Contrast and compare: Mom/Dad in teaching you about God/Religion

by Terry 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  My ideas about God were not specific teachings as a small child.

  My Mom liked to read the Book of Revelation out loud to me. The scorpions stinging with head's like men; that sort of weird shit!

  My grandmother was reared a Catholic and had been instructed by Nuns! She gave me my sense of God, Love, and protection.

  My grandad was searching for the "True" religion. He'd invite various representatives to the house to start a bible study and give their

  sales talks. I was always there listening.

  I never knew my Dad until I was 25.

  By the time I met my best friend (a Jehovah's Witness) all I knew or believed was this:

  1.The bible was God's word.

  2.God loved us but would kick the butt of anybody that pissed Him off.

  3.Reading the bible was impossible. It was very badly put together.

  4.PRAYER to God was just constant talking to Him about everything.

  Most of the above came from my Grandmother. My sense of faith and trust and the reality of God was from her.

  The True/False idea of PROVING things came from my Grandad.

  HOW ABOUT YOU?
• 

  garyneal

  My parents were never too religious but my mom believed in God.

  My mom would comfort me during times that troubled me, like when my dog died, by saying that death is a good thing in relation to God. She did not know the Bible very well nor did she attend church.

  My step-dad was disenchanted with religion because he was kicked out of a primitive baptist church for adultery (because he married my mom). His dad left the church with him. Upon talking with him later on, I find that he still has a belief in God and, as a hunter, he knows the rule about pouring an animal's blood out onto the ground. He just thinks religions are led by charlatans looking to milk money from the flock. Growing up in the 1980's and witnesses the sins of certain evangelists at the time simply reinforced this idea.

  Early influence of Christianity was my uncle, David. I remember going to a church with him and my mom before my parents got divorced. I just remember the communion ceremony and passing the bread and wine around. I was not allowed to drink or eat but I'm sure the others did. I attended that church nearly 20 years later and remember it, the people there think of my uncle as a legend. He became a Christian missionary.

  When I was about 10 or 11, a friend of mine from up the street from where I grew up became 'born again' and started preaching God and singing gospel songs. He was holiness and I remember him speaking a lot about Bible prophecies, tying the mark of the beast in with Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6). Being a kid himself, he waffled back and forth between being Christian and being of the world. While he later stopped practicing the Christian faith, I think his church had a lasting influence on him and he has probably returned to the faith.

  My teenage years consisted of my believing in the Christian teachings but never actually practicing but wanting to. I got the wrong impression of Christians thinking of them as a group of special people or at least a 'higher calibre' of people, as oppose to the normal everyday people I regularly encounter in my life that liked to smoke, drink, curse but were otherwise decent people. As a consequence, I don't smoke, don't drink, and seldom curse.

  By my late teens to early twenties, I felt the need to become regular in church. By then, I read a few tracts and was fully aware of the consequences of not being saved (hell). My step-dad's brother was regularly attending church and I began attending with him. I got baptized at 21 and that was when the 'fun' began. This was an independent fundamental baptist church, very dogmatic, believing that they were basically alone in professing sound doctrine, believed that the KJV was the only correct translation of the Bible, etc.. I began to see the contradictions then but I was paying more attention to the people at that church and saw contradictions in who got the 'blessings.' I also noticed how people would shout 'Amen' to the preacher during a sermon against drinking, only to leave the church with a bottle of Jack Daniels in their pick-up truck. (It was a country church).

  I left that church about a year later and began attending another Indy Fundy church closer to home (it was a 30 minute drive to the old church from home). That's when I began to pay more attention to what the preacher actually said and noticed how he would contradict himself from time to time. He went above and beyond the Bible in some of his preachings. He was very legalistic and dogmatic about certain things and he loved interpreting Bible prophecy. After about a year, I began to grow weary of trying to follow his teachings and began to burn out. I started attending college and began checking out other churches. By 1994, I virtually stopped attending churches altogether.

  By 1997, I met a group of Christian students in college and learned for the first time what I believed it meant to be a true Christian. They were not dogmatic, did not believe only one denomination was correct, and were generally open to various interpretations of the Bible. My faith grew even more then even though I was still not regularly attending church.

  By the time I met my wife in 2002, I believed the following:

  1. There's no one church that can claim a monopoly on the Bible.
  2. No one 'correct' translation of the Bible.
  3. Aside from simple doctrines of love of God, neighbor, and family along with salvation in Christ, there is no one 'correct' set of doctrines.
  4. While I believed that prayer was us talking to God and reading the Bible was Him talking back, I also believed that God was revealing Himself to me directly in many ways.
  5. The Bible was God's word, Jesus was His Son, and the Holy Trinity was true. Of course, I (like most Christians) only understood the trinity in the modalist sense.
  6. God loved everyone but He also protected His children and while He hated to see people go to hell, I believed He gave everyone a chance to accept His Son as Savior.

  Keep in mind that I was a thinker too and I also believed the following:

  1. While I can argue that the beauty and complexity of the universe proved the existence of a creator to me, it did not follow that that creator is the God of the Bible. At best it proved 'a god' not Jehovah God.
  2. Wiccans and people of other faiths fully believed what they believed just as I believed what I believed. If a wiccan conjures up a spell to bring about some 'miracle' and that 'miracle' came about, there was no reason why that spell did not work as well as my prayer would for whatever 'miracle' I seeked. In the end, I concluded, the power appeared to be in the heart of the believer.
  3. Magic is real and I believed that the reason why it was prohibited by God was because it was often used to do harm to others. Therefore, rather than attempt to use magic, I believed in prayer and allowing the Holy Spirit to act in accords with God's will which I believed was superior.
  4. I believed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit but felt like our animal nature prevents us from fully realizing our potential. Something that would change only when our very nature is radically transformed.

  In a way, I think I was becoming a bit of a gnostic.
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  Curtains

  In our christian household the only time God was mentioned was when my dad said prayers before meals. My mum and dad both worked and when my mum came home from work she was busy till late at night with household chores. I cannot remember her ever talking to us about God. We did not have any religious books or even a bible in our home. But my dad always said a prayer before meals. I think his dad had always done so.

  So when I became a witness I was amazed by 2 things - that women ought to stay at home and not work if it was not absolutely necessary and they were to actively teach their children about Jehovah and the bible. Both of these I did with zeal. However my husband leads family worship and discusses with me what my children ought to be learning.
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  Robdar

  My father was very religious and giving sermons by the age of six at the local Baptist church in the small southern town where he grew up. At the age of 20 he started studying with JWs. He was baptized when I was 4 years old. My mother when I was 8. My father started studying with me at the age of 5 in the Paradise Lost book. How well I remember all the horrifying images including those of the ground opening up and swallowing the pets of the godless who deserved to die at armageddon.

  My mother left all religious instruction to my father.

  I was the first one in my family to leave the WTS. I suffered for my decision at the hand of my father who, among other things, disowned me for a while. Funny, I was never reprimanded by others in my congregation, only my father. This went on for years and I never, not once, responded in anger towards him. Finally, one day at the breakfast table, I asked him whose faith we were really discussing, mine or his? My father, an honest man, had to answer that we were indeed discussing his faith. That one question opened up a whole new dialogue.

  My parents are finally out. I am so thankful. I haven't a clue as to why I am crying as I write this.
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  Curtains

  here is something from plutarch

  When his son was born, Cato thought that nothing but the most important business of state should prevent him from being present when his wife gave the baby its first bath and wrapped it in swaddling clothes....as soon as the boy was able to learn, his father took charge of his schooling and taught him to read, ... so he took it upon himself to teach the boy, not only his letters, but also the principles of Roman law...He tells us that he composed his history of Rome, writing it out in large characters so that his son should posses in his home the means of acquainting himself with the ancient annals and tradtions of his country.
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  Curtains

  And this from Cicero

  109 What is more sacred, what is more inviolably hedged about by every kind of sanctity, than the home of every individual citizen? Within its circle are his altars, his hearths, his household gods, his religion, his observances, his ritual; it is a sanctuary so holy in the eyes of all, that it were a sacrilige to tear an owner therefrom.
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  Curtains

  (((((robdar)))))