"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. "
Steven Weinburg is the originator of the quote.
Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"
by lifeisgood 79 Replies latest jw friends
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saltyoldlady
Dear Life is Good. Your part about helping the older sister was magnificent. Wish I had been there. How often things like this need to be done and said and I heartily applaud your actions.
Sometimes the conclusions we reach are the results of our purpose for the study and research - My conclusions are very different from yours and so I have to ask myself why? I guess it all boils down to the fact God has given me a gift of faith - a tiny seed smaller than a mustard grain, but enough to move mountains. I don't know why or how I got it - certainly not because the world has treated me any better than yourself - but I search the pages of the Bible looking for His love and I find it. Yes, there are questions that come up as to why He did things the way He did but I start out with a premise that He is good, and righteous and kind - and I end up with totally different conclusions as a result.
Perhaps the Bible is simply a document that yields what we desire from it's pages - perhaps it is simply man's imagination and myth - but for me it feeds me, strengthens me, yields purpose and meaning to my life, and comforts me. Am I living the great illusion then? That is a possibility. But it doesn't feel like it. My world seems very real to me. My desire is to reflect His love in the here and now as best I can - and if we merge into a great "immaterial" universe of love after death I'm okay with that. But your conclusions that God does not intereact with us in the here and now are so different from my own admittedly "subjective" experiences I feel saddened at my inability to share this joy with you.
Perhaps you prefer the "impersonality" of God as a mindset. Maybe our differences boil down to "ruthers" and maybe not. My experience has been God cannot be proven to anyone - He has to be searched for - and when you find Him never let Him go!!!
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PSacramento
I stand by the statement...throughout history it has been religion that has coerced more people to do bad things than anything else. Has capitalism ever caused a group to fly airliners into a building for their capitalist beliefs? Has it caused the massive spread of aids because a church says birth control is bad? Has it suppressed women for centuries?
No offence but there are a whole lot of misconceptions in there:
While capitalisim was not the cause of 9/11, American imperialisim ( according to AL Queada) Was, not religion.
Aids would NOT spread if peopple practiced what religion advocates in regards to sex: Abstanince and monogomy.
As for the suppression of women, Yes, I agree that religion has been used to do that, but it was also a factor in the liberation and equality of women.
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PSacramento
No doubt religion CAN be used to motivate people to do bad things, so can any other ideology ( case in point the ubermensch ideology put forth by Hitler and the Nazis and communisim as emplyed by Stalin and others).
Either we eliminate ALL ideologies for ALL of them can be perverted or we admit that PEOPLE are the problem and stop blaming anyone but the actual people that commit the atrocites.
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whereami
( case in point the ubermensch ideology put forth by Hitler and the Nazis and communisim as emplyed by Stalin and others).
I knew you would respond with that. How many times must that be explained and debunked?
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PSacramento
I knew you would respond with that. How many times must that be explained and debunked?
As many times as some brings up religion and it is debunked and that is the point.
Any ideology can be perverted beyond it's intended use.
Religion is no different.
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unshackled
No offence but there are a whole lot of misconceptions in there:
While capitalisim was not the cause of 9/11, American imperialisim ( according to AL Queada) Was, not religion.
Aids would NOT spread if people practiced what religion advocates in regards to sex: Abstanince and monogomy.
No offence taken. If you type it, prepare for it to be scrutinized.
Can't say I agree those statements point out any misconceptions. Your points too can be scrutinized and argued back and forth. For instance, I think Al Qaeda's hate of the US is very much rooted in religion, they are the infidels that must be fought for Allah. Imperialism and foreign policies are just a catalyst. Same with the church's stance on abstinence and monogamy...."sex is sinful" is a whole other debate.
But anyways, those topics could be an entire thread on their own. For another day.All in all, when it comes to the saying - "but for good people to do evil things, now that takes God and religion" - yes it seems we all agree there are other means to accomplish this. But I was noting that PSac and Tec came to the defense of religion, eager to point out it isn't the only cause.
But if someone started a thread that said this: "but for good people to do evil things, now that takes capitalism" ...I doubt you'd be so passionate as to jump up and make the same point. Defending capitalism from being "thrown under the bus" like you did with religion. I think the reason is that because you have biblical beliefs with no affiliation to any religion, but you still feel threatened if someone attacks religion in general.
I'd be more likely to agree if you were eager to defend your own spirituality, and not religion. -
lifeisgood
saltyoldlady,
You are very mistaken about me. I loved God with my whole heart, mind, and soul from a very early age. I was a lay preacher from 13 to 15. People loved hearing a "child" tell things that he had seen "God" do. Things that he had experienced directly. Then I fell into the Watchtower cult. I still loved God with everything I had. I did not get turned off on God by the Watchtower cult, I got turned off to being in their cult.
I realized at that point that I did not really know the Bible, yes I had read it many times but I had never really studied it. I study other subjects so I know what that means. So, I took two years off from attending the JW meetings and just studied the Bible.
You said "Perhaps the Bible is simply a document that yields what we desire from it's pages". No way. I wanted the Bible to tell me how to be right with God. But, what I found instead is a book of lies, half thruths, fairy tells, and doctrine. A book that really makes no sense and can be twisted to serve nefarious purposes. I did not desire these conclusions.
I cried bitterly when I figured out that all these years I had been deceived. Not by the JWs, but by the Bible itself.
It seems that you are saying that what I discovered is what I wanted to discover. Not true. From the age of 9 I thought that my father was going to kill me or hurt me very badly. So, God was my parent. YOu said "Perhaps you prefer the "impersonality" of God as a mindset". No, I do not prefer this, I just realized that this is the truth. The "God" as described in the Bible does not exist. Whatever it was that created the physical universe has not contacted mankind. Why, I do not know.
I have traveled all over the world and I have been involved in many spiritual quests. I have danced around the fire at night with aboriginals and sought to know the unknown. I have seen a lot of strange things but I have never found the Creator.
This used to sadden me, but it no longer does.
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lifeisgood
tec,
"True. I hope that I have not implied that I think anything bad about him. I just didn't see anything of Christ in his evaluation of his previous beliefs. Since Christ is the whole point of being a Christian, I felt I should question that. It is Him that a Christian should follow".
I'm going to answer your second part first. Since the book that tells us how to follow Christ is make believe how can I learn how to follow Christ? The New Testament is no more "the truth" than the Old Testament.
The Christ story is a fable. The OT describes a murderous, genocidal, hard hearted maniac called "God".
The Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden story is a fable.
There is no inherited sin that needs to be redeemed by a sacrifice. No firstborn son of "God" needs to be sacrificed to make up for the make believe sin that we inherited from our make believe ancestors in the make believe garden of Eden. This entire concept of the first humans being misled by an ancient supernatural creature and then 'God' condemned all of us to die is just insane.
The Bible is a collection of half truths, lies, fables, propaganda, and philosophy. It is not the truth.
I said several times that I became a Christain at the age of 9, read the Bible costantly, was a lay preacher for many churches from 13 to 15 and then became a Jehovah's Witness. So, not sure how you thought I did not know Christ.
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rebel8
Ahem. There are nasty things in the NT too, no need to just blame that on the OT.
Hebrews 11 says Jeptha is a really great guy. Isn't he the same guy who killed his daughter in Judges 11?
1 Corinthians 11 talks about the inferiority of women.
Revelation 19--well, all of it really--God and Jesus are violent, wrathful beings.
Intolerance in the New TestamentCruelty and violence in the New Testament