Jesus did not instruct His disciples to remain quiet and do good as the Way. Jesus instructed His disciples to follow His commandments which includes sharing the gospel with all creatures in all the world (Mark 16:15, Luke 14:23). May the Lord bless you and keep you.
I imagine this will be labeled vitriol (and down-voted to the abyss) as is commonly done per the order of the pride of victim-hood currently threading its way through the collective human psyche, but I promise you that’s not what’s in my heart. I suspect you’re in the grip of emotional blackmail. You love your child because that’s part and parcel to how you were made. However, your love is under siege and you’re told ‘if you don’t affirm, you’re part of the problem’ and an imaginary wall of fire has been drawn between you the little person you’ve loved every day of his life.
My advice is to PRAY: Praise God, Repent, Ask and Yield. Pray for yourself, your family and especially your son. Every breath we take is an extension of God’s mercy and patience to work repentance in our life. We’re all in desperate need of repentance from following the world and its temporal / worldly fixes to problems whose root is sin. I’ve sat in many different therapists’ offices, taken different regimes of anti-depressants, listened to ‘wise’ healers etc… Turns out every single ‘mental health’ problem I’ve ever had is the consequence of sin. Sin against myself, my family and my God. Looking back, I realize how unreasonable it was that I could have ever been ‘mentally healthy’ and operating completely contrary to the One whose image in which I’ve been created. All the advice I’ve taken from the world was a vapid race to the bottom. I know what I’m saying is tough and uncomfortable to hear, but there’s no getting around the stunning miracle of repentance, believing every syllable of the gospel of Jesus, and being born again into the life God wills for us, e.g. fleeing sin with everything we’ve got and dying to this dark and passing world. May the Lord bless you and keep you.
Many, many people who've had near death experiences, e.g. Howard Storm, Dean Braxton, Randy Kay, Bryan Melvin, etc... do not believe simply because they want to believe: their entire operating system (heart, mind, soul) has been updated with the ineffable and there's no going back.
No doubt. My question is simply what exactly do they believe in and why? They had some wonderful experience, maybe they heard a voice saying "I am God thou shall not have other gods but me". Ok you had that experience but what can and what do you infer from it? That every word in the Bible is true? How would you draw that conclusion, based on the heavenly experience you had?
I think the point that many people refuse to question their "faith" is a clue which tells us that they believe because they want to believe, regardless of any factual basis.
I'm not against faith I believe everybody has the right to believe whatever they choose to believe. And if they do then obviously there are good reasons why they do so, my guess is the reason is it makes them feel better.
Do you realize that humanity has an enormous pool of people from multiple races and cultures, which have a near death experience on a regular basis? They are called soldiers. The representation of humans groups is near perfect in the army, excepts for women obviously.
There is no evidence that near death experience can change human thinking to the "belief" in any statistically significant numbers. The only people who claim to become "believers" after such experience are probably people already on the verge of believing due to their psyche or education or both.
Love there's a passionate discussion/touch point about the Bible on this site. For anyone interested, biblehub.com is a tremendous resource to help deep-dive themes, passages, words, etc...
Word of caution: if you are an Atheist, please remember that the Bible is a religious text, many verses are in parables and should not be taken literally. It is not a scientific textbook or a historical one either. It is also a _collection_ of books called the Canon. You must read it with an open heart and mind to get the most out of it!
The criteria with which you dismiss the historical Jesus is also applicable to any other historical figure of antiquity. By your measure, no one without a photograph, video, or audio recording can be counted as anything other than a myth. The historical Jesus is very real (as is His Divinity, but that is beyond the scope of this response).
