Voice your opinion- Organised religion.

by jerome 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Ephesians6

  Religion, Man made ideas and laws to control a group of people. ie Watch tower. Jesus Christ and being Born again, LIFE, relationship, His rules are free and light. His ideas are perfect, not binding.
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  SixofNine

  Sirona, you said "Belief itself is not the cause of the horrors. Human beings are the cause "

  I don't think I could disagree more. Bad beliefs kill. The history of the world, the history of religion, and the history of the JW religion all bear this out. When people overcome bad beliefs, they reach a much more noble peak in their humanity.

  For most of my life, bad beliefs would have convinced me to sacrifice my own and my child's life on a faux alter to a faux God. But it was all quite real to me. In fact, I would have imagined that by doing so, I was 'getting a firm grip on the real life'.

  This human being is better than that. My beliefs were wrong.
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  Gopher

  Jerome,

  Great question on "where do you seek spirituality"??

  I guess we have ruled out, for the most part, "organized religion". If we're open to hear, like the Bible says, wisdom cries aloud from the street corners, if we recognize it.

  It can come from something you read, or from something a child tells you. It can come from watching a sunset. It can come from pondering. Listen to clues in the world around you. Deeper meanings can be derived.

  Sound challenging? Is this method not structured enough? If anyone thinks so, they are welcome to return to any man-made religion which can do a lot of their thinking for them!

  -J.R.

  Don't let yesterday use up too much of today.--Will Rogers, 1879-1935
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  jerome

  I think that I should mention something.This thread has very little to do with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Very little at all.The JW are not generally recgonised as a valid religion. They are normally excluded from any discussion pertaining to Christianity in general. There is nothing about the to critisize in this instance because you cannot make a valid comparison between pseudoChristianity and the real thing. How can you critize an instutition and not even get the facts straight about what the institusion is really about? How does everything to do with organised religion get bad simply because of the JWs when they are so irrelavant. In other words thiss isnt a look at the JWs thread because they arent validated by christianity. If anything they should only be mentioned when discussing the fact that pratically anyone can say that they were appointed by God and that you must follow them to recieve salvation.

  Just thought that I should say that.

  Now you may continue to express your views on organised religion.

  jerome
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  SPAZnik

  "Now you may continue to express your views on organised religion."

  why thank you...heehee

  "where do you seek spirituality"

  I agree muchly with the comments that spirituality can be sought/found in many places.

  For example, every so often I see or experience something that gets me thinking spiritually, about a Creator, Higher Power, the Universe, whatever...Like, in May we had a snowstorm in my city, and I was driving to work past this normally green, now snowcovered, field at about 5:30am...i looked off 2 my right and lo and behold, there was this DUCK, just a sittin' there, right smack in the middle of this snowy field. Just sittin' there, on a field of snow about 1/2 foot deep, watching the world go by, with what i'd swear was a smirk on his face. Like he was making the best of a bad situation. LOL. I couldn't help but laff. I couldn't help but think spiritually with appreciation for whoever is responsible for the existance of such a wonderfully hilarious DUCK.

  And my cat. My cat is so amazingly cool. She totally knows when i'm blue, or 'lost', or just plain spazzy, 'bout somethin'. She curls up with me and just her touch and her purr....or when she does something goofy and makes me laff...i just can't help but be "moved" to the core of my "spirit".

  Also what Gopher said about a little child...my little half-bro...interacting with him, and other friends...makes life a joy and that is a spiritual experience.

  Spirituality (Spir`it*u*al"i*ty) (?) , n. ; pl. Spiritualities (#) . [L. spiritualitas: cf. F. spiritualit.] 1. The quality or state of being spiritual; incorporeality; heavenly-mindedness. "A pleasure made for the soul, suitable to its spirituality." South. "If this light be not spiritual, yet it approacheth nearest to spirituality." Sir W. Raleigh. "Much of our spirituality and comfort in public worship depends on the state of mind in which we come." Bickersteth.

  And another definition was "the self'. Some other definitions include the "church".
  It doesn't bother me if other people wish to seek spirituality via an organized religion.
  I'm at a point in my life though, where I'm leaning toward "the Self" part of this, sans the church.
  Spirituality, to me, has more to do with living and learning, through experiences,
  rather than from being dictated to by a religion, organized or not, "valid" or not.
  It's more about being in touch with 'the Universe' as a bigger picture...from within,
  a real balance of heart mind and soul...not so much strictly
  the rationalizations, interpretations and judgements of OTHER men (read humans)
  formed into a religion.

  I really feel more spiritually nourished and satisfied, when I am simply LOVING LIFE...genuinely enjoying it....grateful for it. When humans try to take away my "god-given" freedom of choice,
  I now know to fight that...tooth and nail...cuz that lack of freedom, being burdened down by a whole bunch of rules and regs and guilt and by the impossible task of striving for "perfection"
  in my imperfect nature....that just kills my spirit altogether. If there is a god, i just can't believe or think he would really want me resenting life so much as all that. I am a better, happier, more productive person internally as well as to the rest of the world, when i am sans organized religion.
  If this makes all the religionists (?) judge me, "on gods behalf", as evil and deserving of death, well, they are entitled to their opinion of god's judgement on me. i hope he doesn't judge them as harshly as they judge me.

  As for the comment that JW are "not generally recognized as a valid religion"...
  I guess I would need to hear what constitutes "valid" from your perspective
  before I could comment much on that view. Seems like an entirely different thread
  altogether. Your initial question didn't seem to ask about "most popular or recognized religion" nor did it provide any kind of stipulations around what qualifies as a valid religion. Since this site is mainly about the dubs and/or xdubs it only makes sense that many posters here would comment relative to their jdub experience. It was at some point part of their spiritual belief system.

  You also mentioned "they (JW) are normally excluded from any discussion pertaining to Christianity in general". True, jdubs even exclude themselves as being part of "Christendom" in general.
  And even feel their separateness from mainstream Christianity is part of what proves them 'separate from the world' and therefore approved by God. However they believe in and follow, in their own way (as do other "Christian" religions), Christ.
  
  I'm not sure what else in your opinion constitutes a "valid" religion within "christianity", and/or if only "christianity" constitutes valid organized religion...there are other organized religion that aren't christian.
  
  I can even seek spirituality in this forum...even though it is not a valid organized religion.
  I can explore other people's thoughts and experiences on spirituality and if it gets me thinking
  and aids me in my spiritual journey...great.

  blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda

  SPAZ

  ps - here's a neat article on a website about various places/ways some people seek spirituality...

  http://health.discovery.com/centers/althealth/spiritualheal/living.html
  
  pps - still enjoying this thread btw! good topic, great discussion, neat comments!
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  space

  I believe that the problem with organized religions is that all religions have basically the same principles as far as unconditional love. I think the problem came when someone decided he could make his living off of religion. Become full time so to say. Get a paycheck. Thats when the person connected himself directly to god and the only way to speak with god, feel god, feel love was through this person. Knowing that we all can feel him directly was thrown out as attacking the church. THE START OF CONTROL.
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  Farkel

  : Voice your opinion- Organised religion

  It sucks.

  Farkel
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  Sirona

  SixofNine,

  Sorry, I only just realised I didn't respond to you.

  The beliefs of an individual can cause hatred and bloodshed, that is true. Yet religion itself is not the sole basis of a human being's "beliefs". E.g. I may believe that someone murdered my family and therefore desire to get vengeance....that belief is not religious, it is based on my assessment of a situation. It is not true that belief as far as spiritual beliefs ALWAYS lead to destruction.

  Just because there has been bloodshed in the name of religion does not mean that all religion is wrong. Thats like saying ban all knives because they can be used to kill.

  Some religions (organised ones) such as JW will promote destructive tendencies, yet I think that outside of organised religion it is entirely possible to be religious without harming yourself or others.

  Sirona
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  Joyzabel

  Tennis is a net and a racket! (opps, wrong thread. I thought this was about organized sports )

  I agree with Elsewhere: "Even if an organized religion is formed with good intentions, it is only a matter of time before the organization becomes greater than the members."

  and I agree with Farkel (I can't hardly believe that, but I do) "It sucks"

  Religion has nothing to do with spirituality, imho.

  j2bf
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  ozziepost

  I consider myself to be religious, and I associate with a local group (probably once a month). It is entirely possible to be religious and to not be controlled by the group, in fact its possible to be extremely spiritual without ever meeting anyone else with similar beliefs.

  I agree with you, Sirona. There IS a difference between religion and ORGANISED religion. Actually, I don't think anyone here has made clear what organised religion encompasses. It seems to me that we can still be in a Dub mindset of looking at all belief systems as being funnelled through an organisational structure.

  Cheers, Ozzie