by onacruse 71 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Q Bert:
Our creator is the God of truth. If we can't believe the Bible, what else is there that we can go on?
There is the endless actual reality of life and existence in and around you.
My belief in God's Word allows me to keep my bearings and make a more sensible life for myself. The more I believe it's true, the better my life gets. To me, it's about sanity.
Placing significance in a book, instead of life, does not equate to sanity.
j
All of natural world around me speaks to the reality of the awesomeness of the Author of the Bible. It is he (Jehovah God) I have real faith in. Everyone else is relative.
— I am Q. Bert, after all. (I try to cover all the bases before moving on to the next level, just like Q*Bert, the video arcade game protagonist, in his parallel, though electronic world.)
The fruit that Adam and Eve ate was called "Lust". Before that particular brunch they were innocent concerning sexual desires. Once they partook of the delicious fruit their bodies were filled with raging sex hormones . . .and the rest is history.
All of natural world around me speaks to the reality of the awesomeness of the Author of the Bible. It is he (Jehovah God) I have real faith in. Everyone else is relative.
You answered your own question as to where else other than the Bible.
Seriously, does an infinite universe give witness to an anthropomorphic tribal-deity as being it's true Source? Certainly the ultimate significance from which all life, universe and existence arises, must be without beginning and without end. Why so easily accept a tiny deity, a fragment within the universe as our god? Why minimize and belittle our true Source, at all?
When we go out to dinner, we do not eat the menu, we eat the food. Why value words on paper, when you have the reality of all life and universe to teach you? Why reduce God to some fools mumblings on paper? Why shrink and separate the Divine from Reality itself? Why diminish the Divine to an object so tiny as to be absent from our own foundational being and that of all life and existence. Why cherish a lesser god which divides and separates us into the saved and the damned? Why not instead seek what unites us all?
In one of your past posts you said "Reality is the best place for us all". Heed your own advice. Words taken from a book are not reality, merely conceptual abstracts -- helpful in baking a cake, but worthless when in search for the foundational Reality of all existence.
j
Everything is about interpretation and faith. The question is: Do you have faith in your religion's interpretation of the Scriptures? For that matter, do you have faith in the Scriptures, faith that the Bible is the only Word of God?
We take everything on faith. Did you see Almighty God Himself appear physically in the Heavens and say, "The King James Version of the Bible, or the New World Translation of the Bible, or the NIV Bible, is my only Word? I have nothing to speak of outside those words written down centures ago."
In actuality, things are much deeper and more complicated than that. There are approx. 6.5 billion people on this planet and they all have faith in something that they embrace as truth. Even atheists have faith that their philosophy is the Truth. And when you look at real religion, every single one of them has fiath that theirs is Truth. There are so many religions in the world teaching their own brand of Truth and every one of them believes as deeply as you do that theirs is The Truth.
And amidst all of this confusion, still our Creator does not miraculously appear before all of us and announce which one, if any, is The Truth. But still the religions go forth and evangelize and preach and persecute and condemn and spout off their version of The Truth. They all believe that God is speaking through their leaders, whether it's the pope in the case of Catholics, the governing body in the case of the JW's, or anyone else.
My point is this: If asked why you believe you have "the truth", you cannot argue reasonable it's because of your faith in it. If your faith is strong, then you must believe your brand of religion. Faith is important. But, when one loses faith in one's religion, it doesn't mean he has lost The Truth. It simply means one has lost faith in that particular brand of religion. It can be likened to a new wonder drug. At first it may appear to be a cure-all for every ailment you can think of. But then, when put to the test, it's discovered that it's not everything it was cracked up to be. It doesn't quite work for you like it does for someone else. Your faith in that drug's ability to cure your ailments diminishes. You lose confidence in it. It didn't measure up to all its promises when examined closely. It may even have had some detrimental side effects. But it may still be good enough for this problem or that problem and it still may work satisfactorily for someone else. It just failed to work for you. Now, it's up to you whether you want to continue using it or not. It doesn't mean it's a bad drug or that no one should take it. It simply means it's not working for you and you must search for something else that does work. THAT'S WHY I HATE IT WHEN A JW SAYS: "He/she fell out of the truth."
I don't have the answers, but I seek them like hidden treasure. I look upon His grand creation and marvel at his love and mercy and praise Him in Life itself. I marvel and wonder at light and color, energy and matter, space and time, human intelligence and creativity, and a billion other phenomenal things he has shown us for real. The only faith I can attest to 100% is my faith in the Almighty Creator. All I have to do is use my God-given gifts of Sight to Look upon the awsome universe, Hear the Sounds of Life, Taste the goodness of our Earth's bounty, Feel and Touch everything, and Smell the aromas released upon the air molecules. All I have to do is breathe in God's gifts and know for a certainty that He is my creator.
How do I choose to worship Him? That is the question I ask myself daily. Do I confine my worship to a set of rigid doctrines based on what a group of men has decided is The Truth? I think not. It's all about the journey...the search.
Please forgive my rambling.
journeyon
It's all about the journey...the search.
definitely agree with you
QBert: Say what you will. I stand convinced.
And with that, all hope of dialogue dies.
So then, as jgnat pointed out, let's get back to the original question.
As I was re-reading the posts here - (including the ones I made in a state of slight inebriation) - I noticed that someone stated the story of the forbidden fruit included two trees. One was the tree of knowledge and the other was the tree of (everlasting) life.
Perhaps the true and ultimate moral of the myth is that the wrong choice was made. Adam and Eve should have chosen to eat from the tree of life first, and then from the tree of knowledge, and would have continued living forever, and become gods themselves (or at least tribal leaders). After all, in a tribal society, such a story might have significant political and cultural, perhaps even secret meanings as its ramifications might have been dangerous, depending on who (which tribe or tribal slave) was telling or learning the story.
Perhaps Satan wasn't such a liar after all; maybe he just had some limited information which confounded a supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful, yet rather anthropomorphic rival sibling god's plans (a rival tribe or group). Or maybe he was a version of an ancient trickster god? Maybe Satan represented a rival tribe for the original storytellers?Maybe the original Eve was Satan's sister and she and Adam married into rival tribes?
After all, it's just another myth, like so many others and it's open to enormous interpretation. And perhaps it deserves intelligent interpretations after so many years of less than stellar thought having been attached to it - original sin being one of the most stupefyingly cruel and unintelligent amongst them.
I wonder if the word "sin" is a mis-translation of the word "error" or "mistake" or "foolishness," similar to the error and foolishness of taking tribalistic mythology - at least in modern times - quite so literally.
Wrong choices. Do I hear understatement, anyone? Yes, indeed. We all live in the fallen state of sin and death due to the choices of the 3 villains: Satan, Eve, and Adam.
If only the account of Genesis 2 & 3 were simply a myth after all. Then it could be the writings of "a tribal society" [an inferior culture] to that in which we live.
Alas, it is not. We live the reality of the judicial sentences handed down in the latter half of Genesis 3. The Bible is explains one part of itself with others. It is an interconnected book, despite much of it not understood by the writers, even some 1600 years from first till last. It is intricate as any of Jehovah's creations is. Yet it is understandable with correct methods. It is still not yet fully comprehensible, because some of it is a full thousand years away from fulfillment. What an awesome book, or collection of books.
Yes, indeed. We all live in the fallen state of sin and death due to the choices of the 3 villains: Satan, Eve, and Adam.
so true q bert. so true. especially the snake, satan, and the woman, eve. especially villainous. adam, well... he did his best, hey?
If only the account of Genesis 2 & 3 were simply a myth after all. Then it could be the writings of "a tribal society" [an inferior culture] to that in which we live.
ah yes~! for sure! and then life would be so simple. but alas it's NOT! it's the truth, and it is a judicially interconnected book (or collection of books {from GOD [Amen]}) of over 1600 years with many holy/good words from God Jehovah. and we live, right now, in the full reality of the great and lofty sentences written in latter genesis 3. so many lofty sentences making a lofty, lofty book. awesome! marvelous! GRAND!
Alas, it is not. We live the reality of the judicial sentences handed down in the latter half of Genesis 3. The Bible is explains one part of itself with others. It is an interconnected book, despite much of it not understood by the writers, even some 1600 years from first till last. It is intricate as any of Jehovah's creations is. Yet it is understandable with correct methods. It is still not yet fully comprehensible, because some of it is a full thousand years away from fulfillment. What an awesome book, or collection of books.
and look! great minds! they think alike! all you horrible apostates calling into question the fruity spirit! Jehovah's Wrath, in His Great Day of Harmagedon, will surely tare you usunder! tetra
