Does anybody still believe in God and the Bible?

by tornapart 218 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Sulla
    Sulla

    It is interesting to see the degree to which XJWs locate themselves on a spectrum mostly tilting toward aggressive atheism. Obviously, this isn't everyone, but if the responses are at all typical of XJWs as a whole, then we have an interesting pattern.

    It is interesting because these are people who went to church four times a week, if you include field service. That's pretty religious, by most reckoning. You might reasonably expect that people unhappy with the JWs substitute into a similar sort of religion: another new American religion, Islam, maybe, or even mainine Protestantism, given the relative market share. I mean, if you drive a BMW and you get sick of BMWs, you expect to substitute into something similar; you don't expect to substitute to a Chevy or Maserati.

    My hypothesis, in case anybody cares, is that the JWs are not a Christian religion at all. What they are is a club for conspiracy theorists who happen to use scripture as their source text. Didn't have to be scripture, could have been pyramidology (!) or numerology (!) or Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We see this in every aspect of the JW ouvre: the Great Apostasy, Constantine's maneuvering, the interpretations of every apocalyptic paragraph to some important item in the JW history: everything proves everything else.

    The important thing is that the JWs don't attract religious people: they attract people who aren't really serious about their own religion, or people who are unattached to any religion at all. When people become dissatisfied with the JWs, they go (or go back) to the nearest thing to JW-ism, which is atheism, generally speaking. Often, the anger of the XJWs also becomes focused on the source documents of the conspiracy theory: scripture.

  • designs
    designs

    'the JWs are not a Christian religion at all', well that gets used a lot by Fundies et al, kinda BS but kinda not, if they had been 'Christian' they would have been even worse (how's that for a proposition).

  • Sulla
    Sulla

    Of course, designs, the contrast is between a religion that has Jesus as the sine qua non and a religion that has the conspiracy theory as the sine qua non. If the JWs were Christian, I think we would see more substitution into different Christian religions rather than into no- or fuzzy religion. My hypothesis is that atheism and not Christianity is the 'nearest neighbor' to JW-ism.

  • designs
    designs

    Well since Tebow got his ass handed to him we can rule out the existence of Jesus in the afterlife.

    And geez what would you call a Religion that has a Vicar Of Christ On Earth teaching, David Splane has envy complex over that one

  • bigmac
    bigmac

    i didnt lose my faith in god when i left the jw's

    - never had one to start with. i was bought up as a kid by jw parents--but as i became of age i realised i simply did not believe there is a great barman in the sky. that soon put paid to any interest in the watchtower or its directives. i went and got a life. ive loved every minute of it for the last 40 years. no stopping me now.

  • Sulla
    Sulla

    Actually, Splane has a much better deal: everybody has to believe what he says, but he doesn't even claim to be necessarily right when he says it. Plus, the rest of the GB is a hell of a lot easier to argue with than a bunch of Jesuits. Seriously, is Guy Pierce some sort of mental giant and I don't know it?

  • designs
    designs

    lol, I think they were all C students.

  • NomadSoul
    NomadSoul

    Sulla, you might want to reconsider your hypothesis. Just do a quick search on the web "Christian to Atheism". And you will run into websites such as http://de-conversion.com/

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    Zid---you can speak for me! Same thing here.

    So if you like that warm fuzzy feeling then don't do any research, quite simple really

    I have to agree with Witness My Fury here. If you like where you are, don't research. Once the critical thinking skills set in, you may not be able to turn them off. I know some people still hold onto their belief, while denying the bible is infallible or the word of god. I cannot grasp such a concept though. It leaves one in quite the pickle. For instance---there is absolutely no way that a worlwide deluge took place 4000 years ago. It didn't happen. Okay---so if I still want to believe---then I'll call it allegorical---that fixes it. Except didn't Jesus refer to that flood as though it was true? Hmmm. Okay, maybe he wasn't ready to let mankind in on the little joke. I'll dismiss that aspect of his teaching.

    There is no way that the human race just appeared and descended from two humans. Impossible. Genetics. Impossible. Well okay, this God introduced himself to the world in Genesis, and the first words he inspired were false. If I want to believe--yeah---allegory. It's a big bucket, lots of things fit. But didn't Jesus refer to Adam--not as an idea---but as a person? I mean wasn't the whole concept Through One Man Adam Sin Entered----Through One Man Jesus Sin is Forgiven? That's kind of like an equation! What happens if you take out Adam and exchange him for X? Okay, so maybe Jesus, the great teacher, meant something else, and my weak human brain can't yet conceive. I still want to believe.

    Genocide. Yeah, a loving god ordered the systematic extermination of the Canaanites. But isn't God love? Okay, okay---maybe it was for the "greater good"---another amazingly large bucket. Or perhaps the Israelites simply wrote it up that way to condone their actions as coming from God. It wasn't from god at all---but then---isn't this God's word? Would he allow such slander to stand in a writing that was attributed to him? And if he did, then I can't believe the god portrayed in the bible is the real god---so what now? Well---er---I'LL decide what traits I like in the bible and attribute them to this god.

    Oh no---now what have I done? If I pick and choose the traits I like, dismiss the stories I don't like, and rebuild a better god---am I not simply creating a god? Based on my FEELING? On my desire? Am I defining an entitity with his own personality and history, and intentions, or am I simply making him up at this point? And if I am---perhaps that's what humans have done since they developed symbolic thinking---just making it all up. My god is no more valid than their god, because my source has proven as faulty as their source.

    Poof. So don't research.

    NC

  • startingover
    startingover

    OTWO,

    Great post! I too dislike the word "lost", to me that is like saying you "lost" a tumor you had removed from your body.

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