The most genuine Christian testimony I know - answered
When I was Christian I heard a lot of "Christian testimonies", usually simply called "testimonies" in these circles
as if "Christian testimony" had to be a pleonasm, always using the word in that way as if there could
be no sense in the word "testimony" and accepting a testimony as genuine unless it was talking
about having Jesus in one's life....these could look strong at that time but ultimately
they were nothing more than reports of either healings or feelings and exercises of sincerity and praise of
God with no trace of anything like a genuine confirmation of doctrine from beyond...
then after a lot of struggles and experience and analysis
of all issues of truth and evidence I deconverted and finally classified the phrase "Christian testimony"
as an oxymoron, once found after proper examination that all these stories which claimed to see
evidence of Jesus in their life, no matter how sincere were actually nothing more than stories of
wishful thinking, fallacies and self-delusion.
Still, sometimes, it happens for stories to have more meat inside, something which look a bit more
like genuine evidences. Now here is the biggest one I last stumbled on.
Unsure of how appropriate it is to take the risk of referencing something really strong in degrees of
impressiveness that seems to support an ideology that I consider dangerous, as it is so strongly
misleading and can destroy lives. I must apologize, but here it is.
Yes it looks very strong but ultimately this strength remains quite superficial, and my reasons to disagree
remain much stronger and deeper than all this. Sorry I did not explore it all as it is very long but I checked the
beginning, which is already quite something, and here is my reply
I am former Christian with long experience of spiritual path from Christian faith to other stuff, spiritual
struggles and extensive research at different levels (testimonies, history, logical and philosophical analysis...).
I just spent time watching your first 3 videos that are already quite long (taking more time re-listening as you speak too fast).
Well that is kind of original format for a "Christian testimony" but at the end of the day what's the big news
in terms of content and really genuine truth seeking or evidence ? I see nothing really original or solid enough
for my standards. First criticism I'd make is your chosen exclusive format which is video format with no text version.
This is typical of people who just care to impress, not of those who work for genuine truth exposition, objectivity and
thoughtfulness. It makes it hard to browse through and search for relevant points. And with all my experience,
hardly anything can still impress me anyway. Then, the points you put forward.
You are very sincere and you believe in your message so much you are ready to jeopardize your career for it.
Well you're not the only one you know. So many people are ready to blow themselves up in the name of Allah
or something else.
You have freaked yourself out when you were a kid by the fear of nothingness at death. Such an irrational
fear is a terrible circumstance, no good basis for objective truth seeking, so the rest of your life was marked
by this stress which took over and left not enough place for fully objective discernment. I understand.
You have experienced several religions. You're not the only one who did and not all of these ended up in the
same conclusions.
You "met Jesus" at some point. As I am familiar with many churches and Christian communities I know
lots of people who made similar reports in diverse Christian churches and sects (which may contradict each
other on some important doctrinal points...) or outside any specific sects. They can be very sincere and even
radiate kind of amazing divine serenity, yet this does not make them wiser than others as they usually remain
so terribly ignorant of many aspects of life and insanely misjudging anyone who does not agree with their
cherished beliefs, so that their experience no matter how real and seemingly deep to them, is no evidence
of being the ultimate one with the ultimate God that everyone should follow.
You had an NDE. You're not the only one either. Millions of other people also had deep NDEs touching amazing
other realities (sometimes higher than yours) and came back most often with opposite conclusions to yours
about the sense of life.
There are a few miraculous aspects around your NDE (that you sensed your death in advance, you came back
on your own...) ? You're far from the only one either. Many other NDErs reported miracles of similar importance
and still drew opposite conclusions to yours about the sense of life.
On the other side you met some people who strongly spoke to you presenting the Bible as truth and ordering
you to preach it ? No surprise either : so many people have given their life to preaching the Gospel and closed
the possibility to see things in any different way, so that even when they crossed over, no surprise if some of
them still could not stop sticking to their faith and preaching this same message over and over again, as any
idea of losing Christian faith would have freaked them out (I understand them so well as losing faith was such
a hard adventure for me). Just being on the other side still does not ensure systematic truth-checking their
beliefs and overturn of false ones.
On the other side you visited some famous "heavenly" buildings mentioned in the Bible ? What an Earthly
interest is a visit of famous buildings. It did not look like a big crowd was on your way around these
buildings so that these particular buildings did not seem that interesting for so many people there.
On the other side you could not sense any possible value of the works and experience of our human life
back on Earth except what you imagine to be "doing the will of God" that consists in preaching the Gospel ?
That is only your personal problem and disability, as opposed to other near death experiencers who could
find deep sense and eternal value in many other dimensions of life. So what is that you see as the "only"
possibly genuine sense of life ? Just repeating the same message over and over again ? that's just the life
and work of a parrot, nothing deep, nothing interesting, spiritual or meaningful, no rich adventure there. Just
working to multiply the number of people who will similarly work to keep multiplying their numbers, how boring
and miserable your "only" possible sense of life is. You are so much limiting yourself.
Some explanations of how your personal beliefs could seem to be "confirmed" in your NDE without being
actually true, are given for example in Seth Speaks from chapter IX
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