I find it very hard to believe in a god

by Newborn 65 Replies latest jw friends

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  Qcmbr

  Er.... Did you ever do history at school? I have so I'm glad to report PSac that schools do already teach about Totalitarianism ( which I suspect you are confusing with atheism) which covers Stalin and Mao. Hitler of course was Catholic at least in formation( and certainly collusion) and North Korea has, like the old Communist Russia and China created a pseudo- religious cult of the leader.

  Atheism does not systematically commit genocide since it has no codified set of rules. Religion however, should, I absolutely agree, be taught with reference to the continual immoral genocidal butchery across the ages it has inflicted upon the world. I'd make a list but I'm tired.
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  Joey Jo-Jo

  I dont think Mao wanted to create pseudoscience, he even called religion poison, but lately the majority of people in china are dont believe in god but they believe in spirits and fortune telling.
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  PSacramento

  Er.... Did you ever do history at school? I have so I'm glad to report PSac that schools do already teach about Totalitarianism ( which I suspect you are confusing with atheism) which covers Stalin and Mao. Hitler of course was Catholic at least in formation( and certainly collusion) and North Korea has, like the old Communist Russia and China created a pseudo- religious cult of the leader.

  Atheism does not systematically commit genocide since it has no codified set of rules. Religion however, should, I absolutely agree, be taught with reference to the continual immoral genocidal butchery across the ages it has inflicted upon the world. I'd make a list but I'm tired.

  If you go back you will see that I didn't mention atheisim at all, I mentioned atheist leaders.

  Hitler was NOT a catholic by the way, he was at best a Pagan.

  I've gone over the numbers game of Religious VS non-religious and I don't care to do it again, everytime I do I get more shocked by the sheer volume of atrocities commited by atheists, just in the 20th century alone.

  While one can't blame atheisim for what people who are atheists do ( as I do not blame religion for what religious idiots do), it is quite astounding that when some atheist do get power, that the atrocities they commit FAR OUTWEIGHT anythign doen by even the most fanatical of religious zealots.
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  life is to short

  Tammy- Thanks I understand where you are coming from and I really appreciate what you said. I know my mom and the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses failed me.

  I want so much to trust in God and have the peace that so many seem to have from that trust. There are times I can almost seem to do that then I will hear some stupid things and I just shake my head in wonder. The latest thing that just happened was this JW and also a woman in my non JW Bible class, the JW sold her house, houses where I live are not selling. This JW puts it on the market and within two weeks it was sold. It was totally amazing in this market for her house to sell so fast. Jehovah did it for her of course. The non JW woman in my Bible study class got into a car wreck and everything worked out amazing for her also. Things fell to into place at just the right time. She came to class saying God is so great.

  The next day I turn on the news and hear two stories of children that break my heart, one a little boy who was just a year old was beaten to death by the mom's boyfriend. The second was worse, two little twins girls were being horribly abused for over two years, at least the little boy died and did not suffer as much as the twins. My heart just breaks when I hear those's stories.

  I cannot explain why the house sold, or why the car wreck turned out so well. It dose seem like God might have had a hand in it. But why did God not help the children when he was selling the house and fixing car wrecks.

  I would love to have the faith of the JW woman who sold her house or the woman in my Bible study class, I just have so many questions that I cannot answer about God and his judgment.

  I loved the part of your post where you said

  to turn your life over to another group of people, or even to the bible itself... as a final authority. Turn your life over to God and to His Son, instead, and cast your worries onto them. Trust them... in Spirit. And if you're not yet at that point in your life or faith, don't worry or get disheartened! Life is a journey and we don't reach the end of it all at once. Just trust that you one day will be at that point in your faith, and live your life for now, in love and with mercy.

  That is truly what I would like to do and life really is a journey. Thank you

  LITS
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  Lion Cask

  Hitler was NOT a catholic by the way, he was at best a Pagan.

  I wonder, PSacramento, how many times you have made this assertion and how many times it has been challenged. Hitler was a baptised Catholic, was a Catholic altarboy and had aspirations for the priesthood, so he was at one time definitely a catholic and your statement on its face is incorrect. He was not, however, a practising Catholic by any stretch of the imagination and all but renounced his faith in the Church but his writings indicate that he did not entirely abandon his belief in God:

  "Everybody who has the right kind of feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the Will of God and does not allow God's handiwork to be debased. For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will." (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf p. 458, James Murphy translation.)

  This was written, of course, before Hitler's rise to power and it is entirely feasible, despite the following 1941 entry in the diary of General Gerhard Engle quoting Hitler, that he merely represented any belief that suited his purpose:

  "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

  There are definitely strong indications of a paganistic bent to Hitler's psyche, for example the adoption of the swastika and other pagan odinist runes and the reintroduction of ancient German pagan holidays. There is considerable evidence the Nazis drew upon ancient German mythology and the occult to further their cause but whether or not they actually believed all this fluff is doubtful. However, and here's the kicker, there is no evidence that Hitler was an atheist in the strictest sense of the word.

  I have a tendency to agree with you that the Fuhrer was not a Catholic per se, but everything else points to him being a theist, even if a pagan theist, and the debate whether or not he belonged to any organised religion including the Roman Catholic Church is, to an atheist, therefore moot.
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  ziddina

  "Well, how many atehist would be ok with them teaching the prefectly logical premise that atheistic rulers systematically commit genocide? ..."

  O-K, that comment is flat-out hilarious!!!!

  PSacramento, tell me about Alexandar the Great, the Chinese Emperor Chi, Chinngis Khan, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun??? All of whom committed "genocide", and ALL of whom worshipped "god" or "gods"....

  NOTHing "enables" a mass-murderer more than the belief that he - rarely she - has been "divinely chosen".... In ALL cases of mass genocide, the architect of mass death has felt that he was innately "right" - innately correct, no matter WHAT he did...

  Which fits ANY sociopath who feels "special"... A sociopath or psychopath will use whatever excuse is at hand to justify his crimes... Be it religion or atheism...

  This mud-slinging idiocy of religionists wherein they claim that 'every' mass murderer in history was an atheist, is INSANE ... Anyone who makes that sort of statement or IMPLICAtion, hasn't studied history, or is deliberately ignoring historical facts...

  Zid