Agnostic/Atheist/Religion

Free

Am I the only one ? I feel that since I have lost all faith in the society, I feel myself drifting further and further into more agnosticism / atheistic thinking. I am finding it harder every day to believe in a God or holy scripture. I actually feel more at peace now not feeling like someone is watching me. Religion now rings a wicked song in my head that sings of control, power, money, greed, and endless seas of falsehood. How about U ?

jaguarbass

Hello Free. No, your not the only one. I have the same feelings. An agnostic is one who is acknowledging he doesnt know. After myself having been a witness for 32 years and experiencing knowing, what in reality I did not know, I dont quite understand how one could become an atheist, one who knows there is no god. It seems like the polar opposite of a theist or believer, aka jw, catholic, baptist. I have examined, quite deeply atheistic thinking on the web, I do appreciate that they call themselves free thinkers. I am just a little leary of the extreme stand of knowing that god doesnt exist. It reminds me too much of the witnesses and baptist etc. Knowing, what to me, no one can know. When I was a jw, I just knew who god was, I knew what god wanted and I knew where to find things that were written down to argue my point. For the rest of this life I am not going to claim to know what seems to me to be the unknowable. I guess what I'm trying to say is that theistically, creationally, I dont know whats going on, or went on.I have researched it. But to me there are a lot of empy theories. So that puts me in the agnostic pigeon hole. I'm just along for the ride and enjoying it.

gordon d

Coincidentally I posted a new thread at he same time.... here's that opening post.
P.S. I was agnostic for a long time after my JW upbringing... Decided to focus ALL energy towards getting a Doctorate in Psychology and MS in Sociology.... I Found NO answers there. Perhaps taking the time to reading a fellow atheist (C.S. Lewis') book "Mere Christianity" will help. I just mailed a copy to Mulan and would be more than happy to spend the money on another one, if you are really interested in answers.

The other thread:

Which child is wiser?

While starting a hunt for Easter eggs… one child runs to a big tree and finds nothing… then that child’s brother says, “Go look under that rock… I promise you’ll find one there!” Again, Nothing! The child throws down their basket and says, “I give up! I can’t find one…. I don’t even think there are any Easter Eggs!! You guys are wasting your time!!”

Another child has the same experience but just when he was about to give up, noticed that some of the other kids were smiling with baskets full of eggs! He starts searching again and actually finds some!

The WTS has told all of us lies and sent us looking for God in the wrong places…. Most of us agree that the WTS was not the ‘Truth”… Why then do we still look for the God that they told us about? Why are we so willing to give up when the God of their creation turns out Not to be there?

Look around you, All of creation screams it…. Your very eyes and ears take it in. Are you going to let these liars continue to fool you? Or is the reason for not believing in God that he cannot exist because his actions are not reasonable or loving to your personal standard of amazing wisdom and advanced intellect?

If you haven’t found God, maybe it’s because you haven’t looked in the right places, looked hard enough, or looked long enough. Please don’t give up! When you do finally discover the real Him, It’ll be worth everything that you ever did to find him.

And what the Heck? Even if you never can find him and you spent a fraction of your 70-or-so pitiful years, searching in vain, for hope on this Godless rock….. what difference does it make???? Get busy living or get busy dying… but please, don’t pull anyone else down into your hopelessness with you!

gwyneth

Yeah, I was afraid gordon d would find this one....

lmspink

Hi Free

I feel exactly the same way you do. The Jw's have turned me off all religions and I no longer believe in God

Carmel

Two thoughts come to mind. One, the idea of throwing the baby out with the bath water, or two, so to speak, being innoculated. You've experianced one of the worst examples of mistreatement in the name of religion, and have rebounded into the logical sequence of questioning if not all religion is of the same ilk. I could assure you they are not, but that would be too superficial. You need to find out for yourself if religion is all bad or if it has its redeaming nature. Remember though, most all religion that you are likely aware of are already institutionalized and "humanized" with a minimum of 1400 years or more of evolution. They have all gone through a similar pattern of emergence (starting with one central figure) rapid growth in spite of considerable resistance from the milue of ancient belief systems, then ascendency and finally dividing into a myriad of divisions, sapping their elan and elegance, spiriling down into sects, contending factions and eventually needing replacement.

Your search will be rewarded though, if you are persistant and patient. And, by the way, agnosticism isn't a bad place to be. If you are not sure, it's the only honest description of your true state. Only when you are filled with certitude that is or is not an intelligent force behind all that we know and percieve, OR NOT, can you be anything else but.

I wish you well.

carmel

daniel-p

While starting a hunt for Easter eggs… one child runs to a big tree and finds nothing… then that child’s brother says, “Go look under that rock… I promise you’ll find one there!” Again, Nothing! The child throws down their basket and says, “I give up! I can’t find one…. I don’t even think there are any Easter Eggs!! You guys are wasting your time!!”

Another child has the same experience but just when he was about to give up, noticed that some of the other kids were smiling with baskets full of eggs! He starts searching again and actually finds some!

OK Gordon, since you have the need to hijack this thread to recite your childish (more ways that one) allegory, lets discuss it. There are three big issues you are misunderstanding, at least that I can see: The first is that you immediately equate value (easter eggs) with "answers" about life. Some people don't have a need to search for those answers. I doubt even you, full of faith, can admit in your heart that you have found those "answers" 100% satisfying. In any case, life's Big Questions have been asked by every human ever lived (that's billions) and you have taken it upon yourself to declare you have found the answers to those Big Questions in the form of an all-powerful being. Please forgive us all non-believers if we are skeptical.

Second, you assume anyone who isn't searching the answers to the Big Questions actively is "giving up," like a child throwing his basket down and throwing a fit. For a person with a graduate degree in psychology or sociology, this reveals a shocking lack of wanting to engage in an even-handed discussion. Your bias is oozing from your pores, in other words.

Third, (and this sort of plays into your illustration) Easter Egg hunts are a silly game - similar in many ways to spending your life attempting to interpret scripture, mixing symbology and literalism in order to explain away the inconsistencies. Have fun at it... it's just that some of us are pretty damn tired of the "game" and wish to get on with our life and live it.

XU

on second thought, never mind

pseudoxristos

When I was very young, my parents told me that Santa Claus was real. When I got a little older, my friends told me that he was only make-believe. I decided then that he must be real and just because some didn't believe in him didn't mean that it was true. I haven't given up trying to find the real Santa. I know he is out there. I've seen the fake Santas at the mall, but this does not mean there isn't a real Santa. Ridicule me and look down upon me if you like, but I'm not giving up. I'll find him someday. I may be wrong, but it's my life and I'll live it my way.

pseudoKlaus.

p.s. Santa, if your reading this, you know what I want for Christmas. Let me know if you lost my address again.

fullofdoubtnow

Free, you aren't the only one to feel this way by any means.

Since I had my eyes opened to the false doctrines of the wts, I too have drifted into atheism. I simply cannot accept that a loving god would allow the kind of world we have now without acting. I also am much more comfortable with believing there is no god and the bible is a book of myths, written by men with no divine inspiration whatsoever.

Agnostic/Atheist/Religion

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