I don't belive God requires worship or love. I happen. You happen. Anything that exists happens. For you, God does not happen.For theists, god does happen. If god truly exists and does happen, then one day, perhaps even you will happen upon him/her.
Atheists Are More Advantaged Than The Religious Teachers!
by exWTslave 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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galaxie
Fhn, do you think god is aware of you? You wrote "if god exists", does that imply doubt?
Whatever happens in the future is no more than conjecture as it is unpredictable.
Are you a theist? I'm not reading your understanding of the god thing.
I am interested as part of my interest into why those who have a need to believe in supernaturalism
come to their reasoning especially if self calculated as opposed to being born into a belief or
inculcated from an early age.
Any way if you dont feel like explaining anything thats cool.
Best wishes to you.
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FlyingHighNow
The if is in reference to those who question.
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FlyingHighNow
It's not so much a need as it is an is. It just is and was as long as I can remember, at least into my toddlerhood.
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cofty
When people claim that it can't be proven that god doesn't exist they always prevaricate about what they mean by god.
We can show conclusively that the god of christian theism doesn't exist.
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galaxie
Thanks FHN, I can put you into the god exists just because catagory.
Possibly someday you might consider the implications of accepting this young
child learned concept and do some grown up thinking on it
Things happen.
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rebel8
one can be a true worshipper if he has love, rather than a belief in God
I'm sorry, this just sounds like redefining a word. Having love (an emotion), or behaving in a loving manner towards other humans/animals/Earth, can be done entirely separately from worshipping a heavenly being.
worship
— n
religious adoration or devotion
the formal expression of religious adoration; rites, prayers, etc
admiring love or devotion(Dr. Michael Newton). His patients—including atheists and religious people— who came for Past Regression Treatment were, under hypnosis, talking about God and soul unanimously.
Past life regression. hmmm. Have you researched that?
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FlyingHighNow
Thanks FHN, I can put you into the god exists just because catagory.
Possibly someday you might consider the implications of accepting this young
child learned concept and do some grown up thinking on it
Things happen.
Oops. Wrong category. Possibly someday you might consider the implications of the child learned concept of over simplifying people and do some grown up thinking on it. Things can happen, like you realizing that you're sounding arrogant.
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galaxie
Hii FHN, SORRY! .If you review post 20434 you may see some arrogance.
Which category do you fit into?
Coming to a belief in god as an adult is a different ball game than child inculcation.
Wouldn't you agree.?
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FlyingHighNow
Coming to a belief in god as an adult is a different ball game than child inculcation.
Wouldn't you agree.?
No, I wouldn't. Kids aren't necessarily inculcated. I know that I wasn't. If you were raised as a JW, you might not be able to understand that not all adults and even churches inculcate children.
What you perceive as a child, too young to be taught about God, is much more pure than what you come to as an adult. But what you perceive as a very young child, you can reflect on and mature, as you grow into an adult. Usually, you're going to go through your existential phase, like I did as a teenager, and question belief. My son, as a two year old, argued with us about the JW ideas of God. I had very profound thoughts of God as a young child and argued with my mother's simplistic answers to my probing questions. She gave the most simple answers she could, thinking it would placate me. My son asked how God never had a beginning. I told him we can't grasp the concept of God always existing. He told me he was never going to teach little kids that because to him it didn't make sense. You may be able to pollute some children's ideas of God, but not every child's ideas of God. My grandson is an atheist who told me when he was 14 that he had never felt anything up there. So, even though we told him differently, he has stayed true to his earliest perceptions. He thinks a lot about his perceptions, but now through the eyes of someone who is about to turn 18.
I went through an existential period, starting at age 14. My journey took me through many things and finally, into contact with the JW org, at 17. I bordered on deism by that point and my conclusions matched up to the song Imagine. When I first heard the song I was in my early teens and marveled that John Lennon and I had come to very similar conclusions about religion.
At that time though, my sister and her husband were studying with the JWs and I also happened to move in with them. I was very grieved by them choosing to study with the JWs. We had stopped attending the Episcopal church, back home and my mother allowed me generous freedom to explore religion, god, eastern philophies. I'd throw questions at the JWs that I was sure they couldn't answer, but they did. That exposure went on for months. During that time my oldest brother died. I realize now that painful grief made me incredibly vulnerable. Even though I liked some of the beliefs of the JWs, their Jehovah was very hard to swallow. He was never real to me. The fear and control in the org and the constant assertions that none of us were good enough, well those took a toll physically, emotionally and spiritually. I stopped going to the meetings at age 30. I had been baptized at 20. From the beginning, I had a growing list of what I call Things That Make You Go Hmmm. Deep inside I knew, as I did as a child, that no god could ever be as petty and evil as Jehovah.
So I left physically and my convictions began to come to the surface once more. When I got on the internet in 1999, I happened upon apostate sites. I left my marriage in 2001. Then is when I freely explored apostate websites like JWD and others and I read Crisis of Conscience. When I left, as everyone who leaves ends up, I was left with very profound questions and like anyone else who left, I explored God and his/her existence again. I've come full circle. I do believe in the existence of some kind of god and I feel very strongly that God is a universal god, with no ambitions to punish human beings, or other beings for that matter. As a child I understood that God was not an abusive parental figure. As an adult I agree with that understanding and concept of God.
One of the biggest reliefs of leaving the JWs is that unlike them, I don't have to have to answer every single question. Really, you put youself into a very vulnerable position when you think you have to know all of the answers. You might as well have the words Control Me tattooed on your forehead. Religionists don't have all of the answers and Scientists do not have all of the answers. It's additionally very notable to me that scientists are pretty evenly divided between atheists, agnostics, diests and theists. Some argue that science proves to them that there is no god or gods, goddesses or deities. For some of us, science leads the other direction. As things stand today, science cannot be used to disprove God. It is hard for some former JW atheists to accept, but we don't all have to share the same convictions about God. We are not JWs anymore and we don't have to live under their strict law that everyone has to agree. What a relief. I don't have to convince you that God exists and you don't have to try convince me that God does not exist. For either of us to think it is our duty to convince the other, it reveals residual cult effects. It really is okay if people don't reach the same conclusions that you and I have.