Still Thinking: Before I take a stab at addressing some of your concerns, could I prevail upon you to listen to part I of "Hearing From God"?
I think it may be helpful.
IS GOD REAL? HOW DO YOU KNOW?
by still thinking 778 Replies latest jw friends
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snare&racket
"But I believe there is truth in all religions."
Based on fact and research or based on that assumption feeling good and the alternative feeling scary ?
"It is a matter of degree"
It is ? ..... How do you know this? How can you tell what is true and what isnt? I mean you expect some of the written texts to be historically accurate. If I said I saw a unicorn in London whilst visiting the olympics. People in 1000 years can check and see that I indeed lived in 2012 and London HAD an olympics..... dont hold your breath on me seeing a magic horse though (sorry Mouhammed)
""throw out the baby with the bathwater."
Do you use facts and information to decide on what doctrines and beliefs you will keep and lose or feelings and emotions? I personally used history science, theology and ITS history, evolution, early man etc... and found there wasn't even a bath. If you are willing to question the bathwater why not use the same critical appraisal with the baby. If you find the evidence for the baby ... GREAT..... please share it with us all. I assure you, you will become famous and highly respected.
"Their interpretation of this period of time as one where God has not intervened with the affairs of man answer many of the debates in previous posts. As many have noted the inequity of God intervening haphazardly leaves the question of his love or righteousness in serious doubt."
Erm really? Which debates does this unscriptural idea smash to pieces? Do you pray to god? WHY if this is a time where he will not intervene in the affairs of man? ......so does he or doesnt he? He likes hiding doesnt he.... remember when he hid for 150,000 years from the Neanderthals?...lolz good times, good times...... (life expectancy was 25 - lots of tooth decay, they starved and eventually died out amongst cannibalism due to starvation 40,000 yrs ago)
"Rather the larger question of universal soveriegnty needs to be addressed once & never again."
Why? Do you really think it sounds sensible..... a man ate some fruit so he could know alot and be independant in thinking.... as a punishment god subjected all the humans (post homo erectus) to illness and disease (just like homo erectus and before) as a punishment and also to prove they could not think for themselves .... WAIT A MINUTE... this isnt fair... WHAT IF WE WERE LIKE ADAM? WHAT IF WE WERE PERFECT.... MAYBE THEN WE COULD MAKE A GOOD JOB OF THE WORLD ? Its hardly a level playing field being sick, imperfect human beings with the desire to sin.. think your god is being fair ?.......... I guess we will never know been as you have decided this is "once and never again".
"As for those who suffer and die needlessly, they have already paid the price & get a "get out of jail free card". Everyone comes back. (Unless you piss off God directly)"
How can you piss him off directly? Steal worship from him like Moses did--- will he get a ressurection? Abuse the authority he gives you and kill a man whilst sleeping with his wife? Will David get a ressurection? Deny Jesus three times? ....... what apart from bringing him veg and fruit when he wanted meat will piss him off? Oh right... yeah the long lists.... braided hair, mixed material clothing, jewellery, incest & genocide & rape OH scrap those 3 ..... no they are ok....
So ressurection.. right yeah...like Lazarus, he paid the price of sin by dying.... hangon shouldnt he still be alive now ? Also what about all the dead people that were ressurected when Jesus died.....Erm anyway... you do know the origins of the doctrine of a ressurection right? They are a little earlier than the jews and not quite what you will be expecting.... lol..... Whats this get out of jail free card? You mean not getting thrown into the lake of fire? Well... thats going to happen to them anyway after the ressurection ! Oh you think they will repent now they are in the paradise... hang on.... this isnt fair then...!
The people that die have a better chance of survivng paradise...?.... the people at the time of the end when they are the most sinful and evil due to SATAN, are at a HUGE disadvantage.... this doesnt seem fair or just? Hmmmmm..... oh not to worry, none of it is true... the world is not worse than it has ever been at all ! A quick look to the start of the bible will see commandments for the Jews to not do things like steal/murder/be disobediant to parents/ be greedy/ false worship/get drunk..... ALL the things that are supposedly unique to the end of the world! Ahhh but its WORSE now right? Nope.... go open a book, look a the average life expectancy/ infant mortality rates/ disease/ wars/ average income / quality of life / malnutrition / and NEVER has it been better than 2012.... If you say thats not true go up a bit and re-read "open a book". No seriously.... go get some books from the library.... choose a year in history when the world was a better place than today and then research the FACTS.
WAIT what about the earthquakes? Oh right yeah... the fact that in 1935 we had 300 detectors worldwide and now we have 3000, live 24 hr news, international connections, highest population per capita ever, biggest buildings/infrastructure ever ........ MATTERS. GO do your research there are the same number of earthquakes as ever before. Go research the history of the biggest earthquakes, when they were and how many dies.
Also research city palnning and human population geography. Tectonic plate meeting points are ambundant in water supplies due to the geological makeup. hence fertile land and water hence lots of wildlife hence lots of cities in the world built on fault lines. Unlike the made up facts you have eaten all your life, you may go read and research all of this as it is ALL based on FACT.
So where does that leave us........ oh yeah "So, I believe, will all of us."
I really hope not... the god of the bible is disgusting :
GENOCIDE
SLAVERY
MURDER
JEALOUSY
INCEST
RAPE
KIDNAP
SEXISM
RACISM
HOMOPHOBIA
These arent things i like, promote or would worship in a person.... sounds like a bad Hitler... wait maybe god can grieve the holy spirit !
P.s. if you ever find those FACTS for the existance of the baby, the bathwater, the bath... PLEASE PM ME !
Snare xxx mwa
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still thinking
That was intense snare........but I can't say I wasn't thinking a lot of that when I read that particular post. I was actually considering starting a thread based on revelation and the predictions made and how many of them were based on just life in general at that time. But then, I think it has already been done.
My real issue with that post is that it doesn't address how they know all of this is true...it just states them as facts.
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snare&racket
Sorry x
But...there has to be some level of responsibility when people convey/denounce your beliefs as "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" .... without one teeny weeny bit of evidence...... just one bit..... tiny teeny.... weeeny bit.... teeeny ?
Its insulting !..it takes about 2.5 seconds to say that ignorant pithy line and about 2-5+ years of hard work to know it is nothing of the sort but the cold hard truth.
Also the reply isnt for the poster, it isnt ever personal for me when I post here on such topics, I know that very few ever alter off their current course, they still need to believe for now.... BUT for the JW forum visitor, or the undecided muslim/christian.... there has to be a sober reply to such a shallow and deeply offensive line. To assume everyone that has decided there is no god did so because they didnt like their religion is JUST WRONG. Most people search desperatly for answers, proof..... even another religion. I did ! I devoured everything from the Quaran to Hinduism, then I examined the history of ALL these religions.
A few years later it was clear to me.....there is no baby, we all know here that the bath water stank and I am yet to see any evidence of even a bath.... if this evidence EXISTED this question would not exist. It would have ended in the first reply. Had someone asked for the evolution of for example....the eye... the evidence would have come pouring in.....
and this is about when they start talking about.... FAITH.... fine.... but know thats what it is. Expectancy for things hoped for - with no evidence.
Snare x
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still thinking
I completely understand your frustration with that snare...I have to put my hand up and admit that when I first started posting here I made the comment that the WTS turned people into atheists.... ....aheemmmm...but what I didn't take into account when I made that statement was that I had never questioned how I knew God was real...myself. I just assumed he was, and based ALL my reasoning around that belief.
I used to make sweeping statements that God is Love.......how the hell I knew that I really don't know. I just never questioned that maybe there was no god. I took the 'FACT' ......that god was real and based ALL my arguments around that. This was a fundamental flaw in my understanding of other people. I assumed I understood why they no longer believed. I assumed I was right and they just didn't understand that God still loved them...they just needed faith.....
However, I did want to understand why they felt the way they did. And I took a step back from my life long, lovingly held belief to see it from someone elses perspective. And you know what? When I did that, I discovered that I didn't actually KNOW diddly squat. I didn't know God was real, I just thought or believed he was...and what I have learnt is.....there is a difference in knowing and thinking or believing.
I am guessing that there ARE people that know, enough to make their belief unshakeable. But I would like to know why this only seems to be limited to a select few. Why people of all types of faith know the same thing and yet they don't agree with each other. And, I would also like to know why my belief was only strong because I wanted it to be. Surely, if it is real our belief would not waiver becasue we ask some questions that don't add up.
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cyberjesus
there ARE people that know, enough to make their belief unshakeable
uhhmm they think they know. they know they think they know.
Anyway if you are still thinking then think about someone whose belief is unshakeable....... is that open minded or close minded... Does the WT has an unshakeable belief system?
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Wizard of Oz
Science has gotten to the point where they know that in six billion years our sun will fade, turn into a couple of different types of dwarf, that our universe will cool, eventually turn into photons and I think freeze.
Science may well be able to tell us how the universe works, they may very soon be able to tell us how it came into being and out of what; but WHY it or indeed us, exists at all is the real metaphysical question............I would suggest.(LOL)
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iCeltic
Snare & Racket summed that up pretty damn well.
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snare&racket
WOZ,
Why? Why what? Why are we alive and with what purpose?
Next time you let a dodgy piece of meat go bad in the fridge, stop and ask yourself if the life forms that now exist because of your forgetfullness are asking "Why?"
Life has been made in a lab... there is no why. Just procreate and be good to people (not cos god said so but because its beneficial for you and the group.)
Snare x
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Fernando
Hey still thinking!
I have found, studied and yielded to the map provided for leading us away from religion to God. This map has a name "the gospel". Religionists instinctively fear this map since it leads captive people away from them. To hide their fear and defeat the map they deplete or truncate it by removing as many of its 30-odd markers as possible.
Following the map worked for me - and in the same way it has for many others worldwide that I have met or spoken afterwards. They have all independently come to the same conclusions on key issues despite religion pulling them in the opposite direction and leveling severe penalties against them.
We have all had the experience of entering a higher dimension mentally and being able to discern sometimes simple things that religionists cannot.
How did I come to know that faith is not belief as the Watchtower defines it? Through personal experience of my mind opening to the understanding that faith is "a wide opening of our spiritual eyes".
How did I come to know that repentance is not (simply) deep remorse over a specific sin as religionists will have us believe? Through personal experience of my mind opening to the understanding that repentance is a much wider concept namely "awareness of my/our dysfunction".
I know the very long list of profound and coherent things I am learning come not from me or other humans but from a benevolent higher power teaching me how to benefit myself. I am far from alone, and far from special, in this experience.
As one of many examples (published and unpublished) Martin Luther had the very same experience on discovering, following and yielding to this map instead of religion. This led him to risk his life to stand up to one of the most powerful, dangerous, controlling, authoritarian and lethal hegemonies in history ON HIS OWN back in 1517. Consequently you and I now enjoy a plethora of FREEDOMS and scientific advanced that did not and could not exist in society back then, on pain of torture and death.