non believers what if your wrong ?

by unstopableravens 546 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  still thinking

  Re: non believers what if your wrong ?

  Shit happens! I'm wrong about stuff all the time...lol
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  NewChapter

  new chapter really ? a marker of ejaculation. i never heard that thought before. you look at what does not exist(a marker of male purity)and say god does not exist as well . i look at what does exist and see there is a creator of what exist. the human body is so amazing not simple at all. i remember when my son was born it was the most wonderful thing not just because it was my son birth but the whole way life is and birth to me shows the hand of a creator.

  No, you have completely missed my point. Let me try again. This is a much minor point, compared to the major points, but was a thought that I had. Women are property under this god. Their most valuable possession and indeed a measure of their worth is their virginity. Losing that could lead to them being stoned in the town square, because this lovely god that these brutal men created says it must be so.

  NOW--to a very minor point. This is how it happens. The major points come together, and the more you think on it, the minor points start to become clear.

  Okay, so Christians will often give some malarky story that this god values male chastity as much as he values female chastity. IF that was true, would it not make sense to give little boys some kind of physical marker to prove their virginity? You know, so they could be stoned too? We aren't talking ejaculation, we are talking sexual intercourse. Where the hell did ejaculation come from? Anyway, back on track.

  So there are two options. Either this god really didn't concern himself with male virginity, and really liked extra excuses to stone women. OR humans made this god and simply took advantage of the way the female body evolved to enforce their stoning policies.

  I choose option two, for several reasons. FIRST, busted, bleeding hymens (the father saved the marriage sheets---you know---proof. *gag* and also to provide a defense should they come to stone the daughter, as they were fond of doing in the day) are a completely inaccurate method of determining virginity because there are other ways this could be damaged, or perhaps it was weak to start with. IF this was a loving god (and not just a barbaric creation of a barbaric culture) then it only seems fair that an equally unreliable method of determining virginity were given to males, so that when they have reasons other than sex that this marker would disappear, they TOO could get stoned to death, while being innocent.

  Follow me? This is not the major point of why I reject belief in this god, and in other gods, but it is a minor detail that became clear to me as I thought on it more.

  Think about this. Sodom and Gomorrah were SO evil because maybe there were homosexuals about, *gasp* So the town and all the people had to be brutally murdered. Lot's wife was so evil, for looking back at her home, she's salt. What WASN'T evil was Lot getting drunk off his ass and impregnating both his daughters! (well, hell, they WERE his property afterall). LOL How ridiculous is that?

  What WASN'T evil is when Lot offered his virgin daughters to a sex craved crowd to do with 'as they pleased' to protect some men in his home. LOL Do whatever you want to my daughters, but please, please, leave these men alone. Ridiculous yet?

  Not yet? Well let's take that unnamed prophet of this god that went to get his concubine back. Yeah, she had committed adultery, but you know. Stoning was not good enough for her. Men came for her, and he threw the woman out to them to do with as they pleased. They raped her to death. And he was so broken up over it, he cut her body up in little pieces and tied them to donkeys (or whatever the animal was) and sent her pieces out to the land. LOL Ridiculous yet?

  Oh they were a disgusting lot, and Jesus thought all of this was wonderful. FULL AGREEMENT, remember that.

  How about this. Judah (I think) has a son who died, so he arranges for a son to young to procreate to marry dead son's wife. (BIL marriage!) Now she is promised, but I guess she wanted that offspring sooner, because she dresses as a prositute and veils her face. Nasty old Judah comes along and has sex with her. When she turns up pregnant, well then she must DIE! LOL Oh, and the child with her (there goes that abortion thingy). He doesn't want to stone her, as I recall, but burn her alive (if I remember correctly). But then she proves he is the father (something of his she was holding in lieu of payment---yeah---he didn't even have the cash to pay! Wanker!) Oh, well then, everything is just fine! Here he was gonna burn her as an adulteress, and it turns out, blush, that HE is ALSO an adulterer and slept with his son's wife. No need to burn anyone now----blow out that torch. Ridiculous yet?

  Why does you god hate women so much? Well if we go with my theory, and consider that it was a woman-hating culture that created the god--we only need to look at that area of the world now to see how they treat their women. Enough said. THEY created that god because THEY hate women.

  How can you love and want to spend eternity with such a psychopath? Not for me. Happily, there is absolutely no evidence that such a murderous monster exists. But, hey, if you want to dedicate your life to it, just try not to stone anybody.
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  unstopableravens

  new chapter you have good points i will def look into this and get with you. i def understand why you feel as you do! but yeah i will look at everything that was.brought up.thanks for the breakdown
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  PSacramento

  Reconciling the OT God with the God revealed in the NT in His Son is a bit tricky, no way around that.

  There are a few methods but to be honest, none of them solve the problem of some of the more difficult passages in the OT.

  But that is another thread.
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  perfect1

  I respect Unstoppable for saying, I dont have all the answers, but thats OK, thats where I am at, for now.

  That seems like such an honest statement.

  I can relate to the wonder of life- but to me, it doesnt require a God.

  Could you ever look at your baby, UR- and say, what if- there is no God.

  Your question brings me to think a bit about fear- like your OP seems to suggest we all might get blasted by the Big G- and then wont we sorry- The amazing thing is living life without fear.
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  smmcroberts

  Okay, I've just spent way too much time reading all nine pages on this topic (when I'm supposed to be working!) And now I just have to throw in my two-cents worth...

  First of all, to answer the OP question: When I die I fully intend to be dead. My definition of dead is "not alive". So, I don't worry anymore about after-life consequences of non-belief, since I don't believe in any personal existence for myself after my life is over.

  As for the here-and-now, if I'm wrong then I accept that; I cannot force myself to believe something I think is false (I don't think anyone can.)

  unstopableravens: the wt says the all of us here are not going to be resurrected

  For once: something they've actually gotten right!

  NoStoneCutters: Yes, Satanus, that is where the Creator of all our chemical reactions comes in, because despite our abundance or lack of empathy, there is a standard by which to determine morality in the absence of empathy or one's unwillingness to act upon it.

  And that standard is what, exactly? That's it's acceptable to own people as slaves? To keep women in "subjection" and rape them? To kill civilians in war, including ripping open the bellies of pregnant women? To wipe out entire villages when they have tried to make peace with you? To lie in order to get what you want? To call people you disagree with "fools" and "offspring of vipers" and to whip them?
  
  Why is it that we feel that the above list is a list of atrocities? It is because our inherent empathy rebels against actions which harm another. So, you've really gotten it backwards: the Bible does not serve as our moral guide. We have the morals a priori and judge the Bible as immoral on that basis.
  
  
  New Chapter, I think I've fallen in love with you.
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  PSacramento

  I can understand reading the OT and NOT wanting ANYTHING to do with that God, even more so reading it with our 21st century eyes ( heck even in the 1st and 2nd century there were CHristian converts that wanted to disassociate CHristainity from it's OT roots).

  It is however important to understand what we are reading, who wrote it, to whom and why.

  The OT has some very difficult passages in it, some horrific ones, yes, as one would expect from that type of collection of books.

  The various books are reflections of the world the authors ( and editors) lived in.

  They lived in a broken and fallen world in need of redemption, how can we expect the books written by them to be any different?
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  OnTheWayOut

  You cannot sum up morality or empathy on a Believers vs. Unbelievers basis.

  Unbelievers can have those qualities in abundance, but let's ignore that and look at the other side.

  Believers do not have any evidence of what their creator considers moral. All the Gods are silent. If the Bible is their guide, it's a horrible guide.

  Issues galore will bog down Bible-believers into different camps. Here's a sample of the morality of the Old Testament:
  
  God deliberately hardened Pharaoh's heart, and made him even more unwilling than before to free the Hebrew slaves. (Turning men worse than they are to prevent their own salvation, among other problems with that.)

  Genocidal commands of God, such as the call to destroy all the Canaanites including children and infants to fulfill God's promise to give the promised land to his chosen people.

  God ordering military raids against other tribes who never knew the God of the Israelites and leaving alive young virgin girls who were kept by the Israelites as slaves for breeding.

  God allowing Satan to plague Job with devastation, even killing his children. You can't make up for it by giving him new children.
  
  Punishing people for the sins of their ancestors or their leaders.

  The Bible is unclear on some huge issues such as abortion, military service, charity.
  
  That's just a tiny portion of what can be named. Then many think the New Testament and Jesus cleared that all up by ignoring the God of vengeance and focusing on the God of love. But try to get three Christians to agree on what "turn[ing] the other cheek" means or how to apply the Golden Rule in specific circumstances. Ask those three Christians how to apply Jesus' lesson on how Christians should "hate" family members and love "Him" more, or how women should be "obediant" to their husbands. Ask them if children are damned or set for destruction in hell or what if they never heard of Jesus or were otherwise never baptized.

  And we haven't even left the Bible to discuss what the other 2/3rds (really more) of believers follow.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Stealing a bit from Wikipedia,

  Pascal's Wager is an argument in apologetic philosophy which was devised by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, Blaise Pascal. It posits that there's more to be gained from wagering on the existence of God than from atheism, and that a rational person should live as though God exists, even though the truth of the matter cannot actually be known.

  Pascal formulated the wager within a Christian framework, and from what I read, it seems that it should be automatically assumed that Christians are in the correct belief system. Is this also Unstopableravens' starting point- Christianity?

  No matter, there is also the argument from inconsistent revelations, also known as the avoiding the wrong hell problem, an argument against the existence of God . It asserts that it is unlikely that God exists because many theologians and faithful adherents have produced conflicting and mutually exclusive revelations. The argument states that since a person not privy to revelation must either accept it or reject it based solely upon the authority of its proponent, and there is no way for a mere mortal to resolve these conflicting claims by investigation, it is prudent to reserve one's judgment.

  It is also argued that it is difficult to accept the existence of any one God without personal revelation. Most arguments for the existence of God are not specific to any one religion and could be applied to many religions with near equal validity. Acceptance of any one religion thus requires a rejection of the others, and when faced with these competing claims in the absence of a personal revelation, it is argued that it is difficult to decide amongst them. Were a personal revelation to be granted to a nonbeliever, the same problem of confusion would develop in each new person the believer shares the revelation with.
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  PSacramento

  Believing for the sake of believing or believing "just in case" is kind of a moot point because, if the bible is correct, believing in that way still won't get you far.

  There has to be "right intent" in belief, belief because you believe (though faith) not beause you have to, not because you want soemthing, but belief that is genuine and heartfelt.

  Believing "just in case" or "you never know so you better.." or any belief that isn't legit and real is no belief at all.