If you haven't read a headline lately, there's no way of getting to know him now: he's been dead for 2,000 yrs.
I guess He didn't get that headline either. Because he is alive, in Spirit. Risen.
You don't believe that, I know. But that doesn't make it any less true.
Aside from the inconvenience of his being dead and all, you forget that once I DID believe in him; I felt his presence, his comfort, his love.
How could you have felt those things if he does not exist?
Or are you saying that he does?
(I know, I know... you just thought you felt those things)
And you know what? It felt pretty damned goooood, basking in the warm glow of his loving kindness, warmth, grace, compassion, wisdom, mercy: all of it. I imagined him when I was being persecuted (like when two bullies who tormented me that year because I didn't salute the flag tried to prod me into a fight on the playground; I silently prayed for strength, and they gave up after I repeatedly said I wouldn't fight, over and over).
Good for you for standing your ground and not letting them bully you into being other than the person you wanted to be.
I imagined him when I did something I thought would please him and God, and felt he was proud of me. My own father lived away (parents were divorced), so he was maybe like a step-father, the proxy male-authority figure who was always there. I was raised by a single mom, and there were four kids in the house.
And perhaps he was.
You disbelieving him now would not change what might have been true then.
So I know what you feel, Tams: everyone here does, too! We ALL felt it...
You know some. Not all. Otherwise i would have nothing to say that you did not once believe yourself. I would not have to explain anything. But this is not the case.
Some here probably would continue feeling his warmth, but got DFed (which is a blessing in disguise: they were forced to go cold-turkey on their addiction to Jesus Juice™), others still sought the same high except from another Juice™ dealer (pushing another flavor of Juice™), and others felt disillusioned and rejected, condemned by the Jesus whom they loved, etc. Some don't experience anything except relief, some don't think about it, and others are angry, or riddled with guilt. Everybody has a different story.
Agreed. So stop pretending that your story is the same as mine.
Do you think that because this is what you have concluded that it must be the end product and if others conclude something different, then they are all wrong. Only you can be right?
Some of us listened to 1 Cor 13:11: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." That's what happened to me: I grew up, and fortunately didn't have as strong family pressure to continue, so I grew up with a way to escape. I was a good reader, and read books that challenged the belief system (Orwell's 1984 comes to mind: required reading, if anyone hasn't read it).
You think Paul was referring to faith when he said that?
My intellectual curiosity led me to a world I never imagined existed in the JWs, and I literally would have to experience MAJOR HEAD TRAUMA to ever consider believing in what I 100% KNOW to be a seductive but massive lie, built up over 1,000's of years, one that is SO GRAND that it's not fully comprehended by many people. I'd have to forget everything I've learned about the natural World, and the accumulated knowledge handed down to us from prior generations (Galileo, DaVinci, Copernicus, Descartes, Watson and Crick, Einstein, etc, etc) that I could never unring THAT bell.
You think i do not have a love or interest in science? Or the natural world?
One can have this; one can study this and other religions and philosophers and still have Christ.
Once you have gained knowledge of how things REALLY DO WORK (eg biochemistry, physiology, genetics, etc), there's no putting a mind back behind bars, asking it to believe ancient superstitions.
Again, love all the sciences and the possibilities they show, as well as the workings they show for now. No bars. At all. I can accept and love science... and embrace and love Christ and God.
Peace,
tammy
