I ran out of excuses for Zeus
Are you an athiest and why?
by LouBelle 100 Replies latest jw experiences
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LouBelle
Thanks so much. I've enjoyed reading everyones' thoughts.
LeavingWT - I'm reading that link tx.
OTWO - I looked at the absolute atrocities that happend in Rowanda - ghastly!!!!!!
I have pretty much agree with a lot of what you all say. A caring god doesn't make logical sense. I do however like the anaology of electricity and I get it.
I appreciate that all have been able to 'discuss' this so calmly.
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Caedes
I think we are all agnostic, whether you are an atheist or a theist. No-one can prove god exists so we are all agnostic. Going that step further and saying gods do not exist is simply an extension of my skepticism for the existence of santa claus. I could be wrong but I have seen no empirical evidence to think there is any room for doubt. Since I can safely say that santa claus is not real due to that lack of evidence then I can say the same of gods.
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smiddy
I beleive this to be a good thread LB,most people are brought up in a religion in which the majority follow the religion of their parents without seriously ,investigating,or researching the truth of the matter by looking at alternative viewpoints something which the WTB&TS frowns upon, why ?
Because you might find out you have been misled all these years
If the Jehovah`s Witnesses have the" truth" from GOD and are directed by GODS spirit shouldent they be able to defend their position ? Did Jesus ever say to opposers I`m not talking to you because your an apostate ?
Jehovah`s Witnesses have convinced me their is no GOD as described in the bible ,after leaving the BORG and doing research the idea of a personal GOD who hears prayers and answers them is a delusional person , for every account of a person who prays and their prayer is answered their is a thousand of such occasions where no prayer was answered
The mouths of the lions were shut in Daniels account !!
Where were the lions mouth shut in the first century ?
In the Hebrew scriptures (OT for others) their are many scriptures that speak of Gods protection for faithful men of old
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still thinking
WOW leavingwt...I just finished reading the link you put up for Robert G. Ingersoll...and that pretty much sums it up for me.
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Flat_Accent
I studied the WT's biblical literalist views and realised they were dead wrong. But for everything the WT has said about other religions, on some things they were right, I feel. So I thought that true christianity was not being practiced in our time.
Later I discovered the all too human origins of these holy books, and there ya go.
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LouBelle
Stillthinking - I've just finished reading that link and found myself nodding in agreement more than once. I pretty much fancied this portion (on the below, I've pretty much had this thinking for some time, but the way this chap puts it hits the nail on the head for me:
""It seems probable to me that the first organized ceremonial religion was the worship of the sun. The sun was the "Sky Father," the "All Seeing," the source of life -- the fireside of the world. The sun was regarded as a god who fought the darkness, the power of evil, the enemy of man.
There have been many sun-gods, and they seem to have been the chief deities in the ancient religions. They have been worshiped in many lands -- by many nations that have passed to death and dust.
Apollo was a sun-god and he fought and conquered the serpent of night. Baldur was a sun-god. He was in love with the Dawn -- a maiden. Chrishna was a sun-god. At his birth the Ganges was thrilled from its source to the sea, and all the trees, the dead as well as the living, burst into leaf and bud and flower. Hercules was a sun-god and so was Samson, whose strength was in his hair -- that is to say, in his beams. He was shorn of his strength by Delilah, the shadow -- the darkness. Osiris, Bacchus, and Mithra, Hermes, Buddha, and Quetzalcoatl, Prometheus, Zoroaster, and Perseus, Cadom, Lao-tsze, Fo-hi, Horus and Rameses, were all sun-gods.
All of these gods had gods for fathers and their mothers were virgins. The births of nearly all were announced by stars, celebrated by celestial music, and voices declared that a blessing had come to the poor world. All of these gods were born in humble places -- in caves, under trees, in common inns, and tyrants sought to kill them all when they were babes. All of these sun-gods were born at the winter solstice -- on Christmas. Nearly all were worshiped by "wise men." All of them fasted for forty days -- all of them taught in parables -- all of them wrought miracles -- all met with a violent death, and all rose from the dead.
The history of these gods is the exact history of our Christ.
This is not a coincidence -- an accident. Christ was a sun-god. Christ was a new name for an old biography -- a survival -- the last of the sun-gods. Christ was not a man, but a myth -- not a life, but a legend.
I found that we had not only borrowed our Christ -- but that all our sacraments, symbols and ceremonies were legacies that we received from the buried past. There is nothing original in Christianity"".
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NewChapter
There is a joke that a gunman walks into a church and asks, "who wants to go to heaven first'.
I have seen it argued quite a bit recently that there must be a spiritual because all cultures have believed. I have pointed out that searching alone does not prove the existence of the thing saught after. But here is something I am still working out in my head. While religions vary drastically, past and present, the one thing that does not vary is the desire to live. HERE In the flesh. JW's capitalize on this basic desire by saying that it is possible.
Reasoning I used to use as a JW was to ask people where Adam would be today had he not sinned. Most answered here and alive. Because truly, what sense DOES it make to create a class that would get tested first, and allowed entry into heaven later? I would point out that God had created myriads of spirit people to reside with him in heaven, and they were never tested on a separate plane.
And it occurs to me, that for most balanced people, the desire is to not die. All of this searching for the spiritual is linked to our desire not to die, not to the existence of the spiritual. I have said that I believe our brains evolved to feel a need to experience the spiritual, because it was an adaptive trait. But underneath that, and much more basic to our evolution, is the desire to live and not die. We can't make it happen, so we create a narrative in which we don't die. This fits in quite well with natural selection. Much better than with the spiritual.
So maybe when someone has convinced themselves that the search for the spiritual is proof of the spiritual, they should also consider that perhaps it is just a wish not to die. We don't celebrate when people die. Not even spiritual people do. At least not the balanced ones. I actually was at a funeral where the preacher was comforting his flock by saying 'it is not as though our loved one has left us! We are not like those without hope! It's as though she has gone on a vacation! To Hawaii." At that point I went over to the devastated grieving mother, who had just lost her teenage daughter, and put an arm around her. I can't imagine the pain she must have felt when her daughters death was likened to a Hawaiian vacation. But those people were not balanced.
Stronger than our quest for the spiritual, is our quest to postpone death. I am sure that a spiritual person will take this argument and contort it into interesting shapes and torture it until it fits their narrative. It can't be helped. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with water. They have a strong ability to conform their understanding into any shape it is poured into. But then we can ask, who wants to go to heaven first?
NC
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OnTheWayOut
If I weren't already an atheist but was agnostic, stupid reasoning like this would help push me over the edge:
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NewChapter
Well that was painful, OTWO