Why box yourself into a belief system, especially when there is no actual evidence to support it? Better to remain totally open and available to what's actually present and real right here right now rather than being caught up in thinking and then believing one way or the other. Find out what happens when all beliefs are let go, including the beliefs that create your idea of who you are. Who/what are you when all thoughts about the "me" stop running through your mind? Stop supporting your ideas of "me" that have been fed to you your entire life by your family, the educational system, your culture, and whatever religious upbringing you've had. Challenge the validity of every belief you have of yourself and see what's present when they all fall away.
Talking with a nonbeliever...
by suavojr 48 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
jam
What if you could show me sin?a purely evil deed, an
intolerable deed for which there is no explanation? Now
there's a mystery. People would sit up and take notice.
Would you be impressed?
Taken from Walker Percy's novel Lancelot. Lancelot wonders if
proofs of the existence of God based on the order and beauty
of the universe have been off track.
He states "In times when nobody is interested in God, what would
happen if you could prove the existence of sin, pure and simple.
Wouldn't that be a windfall for you? A new proof of God's
existence! If there is such a thing as sin, a living malignant
force, there must be a God!
By the way I'm a nonbeliever.
-
suavojr
jam,
I never could grasp the idea of sin even as a beleiver, all I always saw were cells simply deteriorating.
-
suavojr
Is not easy to wash away 33 years of JW indoctrination but after learning TTATT, I have come to the conclusion that you don't need an answer to everything. The danger comes in thinking you have to have an answer, resulting in giving opinions dressed as answers. I have also fully understood that if something can happen, it can happen to you, or someone you love.
But not having the belief in a God leaves you with no real comfort, and with the realization that you will see your loved ones die.
Yet, like cofty said: the evidence for God is unconvincing.
But I still get hung up on the question of a first cause… you know, what came before the “big bang”
HOW WOULD I LOVE TO KNOW THE ANSWER!
-
-
suavojr
Jgnat
I will check your links tomorrow morning. Thank you!
-
Seraphim23
Hi galaxie, I mean beyond physical reality to be specific. I think NDEs are the richest source of evidence for this but I think there are others as well. You point about mind games is valid even from the NDE arena. For instance sometimes people see a religious icon as part of the experience but these seem to often reflect the cultural biases of the person. If God is as one might expect, like us, would he not only use one religious figure regardless of the culture? It is a point of concern I admit. The fact this happens also opens up the obvious possibility that these phenomena are a product of the dying mind only. However other aspects of NDEs contradict this as the explanation. It could then be that whatever God is it doesn’t care about religion in the way we think it should.
I think the idea of another nonphysical realm apart from this one is quite possible and valid and is perhaps the place where this realm comes from. What caused the organisational components of it I don’t know but I do place the label God here. It’s not the traditional God of the gaps but before there were gaps because it’s before science came to be or the laws of physics established.
-
cofty
It’s not the traditional God of the gaps but before there were gaps because it’s before science came to be or the laws of physics established. - Seraphim23
It really is god-of-the-gaps.
There was a time that god was the answer to everything. As science has progressed superstition has been in retreat, and the remaining gaps for god are getting fewer and smaller every decade.
-
Giordano
You are not born beliving in god. That belief is imprinted on your very young mind by parents, relatives and your community. It becomes a 'that's the way it is' belief, no evidence, no real proof.......... thats the way it is.
Human suffering....thats the way it is. So on and so forth.
I am 70 now 45 years a non believer I am a gentle cynic I really don't care if there is a god or not because the proveable view of god is that he or she is insufferable and mildly to grossly insane.
That the natural language of any god is silence and everything else is just a bad translation of what was never said.
Instead I ground myself in the following:
- we can gain knowledge through scientific research and looking at the natural world - what is real, what we can see and touch
- this one life is all we know we have
- our morality (our sense of right and wrong) comes from our human nature and culture
- what is right is what promotes human welfare and fulfilment
- we can and should create meaning and purpose in life
-
cofty
Excellent post Giordano.