If you cannot choose to do good, then you are not actually good, are you? What is the point if you cannot choose?
If you don't understand what "accretion" is---how can you understand Bible?
by Terry 32 Replies latest jw friends
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Band on the Run
I compulsive study Bible commentaries and the major theologians. It helped me say good riddance to the Witnesses. My quest for academic perfection has not made me a better Christian. Yes. I can debate. My more immediate worry is how to apply Biblical principles in my every day life. Do I strive to love everyone? Do I love my enemy as myself? (no way). To a certain extent, memorizing trivia helps with winning Jeopardy at home but community is more important to me. Yes, I feel much more comfortable when most parishioners are conversant with the same body of knowledge.
I converted in a university community, Columbia in NY. Union Theological and Jewish Theological were across the street. I minored in New Testament studies. Through an accident involving the local subway, I discovered the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This crowd and even my local suburban church were familiar with most of what I had studied. I must say the knowledge was very heady at first. The Witnesses falsehoods were evident in a preliminary reading of the Bible in consecutive verses. Lawyers place great emphasis on text. I was constantly calling home at all hours to reveal to my family what I found. I did not and still do not read commentaries at first. I want to be alone with the text first. Elegant discussions can sway me.
I believe people from the housing projects who are functionally illiterate may do better than I do. The world tempts me. I am very worldly. In fact, I had no idea how all the years in Manhattan were transforming me. The great privilege of being around bright people, well versed. It is only when I was forced to move away temporarily that I realized how different I was.
This Lent I am not reading Bible commentaries or books on myth. I want to seek more spiritual works. Thomas Merton's The Wisdom of the Desert is my Lenten reading. I had to read Thomas a Kempis,The Imitation of Christ. I feared it would send me out of my mind. Altho my rational mind was repulsed, I noticed how my breathing slowed. It calmed me down, which was a shock.
Trying to be a faux Bible scholar will not bring me happiness. I am only saying I need a balance. People without benefit of fancy educations can perform extraordinary Christian acts. Also, when I will just rest on the fact that the Witnesses are wrong. I don't understand why I post so much here. It appears that I need constant reassurance that they are wrong. Yet I never reach constant reassurance. I am deeply wounded by the Witness experience. The doctrine is false but the deep hurt is from the culture inflincted on innocent children.
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Terry
If you cannot choose to do good, then you are not actually good, are you? What is the point if you cannot choose?
This is getting weirder and weirder!
Let's substitute a different word for "good" since it prejudices the entire discussion.
In the practical world 2+2=4 not because 4 is GOOD. So, why then? It corresponds with how things really are!
When something corresponds to how things are the description is valid. It is True. And reaching that state is GOOD.
4 is not Moral it is simply correct.
When humans get it right they are not distorting reality. That is GOOD.
Humans cannot BE GOOD. That is a religious fallacy. Humans can distort things in their thinking. That inaccuracy is not accurate. Being not accurate can be destructive. Call that BAD. But, answering 2+2=5 does not make anybody BAD. It makes their answer a distortion of reality.
People cannot be GOOD. People cannot be BAD. People can be WRONG. Their thoughts, their ideas, their thinking is a distortion of reality.
A programmed human who only makes correct decisions would never make wrong ones.
You tell me the ADVANTAGE in having a mind that can distort reality?