The Issue is Not that God WANTS Us to Suffer...

by AGuest 404 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  cognizant dissident

  You know I think I actually understand your point, Shelby, Tec and Journey On. I don't agree with it and I think it is totally illogical, but I get your point. You are saying first I have to put aside my common senses, (and by common sense I mean the senses that we all do have in common and by which we humans perceive our worlds) and believe in something, I can't see, hear, feel, taste or smell. Then that being will make itself apparent to me on another level of sensory perception.

  Except there are already billions of people on this planet who do the same thing on a daily basis, (I used to be one of them). And your method just doesn't work for the vast majority of them. But they still keep trying, believing it will some day, because they have been told that it will by another human being since they were babies and the human brain is nothing if not perseverant, even past the point of all logic and reason.

  As NVL pointed out, your answer to me is just another very long winded way of giving me the same old tired argument: I didn't hear because I lacked something that I shouldn't have lacked. According to Journey-On, I'm supposed to build my own receptor, when it would really just be so much simpler for an omnipotent God to build a better transmitter. Let's face it, if God wanted everyone to hear him, then everyone would hear him. They don't because he doesn't want them to or he doesn't exist.

  Journey-On: No one is spitting on Shelby (such a dramatic analogy designed to build up the persecution complex). She wouldn't be here if they were. Pointing out flaws in logic and reason is not spitting. Shelby is here subjecting her faith to a public debate among unbelievers because that is exactly what she wants to do and chooses to do.
• 

  cognizant dissident

  So... what is the logic behind your fear... and your failure to test it out?

  You make two assumptions here and then draw a faulty conclusion based upon your faulty assumptions. First assumption is that I haven't tested out what you've said, second assumption is that I haven't tested it out because I'm afraid. The faulty conclusion is that if I had tested out your methodology, then I would have arrived at the same conclusion as you, therefore I could not have tested it out. Circular reasoning 101.

  In fact, there is a far simpler alternative. I'm not afraid, I did test out your methodology for "seeing" and "hearing" with the spirit, and it didn't work because your system is flawed. You just refuse to consider that possibility. I'm going to assume that it's because YOU are very afraid of what that might mean to your "specialness". However, I'm honest enough to admit that is an assumption on my part, and I could indeed be wrong.

  You could in fact, be completely delusional, in which case, I probably am being mean and unkind by debating with you. However, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and just assuming your ego was a little out of control just like the rest of us.
• 

  cognizant dissident

  But I ask you... are you, CD, the sum total of your body of flesh? Or is there also you... who is on the INSIDE of that vessel? What if you lost your arms? Your legs? Your own heart? A lung? A kidney? What does ANY of that have to do with who YOU are... INSIDE? Nothing. Indeed, your own heart could be removed and replaced with another's. Yet, you would NOT become that person. Because you are NOT your flesh. You are SO much more!

  I think you've hit upon the crux of the difference in beliefs here Shelby. The "I" that we think we are, the "self" if you will, may not be the sum total of body parts but it it is the sum total of our experiences, thoughts and perceptions accumulated over a life time and stored in the memory areas of our brains. When someone has lost their memory through dementia, or trauma, we say, "they are not the person they were. The person we loved is gone." Or, when someone is brain dead and unconscious, we usually pull the plug, because we know the person we know is gone.

  Oh, but we do have survival instincts in our species. We don't want to die. We're terrified of it. We're terrified that "I" will cease to exist. We can't fathom it. We are so terrified that we must make up stories about having conscious spirits that live on after those neurons stop firing and our flesh begins to decay. The sheer horror of watching the flesh of our loved ones rot in the ground would be too much to bear if we did not.

  I'm not special. I know I will rot in the ground some day just like every other living creature on this planet and so will the son whom I love more than my own breath. I am as terrified as the next person of my "self" and my ego ceasing to exist. But I am also brave, which is courage to go on and face the reality of this world we live in despite the fear. I take the beauty of it and the horror of it and I don't ask for another reality that is better than the one I've been given. I have learned not to comfort myself with false stories of the mind that do not have a shred of evidence to fortify them.

  Does that mean I'm not a spiritual person? I see the human spirit, with its duality of fear and courage, shame and pride, beauty and ugliness, hate and love and I accept it all with compassion because I share it all. It is the same for all of us. None of us gets out of here alive.

  Quote from Ram Das: I don't understand why everyone is so afraid of dying? Why are they so afraid of ceasing to exist for all eternity after their death? "I" didn't exist for millions of years before my birth, and it didn't bother me one bit!
• 

  cognizant dissident

  Another favorite story which fits well in this thread, I think:

  An old native Indian man was fishing by a stream in the middle of the woods. A Christian missionary made the long journey of many days and hiked through the woods to visit him. He sat beside him and he began to tell him about God, heaven and hell and all the teachings of the gospels. The Indian man listens to it all quietly, without a word.

  When the missionary is finished sharing his teachings, the old Indian asks him, "Let me see if I understand you. If I believe in your God, and let you baptize me in this river, then I will go to heaven, but if I don't believe in him and don't let you baptize me, then I will go to hell and be tortured in fire for all eternity?"

  "That's correct," says the missionary.

  "What about all the people in the world who have never heard about any of this before?", asks the old man? "Will they burn in hell forever too?"

  "No," says the missionary. "God will forgive them because they didn't know".

  The old Indian thinks about this for a second and says, "Then why, oh why, did you come here and tell me!"
• 

  Atman

  Quote from Ram Das: I don't understand why everyone is so afraid of dying? Why are they so afraid of ceasing to exist for all eternity after their death? "I" didn't exist for millions of years before my birth, and it didn't bother me one bit!

  I love that quote!
• 

  snowbird

  Ah, I am reminded, Syl, since you love the Lord, of 1 Thessalonians 4:11. Specifically the advice to live quietly and mind your own affairs.

  Thanks for that reality check.

  I'll not forget.

  Syl
• 

  PSacramento

  I posted this on another thread in rely to something that Shelby said and I think itis also applicable here.

  I myself have become conscious that certain things I say and how I say them can actualy be a stumbling block for others ( my thanks to Gladiator for point that out in his very "gladius" like way) and I do NOT and NEVER want to be a stumbling block to anyone in their path towards Jesus and God, so I must truly see what it is that I am doing wrong and fix it, and I am trying hard to do just that.

  As Paul said, " be a gentile for the gentiles and a jew for the jews".
• 

  THE GLADIATOR

  PSacramento

  That's a very humbling and gracious comment.

  I too, am striving to find the right balance.
• 

  PSacramento

  That's all we can do my friend, truly.
• 

  Balsam

  AGuest,

  I got to wondering what the Hebrew scriptures reflected about Satan, the devil and all that stuff some years ago. Here is what I found. This information is from a Rabbi commenting on Satan related things. Here is a comment I just love from Rabbi Danzinger:

  So you see that really nothing happens in the entire world without G-d approving. That's why we Jews have so many complaints to him that we need to talk to him three times a day. The buck really stops at His office.

  Is there any sort of Purgatory or Satan in Jewish teachings? By Eliezer Danzinger

  a) Various sources suggest that Gehinom, Purgatory, is a physical place, somewhere deep beneath the earth's surface, where the souls of the wicked are punished.1 Nachmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman 1195-1270) writes:2 "These and other similar matters cannot be interpreted as a parable or as some ominous saying. The Rabbis specified its location and the length and width of its dimensions. They consider [the heat generated by Gehinom] in the context of Jewish law." Notwithstanding the sources above subscribing to and depicting Gehinom as a physical place, other sources -- in Kabbalah , Chassidut , and Jewish philosophy -- portray Gehinom in more abstract and spiritual terms. In fact, later, as Nachmanides continues his above mentioned exposition on Gehinom, he seems to do an about-face, also explaining the fires of Gehinom and the punishment endured by the soul in spiritual terms. The discrepancy, however, between the various depictions of Gehinom can be reconciled based on the mystical concept that reality has manifold layers. So although the mystical dimension of Torah focuses on the higher reality, including the underlying spiritual reality and dynamics of Gehinom, the revealed dimension of Torah speaks about the physical manifestations of reality within the context of the here-and-now, the tangible and the palpable. This explains why our Sages have said that a Scriptural verse always retains its simple meaning, even while each and every verse alludes to the most exalted of mystical concepts. According to Judaism, the purifying process that a sullied soul undergoes to cleanse it from its spiritual uncleanliness is a temporary one, and is restorative in its intent, and not punitive, as many mistakenly believe. Ultimately, all Jews have portion in the World to Come , as do Righteous Gentiles, non-Jews who observe the Seven Noahide Commandments. b) According to Torah, no spiritual force opposes G-d . This includes Satan, who is a spiritual entity that faithfully carries out its divinely assigned task of trying to seduce people to stumble. Satan is also identified with the Prosecutor above -- that's what the word Satan itself means: it's just Hebrew for prosecutor -- who levels charges against the guilty party who succumbs to its wily arguments. Look in the beginning chapter of the Book of Job and you'll see that clearly. In fact, the Talmud says, all that Satan does, he does for the sake of heaven. Without him, the defense attorney wouldn't bother to dig up all the merits of the defense. And the defense would have to try so hard to give himself more merits. So you see that really nothing happens in the entire world without G-d approving. That's why we Jews have so many complaints to him that we need to talk to him three times a day. The buck really stops at His office. Finally, when the Divine Court decides that someone, G-d forbid, deserves to die, then Satan is dispatched from Above to carry out the sentence.3 Rabbi Eliezer Danzinger for Chabad .org