The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences

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  sunny23

  Psacramento also said: "I don't know why He didn't take away suffering..."
  "All I know is that God does allow suffering and I do NOT know why."
  Once again, even highly educated theists can't offer a defense. Not even one that convinces them.

  Ok so you don't know and yet you persist on offering something even you do not agree with. You don't subscribe to the fundamentalist view of "none are above suffering," and you don't subscribe to a "end justifying the means," even if the end is eternal blissful life in a god-like state. So what do you subscribe to?
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  kassad84

  Bullshit!

  Now THAT is emotional!
• 

  cofty

  No it's me calling Psac on a blatant example of intellectual dishonesty.

  My argument all along has been that all attempts to excuse god are internally inconsistent. It is primarily a rational argument.

  However nobody need apologise for pointing out that the violent death of 250 000 men women and children ought to affect the emotions of any sane human.
• 

  kassad84

  No one can provide an answer because no one IS God. "For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God." Now I can (and did) provide an answer (which I think was quite naive but hey), but its all conjecture and theory really.

  Why then do I persist in believing in God, despite all the bullshit in the world and even when I don't have all the answers? Because I can feel Him in my bones. There is no proof and there is no logical explanation, it's a conviction beyond human words.

  Good day to you all.
• 

  cofty

  Because I can feel Him in my bones

  And millions of Muslims and Mormons would say exactly the same.

  Your warm fuzzy feelings about god are overwhelmingly contradicted by reality. The god of christian theism is impossible.

  You prefer to ignore the evidence of 250 000 inconvenient corpses and go on listening to your bones.
• 

  PSacramento

  Ok so you don't know and yet you persist on offering something even you do not agree with. You don't subscribe to the fundamentalist view of "none are above suffering," and you don't subscribe to a "end justifying the means," even if the end is eternal blissful life in a god-like state. So what do you subscribe to?

  I offered a view that addresses a possibility as to why God allows suffering, and I said as much.

  I have already stated that I do NOT know why God allows suffering and that I do NOT have an answer that will satisfy an atheist because unless one believes that suffering CAN be justified, there isn't an answer that ill satisfy them.

  That doesn't mean that there ISN'T an answer, just not one that satisfies them.

  Now, the answers I have given above: God permits suffering because it leads people to be better and more in direction of what He wants Us to be and that none are above suffering, isn't very satisfying to me BUT that doesn't mean that it isn't a valid answer because, IMO, it is.

  It simply is NOt one that I like or am satisfied with.

  YET, I can see it as being A answer to the problem of suffering.
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  sunny23

  Because I can feel Him in my bones.

  Or perhaps its your subliminal fear of not having life after death resonating within you? Like Cofty said, many other religious people feel the same way you do towards a God you believe to be false (any God but yours). If one were to invent a new absurd and bogus made-up religion in North Korea, eventually everyone there would believe it and feel it in their bones too :)
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  cofty

  God permits suffering because it leads people to be better - PSac

  This isn't a theoretical discussion it is a specific question about an actual event. So please explain how the 250 000 victims of the tsunami were made better by being drowned.

  Pehaps I have misunderstood you. Did you mean that you were made a better christian by the feelings of compassion you felt in 2004?

  Do you think 250 000 lives were a reasonable price to pay for your progress as a christian?

  Do you feel a twinge of unease that a quarter of a million humans amounted to a commodity for your benefit?
• 

  kassad84

  Or perhaps its your subliminal fear of not having life after death resonating within you?

  Yes, and perhaps because of fear of losing the meaning of life in general. Take away God, that Love and Power and Grace (as they say) that is greater than us, and all life and meaning (for me) goes away. Evolution takes over - that we are just accidents that came through in time out of nothing, and a race of species that will disappear in time, meaninglessly - that all that is in the universe will grow into increasing disorder and then into nothingness - as law of entropy, that all of this shit is just a waste of time. Suffering has been discussed extensively in this thread - the picture of that asian mother with her dead daughter in hand brandishedly brought up from time to time to bring home the point. And we all have our own personal sufferings that we endure and go through each day. To go through all that, endure it, and burn in its fire, and then to find out that all is meaningless anyway, I would immediately end my life to save me all further trouble. After all, I am just an accident and nothing in all this universe has meaning.
• 

  tootired2care

  To go through all that, endure it, and burn in its fire, and then to find out that all is meaningless anyway, I would immediately end my life to save me all further trouble. After all, I am just an accident and nothing in all this universe has meaning.

  Why do you assert that it is meaningless without the concept of god? Isn't it really the mystery, the possibilties, and the potential for future discoveries and figuring it all out that provides meaning now? I gotta tell you, after I gave this a lot of thought the prospect of bowing down for eternity (see book of Revelation) to some power hungry god didn't equate to a life of meaning for me.

  The facts are overwhelming that the theistic god of perfect love as described in the bible, just does not exist. The truth is, we know so very little, and there is still so very much to discover. There very well may be a purpose to it all, but it certainly isn't recorded in the bible. Science is what will eventually get us these answers. Spending time worrying about which god is the right one, and who, or who isn't saved is pointless. Just be a good person, and keep an open mind, the answers are out there.