by Newborn 23 Replies latest jw friends
No.
If we as humans survive the threshold we are at now, we will make our own paradise. Its totally up to us. There is no mystical god out there waiting for the so-called "right time" to bring paradise. We are our own Gods. For better or worse.
And most, if not all religious leaders know this to be the case. Religion itself is a hoax.
Worf
I believe in God and Christ (haven't yet been able to believe that Christ IS God, but I also don't believe I know everything). I believe Christ gave up his life to redeem us all. What a gift!
I believe that I am to enjoy the life he has given me now, not sit around and waste it (what disrespect for God's gift of life!) in wait for some future life. I don't believe in the nobility of suffering, unless the suffering is truly helping someone else. The nobility is in the helping of others, not in the suffering itself.
And I have put my trust in God that whatever He does is what He does. I'm not "serving" Him for what he gives me. Whatever he chooses to do with me after I die, or before then, is completely up to Him. I 100% accept that and grovel on my knees in thankfulness for his giving me life to begin with. Who am I to expect more?
I believe that God hates a liar, so I need to live my life truthfully, which means I do not put my butt in a seat in order to be visible to others for what I'm doing. If people hate me for living my life truthfully, but I can make them like me if I live a lie ... I need to choose truth. For God's sake. I am the only one who stands before Him.
If I die and go to paradise, yay! If I die and go to heaven, yay! If I die and just stay dead, well I guess I won't know about it, will I? If I die and go to hell, oops! If I die and come back as a fly, well then I will just die and come back as something else eventually. If I die and come back in 100 years, cool! If I die and go to the Mother Ship, then I'll take back what I said about Scientology. (although I will have a few points to argue with them about!) My point is, I can't know for sure what's going to happen in the future, and it's presumptuous to think I can. So, I don't spend a lot of time stressing about it. If you were to press me on which way I lean, I guess I have to believe more in heaven.
What I *DO* believe firmly in my heart (due to abundant personal evidence), is that God still listens to my prayers. I can't be that bad of a person then, right? Or, more likely, I'm just a human being like all others, and God listens to all of us.
I believe that God loves all us human beings
including the GB. Hard to believe huh?
He is a really loving and forgiving God. hee hee
I believe He has a place or everyone of us. Not just sure where.
Love and hugs,
Velta
Do you still believe that Jehovahs day and the paradise will come?
No.
I still believe in God and the creation.
Part of me wishes I still did but I have seen no evidence for either.. certainly not "the creation". My concept of a potential "God" is absolutely not the "God" of the Bible.
I'm Agnostic.
The whole bitter experience has more or less made me into an atheist. I believe that God exists as an idea, useful in certain circumstances. It's certainly been put to use by the WT society. God as some real supreme being, tangible or intangible? No.
I believe that life is a good thing and that it will continue to be a good thing after I am gone from this earth.
FreudianSlip
"Part of me wishes I still did but I have seen no evidence for either.."
I can understand that so well. My life would be so much easier.
I'm atheist.
I believe that nothing can separate me from God's love. After that, everything else is window dressing.
No.
Welcome to the forum.
My idea of God is constantly evolving since leaving the WTS. I think he is certainly less personal and more force/energy than I did before. But I have not worked out the ratio in my mind.
I hope there is future beyond this life - but I am not sure what it is, if at all. I am both saddened and enlightened by that. I don't waste much of my life these days trying to understand what is unknown, beyond the grave. But I understand the need for hope, so I try not to smash what others hold on to in that regard.
Paradise as taught by JW's? No. They never got anything else right, did they? If one believes the Bible - and I don't particularly nowadays - the teaching of earthly paradise is not well supported.
Jeff
