Staying a Christian Upon Leaving

by serotonin_wraith 100 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

serotonin_wraith

writetoknow,
I could start postings today and until forever the quality studies that have shown God's word as truth.

Please do. This is the whole point. Give me just ONE reason to think the Bible is really God's word. You can't just make a bold statement like that and then provide NOTHING to back yourself up.
But as any reasonable person can see from comments in this thread it would be discluded as junk.

The evidence would speak for itself, surely?
there a people that can post forever things they believe disproves the bible and it would not matter on bit to a person that has a relationship with God and Christ.

What I find frustrating is that you can't explain what the human fossils are. When you look at them, what happens? Do you suddenly go blind? Do you think your eyes are tricking you because your brain couldn't handle the fact 'Adam' was NOT the first man? This is crazy, you obviously have a mind that is completely closed off. You dishonest fool. There's no getting through to people like you. Thank you very much for keeping the human race dumb.
And people wonder why all these 'new atheists' seem angry!
There is a river of hate held for Christian teachings veiled very thinly

I don't try to hide it. I just try to remain calm enough to have discussions about it. If the Christian teaching is to discriminate and lie to children (which it is), then I absolutely do hate it, yes. I have good reason to hate it.

The person trying to disprove "Faith" take on a superior attitude and a condescending veiw of people of faith.

Who's disproving faith?
They make comments about my mom

It was not ABOUT your mom in the way you're making out, I used your mom in an example. I could have picked any bad event for that example. I wasn't doing it to offend your mother's memory. I didn't know she'd passed away.

The point is these imaginary agruments

They look real to me. Oh wait. Even if something is staring you in the face it may still be imaginary, like the fossils you ignore.

save mankind from religion is a world of unreality for people that have based their whole life on doing good for other because they love God.

What a terrible reason to do good! For a reward, or to avoid punishment. Is belief in God the only thing that makes you want to help people? If you'd turn to a life of crime if you stopped believing in God, then please carry on believing.
It is a direct insult to men and woman of faith that have given their life for others and sacrificed time money in service for other to concluded their acts of faith and love is done because they are too weak minded and uneducated to understand what they are really doing.

I'm not insulting any good they do, I'm saying their reasons aren't real or needed.

it is a sicking insult to the thousands of faithful Christain that lost their lives at the hands of the Romans and cruel dictators of our recent world to state they were fools for doing so.

Dying for ones religion doesn't make it true. People of all religions have been killed. Are you suddenly going to become a practising Jew because millions were killed in Nazi Germany? Seen the news recently on the persecution of Buddhist monks? I guess that's true too, right?
A person of no faith cannot see ~~God~~ Thor having a personal relationship with His children the loving and kind care He has for them.
Blah.
Yet when some one states they have walked with ~~God~~ Thor for years and love him as their best friend and have a personal relationship with ~~God~~ Thor. People like some on this post think a person is uneducated and to stupid to know what a relationship is.
Uh-huh.
I promise you this one day you will long for those people to be a part of your life. They are rich with love and wisdom through their faith in God.

I'm not enemies with them. We disagree on god belief. Does disagreeing with someone over something automatically make them an enemy? Nope.
I have witnesses it in my own life time all this hate for people that love God.

Get off your high horse, I don't hate you. I hate the poison you believe about God.

I am further sadden that some think because JW's were wrong or they were wronged by them as I was that a person has no faith in God.

Who thinks that? Not me.

so many are easy prey for post like this.

It's up to whoever's reading it to make up their own mind.

Thanks for the pasted article. It's saying faith is good because the Bible says faith is good. I shall go to church now based on that wonderful argument.
New rule now before I answer any of the other points you make. Look at the link of fossils and explain what you see there. Show that you're not as closed minded as I think you are. Otherwise I'm wasting my time talking to someone who refuses to be open about this.
BurnTheShips

save mankind from religion is a world of unreality for people that have based their whole life on doing good for other because they love God.

What a terrible reason to do good! For a reward, or to avoid punishment. Is belief in God the only thing that makes you want to help people? If you'd turn to a life of crime if you stopped believing in God, then please carry on believing.

If you would listen instead of writing it off as a foregone conclusion you would see he is not talking about fear of punishment but love of God as a motivation for good. Not fear, love. Not fear, love. Get it??

Contrary to what you think it isn't all "settled". Once you think you have all the answers you stop growing.
serotonin_wraith

jgnat,
I cannot prove God's existence, because my experience is personal. My inability to prove it to others makes it no less real for me.

I tend to believe what people say about their personal experiences, whether it's hearing a voice they think to be God, or surviving a risky operation. I can just list off alternative explanations.
If there is only reason in a dog-eat-dog survival-of-the-fittest world, where is restraint? Where is good? What stops the individual from spreading their seed at the cost of the entire community?

A person of reason would conclude it is reasonable to do good, whether a god existed or not.
I do not believe that anyone who believes in a divine, all powerful being to be bound to a fabrication.

If I started listing off the gods and asking you whether you thought they were real, I don't think you'd be saying yes.
I rather believe that if there really is only one God, that if someone has chosen a religion different than mine, there must be a veneer of human perception coloring his view. As there must be over mine

Being a deist can get you out of tricky thoughts like that.

The Star Trek episodes gives us a hopeful future where humankind has overcome it's destructive divisiveness, disease and poverty are eradicated. Are these not principles worth following?

Absolutely! And where is God in this universe? Nowhere. Religion isn't helping us when it comes to divisiveness, disease and poverty. (In Star Trek they all understand evolution is true too.)
Gene Roddenberry didn't believe in a god. Here's an article you may find interesting- http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/human3.htm
If you haven't seen these episodes, I reccommend them-
In The Hands of the Prophets (DS9) - Holding back science for religious reasons.
Who Watches the Watchers? (TNG) - How a primitive tribe views what they can't understand.
Distant Origin (VOY) - "Evolution is just a theory!" say the 24th century dinosaurs.
It's by watching Star Trek that helped me see we need to stop believing in mythological things in order to move forwards. We're not going to be exploring the galaxy or making the Earth a paradise ourselves when half of Americans believe Jesus will be back any day now to do it for them.
A vivid imaginary life is absolutely necesarry in the development of children. As adults, we use our imaginations to test out alternative outcomes. It is good! I would maintain that use of our entire minds, not just our reason, is good for us.

I agree with you. I just think we should be able to differentiate between the two.

Was it reality or majority?

Both in the example you give. When something is seen as real, majority usually follows. I don't think animals should be killed for no good reason either. But I don't need to worship them to think that way.

What if the exiting JW has established a functioning, noble belief system after leaving? They do no harm to you, and they are happy, functioning human beings. Do you really believe your work is not done until all are stripped of all faith?

That would be fine, as long as they didn't try converting others. Ex-JWs could have the option not to join up, there would have to be no preaching done and they couldn't bring up their children in this belief system.
I would even maintain that for frailer older ones, they are better off in the society than out of it.

Yeah, that's a tricky one. It doesn't get to me that most of the people I look after will probably always believe in God (I work in a nursing home) because that's all they've known all their lives. (They also don't give money to the church or try to preach, so there's no danger). But others wouldn't want to be patronized, and whatever age they are, they would want to know reality. We didn't hold back from telling the elderly that scientists had changed Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet, even if they always believed it was just a regular one.
I don't mind talking to them about religion, but I don't try to deconvert any of them. They ask if I believe or if I'm going to join them for singing, and I say I don't believe. It's usually left at that. I answer any genuine concerns about my disbelief too. One lady asked me 'How can you work here if you don't believe in God?' so I explained I just didn't need to believe in a god to do good works.
Another lady (82 this sunday) brought up the topic herself and said she was questioning the whole thing so I lent her the book Letter to a Christian Nation. She said she enjoyed it and she thought the author hit the nail on the head. But she still joins in communion, and that's fine. It's her choice and it's what she's used to. But she said she's happy with the ritualistic side, to her it's not to get closer to God.
So it really depends on the circumstances.
As long as sister Martha and sister Sally support each other, drive each other to the meetings, gossip about the "new ones", wonder at the new light, and send soup to sister Jane in the nursing home, what is the harm?

To them, only that they have the wrong worldview. If they were doing it more out of fear of armageddon, I would be more concerned. I don't think people should live in fear, whatever their age.
The other problem too is that they are supporting a system that does much harm. They are the hard shell that surrounds and protects a more sinister side. It's hard to get to the bad stuff without breaking part of the shell.

____________________________________
BurnTheShips,
If you would listen instead of writing it off as a foregone conclusion you would see he is not talking about fear of punishment but love of God as a motivation for good. Not fear, love. Not fear, love. Get it??
I was referring to love too. Yes it is terrible to do good only because you love a supernatural entity.
Once you think you have all the answers you stop growing.
That's what I try telling people who think God started the Big Bang. They stop looking for the real answer.
BurnTheShips

I was referring to love too. Yes it is terrible to do good only because you love a supernatural entity.

Funny, is it terrible to do good because I love another person? Is it terrible for a son to do good because he loves his father? Is it terrible for a father to do good because he loves his son? Have you considered that some believers have a relationship with the "invisible sky dude" that you deprecate as a poison and that their appreciation for what they discern about him informs their actions? That the knowledge that life does not end after a few decades creates a long term view with the benefits that this provides in this life, in this world? That an open minded faith is beneficial from a strictly utilitarian point of view?

Once you think you have all the answers you stop growing.
That's what I try telling people who think God started the Big Bang. They stop looking for the real answer.

Sounds like you are caricaturing believers and not real people.
That Big Bang theory, the one that best explains the current state of the Universe, you know, the one that you think believers don't want to investigate, was invented by a person that believed in God.....a Catholic Priest!! LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

As for me personally, I think God is the direct cause of all that is. I am interested in further scientific investigation, especially with cool fascinating stuff like the early origins of the Universe. However, there are limits to human knowledge as accessible to Reason.
Thats a whole 'nother discussion though.
serotonin_wraith

Funny, is it terrible to do good because I love another person?
Nope. I said supernatural entity.
Is it terrible for a son to do good because he loves his father? Is it terrible for a father to do good because he loves his son?
Is it terrible for a child to do good to his brother only because he loves his father? Yes. That's no way to teach morals to our children.
Have you considered that some believers have a relationship with the "invisible sky dude" that you deprecate as a poison and that their appreciation for what they discern about him informs their actions?
I am very much aware of this. It's always good to stick in the classic Stephen Weinberg quote at these times.
"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
the knowledge that life does not end after a few decades creates a long term view
Are you KIDDING me?! Who's going to care about the future of our planet when they don't think God would let things get too bad? Do Christians take into account the long term views of the rights of all people, including homosexuals, or do they try to suppress them and keep us living in the Dark Ages? Do they try to find cures to diseases, or do they halt research on Biblical grounds? Hmmm.
If life does only last a few decades, then it means more because it's all we get. One thing I've found it hard to understand is if you think there is a glorious eternal afterlife, why are you trying to get your backwards rules passed in this one? What difference will make it make to you whether gays marry or not when you're off enjoying heaven? (That's if you believe it is a sin- who knows, that part may be a metaphor too!)
open minded faith
Oxymoron.
That Big Bang theory, the one that best explains the current state of the Universe, you know, the one that you think believers don't want to investigate, was invented by a person that believed in God.....a Catholic Priest!! LOL
And algebra was invented by Muslims, but that's no reason to believe in Islam! Religious people have made scientific discoveries throughout history. Doesn't mean their religion is right. Did this particular finding support the Bible? Checking... checking... oh, it says here stars were made after the Earth. WHOOPS! It says stars are SET in the expanse of the sky/heaven, but they obviously move if the Big Bang theory is correct. Hmm, well no wonder so many Christians don't believe in the Big Bang. It goes against their book!
I am interested in further scientific investigation, especially with cool fascinating stuff like the early origins of the Universe.
And if it's found the Big Bang had a natural beginning, how much further back will your god have to be pushed?
BurnTheShips

It's by watching Star Trek that helped me see we need to stop believing in mythological things in order to move forwards. We're not going to be exploring the galaxy or making the Earth a paradise ourselves when half of Americans believe Jesus will be back any day now to do it for them.

*sigh*, It's the whole faith is an impediment to human progress canard again. There have been expressly atheist societies around for almost a hundred years now, and I don't see them pulling ahead on the whole science front sorry. You say you can not believe in God because of the lack of empirical evidence. But then you state that a spiritual belief holds back progress.

Prove it.
serotonin_wraith

Okay.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,1828069,00.html
BurnTheShips

Why wont it take my post?
BurnTheShips

Funny, is it terrible to do good because I love another person?Nope. I said supernatural entity.
Is it terrible for a son to do good because he loves his father? Is it terrible for a father to do good because he loves his son?
Is it terrible for a child to do good to his brother only because he loves his father? Yes. That's no way to teach morals to our children.You are the one interjecting the “ONLY” not I. I never made that argument. If I understand you correctly, you believe there is such a thing as morals, morality. So let me ask you a question, SW: on what should that morality be based? When you are arguing against God you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.
Have you considered that some believers have a relationship with the "invisible sky dude" that you deprecate as a poison and that their appreciation for what they discern about him informs their actions?I am very much aware of this. It's always good to stick in the classic Stephen Weinberg quote at these times."With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."I could say the same about atheism - there is plenty of evidence to back that one up. The fact of the matter is that neither religious membership nor atheism makes people good or bad. And sometimes basically good people of either suasion do bad things out of error.
the knowledge that life does not end after a few decades creates a long term view
Are you KIDDING me?! Who's going to care about the future of our planet when they don't think God would let things get too bad? No it means the precise opposite; it means that God has granted us stewardship of the planet and that He cares what we do with it. Our world is a gift from Him, and that if we love the Creator we will treat that gift with reverence. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.
Do Christians take into account the long term views of the rights of all people, including homosexuals, or do they try to suppress them and keep us living in the Dark Ages? The human rights movement started as a Christian action. In our own country during the slave times abolitionism was a Christian movement, ditto for civil rights for Afro-Americans. You might recall the name of that most famous civil rights leader: Reverend Martin Luther King. Look him up some time. As for homosexuals, you will need to be more specific as to what rights you refer to. They are entitled under the law to all the rights that heterosexuals have. But that is for another discussion.
Do they try to find cures to diseases, or do they halt research on Biblical grounds? Hmmm.
Do you really want me to work on a list of diseases that have been cured, ameliorated or treated by Christians? Really? As for the research thing, I can only think that you are referring to the issue with fetal research. From your comment above you seem to believe in morality. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, would you at least be able to admit that there is a moral gray area involved here as to what the status of the unborn is?
If life does only last a few decades, then it means more because it's all we get. One thing I've found it hard to understand is if you think there is a glorious eternal afterlife, why are you trying to get your backwards rules passed in this one? What difference will make it make to you whether gays marry or not when you're off enjoying heaven? (That's if you believe it is a sin- who knows, that part may be a metaphor too!)I am not trying to get any backwards rules passed in this world. I do not know what “backward” rules you are talking about. Care to explain?
open minded faith
Oxymoron.
Really? Lots of closed minded individuals here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
It seems to me that you are the closed minded one. Other members of this board have respectfully given your belief consideration while you close-mindedly attack theirs.
That Big Bang theory, the one that best explains the current state of the Universe, you know, the one that you think believers don't want to investigate, was invented by a person that believed in God.....a Catholic Priest!! LOL
And algebra was invented by Muslims, but that's no reason to believe in Islam! Religious people have made scientific discoveries throughout history. Doesn't mean their religion is right. Did this particular finding support the Bible? Checking... checking... oh, it says here stars were made after the Earth. WHOOPS! It says stars are SET in the expanse of the sky/heaven, but they obviously move if the Big Bang theory is correct. Hmm, well no wonder so many Christians don't believe in the Big Bang. It goes against their book!
My comment regarding Lemaitre and the Big Bang is not an endorsement of Catholicism in general, but it is to disprove your statement that believers are not interested in scientific investigation and, as my comment shows, your statement is demonstrably false. The very concept you deride believers as being unwilling to investigate is one that was discovered by a believer. Oxymoronic, I know.
I am interested in further scientific investigation, especially with cool fascinating stuff like the early origins of the Universe. And if it's found the Big Bang had a natural beginning, how much further back will your god have to be pushed?
Sure, find me the natural beginning, and then we can talk about it. For the time being you are dealing in hypotheticals.
Cheers,
Burn.
BurnTheShips

Again, fetal stem cells are a moral gray area, we have not worked out the ethics of this type of research. Let me add that adult stem cells show tremendous promise, and we may be able to get all the benefits without doing something that may be unethical. In fact, there are already adult stem cell treatments available, unlike fetal cells, which are still pie in the sky.

Staying a Christian Upon Leaving

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