reply under these aspects...
1)life/death
2)sin/retribution
3) freedom/ responsibilty
4)fear/love
5) no gods/ zero impact
Does your idea of God scare you or comfort you & why ?
by caliber 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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caliber
our perception is important because it has direct effect upon our body and mind
Various spiritual teachings say that there are only two fundamental emotions: love and fear. For the body, this is true. All mammals, including humans, have two opposing hormonal responses to stimuli. Threatening stimuli cause an increase of stress hormones—adrenaline and cortisol. Soothing or reassuring stimuli cause an increase in oxytocin.
Fear - Cortisol
Love - Oxytocin
Aggression
Anti-stress hormone
Arousal, Anxiety, Feeling stressed-out
Feeling calm and connected, Increased curiosity
Activates addictions
Lessens cravings & addictions
Suppresses libido
Increases sexual receptivity
Associated with depression
Positive feelings
Can be toxic to brain cells
Facilitates learning
Breaks down muscles, bones and joints
Repairs, heals and restores
Depressesimmune system
Faster wound healing
Increases pain
Diminishes sense of pain
Clogs arteries, Promotes heart disease and high blood pressure
Lowers blood pressure, Protects against heart disease
Obesity, Diabetes, Osteoporosis
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ViridianSoul
I'm new, but I'll bite at this one, while I'm busy running down my post limit. It's an interesting topic, for sure.
Okay. I was raised as JW, and it instilled in me a deep fear of God in all the wrong ways. I was not fearful of God because of his righteous judgement, as they claim, nor did I love him. I was afraid of God because of how truly mean, horrible, spiteful, and hateful he was made out to be. A burning lake of fire for all eternity if you don't believe? Seriously?
All of that sort of thing went in direct opposition with the teachings that Jesus came to earth to give us. He told us one simple thing, which I feel is the key to life, the universe, and everything. Our purpose is to love. Just love. No more than that.
How, then, could I follow a god that didn't practice what he preached? No loving god would subject its creations to unending firey torment, as far as I'm concerned. The JW god? He's just as hypocritical as any of the other versions of god out there, from an organized religion standpoint, and just as hypocritical as their organization on the whole!
The God *I* choose to follow is an all-just, ALL-LOVING God. He (I use the male pronoun out of habit and clarity, not because I believe that God is sexually a male being. I don't believe that God has a "gender"; I think he is aesexual.) would never torment his creations, or cause them to hurt or suffer, no matter WHAT "sins" they've committed. The hurt and suffering in the world is caused by mankind's own imperfections, a loss of the all-encompassing trait of love, one might say, giving rise to things like greed, lust, self-possession, and so on and so forth. There is room for forgiveness for everyone, regardless of whether or not they realize the error of their ways and repent.
I DO believe there is a hell, and it is simply this: an absence of God. Those who "sin" unforgiveably-- murderers, child abusers, and so on-- I believe will be denied the presence of God and be forced instead to return to the world again and again, until they get it right. Once they do, and come to realize why human beings are actually here...then they will be able to attain heaven-- which is simply being with God.
(The above is my own personal view of reincarnation, and I don't expect anybody else to agree with me. It's just something that feels right to me.)
Along these lines, I do not at all believe that we as human beings should simply sit back and wait on God to do for us. No, I believe that if we want the world to be a better place, WE have to stand up and DO something about it. As the saying goes, "Faith without works is dead."
We can't expect God to just take care of everything and make the world a better place, while those "believers" sit back and gloat that they're on the winning team while the rest are made to suffer. This is the sort of behavior I see so very prevalent in JW society: they seriously think that just by virtue of being JW, they're saved when 'the end' comes, and they can sit back and watch with smirks on their face as all the sinners get cast into the fires of the burning lake!
Heh, even my own father is guilty of this kind of back-asswards thinking-- he said when The End comes, he's going to sit back and LAUGH!-- and I personally find it disgusting and abhorrent. What I'd like to know is this: who does he really think he is, to presume that God even WANTS him to live, when he is clearly so callous toward his own human bretheren??? Did he learn ANYTHING from Jesus' teachings at all?
Why should ANY human being go out of their way to WANT to see another suffer and die horribly, for ANY reason? I know I don't. I feel just as bad for the aborted baby as I do for the person that didn't think they had any other choice, and for the person that is murdered by some crazy person...AND for the crazy person that murders and is sentanced to death, and everyone in between. I can disagree with them and what they've done if it was sinful, harmful, or shameful in my eyes, yes...but I don't wish for any of them to die horribly. I'm only human, of course, and sometimes I think it...but immediately I realize it was bad and ask for forgiveness for that shortcoming.
...yet, the JWs do it in spades, as do the rapture people and every other religion that thinks it's the "only right and true way" to God. It's the "we get to live and you all get to die" mentality that makes me wonder WTF these people are even THINKING!
None of them get it, so in my opinion, they're ALL doomed to failure.
There is only ONE key to true happiness and closeness with God, and that is LOVE. Anyone that doesn't practice love is doomed to fail. If you really try, God knows your heart, and then you'll be one with him.
...anyways. End rant. lol
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WTWizard
Comfort me? You mean, deliberately stopping me from reaching fulfillment so he can get me to do more for him? Such as going to the Value Destroyer Training School. Or, living as a monk--upon seeing I wasn't a good Catholic, he scammed me into the witlesses under the pretext of helping me to meet the opposite sex. That was a scam--Jehovah used it to lead me into the witless religion, hoping to use it to lead me to the Value Destroyer Training School on the far horizon, using pious-sneering and Beth Hell as intermediate steps.
And now that I am no longer a witless, a Christian mission to get all of Nigeria into Christi-SCAM-ity is on the far horizon. Jehovah will use joining a church with missionary work there (no mission yet), seeking responsibilities with that church, smaller missions within the local area, and shorter missions working toward permanent missionary work in Nigeria as the intermediate steps.
And for what? Nothing. Jehovah doesn't give up on taking the opposite sex out of my life to usurp it for himself. Whether as a monk in the Catholic church, a Value Destroyer Training School graduate as a witless, or a missionary in Nigeria, I find no fulfillment in serving that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag Jehovah. And that "You shouldn't think of yourself" rubbish from Jehovah when I would prefer the opposite sex to either of the above (and Jehovah takes it away, using it to dangle to get me into those end results) to claim I'm merely selfish? That is enough to drive me right into pure, open Devil worship! Yes, Jehovah will not give up on trying to dangle the opposite sex out of reach, to get me into the ultimate sacrifice (adding to the "perfect, complete sacrifice to which nothing ever need be added, thereby invalidating Christi-SCAM-ity at the source). But at least I will not be rewarding that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag by wasting my life in Nigeria, a Catholic monastery, or trying to build up witless congregations through the world when Agenda 21+ is going to ruin it all anyways.
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Band on the Run
Both. The primitive part of my brain clings to the wrathful, outrageous Jehovah. What terror Jehovah was to me? One could never be good enough to escape his blood lust. No matter how active you were or how many hours you devoted to FS and Witness work, one was never safe. Humans were so bad. Jehovah capriciously destroys humans. Occassionally,he was nice for about two minutes. I say I no longer believe or worship this Jehovah but many of my gut, default settings go to the core of Jehovah terror.
My rational brain rejects Jehovah completely. When I studied NT in college, our feminist professor explained the difference between son of man and son of God. She said being a son of God was not messianic. Every king of Israel was a son of God. The key to Jesus' belief in his own messianic status was son of man. Further, despite the many sons of God, no daughter of God ever existed. I had heard enough and uttered, "F.....k God. He doesn't me b/c I am a woman while I doubly reject him. I will worship goddesses." As time passed, I became Epsicopal in stages. The churches were night and day from the Witnesses. All my problems, the rejection of women, the tantrums, the blood lust, the Holocaust, were discussed openly as problems of believers. I wanted to nail down a cathechism to compare with the Witnesses. Priests refused to tell me where I could find. They said this concept of Christianity was asking questions in a community of people seeking the same answers. The questions were more important than the answers.
My mind is at war with the two concepts. I wish hypnotherapy or something would remove my fear of Jehovah. Decades later, my rage is still strong. I became very ill, near death, with facial neuralgia. The suicide rate is 95%. C.S. Lewis and Victor Frankl (and Jung) gave me resolution to continue. My pain is in remission but I feel taint. I trace this directly to the Witnesses. Their explanation of innocent suffering is that somehow you did something wrong. Never are you suppossed to be bitter, angry, or depressed as your life and your family's life is utterly destroyed. As a long-time NYer, I choose to kvetch with the best in the city. I am alive today, in large part, because of my church. My rage was accepted as normal, not abborent. Most of all, no one ever imposed a 17 point plan on why suffering is good. It reminds me of Abraham willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Most theologicans reject it as completely amoral. Such a God is to be despised and rejected.
So I am like Captain Kirk when Janice Lester took over his body. I wish I had a friend such as Spock to convince me to integrate my personality by using transport technology.
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tec
Good rant, Viridian:) (and welcome to the board)
My God strengthens me. He teaches me. And He comforts me. The teaching can be unpleasant, when I've learned something about myself that I don't like. But I am glad to learn it.
Peace,
Tammy
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N.drew
Hi Viridian Soul. Welcome! I like your essay. To me it's not like ranting. It's a testimony. And it's a good one.
This is my favorite part:
"Why should ANY human being go out of their way to WANT to see another suffer and die horribly, for ANY reason? I know I don't. I feel just as bad for the aborted baby as I do for the person that didn't think they had any other choice, and for the person that is murdered by some crazy person...AND for the crazy person that murders and is sentanced to death, and everyone in between. I can disagree with them and what they've done if it was sinful, harmful, or shameful in my eyes, yes...but I don't wish for any of them to die horribly. I'm only human, of course, and sometimes I think it...but immediately I realize it was bad and ask for forgiveness for that shortcoming."
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tec
Yes, I liked that part a lot too, Nancy.
Peace,
tammy
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caliber
All of that sort of thing went in direct opposition with the teachings that Jesus came to earth to give us. He told us one simple thing, which I feel is the key to life, the universe, and everything. Our purpose is to love. Just love. No more than that. ~~~~~VS
Happiness is simple, we create it by expressing love.....
Most people pursue happiness and find it elusive. Those that create happiness
have an abundance to share with others -
PYRAMIDSCHEME
Ever since I have left I have not given much thought to God. But I can say when I was in I did not find their version of God very comforting.