It's etiquette to refer to people by their chosen pseudonym.
I occasionally use my real name when welcoming new members. That doesn't give you permisison to use it.
Who are you dabster? What name did you post under previously?
Leaving the JWs, experiencing Christianity and finding freedom! (But it took awhile)
by im_free 99 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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dabster
I'm sorry Cofty. Happy to call you by your nick. I wasn't aware of the etiquette. I've only ever been dabster.
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Perry
Now I am wondering, is there anyone else here that has had this experience?
I have. I thought I became a Christian for a while but then became disillusioned because I wasn't experiencing the victory that I read about in the NT. The liberal feel good church I was going to didn't help either. Sorta drifted into agnostic. But then, through a series of events I was forced to make a permanent decision for Christ. It was me hiding my "christianity" from my JW family that prevented Jesus from accepting my application for membership into his family.
When Jesus asks us to believe in him, he means him exclusively, and before anything else. When he says that we must be willing to say goodbye to our mothers and fathers to have a relationship with him, he wasn't just blowing hot air. He meant it. I wasted alot of time testing that and got no where.
After I believed (and more importantly trusted) the Lord Jesus Christ, my life really took off....slowly at first, but nonetheless progressive. Consistent victories, amid great challenges.
The turning point was when I burned my bridges with my 4th generation JW family... torched them down to the ground, by challenging them to find EVEN ONE SCRIPTURE that would indicate a person could get saved from judgment outside of the New Covenant. I'm still waiting.
Immediate and drastic shunning of me, my new wife, and two new born children quickly followed. They were sure it was just a phase I was going through. Over the last ten years I have continually taken the battle to heaven. My prayer group at church prays for them regularly. I can now have infrequent visits and challenge things from the bible, and not hide like a coward.
I am no longer ashamed of Jesus and he is no longer ashamed of me. The battle that I have concerning my family of origin, is to the death, mine or theirs. I will never hold them responsible for their idolatry and shunning. I love them. I will fight this battle on my knees for them until they are strong enough to take a stand for themselves.
I would highly encourage anyone wishing to get right with God and experience his power and victory to do the same.
We have dozens of relatives that are JW's, I was a regular pioneer, brothers and Dad all elders and Ministerial Servants, lots of of other elder relatives. My mother has been baptized for 71 years and attended the first Kingdom Hall in Houston, Texas. I was a 3rd gen on my dad's side and 4th gen on my moms side.
My children are now 2nd generation Christians.
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cofty
If you are an atheist ... where do you draw the line where you decide to accept and reject the recorded events? How do you decide? - im_free
The short answer is to follow the evidence. Consider the manuscript evidence and textual criticism tells us. What does history, archaeology and science reveal.
As JWs we started from the premise that the bible was true, and then forced everything else to fit. This is what Perry still takes pride in doing. It is intellectually dishonest.
"Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this." - Thomas Henry Huxley
By following the evidence we know that Genesis is an origin myth written by pre-scientific people. There was no perfect beginning. We evolved over millions of years from a common ancestor with all other living things. We know that there exodus never happened. The OT is typical of the sort origin myth that nations tell themselves in order to create a sense of shared history. History tells us that Israel was a collection of modest nomadic tribes who settled down and spent centuries fighting neighbouring tribes. They also invested a lot of time and effort fighting each other and soon split into two natinal groups or alliances.
Of course their origin myth had to paint them as god's chosen nation among all the nations of the Fertile Crescent and their god as the biggest. After their exile in Babylon they wrote their "history" all over again for a new generation. It's fascinating to observe the development of their story in the post-exile books. It's also disturbing to observe their growing xenophobia.
As for the New Testament, we see an evolution of the Jesus story in the gospels. Mark, the earliest gospel has no knowledge or interest in Jesus' origins. There is no virgin birth story for example. He says nothing about the resurrection either apart from a mysterious empty tomb, but the women say nothing about it to anybody because they were afraid. Later gospels embellish the story in ways that contradict each other in ways that can't be resolved. It is these sort of contrived details that convince me there was a real man behind the myths. I don't think he was entirely invented out of whole cloth.
For example both Matthew and Luke have Jesus' parents from Galilee but need the baby to be born in Bethlehem and they resolve the dilemma in different and contradictory ways. Go compare.
It is clear that Jesus taught he would return in kingdom power during the lifetime his first followers. The early history of the church shows that the church lived in expectation of this event. The story of the NT is of a body of people coming to terms with failed expectations and building an organisation, with all it's power structures, to settle in from the long-term. It develops from a Jewish sect to a new religion with doctrines that would have been a mystery to Jesus and his first disciples.
There is very little about the bible that is worthy of our respect or admiration. Look at it again and try to see it objectively like you are reading it for the first time. Let each author tell his own story and don't try to make it fit with the accounts of other, later authors.
You would find books by authors like Bart Ehrman to be fascinating. Do a search for him on YouTube and watch a few of his lectures.
dabster - I haven't forgotten about you. Later...
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dabster
Not a problem, cofty. I'm still here.
A detailed analysis of Bart Ehrman's book 'Jesus, Interrupted' by Ben Witherington and called 'Bart Interrupted' starts here: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/bart-interrupted-detailed-analysis-of.html. It's a helpful corrective and well worth reading.
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cofty
dabster - What specifically in your own words did you disagree with Ehrman about?
Do you actually believe the bible is inspired of god? All of it?
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cofty
dabster - Time to unpick your muddled post.
You seem to be trying to rehearse the old cannard that unless there is a creator, life is meaningless. There is no such thing as truth and there is no such thing as good and bad - throwing an old lady under a bus would be just as "good" as helping her across the road.
Let me deal first with your deliberate misrepresentation of my warning that im_free should not be taken in by PMs from cowardly evangelists. Contrary to your assertion that I don't want criticism of me I welcome criticism. The more powerful the criticism the better. I don't want to be wrong any longer than necessary. I am calling for all criticism of ideas to be done in the forum where they can be argued openly. I have thousands of posts where I have engaged with theists and invited their very best evidence. Unwilling to expose their weak arguments to further scrutiny some have taken to contacting others by PM to make accusations against atheists and avoid the light of honest debate. I just want to state that such tactics are a sign of weakness and cowardice.
Now to your arguments that are all based on irrational fear.
It is beyond sensible debate that humans evolved over millions of years from a common ancestor of all living things. Only people who are ignorant or biased hold otherwise.
So at some point we begin to ask the big questions about where we came from, how we ought to live and whether death is the end.
The superstitious and fearful answer, that soothes our angst and strokes our ego, belongs to the infancy of our species. It asserts without evidence that we are special, made in the image of an omnipotent creator god. It longs for a mythical utopia from which we fell. If only we will do and say certain things - and most disturbingly, if we will think certain things, then we may return to the utopian state of our origins.
Of course it is all a childish fantasy.
The capricious rules that please the deity are set in stone in an ancient book written by people who lived before the civilising process of our species. It speaks approvingly of slavery, genocide, infanticide, kidnap and forced marriage. It is misogynistic and homophobic. The ethics of it's heroes would shame an Afghan warlord.
Dostoevsky was wrong. At least he would be if he had actually posited the simplistic philosophy you impose on him...
If god is the source of ethics THEN anything is permissible. We are left with ethics by divine fiat, where good is literally anything that god commands, and truth is any scrap of superstitious nonsense that found its way into your moribund book.
Without god we have reason and evidence to discover what is true. In just over a couple of centuries the application of the scientific method has lifted us to heights that were unthinkable previously.
True ethics are only possible by first rejecting dependence on a divine lawgiver.
Morality is simply the way we worry about how to enhance the well being of conscious creatures. There is no perfect standard "out there" somewhere like a Platonic essential triangle, by which all actions must be measured. However, even though "absolute" morality is a myth, "objective" moral truths do exist. Our actions have real effects on ourselves and others.
The alternative to superstition and theism is not nihilism, it is an enlightened, wonderful, purposeful, ethical life.
P.S. - CS Lewis was a befuddled old buffoon.
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dabster
Tell us how you really feel, cofty.
Thanks for your posts. I might have misinterpreted your words to im_free but haven't deliberately misrepresented anything. What you've written is food for thought. It'll be interesting to tease out the implications but it might be a while before I can. I'm small of brain and life is busy right now anyway. It might be a good exercise in clear thinking though.Oh, do I believe the bible is the inspired word of God? Yes, I do. It was through the preaching of God's word that I came to know him and he speaks to me through it on a daily basis. So I would, as you'd expect.
Oh again. Bart. That will have to wait too, cofty. The day has begun here and I've got a lot to do. Not nimbly sidestepping anything - just don't have the time to devote to this right at the moment. I genuinely wish I did.
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cofty
do I believe the bible is the inspired word of God? Yes, I do.
I suggest that if that belief is important to you, you should stick to cherry-picking nice phrases out the good book. For god's sake don't ever read it!
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cofty
No hurry. Have a good day.