by dannygwalsh 53 Replies latest jw friends
In my perception after having been a witness, having read the bible cover to cover 5 times and made notes, having examined other beliefs I dont see how everyone in the world is not an agnostic.
Actually, by that definition everyone IS agnostic. As nobody "knows", they only "believe". That is exactly what I meant by being agnostic, by the broader definition.
j
I'm a dyslexic devil worshipper - I sold my soul to santa!
I'm an atheist in progress, you could call me athecurious
I stopped at agnostic for a day or two when I left the Witnesses, but then I realized I wasn't "agnostic" about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, Thor or Hermes, and it was sort of a wimp-out to take that stand on the god of the Bible, when there was an equal lack of evidence for that god's existence.
So now I'm a happy atheist. It is a much more satisfying place to be intellectually and in other ways as well.
S4
Danny, you wrote: "and if you are a non believer are you happier for being so"
Hi Danny. Welcome! I'm half German. Might I be happier if I was half Greek? How would I know?
I might be skeptical of claims of an un-human nature, and I just might be agnostic on a few subjects. Would I be happier if I were living in a delusion? I can't will myself into a delusion, and I usually can't think myself out of one by myself.
Happiness isn't a product of non-belief. Happiness is more a product of my behavior than my world outlook. Too often people confuse happy with comfortable. I'll take comfortable over happy any day. I can be unhappy and still be comfortable.
If I'm a shaman and I'm kind to everybody and I have loads of friends, do ya think I might be happy? If I live in the desert and sleep on nails, do ya think I'm comfortable?
I'd make being comfortable goal #1. I think if I get a healthy, comfortable, interesting plan of behavior, I'll have times of happiness. Happiness is a "happening", it's not a state, and it's not a worthy goal. Kindness, honesty, and generosity are worthy goals.
Try to make a list of 100 phone numbers of people who will be glad to take your call and who want to visit with you. Call them all once a week. Just say "Hi, How are you doing?". Do that for one month. At the end of the month look at the happy meter.
garybuss!!
I pray to you, O God who is not. I pray into the silence most dreadful that you would speak, O unseen Lord of Light. How often have the children of humanity hurled their hopes into your vast and terrible emptiness, longing only to hear something, even the echo of their loneliness? The children of Poverty, Poverty so palpably real, beg at your door. O vain hope of love, they cry to you, who they call Love, they, the children hated for their strange and unnatural longings, for their lovers either too foreign or too similar. How appropriate that you, O Void, create division, that you who are empty create the empty space between Good and Evil, between faiths and tongues and nations. Would that you were, O you who are not. Would that you could tell me the meaning that justifies all the inexcusable deeds done in your holy name. Even if this small thing lies beyond the impotent power of your omnipotence, you could at least, O ideal before whom reality shatters, you could at least announce your non-existence. Then, O fabled Prince of Peace, there could be peace. But until that day comes, that day of cleansing fire and expiation, we will live in your hell and consume ourselves in the shuddering fevers of your holy wars. Raise up a prophet, O God, to announce your non-will, to tell forth the tidings of your absence. Lo! He comes on a white horse. In his right hand, he holds a rod for breaking. May he shatter the empty idols I have fashioned after your likeness, the holy words and sacred signs that mark out the shape of the shadow of my dreams. May I be strong enough, Lord, to not feel I need your strength. But I will say of your prophet, “Here is my God, O children of the free. My God has come to give me freedom from the lies of my forefathers.” The rod for smashing will be the holy symbol of righteous judgment. And you will laugh. You will laugh in your empty, hollow way. The joke of course is that I don’t exist either. Just as when I reach for you I find nothing but emptiness heavier than stone, when I look for myself I find merely the play of shadows and light on the surface of consciousness. If there is any content to the names and forms I ascribe to you in moments of rapture and anguish, perhaps you, O God who is not, emerge somehow, like Venus, from the frothing, creative chaos of what is.
Try to make a list of 100 phone numbers of people who will be glad to take your call and who want to visit with you. Call them all once a week. Just say "Hi, How are you doing?". Do that for one month. At the end of the month look at the happy meter.
yeah then look at the phone bill and watch the happy meter start spinning the other way!!! Ha ha ha, nice idea but I don't know 100 people let alone 100 who would be happy to hear from me unless I was buying something
I am proud to say I am an agnostic with balls.
In other words, an athiest and very happy.
(Thanks to runningman for that description)
Good one, Startingover. That's one less ass that I have to kick.
I am much happier as an atheist than I ever was as a JW. Now knowing that all the horrors occurring throughout the Universe are driven by random and unthinking forces allows me a somewhat more restfull sleep than when I believed that there was some kind of intelligence driving it all. I slowly came to realize that such an 'intelligence" would either have to be cruel, unjust, stark-raving-mad, and plainly evil or more simply nonexistant.
I can't get the vivid imagery of that fallen naked baby bird, I once saw as kid, out of my mind when ever I hear the words our "loving Creator". I had an epiphany that day long ago as I watched it writhing in agony, trailing its guts in the baking Sun, slowly dying of dehydration all the while being eaten alive by ants, and I dared to ask myself , "Did God create this?". One of the first small steps I took on that long journey to freedom from theism's oppressive delussions.
