I think I have finally reached the point were I have to make a hard decision.... (page 4)

friendaroonie

I personally see no connection between God and the Bible. It is much more plausible to me that the Bible is the result of either very evil men, or a very evil and sinister spirit. Perhaps the Bible could have actually been written by, say, the Devil, to try and make God look bad. THAT would make a lot of sense and explain a lot about what is written in the Bible. The more i read the Bible, the dumber it gets. People say to me, "Well, maybe you don't have God's spirit and that's why you can't understand it." Umm, yeah, that's what it is. Psalms 137:9, 10... and I have a problem?

confusedandalone

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTuOr2vlC-c" It is even funnier after seeing the vid LOL

OnTheWayOut " If he can't understand that person's desire to put religion and unproven belief behind him, then that God is not worth worshipping."

This what I am saying

Hortensia

It was a relief when I finally realized there isn't any god, that holy writings and gods are all reflections of the men who made them up, it made me feel lighter and free.

cofty

Sorry its off topic, but just wanted to congratulate Narc Supply for his courage.

MrFreeze

Sounds like you are using your brain. Good for you. All of this will become clearer to you as time moves along.

Captain Obvious

That's the feeling of your brain becoming free. It's a tough transition, give it time. You don't need all the answers, you just need to know how to tell when an answer is wrong!

snare&racket

The guru shroud? Jesus.... Is that all it takes?

as for the original post, I remember your feelings well.... Keep using your head, keep asking questions and you will know what the right thing to do is.

PICK promise you there is comfort and answers elsewhere, other than religion and servitude. I promise you there is no fear no guilt no surrender.

I promise you there is just evidence, knowledge, your life and your decisions.

some argue this means there is no right or wrong, they are often religious and have not thought it any further than using it as an excuse to refrain to dare ask the questions you asked.....

keep going you are doing awesome! If you haven't found him yet.... Check out Christopher Hitchens, he helped me immensely when I was at your stage ;)

snare x

Comatose

I'm right there with you. I came to terms with it just a few months ago. It is peaceful... I'll tell you something else and this is strange maybe. I've had a good life, I hope that I live a quality life for a lot longer. But, if I died tomorrow I would say I liked my life and had a good one. I can handle the thought of me dying now. it doesnt scare me or consume my thoughts. My new way of living is to try to make every day a great day. For me, my wife, and my kid. I want to give back to the world and make it a better place than it is now.

I don't need a paradise. I have learned how to enjoy THIS life. I'm going to teach my kid that too.

wheres caleb?

Live your life!

Religion breeds narcissism."I'm a governing body member because God says so, how do I know? Because I say so."

Do you need someone to interpret the bible for you or can you read it for yourself? Read it! I have, more than once.

The hard decision you are facing is one that I dealt with a long time ago, so I want to encourage you to find the reason to - live your life.

I had to listen to a Circuit Overseer claim that he read the bible six times, but that was because he was in jail for not serving in war. If you are a JW, what else are you going to do while you are in jail for your beliefs? I was not impressed. He lived his life based on his belief.

Is his life more relevant than yours? No! Live your life!

"I think", "I believe" - who cares? Live your life.

I come here because I'm enjoying mine and I look forward to topics like yours with only one objective. To encourage you to: Live your life!

Pistoff

IMO:

The bible is an important book (ok, a collection of books) but not for any of the reasons given us growing up in the kingdom hall.

The bible is a case study in how beliefs begin and change over time, IMHO, the search for meaning and the struggle to understand good and bad in life.

Why did we get invaded and overthrown? We must have abandoned God. Where did our laws and ethics come from? From God, on the stone tablets.

The OT, the jewish bible, is not viewed by most jews as we did when we were witnesses; they view it as a collection of stories with morals and cautionary tales, not literal and not history (yes, generalizing, I know). It is their oral tradition; it has great value to them as tradition. There are fundamentalist sects within Judaism of course, the ultra-orthodox, nearly as extreme as some christian sects, but for modern Judaism the bible is tradition.

The bible makes more sense when viewed as a group of people trying to understand why bad things happen to them as a nation and personally, and concluding that God is real, that he is good; that they are his people, and when bad things happened to them, it is because they had abandoned God, they lost their purity. (Many of the things I see as distortions of logic and crazy making are the result of that reasoning; remember the man who tried to keep the ark from falling, and he was struck by God? The children killed by the bear for mocking the prophet?)

It helps to know that the Bible is the product of heavy redacting and assembling of multiple sources, likely between 700 and 400 BCE, by editors that leaned toward the priesthood and the southern kingdom, that monotheism was not the rule in ancient Israel and that it was retrojected onto the ancients by the editors; the israelites likely worshipped multiple gods like their neighbors.

I still read as much as I can about early bible history and historical Jesus, not out of desire to worship but because our culture is steeped in it, I wanted to understand it, why it has such a grip on so many (obviously many reasons), and to deal with the what if it is true question.

It helped me to diffuse the anger I had about growing up as a witness.

I think I have finally reached the point were I have to make a hard decision....

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