I suppose there are those who just don't believe in God based on philosophical argument. But there are those who don't believe in God because of their experience with others who claim to know God, to be followers of Jesus Christ, or Allah, or God in some other form.
Then there are those of us who believe in God but recognize that doctrine is man-made, that the Bible, being written by the hand of man, reflects the mind man more than the mind of God.
We believe in God. We may even have a close relationship with God, but because we are not enslaved to doctrine, we are rejected by those who are enslaved by it in one form or another. It's ironic, but it is human nature. We are considered atheists, antichrist, reprobate, lost, heathen. We are looked upon as people who want to sin, who are rebellious, when in fact we are not necessarily anything of the kind.
Those who are enslaved by doctrine claim to be free, but it is those of us who, like Jesus, are not bound by doctrine but are free to know and worship the God who is, who are free indeed.
Maybe it's my Gaelic roots that make me so sensitive to this phenomenon.
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with a yoke of bondage."
Jesus was all about freedom from bondage to doctrine and ritual. That he followed certain elements of both in his culture does not imply that we should be bound by it. Hence, the frequent reprimands to the Pharisees.
*sigh* Some things just never change.
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