Why do you believe the bible? or not?

by AiAi 86 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  AiAi

  When I began questioning the religion I used the bible and their own statements to prove them wrong. Now, recently, I have began to realise that maybe the only reason I put any faith in the bible is because I was always raised to.

  So my question is, after leaving the Watchtower, what was it that made you decide the bible was worthy of belief?

  I am not asking about any continuing belief in god or disbelief, I am more conscerned about the first step (to me) right now of the bible itself. However, any proof of biblical fallacy is fine even if it did lead to athiesm, and proof of correctness is fine even if it led to a specific denomination. I just dont care to hear about why i should be athiest or chrsitian at this point...

  And thank you again to everyone for the friendly welcoming!
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  Black Sheep

  So my question is, after leaving the Watchtower, what was it that made you decide the bible was worthy of belief?

  A few weeks after I woke up to the fact that I had been raised in a cult, I came to the conclusion that everything that I had been taught about god had been delivered via my parent's cult and was not to be trusted.

  Everything.

  My being born a Dub didn't make the WT the representative of their invisible spaceman any more than being born a Muslim made their leaders representatives of their invisible spacemen.

  I bought myself a Moffat's translation, because he did his best not to be influenced by by current doctrine and tried to translate it as just being a collection of historical writings, and started reading the NT in chronological order.

  I was doing ok until I got to a passage where the primary character vandalised a fig tree to show off to his mates ...
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  AiAi

  how do i quote like you did? anyways:

  A few weeks after I woke up to the fact that I had been raised in a cult, I came to the conclusion that everything that I had been taught about god had been delivered via my parent's cult and was not to be trusted.

  That is exactly how I feel right now and where I am coming from in my question. and you were referencing Jesus killing the tree that was out of season anyways, right?
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  acolytes

  Hi AiAi

  You asked the question " Upon leaving the watchtower what was it that made you decide the bible was worthy of belief"

  Answer. Lasyness.... Now I realse the Bible can be made to teach anything.

  Reincarnation John 9:1-13 "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a blind man which was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him,saying Master who did sin this MAN or his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus answerd neither.

  How could the man have sinned to be born ? Only in a previouse life?

  As a test ask any Bible question, and I bet members on the board will be able to give at least ten sincere differnt interpretations as to the answer based on Bible scripture !!!

  Acolytes
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  designs

  acolytes-

  Ten different answers could only mean the Holy Spirit is truly guiding all of these precious ones.....and snickering in the background
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  wobble

  Dear AiAi,

  I went through similar emotions upon leaving, and a similar process of questioning. First of all I read the Bible without WT spectacles on.

  I then looked at the provenance of the Bible itself. I then looked at the evidence for the existence of God.

  I also asked for answers on here. A kindly poster pointed out two important things,

  1) that it is my spiritual journey that I am on, so it may take a different route to others, and end at a different destination, and that within that there is the vital point that I should decide what I want as I set out, do I want truth ? or do I want a religion that suits me ? etc.

  2) I should do the study and research for myself, for too long we have relied on others (mainly the lying WT) to do our work and thinking for us, and where did it get us ? in thrall and slavery to a false religion. it is so so easy to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  By all means ask for opinions on here, but realise they are only that, opinions based on the experience and study that people have done, but also on the prejudices and sometimes lack of experience and lack of knowledge of the poster.

  So, here is my opinion in answer to your thread title, for what it is worth. By the way, I decided I wanted truth more than a faith or religion.

  The Bible has no provenance, look back to a number of Terry's threads and you will see where he points out that the earliest copies we have are copies made way way after the originals were written, these are copies of copies.

  From these we then have to rely on translators , with the attendant problem of their theology colouring what they come up with as an acceptable text in our language, to see examples of how badly this can be done look at the NWT.

  So as I cannot check what was originally written, I cannot put any kind of faith in the translation I use today, as it has no provenance it cannot be the word of God. errant or inerrant it just cannot be the word of God, whether inspired or not ? the question just doesn't matter, as we do not have the original.

  So, my position is , the Bible is the work of men entirely and nothing more, I also see no testable evidence that stands scrutiny that God exisits.
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  bohm

  well. If i understand you correctly, what you are trying to figure out is if the bible is inspired or not.

  I think the first step must be to figure out how the bible was written... who was the authors, when did they write it, what are the source texts, etc. This is called higher critisism and i think its a very interesting subject. I would recommend that you first focus on the OT, in particular the first 5 books. Friedman has written an excellent book on the subject called "who wrote the bible" which i think you will find hard to put down.

  After this, i would suppose it would be logical to look into how history agree with the bible.. in particular the big events in the bible, for example the exodus, the wandering in the desert, the reoccupation of israel/judea, the flood, the kingdoms of daniel and solomon (as they are described in the bible).

  -you can then do the same for the NT-

  after this, i suppose it would be logical to check out the actual message... is God logical? is God good? does the ransom doctrine make sence? why does God allow evil?

  you have read the bible more than once i suppose, how about reading a book that give counter-points to the bible?
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  Heaven

  So my question is, after leaving the Watchtower, what was it that made you decide the bible was worthy of belief?

  During my teenage years I awakened to the fallacy of the Watchtower, religion, faith, as well as the Bible itself.

  I scrutinized these and found issues with them. I found that they do not align with the principle of Love but play lip service to it. Those involved use Love for their own gains; their own agenda. I cannot buy into the two-faced, contradictory nature of these institutions.

  A good exercise is to think about what your life would have been like if you had never been taught about religion, faith, or the Bible. For me, I concluded that life would have been better than it is. I would not have been loaded down with so much BS (judmental attitudes and fears as examples) that I've had to spend years sifting through it all to decide what is really good and what is not. I wouldn't have had to constantly fight against the ideals I was brought up that do not align with the principle of Love. So much wasted time and energy. It could have been spent doing better things.
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  The Finger

  I find it gives me hope which I don't think I could find anywhere else. When I draw my last breath I would like to have hope.It tells me about Jesus Christ the coming of the seed and the hope for mankind.

  I don't find that it asks too much of me just to be a good person as best as I can be and believe that Christ paid my debt. I think we all feel that we fail many times in life and Christ can make it right.

  I know people who are much cleverer than I will ever be who are doctors, and professors and they believe the bible, I know billions of people worldwide and throughout history have accepted the bible. In the houses of parliament hangs a painting of people who risked their lives to read Wyecliffs bible.

  In my life I have had supernatural problems so to speak and I find the bible was a comfort and help.
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  tec

  The bible doesn't have to be the infallible word of God for a person to still accept the stories, history and witness accounts to Christ. Plus, the bible is not one book. It is many books, many accounts, many authors, over different ages. Some is inspired, some is just written according to what people thought or felt at the time.

  Mercy, love, forgiveness and faith - these things are the most prevalent aspects in the bible, in that they overrule all other things. But I think that people who do not possess these things shove them down to the bottom... burying these most important matters of the law underneath rules (man-made or otherwise), doctrines, traditions and judgment. Then people who might possess them are taught to disregard them in favor of those lesser and even outright 'wrong' things.

  Tammy