Believing in God - Challenge

by jgnat 153 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  We read in our Holy Book (whichever one you subscribe to) that the Old School God could and would swat bad guys like a fly! SMASH! Problem solved!

  But, that God seems to be either retired or locked up in some sanitarium somewhere in history.

  God is very, very quiet!

  It is those who BELIEVE in God who make a helluva lot of noise. And they make threats, too!

  But, an actual God who "smites" evil hasn't been obvious in a couple of thousand years!

  Only the threats remain.

  For kind-hearted people there remains the benevolent and almost anonymous do-gooder GOD.

  This entity makes flowers pretty and paints the darkened sky with pinpoints of dazzling light.

  Okay. "Thank you."

  But, as a superintendant or custodian of all-life there seems to be a lot of voting "Present" instead of taking action on behalf of innocence and truth.

  God is a "no-show" at a big rally.

  For most of us, God ends up being what's left of a terrifically wonderful idea.....a feeling....a hope....a childhood wish or dream......that somehow and some way SOMEBODY GOOD is in charge of everything!!

  I vote for that.

  Does my vote count?

  Will I live to see the outcome of that election?

  Dunno.
• 

  jgnat

  I’m baack!
  
  still thinking:
  d/ we know there are gaps. I’m not talking about a rationalization of the unknown. There are volumes of information we are taking in every day that is not processed by the rational mind. Part of it is the three-dimensional information about our environment, moving through time. Some of it we can describe, some of it we cannot. There are times we make split-second decisions based on our perceptual information, that bypass the rational altogether. We can assess our reaction later, but the truth is we acted either on instinct or from that other place. Just because we can’t rationalize that other place does not mean it does not exist.
  _____

  KS: "My main problem with believing in God as a means of transcendence of oneself is that it's rather self-centered, and not doing anything beyond simply generating an internal sense of wellness by feeling you're connected to God."
  
  Perhaps more than belief is required then. Faith to be followed by action to be significant. I agree that literature distribution is a postively inane activity. I prefer to model, say Schweitzer and his very practical approach to imitating Christ.
  
  More about genius - the ancient greeks believed that artists were possessed by genius, that it was a force outside themselves and that they did not have complete control of its coming and going. This author suggests that such a concept could be freeing for the modern artist:
  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
  
  And for free:
  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/amy_tan_on_creativity.html
  KS: Heh, from the title, I thought this thread was a face-off or show-down, a competition to see who could believe in God the strongest...
  Thank God it didn’t.
  “I believe in God the mostest”
  “No I do!”
  _____
  
  That’s a fine piece of rhetoric there, Terry. Care to speculate what kind of believer I might be?
  Is it possible that someone who believes in an all-good God would make nobler choices during their life than they might otherwise?
• 

  still thinking

  Just because we can’t rationalize that other place does not mean it does not exist.

  What "other place"?

  It ALL goes on in our minds...unless some of us still believe our hearts really make decisions. Any way you choose to look at it, the brain decides, rational or not, based on what we 'know' or think we know. Consciously or subconsciously. It's not that big a mystery. Take away our brain, we don't 'react' at all.
• 

  jgnat

  Why, yes, I am talking about what resides in our own mind. We are not aware of all that we observe. I thought I was being clear.
• 

  still thinking

  but the truth is we acted either on instinct or from that other place. Just because we can’t rationalize that other place does not mean it does not exist.

  From this, I really didn't know what you were referring to to be honest. When you start to call it 'that other place' and talking about it's existence it gets a bit confusing.

  So you are saying 'that other place' is in our brain? Is there some sort of evidence that you would like to point me to support the claim that this other place exists. Is it a function we don't understand yet? Or is it understood and I am just don't know about it. There are lots of things I don't know about the brain. Please enlighten me. I'm curious as to what this all means.
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  soft+gentle

  the eagle can soar with the snake coiled around its neck - how about that, ST - an artistic impression to take us to what is out there when what is out there has to subsist with human reason.
• 

  LouBelle

  For many people believing in something that is bigger than themselves is so important to their well being. In a single word it is Hope. Their hope that their existance on this earth is not for nothing. Their hope in life after death and for some that means being reinstated with loved ones and bouncing on clouds for others it's a transferral of their soul.

  A life without hope, can be traumatic.

  My small 2c
• 

  jgnat

  In the simplistic terms, still thinking, our brain is divided in function between linear, rationalist thought (left brain) and intuitive, wholistic observation in time and space (right brain). The right brain allows us to distinguish a cup and pick it up. The left brain names it "cup". We cannot have a rational discussion without language, which provides structure. As glorious as rationalism is, it is limited by its own structures.

  In an unforgettable story in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a man whose right-brain was severely impaired was handed a glove. He was asked to consider what it's function might be. The man described it as five tubes, cojoined, with the open ends closed off. He speculated that it might hold small change. There is some information that the rational mind does not process very well.

  I also have a well-developed right brain, which I engage when I am painting, for instance. I exercise and develop my powers of observation. This can also be developed through meditative techniques, giving attention to sensual input. This side of the brain is sometimes responsible for flashes of insight, cognitive leaps, "gut feeling", and split-second decision making (yanking us back from the edge of peril).

  I say sometimes because we also have primitive brain functions that take over before the rational is engaged. This can also feel like a gut reaction. These feelings include lust, territorality. Hence the advice to count to ten before acting on an impulse. Give time for the information to be processed by the pre-fontal cortex where our rational mind resides.

  There are other brain functions that pre-process sensual input, generalizing and summarizing the information. There are neat parlour tricks that take advantage of this pre-processing function to fool us in to seeing things that aren't there.

  So I've mentioned four brains in one so far. We may feel like one personality, but surely you've felt the war between the parts when struggling with a decision.

  I understand the important struggle to let go of the irrational and the beauty of following rational thought to its natural conclusion. However, to say that the rationally explained is all that exists ignores the vast wealth of observational information we are collecting every day that cannot be expressed verbally. Sometimes it is better to let the right brain take over and simply absorb.
• 

  Terry

  That’s a fine piece of rhetoric there, Terry. Care to speculate what kind of believer I might be?
  Is it possible that someone who believes in an all-good God would make nobler choices during their life than they might otherwise?

  IF we have ANY choice of gods or orthodoxies it certainly never happens in childhood. We are born into and trapped inside our PARENT'S

  ideas of GOD, truth, right and wrong, etc. We have to be cut loose from all that to even realize there IS a choice.

  My family was "reverent" about God, the bible and good and evil and the source of that opinion was almost entirely driven by my Grandmother's Catholic upbringing.

  But, it was never organized. It was never connected to "others". There was zero church attendance.

  When I encountered my "best friend" in elementary school I met up with an evangelical urge to INCLUDE ME for the first time.

  I did not have the intellectual connection to Text necessary to ask relevent question of JW doctrine.

  I had no "investment" in another orthodoxy. It was all moment to moment practical questioning. JW's excel in overcoming objections, don't they? :)

  Religion and God have to meet a PERSONAL NEED in people for that to be anything other than emotional language seeping into social contexts.

  Does "belief" solve problems or merely assure us that it "can"?

  Does prayer answer our needs or mostly comfort us that we are phoning heaven with a real possibility of help on the way?

  In other words: we HOPE our "god" or our "GOD" is effective, personal, real and Supreme.

  Practically speaking, that may be about as good as knowing we have health insurance or a good lawyer.

  But, GOD has a deductible. I think many of us end up paying that deductible for a long, long time before any premiums are honored.

  I don't know why super intelligent people such as yourself, JGNAT, are drawn into numinous beliefs other than the very basic vulnerability all of us have to transcendence connected to history and the reassurances of excellent people around us.

  I was over powered by the Text-Wielding of JW's and the supreme confidence of superior indoctrination.

  I joined the superior side of the debate and wielded my own mighty Text mastery.

  But, little of it helped anybody to better their life and may well have had the opposite effect.

  So little PRACTICAL effect slops out of the chalice into real life as we take communion with the Divine.

  It seems to redound to stains that just won't wash out.
• 

  jgnat

  In summary, we are the whole of all we have become. No other way to be, and I don't see why we need to fight it.

  For background, my dad an angry agnostic, my mother United Church. I went through a transcendental phase, and then a battered wife phase, and then a transformative evangelical phase. I needed rescuing, and I was rescued. I consciously set aside my rationalism for a time, as it turns out that a battered wife can rationalize all sorts of abuse. Even rationalism has it's flaws.

  The only influence the JW's ever had was to engage me in a more thorough investigation of my own foundations, so that I could pin-point what exactly is wrong with them.

  I gave myself permission oh, about twelve years ago to allow my rational side free reign again. About the same time, I took up painting. I am much more integrated these days; my two sides are not at war but rather conceding to each other what they are best at.