You held your own, Brother Dan.
What no one saw is that he was secretly holding mine when no one was looking (Just kidding BD!)
Syl, I for one was not trying to pummel him, just to get accurate answers from the bible to address specific assertions.
To new Christians on JWN
by brotherdan 284 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Meeting Junkie No More
Great discussion brother dan...
Not sure I should wade in at this point; however....
My own take on it all: I consider myself a quasi-believer in Christ, despite the extreme difficulty I have in taking too much of the Bible literally. So, am I a Christian? I don't even know what to call myself! I really enjoy the Gospels, so I guess I am guilty of taking and leaving. It just seems to me that the stories in the OT put God in a 'crazy' light. I mean, did he really get ticked off at the builders of the Tower of Babel because they were building an edifice that reached into the sky; that if they were successful at that nothing would be impossible for them??? He apparently has no problem with rockets, though, even though I would say they venture a little closer to 'home'? IMO, Jesus rescued God's reputation and for that I am eternally grateful.
I believe in spite of the Bible, not because of it. I also believe that fundamentalism, of any stripe, is a major problem too. Just my 2c!
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undercover
After awhile I got the distinct impression of:
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flipper
BROTHER DAN- You are an interesting tool, are'nt you ? But the question is- A tool of the Devil, a tool of God Jehovah, or a tool of ignorance ?
Your statement : " I really think this is why people buy into the atheistic philosophy. They want to eliminate the ultimate judgment on such sinfulness , consequently, they eliminate God. " Come on. You really buy into that crap ? Look. Many of us who left Jehovah's Witnesses became BETTER human beings after exiting the severe mind control tactics of the JW cult. It is a scare tactic that the WT society uses telling witnesses to nEVER leave the organization or they'll become prostitues, drug users, alcoholics, habitual maturbaters, extrotioners - and why ? Because GOD ISN't WATCHING YOU ! That's BS.
I am an agnostic and I'm a BETTER person than I EVER was following the Bible ! I am good- because I WANT to be good- not because some pie in the sky creator who never talks to me is rewarding me- or not. To be good is a hmanistic, civil, responsible, peaceful thing to do which promotes good , kind relations with our fellowmen & women. The REWARD is in seeing the BENEFITS that brings- not some fantasy paradise or heaven that's promised by a entity that claimed to inspire " imperfect " men to write on tablets so that aLL mankind should think alike and be robotic clones of one another. No thanks. I'll take variety ANY day over that.
Brother Dan- Didn't you get enough of the " we all gotta be the same " vibe in the witnesses ? What's so different with that as opposed to the Nazi's or what communist Russia used to be ? It's great if you don't want to use your born critical thinking ability. But, no thanks. I gave at the JW office for 4 years. I'll trust my OWN instincts on this one. If a person wants to be a Christian fine. But you, they, or ANYONE claiming to worship God, Allah, or Jesus- is no better than me or anybody else on this board. We all have our freedom of mind. And if you think you know what happens when we die- think again- we'll ALL find out on that one won't we ? Interesting thread. O.K. I'll exhale now. I respect your views, just disagree on the judgments on non-believers
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just n from bethel
Here's the biggest problem with the whole Finding Jesus debators: they are not open to the possiblity that they may be wrong. Whereas I've never seen an Athiests/Agnostics/"Don't-Knowers" not open to the possiblity that there may be a higher power.
So you have on the one hand those that go from leaving the WT's dogmatic "we're right, everyone else is wrong" to the Jesus Freak "we're right, everyone else is wrong" mentality. In other words, they may have left the org but they didn't really. It's just a different label now.
So for that reason alone - this post that wants to categorize how "new Christians" should believe is a huge FAIL. Many that leave and still adopt an overall Judeo-Christian belief system do not all believe like BrotherDan. They accept that they may be wrong, and that just maybe, the agnostics/non-believers/athiests/etc. have more things right than their own belief system. They leave the dogmaticism of Christian Fundamentalism behind - it doesn't matter what label you put on it: JW, Born Again, Evangelical, etc.
And you can see how messed up this way of thinking is just by looking at the posts. On the one hand you have this so-called "new Christian" criticism of the unblelievers - then you have criticism of those that believe in Christ but don't believe in the entirety of the bible. So why not think about that - think about what it really means to move on - to move on from JW dogmaticism.
