Thanks for that!
How Did You Become An Atheist?
by NewChapter 81 Replies latest jw friends
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thinking_1
Yeah, the whole "You're just mad at God!" makes no sense. It trips my troll alarm when I read or hear it nowadays.
I meant more along the lines of being angry with a religion or organization or particular person within one.
One of my biggest revelations was that how I feel about a fact or situation has no bearing on reality.
"But if there's no God, what hope is there for the future" - I never really said that to myself, but I hear it and it makes no sense. Like there has to be a purpose to everything. There doesn't have to be any "cosmic justice". Life isn't fair. It's something people have no problem saying about small things, but it's amazing how many will trot it out when pressed about the lack of evidence for a god.
It's also not nihilistic to say there's no ultimate purpose, you can make purpose wherever you want.
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still thinking
I have only just noticed this thread...I'm off out...but marking to read when I get home....
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FreeGirl2006
I was raised in the borg from aged 2-onward. I believed very deeply in Jehoveh, faith, prayer, the Bible (well the dub concepts of such things). I did have many questions and like a good dubbie I forced them out of my mind. The turning point for me was when my mother died in 2000. She was ill with cancer and it caused her kidneys to fail. We had a nightmare her final 16 hours. The hospital would not admit mom as a patient (she was kept in the emergency room) because they would not admit mom, they would not give her any pain drugs. We begged and pleaded with the ER personel to do something to ease her suffering, but all they would say is that mom was in a coma and couldn't feel anything. Mom was not in a coma and she kept pleading with us to do something about her pain. All my sibs but one was a dub at the time and even he was praying for Jehovah to put her out of her misery. We knew she was dying, we didn't ask for a miraculous recovery only an end to her suffering. Mom had been a faithful dub I would like to add. When mom finally died later that day (we finally were able to get her admitted and get her dosed with morphine so she was able to have a peaceful final hour), I was questioning how an all-powerful, all-mighty god could watch mom suffer as she was and not intercede when it was nothing for him to take her life. Her suffering served no purpose for her or the rest of the family (as one friend told me when I spoke of this). That lead me down a trail of how a loving god could watch any of the suffering going on and let it continue when he has the means to fix it right now. The answers given by the dubs no longer provided me comfort.
Flash forward to my being booted from the borg. I was in agony (I did wrong, was repentant to the point of wanting to die, and was booted out unceremoniiously) and decided I just didn't care about god anymore. That was a lie though, as I still carried with me deeply rooted beliefs. I still believed in Jehovah, the Bible, faith, and prayer. I made the decision that I would never go back to the borg even if that meant signing my death warrant at Armaggedon. With that decision came the freedom to speak freely about religion, to really listen to people about their beliefs, to read books on other religions, science, and everything in between. I became ambivalent about religion. Then I met my boyfriend. He had been as deeply involved in his Baptist faith as I had been with the dubs. He was a deacon of his church and a missionary in Israel. He knows the Bible better than anyone I have ever encountered. He is also now an atheist. His deeper study into the Bible, coupled with his Jewish background and intensive study of the Hebrew language led him to that point. He and I would have friendly arguments about the Bible and God in the beginning of our relationship. I started to see the rationale of his views and the huge holes in the very foundation of Christian beliefs.
I arrived at the place I am at (agnostic/atheist--I am not sure if there is a creator but really don't care either) after about 6 months of conversations with my boyfriend. I realized how I spent the majority of my life looking ahead to a future while barely acknowledging the present. I am much happier today than I ever was in dub-land. I enjoy each day as its own. I frankly don't care how someone believes (although I would dearly love if my still-in dubbie relatives would come to their senses). I have friends who are deeply religious and I have friends who are atheists. I listen with respect to their beliefs and vice versa. We may not understand why the other feels the way they do, but we get along.
Thanks for starting the thread NC--you always have interesting comments to make.
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smiddy
The Almighty God, whoever you choose him/she to be has existed for eternity , fast forward to human life existing on this planet but not forgetting he/she created the now known universe with it`s Zillions of suns and billions of galaxies stretching for godzillions of light years at an ever expanding pace. I digress,getting back to humans on earth this all encompassing GOD creator of the Universe chooses only to deal with / communicate with a small minority group of people who by todays standards would be classed as intellectually inferior to todays education, even by Jehovah`s Witnesses standards (would any of the bible writers or prophets get a job in the legal department of the Watchtower Org. ) I don`t think so. And to leave the majority of the population outside of this "hope" destined for destruction because they wouldnt beleive an imperfect humans interpretation of someone who claimed to be speaking for GOD
This site/board discussion group has done wonders for me personally in opening my eyes to the many possabilitys /probabilitys of alternative thinking.
smiddy
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EnlightenedEphesian
My opinion...I've struggled with the same thoughts so many times. When you hear of children being violently put to death by even their parents, it makes you wonder how can a loving God tolerate this? Unspeakable atrocities are happening every day. With some of my JW believes still lingering, I once discussed this with my husband and compared the thought of God casting and confining Satan to the earth as locking a pedophile in a room full of children. Who's really being punished here? I sometimes still struggle, but I do believe in God. I feel that we really know so little of the picture, that he must have a plan and perhaps his attention is diverted elsewhere right now. Just a few of my thoughts.
EnlightenedEphesian
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palmtree67
FreeGirl, your comments were very touching. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
Palm
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Phizzy
I realised whrn I left the WT/JW scam posing as areligion that I knew next to nothing, and that my Critical Thinking skills had been numbed by all those decades in the cult, where thinking is not an option.
I decided to educate myself and to hone my C.T skills, when you apply such thinking to the matter of "God" or a Creator you soon end up Agnostic/Atheist ,
( aren't these labels difficult ? they never fully explain your position).
If you choose to still believe, which means accepting something as true without evidence, then you are free to do so, but recognise that the more rational members of society will think of you as deluded.
The Problem of Evil as touched on above, is one that all sorts of thinkers over the centuries have wrestled with, the evidence and reasonings about Evil suggest that it exists because the Universe is totally random, and "God" does not exist.
As Cofty said "Shit Happens".
I do not find any of the thoughts from Saints, Church fathers and Philosophers and others that suggest otherwise to be persuasive in the least.
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smiddy
Phizzy
smiddy
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soft+gentle
great thread NC
(I'm supposed to be on vacation doing other things abroad)
just wanted to say in case this is of interest to jws and xjws. I am an atheist when I want to be one and a theist when I want to be one - agnostic etc - it all depends on what i need to confront. The one person who helped me find my path was Victor Fankl and his book Man's search for Meaning. this book is described as the classic tribute to hope from the holocaust and has sometimes been discussed on here. It demonstrates the importance of value and hope stemming from belief whatever one believes or does not believe. It discusses existenialism and how the mind is involved is formulating meaning but if I have a criticism it is this that Victor Fankl foucses too much on the mind but I accept that this comes out the milieu of the period and if he was alive and writing today he might be might use other language because in his book his philosophy incorporates much more of what we today mean when we focus on the mind. great article on wiki if anyone is interested in reading up about him and his ideas.