My Struggle............. (page 2)

Abandoned

Hey buddy, I'm right with you. I can't consider myself an atheist, because I've believed all my life that there's a God. I can't really call mysel an agnostic, because I've experienced situations that suggest to me there is a God at the wheel. But I have a hard time believing the God at the wheel is decent.

Some people may call it blasphemous to question God, but I think it's irresponsible not to. We hold our politicians, educators, businessmen, and clergy accountable for the lives they live and the decisions they make -- and they are human, prone to error. How much more should we hold accountable an ultra powerful being who makes claims at perfection and completeness? If a human makes a mistake, we can forgive because we know they are learning. Is God learning too? If he is, then by all means, we should cut him some slack if he's doing his best and just not quite sure how to solve all of the issues set before him, but if his claim to omnipotence and omniscience is valid, wouldn't we expect his solutions to be perfect as well?

We haven't seen the end of things, so maybe everyone in the universe will be humbled and amazed at how he ultimately works everything out, but if he truly does have such a commendable and laudable plan, why would he be offended by those who see the glaring shortfalls in the current circumstances and are disappointed because they expect more from someone so exalted?

nomoreguilt

The matter that I find most difficult to handle now after the jws, is Prayer. We had my wife's daughter and grand kids for dinner on Christmas. My wife's a non-jw as I've stated in the past. Non practicing anything. She asked me to say grace........How do you say a prayer and to WHOM after what we now know of god, or a lack there of. I, personally, find it a bit hypocritical. Do you?

hillbilly

+1

~Hill

Evidently

No one gets to their Heaven without a fight.......

AK - Jeff

One thing that is of naked interest to me in this is the Jewish Canon of Scripture. The Old Testament.

The Pentateuch was supposedly compiled by Moses, somewhere during the 16th century BC. That means that the creation of humans, fall of man, the flood, the Nephilim, and the first 2500 years of man's history, were written from verbally transmitted allegory and history. From memory! Those stories had been passed thru dozens of generations before arriving at Moses' ears. Everything that happened before the flood would have been passed down from a single family, Noah's, as no one else survived supposedly.

If someone today was writing down the history of his/her race/family/tribe/nation, compiled solely from verbal stories that began 500 years before the birth of Jesus, and then attempted to pass it off as 'inspired and truthful' in every detail, he would be laughed off the planet. Yet this is precisely what we have to believe that Moses was able to do in writing the most important history of early man's existence on the planet.

And then, the NT is suspect immediately, as the writers accepted the OT with such willingness.

Tell a person a story, and let it pass around for just a week, then ask the last person who heard it to repeat it. It won't resemble the first version - it will not even resemble the version two people back. This all in the same era, same perspectives, same society. What Moses compiled was not - it was even assembled from the passing ons of people who did not speak the same language, or have any method of preserving the facts of history other than what great-great-great-great grandpa's sister-in-law saw once a thousand years ago!

Anyway - that is some of what I have been thinking about - the condensed version.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Bible in many ways. I just can't find it to be foundational for my beliefs any longer. I love Christians and Muslims alike BTW - and don't intend to label them in the way my first post indicated perhaps - I just find that the believers in these documents are not tremendously less ruthless or animalistic than anyone else on the planet. To quote a scripture "By their fruits you will recognise them". That's what I meant.

Well - as usual, just rambling on and on.

Jeff

wanderlustguy

Stop looking so hard, so that you may see.

Things are as they are supposed to be, you know what you are supposed to know. I would reccommend finding some solitude somewhere away from everything manmade. Just a few hours may change everything for you.

WLG

Mrs. Witness

AK Jeff, it sounds like you have gotten to where I am. I was never a big religious person anyway, but after arguing the Holey Biblee with Mr. Witness, I started to really read it, I read books about it, read books about the Gnostic gospels, I read "The Gospel of Judas", read about the apocrypha, I read a really good book about who wrote the pentateuch, read things online, and all the time I kept remembering when I was in high school reading Greek mythology then reading the bible and reading about the Egyptian pantheon and thinking "who's to say that the Greeks & Egyptians had it wrong and the bible-thumpers have it right"? (OK, that is possibly the longest runon sentence I have ever written...sorry)

Once I admitted outloud to hubby that I didn't believe the bible (I was strangely afraid to say it out loud...), I was free. I felt airy. But then I thought "shouldn't I believe in something?". So I looked at Buddhism...seemed like something I could get into...chanting, meditating, cool. I read two books about it and realized that there were unbelievable stories in that religion, too.

Once I realized that, I realized that regardless of whether or not any religion has the answer, I alone have to answer for my actions. I alone am responsible for me AND I don't have to answer to anyone but myself FOR me...there is no higher power, body of elders, or group of gossipy grammas that I owe anything to. I owe my mom & dad thanks for giving birth to me and that is IT, man. I am "good for goodness sake". To me, that is better than being "good" because a religion told me to be "good"...and they defined what's good...

Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people? Those are questions I don't worry about. I just live my life the best I can and when I get to the end, I'll deal with what happens...and if nothing happens, then I'm done.

Peace...

Gopher

Jeff,

I am heartened that you're questioning beliefs rather than just taking things "on faith". Your demand for evidence and logic in things will lead you to a more solid philosophy after you sift through all these things in your mind.

You really shouldn't have to have blind faith. (I mean, we have faith in certain things like rain will make plants grow, the sun will rise in the east rather than the west tomorrow -- but really that's not faith but "confidence" in what has been proven before will continue.)

As far as faith in an unseen being, we really are all agnostic at the core. Nobody currently living on earth can honestly, verifiably claim to have seen one of the gods mankind has described. So it is unprovable whether there is or isn't. Anyone who is dogmatic on this point is not reasonable. That being said, you can research the evidence and find that the theory of evolution is solidly grounded, giving rise to serious questions about the Bible's statements that "God created each according to its kind". The theory of evolution does not address how life started, but only how it developed after the beginning.

Just some more input for your consideration.

jaguarbass

Good post Jeff. I feel the same way you do. I wish I could know their was a God or something to believe in, bigger than myself.

Maybe I wouldnt feel that way, if I started out believing in myself from the get go.

My first fifteen years out of the tower I considered myself a christian and read the bible went to some churches. But after 31 years in the tower. I examined everything the various churches and religions would tell me. Ultimately they are all built on a house of cards. It doesnt take much to topple any of them. Thats why religious people need faith. You insert faith into your brain when you get to the part that logic doesnt function in.

I bought this book the portable atheist and started reading it. It has essays and articles by many advocates or spokes people for atheism. I had to put it down. The depression overwhelmed me.

Maybe atheism and evolution is reality. If it is its too hard and cold for me. Its like drinking hard whiskey all the time.

I need to delude myself with some kind of hope and purpose or at least the quest of hope and purpose.

Maybe I'll end up like Don Quixote, Chasing windmills.

worldtraveller

Perhaps you have found Hell. Hell is on earth. Maybe.

My Struggle.............

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