by lepermessiah 64 Replies latest jw friends
The Bible: that collection of writings put together by the Catholic church a few hundred years ago?
My Bible training allows me to debate within the context of the Bible.
The Bible is 99% irrelevent to my life now, but there's a couple verses I find meaningful and perhaps even "true".
On my way out I was honestly searching for "truth". I decided to give the bible a go (without the "aid" of WT publications). I was appalled by what I read. The funny thing was as a DUB I never read the bible through. It seemed an insurmountable task that would take a year. But now, reading a 1000 page book isn't such a big deal. What a 'tard I was. You can find nuggets of "truth" in any old or new work of fiction such as the bible. There's no reason this book should get special attention. Way over-rated.
tec
So... Jesus gets up, goes to a fig tree that is not producing fruit when he is hungry, and finds nothing to nourish him. Just as the people go to the teachers and pharisees when they are spiritually hungry, and find nothing to feed or comfort them. The fruitless tree (spiritual leaders of the jews) is cursed.
Why is it that I constantly hear this excuse when the scriptures make it very clear that the tree wasn't in season, so no figs could be expected, on any fig tree, in that area, at that time of year?
There is more than one problem with this story, but I don't want to hijack this thread. That is why I included a link to another thread that discusses it. It is the full array of the problems with this story that made me realise that I was reading man's thoughts about God, not God's thoughts about man. I could get different, but equally valuable persectives by reading Dreamtime stories or the Bagdad Guitar, so why spend all of my time reading stories from one group from the other side of the planet that I am not even descended from.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/187164/1/Jesus-Curses-the-Fig-Tree
Cheers
Chris
Kilt it.
with fire.
I moved my answer to the other thread, Blacksheep. But I think its going to get lost in all the other stuff!
Tammy
i still believe in the bible,,,,but,,,,i do not read it anymore....the "feeling" just is not there...
I've read the whole Bible 2 times. Once when I was at Bethel, and again over a year ago. But especially in the Hebrew scriptures what stands out to me is the brutality and killing that at times makes no sense.
Now I was thinking, as JW's we try to disprove the evolution theory by asking, "When is the last time you saw an ape turn into a man?" So evolution can't be true and has no basis.
Well using the same reasoning, when is the last time you saw a donkey talk (other than Donkey in Shrek), a snake talk, a person be resurrected or taken away in a windstorm, the sun stand still, the ocean split in half, a man and an angel wrestling, a burning bush, hair that gives you strength? Did these things really happen? I don't really believe it.
Because of never seeing any of these Biblical "miracles" happen in my life, it is very hard to believe they actually happened. Why would God do this in the past to give people evidence of his power and now all of a sudden..........nada, zilch, zero, nothing. What basis do I have to believe? I've lost my faith. And yet for some reason at the moment I feel content. Almost with a "so what, who cares" attitude.
And whatever feeling I may have had of something being real in the Bible, after reading these posts, you freakin' "apostates" killed it for sure!! LOL Thanks!
BTW - I'm still "in."
To me, the Bible has books that are great and books that are really dull. The Gospels are all wonderful, say what you will about Jesus prophesying the death of many on earth. With the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a great way to live: loving one's enemies, turning the other cheek, not getting consumed by financial concerns, etc. I believe that Ghandi once said that if a person based his life on the Sermon on the Mount, he'd live a good life. I agree with that idea, even if he didn't say it.
Ecclesiastes is also an excellent book that provides a very different outlook from any other book in the Bible. There's no violent God or afterlife or silly set of laws in Ecclesiastes. It seems to be more or less a meditation on what it's like to be a human being. There are other books I like too: Genesis with its interesting stories, Job with its misery, Proverbs with its wisdom, Paul's writings, Revelation with its psychedelic visions. There's a lot of great stuff in the Bible, whether you think it's inspired or not. Not the major prophets, though. Please don't make me read them again. Or Leviticus. Anything but Leviticus.
On a side note, I don't think there's any reason to feel too upset about the violent God of the Hebrew scriptures, unless you think it's inspired. If you don't think it's inspired, you can accept that the parts that don't make sense are just stories, and you can sleep fine at night.
Like many on this thread, I continued to read the bible after I fell from the tower. I visited churches and wore sandals to be like the man from Galilee. I continued to look to the bible for truth. Alas it made no sense to me. I explored Eastern religion, meditation and learned a lot about the mind eventually becoming a Hypnotherapist.
Now I look at reality not holy books. I read factual text books with an open but critical mind. The mind is capable of deceiving us if wrongly informed. Our imagination is capable of almost anything if allowed to accept ideas that have not been proved beyond doubt. The brain is a wonderful but also deeply flawed organ and it houses our mind. The mind can be tricked so easily. Now I am very wary of opinions driven by emotional needs.
In answer to the original question, the WT did not kill my appreciation for the bible - it did that all on its own!
