believe in Christianity or not, but I knew it would be intellectually dishonest for me to not. It wasn't really a matter of making myself as if I was doing something against my better judgment.

To comment on your specific example, those instincts would be focused on the in group, not humanity in general. So you would cooperate with your group sure but would be fine with treating others poorly. Indeed, we see this in much human behavior. Yet most of us instinctually know that's not right and the Bible certainly demands a higher standard than that.

Anyway, a book that helped me a lot is Don't Check Your Brains at the Door and I'd also recommend the "Case" books by Lee Strobel.

I feel your pain and I was there some years back. I think the most important questions you need to ask are "Who is Jesus?" and "Is Jesus telling the truth?"

I say focus on Jesus because the other questions you are asking will fall in line if you can answer these two questions. And I encourage you not to take these questions lightly but to really wrestle with them. Read different opinions if it will help.

There is a man named Frank Morison who set out to prove Christianity was a myth but the more he delved into the historical texts and asked the questions I encourage you to ask, he ended up becoming a Christian. He documented this in his book "Who Moved the Stone?"

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-Stone-Frank-Morison/dp/0310295610

Also, consider reading Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ". He was an atheist until his wife converted to Christianity one day which set him to start looking hard at the evidence.

Also, consider listening to the Stand to Reason podcast with Gregory Koukl. He sets out to present clear-thinking Christianity and often debates atheists who call into his show. www.str.org

Hope this helps.

Hey brother - you are in my prayers. I've wrestled through questions of guidance before.

If you're looking for a good book to help "kick-start" the process, this is wonderful:

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Spiritually-Deceptive-Bondage-Breaker/dp/0736912207/

I've written a summary of this book to help me when I'm seeking guidance and direction from the Lord. If you'd like, just PM me an email address and I can send you a 2-page summary of the book, which has lots of practical guidance for finding God's guidance and direction for your life.

Regardless - praying for you!

I've actually visited a place like this called The Simple Way in Philadelphia. It's pretty cool to see the work they do as a community of believers living together. There's actually a book about it if anyone cares called The Irresistible Revolution

Maybe talking about guidance is a good way into sola scriptura. Everyone (especially a youth group?) wants to know what God wants them to do - so if you work through the principles in a book like this you end up with a strong case for sola scriptura, and you also give them something practical to think about as well - keeping it a sermon, rather than a lecture.

I got a book recently for my birthday called Just Do Something, written by a young pastor named Kevin DeYoung. It does a decent job of arguing that praying for, say, employment, instead of getting up and finding a job, isn't actually Biblical and doesn't fit with God's will for man.

I certainly sympathize if the job market is tough and if your health situation is difficult, and I think it's valid to pray to seek God's will, but if you're actually feeling like you're wasting your life praying for things to happen -- as in, you could have been doing productive things -- then that's something else entirely, and whether or not you're praying to something imaginary, you are wasting your life. We can talk to God all we want in Heaven, but we can only use our body to work in this life.

Get Shorter Christian Prayer and start praying Compline (Night Prayer) -- there's even a book with just Night Prayer in it. Once you get into the habit, add another hour, such as Morning or Evening Prayer. When you get comfortable with this, you may want to get Christian Prayer, which has more page flipping involved.

Or you could pray The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's very simple and lovely. All the hours are the same for each day. There is a slight variation during Advent and Christmas.

I've done both the LOTR and LOBVM. Currently I pray LOBVM's Matins/Lauds every morning and Vespers most evenings. I used to pray Compline, but I haven't done so in a while.

It takes about 15-20 minutes to say the LOBVM Matins/Lauds and about 10-15 mins for Vespers.

Go read Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung. It's fairly short and will completely make you change your mind about how you view God's will.

God doesn't send neon arrows from heaven. He doesn't send THE ONE to our doorstop when we are doing nothing. We are supposed to pray and seek His guidance. We are also supposed to actively pursue the direction we feel led.

It's also a bad idea to think that there is only ONE person for each of us. As long as the person you marry is a Believer and equally yoked, God is good with it.

I would suggest the shorter form of the Divine Office for starters! It can be found on Amazon here http://www.amazon.com/Shorter-Christian-Prayer-Four-Week-Containing/dp/0899424082.

I personally have loved it.

If you're interested, I found his book Irresistible Revolution to be a really interesting and entertaining read. He basically tells a series of stories about what life might look like if we took many of Jesus' sayings that are commonly ignored and put them into practice.

While not directly about leadership, I think Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung was the most "leadership inspiring" book I've ever read. Incredibly edifying, and a pretty quick read. It's short, about 100 pages iirc, so I'm not sure if that would fulfill your time requirement.

Thank you friend.

It was inspired by reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution

The St. Joseph Guide for Christian Prayer really won't be of much help since it is for Christian Prayer and OP is using Shorter Christian Prayer. If I was ambitious I would put together a short .pdf guide for Shorter Christian Prayer for Lent next year, since that seems to be when everyone gets interested.

Outside sources help confirm that - if you wish to explore this idea more I really recommend the book The Case for Christ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310350034/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_lCZTDbDCV0B3B

Peter Kreeft's "Back to Virtue" is excellent! I read it (when I was in my 20's I believe?) and it really resonated with me.

https://www.amazon.com/Back-Virtue-Traditional-Wisdom-Confusion/dp/0898704227/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2OX5HFBVSCH6Q&keywords=peter+kreeft+back+to+virtue&qid=1566528034&s=gateway&sprefix=peter+kreeft+back+to+%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-1

I have never had the pleasure of hearing him in person, but I have read The Irresistible Revolution which is a worthwhile read if you ever get the chance.

To go along with kabas, I too think the only way to say that Christianity is the one true (truest?) religion is to believe that the resurrection happened and then everything else follows. This is an interesting read that follows an atheist's sort of quest to disprove the resurrection. He converted when he could not. I'm not saying that is absolute proof, it's just one person's story and is interesting.
EDIT: Fixed link.

I recommend the divine office, a.k.a. the Liturgy of the Hours. Mainly because praying Morning, Evening and Night Prayers tend to keep you through the day. If you add a rosary somewhere to that, you'll be in good shape. Here's an online link: http://www.divineoffice.org.

and of course /r/divineoffice

Good resources, but I'd recommend picking up a copy of this:

http://www.amazon.ca/Shorter-Christian-National-Conference-Catholi/dp/0899424082/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411429333&sr=1-2&keywords=shorter+christian+prayer

...because it has Morning, Evening and Night prayer and you don't need to go online. Just avoid going online as much as possible, if you know where it's going to head when you do.

This, confession, and jogging.

This is less a testimony and more laying some of the foundation for Believers with no experience of Atheism to build a bridge of understanding to where Atheists and Agnostics are coming from.

I love it, because a lot of what Dr. Ordway says both about herself and other Atheists rings so true in my own story and I'm sure many of you will relate.

If you're interested in her actual conversion story, her book is called Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith.

Write or read?

If anyone's interested (and in hopes of putting the "Harry Potter is anti-religion" argument to bed for good:

https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-According-Harry-Potter-Spiritual/dp/0664231233/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510434595&sr=8-1&keywords=the+gospel+according+to+Harry+Potter

https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Faith-Harry-Potter-Multigenerational/dp/0819233552/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0819233552&pd_rd_r=7Z4F6JWW0MXW0GWD5X06&pd_rd_w=55jVa&pd_rd_wg=xWDDV&psc=1&refRID=7Z4F6JWW0MXW0GWD5X06

https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Harry-Potter-John-Granger/dp/1414300913/ref=pd_sbs_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1414300913&pd_rd_r=VN2K3B25KAF5VQASJAEB&pd_rd_w=6L98T&pd_rd_wg=qSnuH&psc=1&refRID=VN2K3B25KAF5VQASJAEB

If you want a couple books about how skeptics became convinced of the truth of Christianity I'd recommend:

• Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith
  
  
• Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels
  
  

RA Dickey's autobiography is phenomenal.

Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball

You might enjoy Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey. Each chapter features a different person who caused Yancey to stretch and grow in his faith. Intriguing and thought-provoking.

The Case for Christ (the [book][1], although the [film][2] adaptation wasn't horrible) and Cold Case Christianity would probably be good reads for you.

Case for Christ was written by an investigative journalist and legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. It details his transition from Atheism to Christianity, and how his attempt to debunk Christianity lead to him coming to Christ.

Cold Case Christianity was written by a detective who solved a number of high-profile cold cases. He has a similar story, as his book details his conversion from Atheism to Christianity through the use of cold-case investigation techniques.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863/

[2]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6113488/

There is a good book about him. Slightly heavy on religion for my taste, but good nevertheless.

you should consider giving up on 'religion'... i hate the term, and what it's become. I agree with your perception of 'religion' atleast from this perspective.

I consider myself christian, but don't believe in the pope at all. In fact, where I go to church... the pastors dress just like I do... jeans and a button up shirt. They're nothing special, they're just trying to point you towards the one who is 'special'.

try reading The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Check out the Book http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Undaunted-Ultimate-Sacrifice-Operator/dp/0307730700

Hope you'll like it! What you've written reminds me of Seal Team Six Operator Adam Brown

Scapular and beer. Scapular flavored beer!

You might try the Christian Prayer liturgy of the hours for a real gift that he could come to like.

I'm currently working through The Divine Office for Dodos. It's a step-by-step guide, where you basically just learn one thing at a time and build on it later. It starts out with having you look around through the breviary getting an idea of where everything is before having you go into any of the actual prayers. That book, however, recommends starting with Night Prayer (Compline), which is shorter and on a one-week cycle.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0899424821

Lol. There's a book that came out in the 80's. Like I said, I never read it so I don't know the details. Here

If you're interested in learning more historical information about the Bible, Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ is very enjoyable to read and packed with well-sourced information. It engages very directly with skeptical questions

You might want to invest in The Divine Office for Dodos or a similar book.

If you need help, get this book or this book and this ribbon set.

Edit: Oh ya, and get one of these as well.

These are the three books that have most drastically changed my life:

The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne

Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Finding God in the Waves by Mike McHargue

Look for this book, Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung. It's a good, short book about working through God's purpose.

On a more practical note, what you're feeling isn't uncommon.

"Boys Will Be Boys", the book you are talking about, is not pornography. In fact, it is available on Amazon and looks pretty harmless. The second book, "In Search of Young Beauty", is also available on Amazon. I'm not about to research every title, but at least some items listed are non-pornographic, and legal to possess.

TSS

> Paul (1 person) claims 500 people saw the resurrected Christ. That's completely different from 500 testimonies from eyewitnesses.

Granted. But Paul also pointed out to his Corinthian readers that "most of whom are still living." What Paul was saying is, "If you don't believe me, you can ask them yourselves," indicating that these people were known in the church and able to verify his statements.

It's important to remember that historical analysis is much like a courtroom. When one "witness" says something his character and honesty are taken into account. Paul's is impeccable. Also a witness who testifies that there are plenty of other witnesses that can verify his claims, is someone who holds great sway with the court.

I know this argument is not unimpeachable, (what is?) however, it is a solid opinion.

> 10 out of 11 were killed testifying to this. Source?

There are dozens. Here's a few:
national geographic
christianity.com
credohouse.org
The Case for Christ

> The general scholarly view is that... the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety.

Yes, you're right there is debate regarding possible Christian interpolation. But the claims of interpolation are based on the use of textual criticism - or content analysis. There has never been any hard evidence to prove interpolation actually occurred. Also remember we have a second source that concurs with the resurrection claim. An Arabic version (10th Century) of the "Testimonium" (translated into English) is in basic agreement with the existing Josephus account.

Again, this does not stand as irrefutable, but a cogent argument nonetheless.

-Peace.

Books like the one below do exist that attempt to give other evidence for the authenticity of the Bible:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310345863/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525948552&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+christ+book

Although I'm traveling for business and not backpacking, I found this to be nice to take along: http://www.amazon.com/Shorter-Christian-Prayer-Four-Week-Containing/dp/0899424082/

There's plenty of Christian Buddhists. This book might be a helpful read too Knitter - Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian

Given your background you could find this interesting: https://www.amazon.com/Without-Buddha-Could-Not-Christian/dp/185168963X

As a Buddhist-leaning Christian, it blew me away and gave me a different perspective on both faiths.

Dickey's book goes into a lot of detail about the brotherhood of Knuckleball pitchers. I read it cover to cover in one sitting.

Amazon Link for anyone who's interested.

Maybe recommend one of these books...

Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh

Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers by Thich Nhat Hanh

Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian by Paul F. Knitter

Please read this book. It addresses both of your questions

The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Case for ... Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_3Z0IAbH6G4K6Q

Maybe you're in crisis with the version of Christianity presented to you. Maybe you need to rediscover it. When I was in a similar situation, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical helped me a lot.

Faith and beliefs are different things.

Praying is not, necessarily, speaking with/to God. Just be at her presence, without talking.

Recommended: Without Buddha I could not be a Christian

https://www.reasonablefaith.org

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-1

https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Students-Thinkers-Guide-Christian-ebook/dp/B00U894IGA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519486559&sr=8-3&keywords=on+guard+william+lane+craig

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Creator-Student-Journalist-Investigates-ebook/dp/B000SERW7M/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Case-Faith-Journalist-Investigates-Christianity-ebook/dp/B000FC2KEW/ref=la_B001H6KH8G_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519528650&sr=1-2

https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-Lewis-Signature-Classics-ebook/dp/B002BD2UR0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519528882&sr=8-1&keywords=mere+christianity

http://www.amazon.com/Looking-Harry-Potter-John-Granger/dp/1414300913

You should look at these :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Investigates-ebook/dp/B00A71Y7I8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542809757&sr=8-1&keywords=cold+case+christianity

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542809781&sr=1-1&keywords=a+case+for+christ

There’s a HP version too
https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Harry-Potter-John-Granger/dp/1414300913/ref=nodl_

There was an actual SEAL and a Team Six operator that became a seal after being a meth addict:

https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Undaunted-Ultimate-Sacrifice-Operator/dp/0307730700

Go + Do

And the Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.

I can also reccomend R.A. Dickey's book Wherever I Wind Up. The struggles the guy has gone though on and off the field are just incredible. I will never say a negative word about the guy.

Great story. I was struck by a car and almost killed. Broken neck, broken leg, and major head injury. I thought I lost my career and ability to bike. Never give up. Never give in. Ever.

A book I drew inspiration from is Fearless.

https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Undaunted-Ultimate-Sacrifice-Operator/dp/0307730700

>Multiple (even one other) independent(/disinterested) verifiable source(s) for the supernatural claims?

Apart from "disinterested" (are there disinterested sources?), that's exactly what we do have. For the life, death, and subsequent resurrection appearances of Jesus we have multiple, independent sources. (I'm not sure what you mean by "verifiable" in this context.)

But please don't waste your time replying to me. I won't be able to add to what I just said other than to point you in the direction of other resources:

The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars (YouTube)

"Who Moved the Stone" by Frank Morison (Amazon)

"Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony" by Richard Bauckham (Amazon)

Unbelievable? 29 Aug 2009 - Richard Bauckham on the Gospels - pt 1 (Radio Podcast)

EDIT

Also this:

The Real Jesus: Paul Maier presents new evidence from history and archaeology

Nice idea, but Christ was a real person, documented in both religious and secular documents.

What follows is not meant to be disrespectful, but I think you are missing the entire point of what the Christian Faith is.

You cannot overlook the evidence.

Chris was actually killed and rose from the dead seen by over 500 witnesses

If you look at the evidence and decide that it is worth looking at what Jesus actually stood for.

There are actually over 300 "Q Type" prophecies in the old testament, that are all fufilled in a single man, Jesus Christ. These are prophecies that took place over 400 years before he came.

If nothing else, take a look at the evidence in light of "Q type" prophecy.

Two good books are


The case for Christ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863?aaxitk=9l74.ycRWveaIQm-t.ZSYw&pd_rd_i=0310345863&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=3534726502&pd_rd_wg=81HhE&pf_rd_r=7FYJ4V7SAWEVC6JM4FA7&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-top-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_w=eRa1R&pf_rd_i=the+case+for+christ&pd_rd_r=ff665252-4ebd-4d59-b4cf-4d52f112cbe2&hsa_cr_id=7480256250101

Evidence that demands a verdict.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1401676707?aaxitk=BXAaSaaijsgYqtj3gEbPXw&pd_rd_i=1401676707&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=3534726502&pd_rd_wg=jYd2I&pf_rd_r=93P85JRNR7JSJ5EMWG2M&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-top-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_w=7nLcY&pf_rd_i=Evidence+that+demands+a+verdict&pd_rd_r=e38ece30-f389-4c68-8dcb-ff7abce12a76&hsa_cr_id=5187726210201



As far as your math equation of "we do this and we get that. The bible teaches that salvation is a GIFT' and you cannot do anything to earn it. You could argue that you have to believe, and that is correct, but that is all you can do. In fact the teachings of the bible tell warn against trying to get back
into that mindset.


For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.


I am not one to argue that you need to believe the way I believe, but I do see that you are teaching (maybe a strong word) something very different than that the documents that uphold the entire christian faith represent.

Christ also taught us that this world is not our world.

He also taught us that our struggles are not flesh and blood but really against good and evil. (That is what we are seeing)

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The real gospel is very simple and it is a secret.

We are all sinners (everyone)

The penalty for sin is death.

Christ died once for all

He rose again defeating death

He sent his Holy Spirit here to help us

He does not force himself on anyone.

It is impossible to believe in Him without faith. You can argue facts until you are blue in the face, but you will never be able to prove it. Plenty of circumstantial evidence though.

thank you for this! that's interesting. the documents you showed me do sound concerning but on the other hand https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Will-Georges-St-Martin/dp/B000OREMI0

https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Will-Be-Celebrating-Adventurous/product-reviews/0736913122/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews I haven't seen the book but reviews have said it's just a normal photography book of childhood. I dunno.

"The grooming isn't in dispute" you still haven't shown me sources for this. you are just saying it. a lot of things can be called grooming. I'm talking about evidence for sexual grooming. if you say that everything is based on what the kids say instead of evidence, then it becomes a matter of simply believing them or not which is pointless to debate. given that one of the men used to date Jackson's niece and yet claims that Jackson made him hate women, and another of the men claims that he was molested at a time when the supposed molestation setting hadn't even been built, I'm more inclined to not believe everything they say, because what's the alternative?

I would suggest reading this book

>Choosing sides in the Israel and Palestine conflict.

I think the Christian side is for the weak and the powerless. For example, the Israeli families that have random rockets dropped onto their homes. And the Palestinian children who have had phosphorous dropped on their schools. I take sides with the victims of violence, not the perpetrators of violence.

>Interactions with people of different cultures and/or race then your own.

Different cultures are a beautiful thing that should be experienced and enjoyed. That being said, we are all brothers and sisters. People in varying cultures are no more or less human than other people.'

>Fighting over land, or land disputes (like Native Canadian's claims) when we all are suppose to be brothers and sisters.

I think Christians should be very much involved in these kinds of disputes, nonviolently fighting for the people who are downtrodden..

>Countries, how they hem people in and do not allow for socialization and prohibit others from entering.

I think it sucks

Well technically those records from the mid 100s are saying that christians exist, and they did. The epistles of Paul were written in the 50s, the gospel of Mark written in the 70s, Matthew and Luke written in the 80s or 90s, and John, the revelation of another John, the revelation of Peter, and the ascension of Isaiah and many other Christian stories written in the 100s to the 300s before the ecumenical councils were started in 325 when they decided to narrow down Jesus eventually settling on the trinity by the fourth ecumenical council pushing out Gnosticism like the gospel of Thomas, Marcion, and Origen as well as Aryanism, Nestorianism and other "heresies" leading to the church of the East, Coptics and other early schisms. After the next four councils they came to the idea about iconoclasm where the Eastern Orthodoxy was against the use of iconography and the Catholics stuck with icons such as the crucifix, statues of Mary, and other icons. This was all by the time of the 600s.

Soon after this time the orthodox christians, Coptics, Islam and other sects went their own ways. In Islam Jesus is the chosen human messiah but not the son of God nor was he crucified before his ascension. In some Eastern religions Jesus is sometimes seen as another transcendent beings like the Buddha and Buddha is sometimes seen as a reincarnation of Vishnu in some forms of Hinduism.

Zoroastrianism heavily influenced monotheism and the traits of the supreme god found in most abrahamic religions. It added the concept of heaven and hell. It added armageddon. Many forms of Christianity didn't start out believing in an afterlife but the Catholic concept of heaven, hell, and purgatory was under question by Martin Luther especially the concepts of the church selling something that allows them to skip purgatory and changing the message of the bible from the originally intended meaning. As a result most protestant religions don't have a complicated hierarchy with bishops, archbishops, popes, and such but they'll have a pastor and perhaps deacons and that's about it. The eastern orthodoxy has a few of their ecumenical decisions but the Catholics kept it going up until they went from 7 to 21 with 15 or 16 being related to the protestants being excommunicated and doomed to hell. In the first Vatican council (ecumenical council decision #20) the church rejects rationalism, materialism, and atheism and anything that could cause problems with the church doctrines. More recently (since the 1960s) they have gradually adjusted to science and with the removal of hell and the acceptance of evolution and the ongoing pedophilia the church is falling apart and might again break into multiple denominations.

The protestants went on another path and in the 1900s the rise of fundamental literalism led to a resurgence of young earth creationism and flat earthers while just a few decades earlier the seventh day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah witnesses and Baha'i came out of the various religions holding fast to creationism and the existence of Jesus.

While these beliefs account for the majority of held religious beliefs (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha'i, Zoroastrianism) only the abrahamic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Baha'i rely on Jesus being historical. Scholars who hold these beliefs will claim they have evidence that Jesus matches their religious idea such as an empty tomb pointing to a resurrection. The scholars who try to establish historicity on either side will fall back to some random Jewish rabbi, perhaps Jesus ben Annanias or Yeshua ben Yosef who was a preacher mulch life the more established John the Baptist and like John was killed and remained dead while his followers shared their memory of him by word of mouth so that he gradually gets more and more absurd and magical by the time the gospels were written. Others will point out that Jesus was a spiritual being probably hundreds of years before the first century when Paul, Peter, Timothy, and others spoke of their visions (related to gnostic Christianity) and it was another couple decades before a Greek speaker unfamiliar with Judaism and the geography of the region wrote the gospel of Mark. Other stories were also in circulation in the following decades such as the Q document so the authors of Matthew and Luke took the various gospels at the time like Mark, Q, and possibly a couple others and combined them with the contradictory birth narratives I pointed out previously. The kept the same crucifixion but added a resurrection which was later added to mark and gave Judas different reasons for betraying Jesus. Then in the next five decades wildly different concepts of Jesus arose such as an attempt to state he was just an ordinary person that was possessed by the son of God. The gospel of John, using gospels like the gospel of Thomas and a sayings gospel was written so that he became more of a superman character. He left off the birth narrative starting with the popular baptism cult of John the Baptist and this time he wasn't turned in by Judas at all but instead told Judas and his army that he is the one they seek. After this there were various acts of the apostles and revelations about Armageddon and various apocrypha that the early church leaders decided to leave out so that they could say Jesus was born to a virgin, died by crucifixion, and had a bodily resurrection from the dead. They left behind just enough contradictions that they decided upon the trinity so that he could be an eternal being equal to the father and spirit and after the death of the son the holy spirit is released to the apostles to spread to the early church.

Basically by the 300s there was a dominant sect holding to a divine human Jesus and that was the sect that set up the early church considering everything else to be a heresy including Islam when it rose up out of Zoroastrianism and Nestorian Christianity. Throughout the middle ages they produced a lot of hoaxes like cups, foreskins, pieces of petrified wood, and a shroud. As time went on it was just assumed that Jesus was a historical figure and it was the consensus about 100 years ago. Since then the consensus has come under scrutiny so that Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier are at the head of each side of the debate and neither of them hold fast to the gospels being reliable depictions of Jesus nor are the documents that came 100 years later saying that christians exist. There are many people holding many different religions. It doesn't automatically make their beliefs true. Josephus was tampered with by Eusebius and the rest don't really make any claims about a Jesus being real but only relaying what the christians had said about their beliefs such as a messiah who was crucified by Pontius Pilate 100 years ago. By this time everyone who could corroborate his existence had died and while he would have been still alive Philo of Alexandria wouldn't be wondering where he was and Justin Martyr wouldn't be saying that he predated the demigods that were being worshipped by at least 1500 years before Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Here are some books from both sides of the debate:

Richard Carrier: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QSO2S5C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably a spiritual mythical being first and a man later)

Bart Erhman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053K28TS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Jesus was probably an ordinary man but we can figure out more about the historical Jesus)

Robert Price: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J0OPUZM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Debunking the religious apologetics put forth by Lee Strobel)

Lee Strobel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01863JLK2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
(Defending the divine human Jesus of Christianity)

I'll let you decide.