by dawg 91 Replies latest jw friends
edited to respond to dawg,
Yes, I absolutely believe that you can believe in a God and not accept the Bible as being literally true. I believed in a God way before I ever read a word of the bible or even knew it existed. My first experience with God was in creation, not in a book. Lilly
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made,
The bible to many is the written revelation of God given to men. But Paul was saying in Romans 1:20 that God's existance existed even before anything was written about him, evident by "what has been made", in creation.
dawg, I also do not take the garden of Eden story as literal. Surprised?
My Christian experince now, I can honestly say would be considered "heresy" by the average JW. You simply cannot lump us all together. But I can see why people who have had only a Christian cult experience would feel the way you do. And I am sorry for that.
Peace, Lilly
Burn:
Thanks for you comments.
Honesty, my original post was half-baked.
If there is anything interesting to talk about on the
subject, it will be from your better-thought-out comments
in your reply, so I'll give that a shot.
Then I think they are missing something. Something important.
Realizing that we have fallen natures (--that we are less than we should be or would like to be--) that we have bad motives and inclinations, can help us to examine ourselves and grow into being better people. Many of us feel powerless against our darker natures and relying on a higher power belief, someone that we put faith in to help us conquer these things, often helps --as has been demonstrated in the lives of many.
I actually think I understand what you mean, and I apologize for my earlier comment being
sweeping and un-nuanced.
I know what it feels like to feel broken. I don't mean like depressed-misery broken, I just
mean that deep down lingering ache that we are missing critical parts, and that until we find
or fashion those parts, we will never be happy and whole.
This is a void that science has little to offer by way of filling, and it a void that
religion eagerly rushes into. This has much appeal, and religion unquestionably is a powerful
source of peace of mind. I know this because I remember what it felt like... That warm satisfied
feeling of being really sure of something really big.
That which that science offers is (by comparison) fragmented, blurry, and a bit lower in
pure "hope" content. I do not dispute this. However, I am sure that you understand that I
would prefer no hope to false hope.
Though it sounds like it, I am not actually calling your Christian hope false. I am not
in a position to know if you are wrong or right, and I fully accept that possibility that you
MAY by right. Anything is possible.
I would also hope that you will understand that I cannot believe in something that I no not see
reason to beleive in. That is my current state, for good or ill.
I cannot think of a worse dead end of false peril and false hope to continue traveling down.I can.
Agreed. My statement (though hyperbole) was uncalled for. Indeed there are MUCH worse things
to put your hope in. Radical Islam comes to mind, as well as any brand of fundamentalist
Christian faith that impels one to let their children die from lack of proper medical care,
or who impose their values on others on the tip of a sword (or tip of bomb by an abortion
clinic, as the case may be.)
Here is my real point, hopefully better stated this time:
As I conceded before, we ARE indeed in a constant fight with our darker nature. Any honest
person, secular OR religious will freely admit this, and any decent person will agree that
we need to do SOMETHING about it.
After that is where they part ways.
The "naturalist" view says that the reason we have a tendency towards selfish, violent,
self-destructive behavior is that we are the proud owners of inherited evolutionary tools
that (while once very useful) are sadly ill-fit to the staggeringly complex environment we
now find ourselves in.
Here is one fitting (if prosaic) example.
We all KNOW that eating cheeseburgers and pizza and ice cream all the time puts us at serious
risk of all sorts of health problems... We KNOW this, and many of us do it anyway! Even if we
have family history of heart disease! This behavior is highly irrational, and demands an
explanation.
The scientific explanation (as I understand it) goes something like this:
In a environment where food is scarce (as it is in most primate hunter/gatherer societies) foods
rich in fats and proteins and sugars are rare and valuable. SO valuable that there would be strong
advantage to members of the species that are willing to go out of the way to find and fight for
fats and sugars. Those individuals with the strongest "emotional" craving for fats and sugars
ended up eating more energy rich foods than their more moderate (apathetic) fellows, and left
more offspring (each who also had a rich-food craving)
Flash forward a hundred thousand years. Now that we are in a (very un-naturelike) environment of
processed store-bought foods, the very tool that got us here now betrays us. Now the tastes we
crave are found not only in fruits and fresh meat, but in processed candy and greasy french fries.
Now, the Biblical explanation: We, as fallen imperfect humans, are a slave to sin. Due to both
our inborn post-adam brokenness and the influence of Satan, we are daily tempted with the evils
of the flesh, including hedonistic food habits, unbridled sex, and cruel violence.
In the Biblical model, this brokenness can and IS fixed (somewhat) by a relationship with Christ
now and (entirely) when we regain perfect eternal life along with perfect self control.
(If this is inaccurate, please correct me, but regardless allow me to make my point:)
If this is in fact not true, if there is no one coming to sweep in and save us from ourselves,
WE need to start fixing us right now. We need to square up to our faults and our messy dark
evolutionary past with all it's animalistic baggage and ask ourselves what we are going to
do to save our species and our planet.
What if sitting around waiting for the return of Christ is accomplishing nothing but dooming
our entire civilization? Are true believing Christians seriously going to be the ones thinking
about what we as a civilization need to be doing to ensure that we are even still alive in
500 years? 1000 years? If Christ is going to come and clean up our mess if we pray and love
and believe hard enough, what is there to be productively terrified of?
I may be wrong. I fully accept that one day I may stand before my creator and try and explain
why I lost the watertight faith I once had. I will plead that my curiosity and skepticism are
qualities HE gave me, and hope that counts for something. If I am wrong, I may indeed be traveling
down a (preventable) dead end of my own existence.
If Christians are wrong, they may traveling down a dead end of the existence of all of the
life in the universe.
That is a pretty big dead end.
[inkling]
May you have peace!
Aguest, you're all over the place... I don't know where to start with you... I really don't.
My apologies, truly. Shall we try again?
Maybe it's because I'm not a great writer
No, I don't think that at all...
and you're having trouble understanding what I'm saying.
Yes, that could be it...
First off, do you agree with Paul...that Adam sinned and this Jesus needed to die and redeem that sin?
To summarize, yes.
Do you not agree that Adam brought sin and death into the world by eating said fruit? Lets just start there.
Actually, that really oversimplifies it. Greatly. It was not his eating that brought sin and death into the world. Eve ate, too, yes? Yet, she is not attributed to have brought sin and death into the world by doing so. The TRUTH is that there is more to it than that, more which the false prophets of the WTBTS and "christianity" in general have failed to tell you. And that is because THEY don't know.
But this is a good place to start because this my point: what you appear to believe here and with regard to the "question" raised in Eden is just as false as what those you are taking issue with (ex-JWs who deride current JWs) believe... and what current JWs believe. That was my point.
I bid you peace.
Your servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
Thank you Aguest... now, since this is the point of this thread let's expound.... what in your mind is the reason man is suffering?
Lill... you are lovely again this morning... I know you don't take the story literal, and that's the point... no thinking person can... You've already understood the story is poppycock at least on the Adam sin level... now use that same logic for the rest of the book... Its' not just about Adam and Eve, the whole book has holes.
Inkling, that was one of the best posts I've read lately.
hi dawg, what alternatives are you offering though to a belief in God and if your a christian belief in the bible?
We are well into the heydey of science, But as Inkling said "there is a void" why is there a void that religion eagerly fills?
I have tried to find the answers by looking into atheism and science but it gives none, if you research evolution especially with recent finds it asks more questions than it answers and differing opinions are abundant from every different scholar in evolution as to what things mean. Evolution bares little resemblance to what darwin originally concieved of.
Then we have abiogenesis, how did life start? Stephen hawkins has spent 40 years to end up saying the same as all other scholars on the subject that there is no answer to this question! That is a massive void!
There are so many questions, deep meaning of life questions and atm I think to be someone who doesn't believe in God you have no choice to but to ignore them and live in the here and now, thats all that science can offer you! for some that is enough for others it isn't.
I also find in myself a dislike of self made-up Gods of what we want him to be like, usually like ourselves with a lovely way of allowing us to do whatever we want in life, that only seems one step up from atheism.
The bible offers us a real God with all his complexities, I prefer that, until proven otherwise :)
reniaa
I think it is unfair to ask science to be an alternative to religion. Science is religion-neutral, and it is not a philosophy. There is rigor demanded by the scientific method, but that is separate and apart from a moral code.
What might supercede traditional religions one day? What about ethics?
There's Schweitzer's concept of "reverence for life"
Frankl's search for meaning .
and
Now, all of these great thinkers maintain their reverence and belief in God. But I believe they extended the thoughts of the early religious writers.
The bible is full of mythological stories.
It has value, IMHO, similar to books such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
All gods are dreamed up by men, yet this fact doesn't mean that there is nothing else outside of the material universe.
Then we have abiogenesis, how did life start? Stephen hawkins has spent 40 years to end up saying the same as all other scholars on the subject that there is no answer to this question!
As someone who has deep respect for Stephen Hawking, I will come to his defense. Stephen Hawking has contributed more to our understanding of the universe than most scholars put together. I have read his books. Have you? Why don't you refrain from such blatant demonstrations of your own vast ignorance! How DARE YOU!
Sirona
