@cyberjesus:
So we lost our religion and its time for us to decide which religion to switch, I was sincere so I wanted to do his will as I was taught.... So many here still believe in God and Christianity. So my question for you is
What makes you think that Christianity is the true religion? Why not Judaism, or Islam? If the JW religion was wrong and you didnt know that, what makes you believe you are right with the flavor of religion you have now?
You say that you "believe in God and Christianity" and yet you wonder whether "Christianity is the true religion" or not? You are wondering if whether Judaism, which was a form of sectarian worship that God's congregation had devolved into with Pharisees, on one hand, having their own doctrinal understanding about the resurrection and God's given Moses both a written law and an oral law, that the Sadducees, on the other hand, did not have, nor did the Essenes, the Herodians or the Zealots have, is the true religion. Or perhaps it's neither Christianity or Judaism, but Islam that is actually the true religion you wonder.
Now if you've read and studied the gospel accounts, then you are familiar with the religious confusion that existed during the first century AD into which this man -- Jesus Christ -- stepped into when he began his teaching campaign regarding the kingdom of God and the urgent need for God's people to repent and pursue God's righteousness, as he urged folks to repudiate the oral traditions that invalidated the Law of Moses and to follow his teachings. And why should people do that? Because Jesus was the promised Messiah to whom the Law pointed, the One that, in keeping with God's promise to Abraham, had been sent by God to commence the gathering of those among the Jews, who would become a kingdom of priests for the blessing of the all of the nations in God's kingdom.
You make reference in your opening salvo to the religious precepts practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses as the "JW religion" and asked what if one didn't know that the JW religion was wrong, seemingly asking this question in the context of today's religions being a marketplace of ideas where any one of these religions could be the "right" religion, what makes those who have 'lost their religion' believe that "the flavor religion you have now" is the right choice. I'm pretty good at putting words into someone's mouth, making them say things that they really didn't say, <g> so, please, correct me here if I've totally misunderstood your question, @cyberjesus.
Some people might leave their church, but if they are comfortable with Christianity, and have become familiar with Christian precepts, Christian thought, based on various Bible texts that they've memorized over time and hold dear, they tend to just join another Christian denomination because they haven't really 'lost their religion' as much as their love for fellowshipping with the folks at their previous church. Many people that have become Jehovah's Witnesses didn't lose their religion, per se, but wanted a change, and many of these folks found Jehovah's Witnesses to be a welcome change from the people and the same old teachings in their previous church, at least for a time.
Proving that these people hadn't lost their religion is that they have no desire to abandon their "Christian" identity for one of opprobrium, like Islam, which today is a religion that may be in disrepute in their country or in their neighborhood, or Judaism -- maybe they believe the anti-pork tenets of Islam and Judaism would prove to be vexing, especially if they don't want to give up pork chops. Or, maybe they just cannot see themselves pursuing Buddhism and mindlessly chanting the six syllables that are the Tibetan mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, as by reciting these words you seek to connect with the mind, body and voice of the Buddha, while imagining yourself to be Chenrezig (the Buddha of Compassion) to bless yourself so as to embrace the truth embodied in the Dharma and escape all suffering. Or, maybe Hinduism lacks the kind of structure as far as morality, a central deity, prophets and scripture to which they are accustomed, so leaving the JW religion doesn't mean that they have any interest in leaving the Christian religion.
Seriously, if you believe you have lost your religion, @cyberjesus, then only you would know that, but I believe that if you threw your religion away, then only you have the power to pick it up again, "stop being unbelieving but become believing," just as Jesus had to tell his apostle Thomas. (John 20:28)
If the WT books are full of lies and you cant put faith on them.. what makes you believe your other holy books arent? Are you skeptical of your religious books as you are of the WT books?
Let me just say that in my opinion, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, Christianity is the true religion, period, but whether one should worship God in trinity, as many of Christendom's churches are doing, or as we teach folks to do in association with Jehovah's Witnesses, is the real choice. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke about how blessed or happy or better off those who are conscious of their spiritual need are since at least such folks are aware of their dependence on God for their lives, for the air they breath and the food they eat, and Jesus was talking to Jews that had a historical connection to God and were in no doubt about this, but were people that had strayed from obeying the Law and who needed to repent if they were to inherit God's kingdom.
In addition to the need on their part to keep God's commandments, Jesus told the Jews during this sermon that they must be sanctifying God's name by their conduct, and living as an encouragement to others of the need to be doing God's will, by urging them to pray for the sanctification of God's name and for God's will in connection with His kingdom to come, and to stop living according to their own standard of righteousness, but to pursue God's righteousness instead of their own.
@journey-on:
He attends your individual temple. YOU are God's temple. Just as the architecture of a church says something about the religion it represents, YOU are an expression of the Divine working co-creatively with your Free will. So build your temple well.
You seem to be of the opinion that we human beings are an expression of the Divine -- I suppose by this you mean the Almighty -- working co-creatively with our free will, and like the architecture of a church speaks to the religion it represents, you are saying that we are God's temple. What does this mean? Please spell out more clearly what it is you are saying here, because your post is unintelligible to me, and I assume that you sought to convey an intelligible thought.
@lovelylil:
Most people want to keep God in their little box as if they own him and because of this they will often say [their] church is God's house. Jehovah's Witnesses often do this too. Problem is God apparently has no interest in attending any church if you believe the Bible is his word;
Acts 17:24,25
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
It is true that some active Jehovah's Witnesses may be guilty of putting God in a "little box," so to speak, believing that Kingdom Hall is God's house, but you're right: God doesn't dwell in any structure made by human hands; He's bigger than some temple, this earth, this universe. At Acts 7:49, Jesus' disciple Stephen paraphrases Isaiah 66:1 where Jehovah had declared, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me?"
At Mark 14:58, Jesus was quoted as having said, "In three days I will build another [temple] not made with hands," for Paul indicated that Jesus had entered "the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands," meaning "not of this creation," and appeared "before the person of God" as mankind's high priest, for God's temple, His tabernacle, is in "heaven itself." (Hebrews 9:11, 24) God's dwelling place is in the heavens; His throne is "firmly established" in the heavens. (Psalm 103:19)
You quoted this passage from Acts 17:24, 25, and I'm not sure what your understanding is of this passage or how it should apply to the OP's topic as to whether those of the same opinion as @cyberjesus should be searching for another God in some other religion as if someone other than Jehovah, the true God, is the One responsible for making the world in which we now live, the God to whom the apostle Paul in this passage is referring , as if just having a sincere desire to do the will of some other god would suffice or could possibly lead to the same salvation that the true God of the Bible, the One about which Jehovah's Witnesses teach, provides through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, leads. But although he was "irritated" over the idols on display here in Athens, Greece, Paul put all of that aside, for he had come to the Areopagus in Jesus' name to 'declare the good news of Jesus and the resurrection' which is when Paul went on to utter the words you quoted in your message. (Acts 17:16, 18)
As Paul indicated, the true God doesn't live in any temple, synagogue, church, Kingdom Hall, even if someone professing to be a Christian, a Mormon, a Catholic or one of Jehovah's Witnesses should say otherwise. Paul was speaking to Greeks -- Stoics and Epicureans -- that believed in a pantheon of gods (and goddesses) like Hermes, Mars, Poseidon, Dionysus, Zeus, Aesculipius, Athena, etc., and the farthest thing from the minds of these philosophers was Paul's mention of the resurrection.
People would attend to Athena, regularly changing the handmade robe that they wanted the patron goddess to war, and whereas her glory depended upon temples, shrines and altars, Paul was telling these men that the true God doesn't reside in any temple, nor did He need to be attended to by humans, as did Athena and the other gods and goddesses. Paul told these learned men that they "we are also [the] progeny" of this "Unknown God" to whom they had erected an altar," Paul here quoting the words of a poem penned by the Stoic poet, Aratus, since, with their many gods, these Greeks seemed to be quite conscious of their spiritual need, clearly "more given to the fear of the deities" than were other people, and more religious-minded than other people were. (Acts 17:22, 28)
cyberjesus; There is an old Native American proverb that says of the white man "you people look for your God in books made of paper and ink, that waste away over time", But my people find our God in the Air, in the rain and in the enduring wind.
So what does all of this tell you are about the ignorance of the Native American that is creditted with having written this particular proverb?
@djeggnog
