An Old Argument.... does it hold water?

by AK - Jeff 1495 Replies latest jw experiences

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  soft+gentle

  QCMBR, I have noticed that many people become agnostic after being on here for a time. this may be because during the time that they were witnesses, they were atheists all the time without realizing it or sometimes they were secret atheists and went through the motions of belief for the sake of family and friends. this latter position has a long tradition behind it. In fact it has been said that many Victorians were secret atheists but went through the motions of belief in order not to upset their families.

  I believe that secret JW atheists, and unconscious JW atheists can come here and flower. Believers who want to remain believers and flower also find the liberty to do so here. think that the critical wringer, which you mention, produces results of which we often remain unaware.

  Atheists talk about how becoming an atheist is liberating but imo this also can be met with a crises of values. I don't see much emphasis on and exploration of values from atheists that would resonate with people who have next to nothing. Dawkins talks a lot about how much he values life as an atheist - but he is a successful man, financially well off etc etc.
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  soft+gentle

  still thinking, size mike, the way I see it, if something is being made rather than been made then static moral perfection, static omniescence and static onmipower would not be a requirement of Godship. In this sort of scenario believers tell God what they think is wrong and work with God. On this understanding I will admit omniscience is a problematic quality but this chimes with the process of making, evolution - whatever you want to call it. But noting its problematic nature doesn't necessarily mean a rejection of this quality or of God.
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  Qcmbr

  Hi Soft - yep, changing to an atheist position is not necessarily easier or pleasant (mine was painful) and doesn't by definition improve your life (in fact its easy to present scenarios where it makes things harder, much harder and vice versa.) However, the results of finally confronting the facts and allowing them to take me where they led rather than me shoehorning them into my religious worldview has had some unexpected benefits:

  1 - I don't feel guilt anymore that I might be doing something that had to be paid for by the death of Jesus to be fixed

  2 - I don't have to struggle with the cognitive dissonace that is the inevitable result of being confronted by dispassionate information that does not allow my worldview (no evidence for the biblical global flood for example.)

  3 - I've stopped accepting immoral viewpoints and I've begun to fully trust that I am able to make very good moral choices without the need to compare with the immoral, genocidal Jehovah and to find page after page of bronze age behaviour recorded in the bible that is not acceptable to my sensibilities.

  4 - I love being able to answer my children with factual answers when they ask me questions rather than faith based stories.

  5 - I feel more intellectually satisfied now that I don't have to privilege certain books because they are religious.

  6 - I get more time with my immediate family now I don't waste it in church bureaucracy.

  I still think that those who post extreme religious viewpoints (like OBVES) - would find it very difficult to reverse their worldview and embrace a scientific fact based one. Fortunately most people who post here have already lost their extreme religious viewpoint and so are already in that process of transition.
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  Qcmbr

  Size -thanks a good response to the concept of free will as a reason for evil.

  God is biblically recorded as not caring a jot for free will when it suited him (Pharaoh, genocide of the indigenous people during the Iraelite conquests, global flood etc.) and is more than willing to step in. Every prayer that is supposedly answered would represent a negation of free will and the imposition of godly will (when I get that job due to divine intervention someone else goes without a job.) So in order to accept the free will argument you'd be forced to move to the position of simple deist and give up the idea that god answers prayers. If you want to hold that god is changing minds and hearts then you can't hold to a free will worldview.
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  sizemik

  If God makes humans with 100% free will . . . then as soon as he intervenes in any way whatsoever . . . he has comprimised free will, true free will no longer exists. Whether it be by personal communication, mass intervention or whatever . . . any intervention comprimises free will and self determination. That's the logical fallacy. God and free will can both exist . . . but not at the same time.

  Even if all the world willingly worshipped an unseen God in perfect peace . . . any manifestation of himself or confirmation of his existence will comprimise free will. If you had confirmation of God's existence would you choose to oppose him? . . . only if you were a suicidal idiot . . . so free will has flown. Free will only exists in God's absence. It just makes no logical sense wherever you take it. An omniscient, omnipotent God and free will are incompatible.
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  soft+gentle

  qcmbr - re post 2012 - you are an honest man - life is painful and tough and I can see how an atheistic position does lead to a painful confrontation.

  The benefits you list are worth considering too. Personally I'm never sure where I stand and my way of coming to terms with having to deal with the guilt and pressure to reciprocate to the sacrifice of jesus is to try to understand what is going on in the text and in the experience of believers.

  For example I have learned that many of the stories in the Bible are aetiological and suggestive of cults that formed around significant events that had happended in the past. This line of enquiry, for me, explains to some extent the flood event as recorded in the Bible and also to an extent the passion narrative. I really enjoy this sort of engagement with ancient texts.
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  sizemik

  @Qcmbr . . .

  I'm glad it makes sense to somebody. There's a lot that makes no sense to me at all these days. I was starting to wonder if I had gone mad after all. The implications of free will are lost on some maybe. The Biblical eg's were apropos.
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  sizemik

  @soft+gentle . . .

  I believe I've felt something similar. For quite a few years after leaving the JW's I prayed to Christ a lot, read the gospels for a time, and did a lot of other reading. But I recall feeling that biological evolution ran concurrently with our moral and spiritual evolution. It enabled me to relieve the dissonance between contemporary scientific knowledge, the Bible, and the desire for God to remain.

  I still have that desire . . . for God to remain . . . but if he does exist, I don't think he's anything like humans have believed or portrayed. The debate is moot from this personal point of view . . . if he has these supreme qualities we like to believe he has . . . he has not made it evident in any way to me. By his choice we live in different worlds at present. I'm not loaded with guilt over it.
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  N.drew

  Who is being bothered??? Please, AGuest, no offence to you, really, but my lord just said "jeekers". I didn't know what it meant, so I looked it up. HaHa, now I'm as confused as everybody else. But I have a lot to say and don't know how to do it as well as some others know how to say it well.

  What Qcmbr said is Christianity in a nut shell. He said; (when I get that job due to divine intervention someone else goes without a job.) You all know what Jesus said about the "golden rule" and taking the least place ect ect. Chritainity is a person putting in place his own law, or fence, against his own free will.

  Free will, the kind sizmik is describing, isn't real. Free will is always in partnership with law. Reality (law) or love (law), one must choose. "I wish you were either hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm...."

  This is how I explained non-belief to my beautiful smart daughter. I said God who is the revealer of secrets knows if you will be better off knowing Him. If you will not be happier to know Him than not to know him, he will remain hidden, but never far away.

  That is how some of you and some of us can be right even if we are opposite.
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  N.drew

  Reveal and revel. While I looked up the correct spelling, this I found for food for thought. Reveal means to make known. Revel means to take great pleasure and delight in. They probably have the same ancient root. It is because I pay strict attention that I have found bits of evidence of something else (I don't know what it is called). It seems to have a bit of intelligence. Anyway, it is bits of the past, in this case the development of language, that coincides with how I view things.

  In the case of these two words, I see that without the one, the other can become out of hand. I have been out of hand before. And of course, I have wondered sometimes is my head is out of hand. I don't like being out of hand. And my Lord has wings, not hands, so I guess that I am in trouble.