Are you REALLY sure?

by Dawn 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  JamesThomas

  Dawn, your observations and questioning are commendable.

  "I believe in God and I believe that Jesus was his son." (bold added)

  Beliefs, for me, don't work. Born from outside influences and persuasion, they are in their very nature deceptive because they are mind created concepts that are fluid and prone to change. Here, on this forum especially, I think we can all agree to having experienced this. Beliefs, are often tightly linked to how, when and where we were born and raised. They are simply other peoples ideas that are fed to us. What then, is not just someone else's idea??? Where is Truth to be found? I don't "believe" I am alive. I know undeniable and unequivocally. My view of reality may indeed be distorted and confused. But, there is consciousness, no question. Even without thought, in the silence, there is exquisite awareness Most all religious "beliefs" have at their root the instruction to go within for Truth (though such dictums are often well hidden over time); to go deep into consciousness; deeper than the ever-changing intellectual beliefs, ideas and concepts at the surface, into the center of our being. Into That, which is truly certain, Real and unquestionable. Wisdom, throughout history has pointed here, within. What is found here, only you can experience. Once it is written about and read by another, it becomes simply a belief; and sooner or later someone will make a religion out of it. We can not know Truth as we know objective things, or believe in Truth. Belief in Truth is not Truth. We can only BE Truth. As I like to often say "God, is not so tiny as to be absent from where you are". JamesT
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  Introspection

  Lets take this a bit farther - what is belief? I submit that beliefs are where there is unconsciousness. Mind you, I do not mean what the statement might say is necessarily untrue - for example if I say I believe I have 5 fingers on each hand, yes that is the case - but if that is only a belief for me then I am not conscious of that fact, even if it happens to be true. (whether it happens to be true or not is besides the point) This is of course what James is pointing out, but I thought it would be good to state it explicitly.

  When people try to make sense of beliefs, they are really not conscious of the nature of belief itself - they are only dealing with the relationship between beliefs, having a somewhat coherent and logical belief system. But if you look at it for what it is, it doesn't matter if the belief system is very reasonable, if you have no real foundation to start with then none of that means anything. Yet we are under the impression that beliefs can be very powerful, because we see that beliefs can 'make' people to do all sorts of things - but that's like the mistake regarding a logical belief system. Who is the one that believes? (hint: it is not personal ) If you see that, you will see where the power comes from. The belief itself is a dead thought, it's rather like the whole idolatry thing, really. The energy that's invested in a belief or any kind of object (mental or physical, doesn't matter) to give it life is always there, the unconscious assumption that you need a belief to invest in is the biggest mistake. And just for the record, I am not saying "it's all energy, man.." (in flaky new age voice) - there's still unconsciousness in that perspective, not to mention that statement usually reflects that its just another mental object for the one who says it.

  Hmm, this gives me an idea.. "The Church of Mental Idolatry" - what do you think? You can believe whatever you want and join this church, the content doesn't matter.
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  SixofNine

  One thing just about everyone agrees on is that the sun will come up tomorrow. I'd guess that 99.99999% of all humanity has a firm belief of that.

  But why? That question is where you seperate the more deceivable from the less deceivable. If you just know the sun is going to come up tomorrow because it always has, you haven't really innoculated yourself from deception. If you know the sun will come up tomorrow because you understand a bit about the physical forces that keep that cycle going, and you understand the difference between knowing and knowing, then you know you aren't nearly as succeptable to deciet .

  I suppose some would say that is not a good example, because what about people who "just knew" the sun would come up all through history, but had no way of really understanding the physical forces that keep that cycle going... they weren't all naive, were they? But that is the point, how willing are you to inform yourself now that information is available? And well, yes, in times past, because of a lack of information, people were more naive.

  I realize that there is a third option, that is: having faith that the sun will come up tomorrow, but not being the type to be really interested in why. You know however, that it is for reasons other than "it always has" and that is as far as your interest goes. Which is fine were the question is "will the sun come up tomorrow?", but not-so-fine when the question is "will I receive supernatural punishment if I don't accept Jesus as my saviour?". "The bible says so", is not an intelligent answer.

  This discussion just made me realize that faith (as most people practice it, including myself at one time) is a form of insanity. "Faith" does sound so much nicer than "mental tic that causes one to believe without evidence".
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  Introspection

  One thing just occurred to me. You know, not wanting to be deceived is not the same as being interested in what's true, unless you include yourself as a possible deceiver. As far as I'm concerned it just comes down to whether you're deluded or not, because unless you just completely shut down your intelligence and blindly follow something else, it's likely that there is also a process in your own mind where you convince yourself of what to think. The point is, if you focus only on external things then you won't even notice when you are deceiving yourself. Said another way, it's just a matter of being honest with yourself isn't it? Frankly if we don't even see our blind spots in our everyday life, then how reasonable is it to see the truth about reality at large?
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  Dawn

  In reading all the posts here I find a very interesting observation. Some individuals are pretty open minded - some think there might be a God, some don't. I can relate to this - perhaps I am much more willing to accept Christianity because it is the belief I was raised in. Perhaps I want to believe in a God because I do not like the alternative? I can accept that I am deceivable and so I try to get the facts and then make a decision that I feel comfortable with - because in the end it is I who has to live with that decision. I don't believe God will destroy me because I misunderstood some doctrine or scripture.

  However - there are some who are as dogmatic about their beliefs now as I was when I was a JW. If you don't believe in religion - fine. If you don't believe in God - fine. But how can YOU really be sure? I see some responses from individuals who assume that it is ME who is lacking the knowledge of the "real truth" and deceived. Well - since YOU were at one time decieved - how can YOU be sure you are not now?

  I think it's safe to say that we can all be deceived - that's been proven. Perhaps we (whether christian, atheist, jewish, muslim, pagan, or any other belief) should not be so quick to judge someone with a different belief as being less knowledgeable than us. Perhaps we shouldn't be so sure all the time that WE ARE RIGHT AND THEY'RE WRONG.

  to DJ: I know that you are still unsure about the Son of God, being God. Can I ask you how you rationalize the creatorship of Christ? Do you still view Him as master worker, or Michael or - I'm still unsure about this. I don't believe he was Michael, and it appears from the bible that he was divine in nature. But I don't know about him being God himself. Probably something I'll be researching and considering for some time. But I also don't feel any rush to make a decision one way or another. I do believe he is God's son and I don't see from the bible that I need to make a decision beyond that.
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  KGB

  Oh I am absolutely positive that I will never be deceived again as I have learned to put my faith in Gods word the bible and not from man or a church. I have learned tha church does not save us but only Jesus can. Whenever the pastor at church gives a lesson I listen then I go to my scriptures before I actually apply that lesson in other words "To make sure of all things"
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  DannyBear

  KGB,

  You say,****I have learned to put my faith in Gods word the bible and not from man or a church****

  Perhaps you can't see the circular reasoning involved in making the above statement.

  One must assume that you believe that the bible is unquestionably the actual words of God himself. How do you go about proving that? Most who assert this belief will then use the bible itself to prove it so. You cannot do that without applying circular reasoning.

  The bible is the word of god, because it says so. Not good enough for me anyway.

  Having read the bible at least 4 times, there is not one iota of solid proof that any of the prophecies, pronouncements, are the very words of God. Only the surmise and conjecture of those men/women who either shared in the compilation of the book, along with those who studied the work for the next 3,000yrs.

  Danny
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  Introspection

  perhaps I am much more willing to accept Christianity because it is the belief I was raised in. Perhaps I want to believe in a God because I do not like the alternative?

  Dawn I appreciate your honesty here, but I would say don't stop here - which is to say don't stop with reasons. This may be kind of abstract, but it seems that many people find a reason that they think make sense, and then they just take it at surface value and don't really dig down deep, which is of course where you'll find a real understanding of things. So in a way you might say it's a matter of going beyond what is true or not, just to ask what is this all about? Both the positions there is a God and there is not a God usually assumes a preconceived notion of God, and as a result it is a limited statement either way. I say go past all of that, just inquire in the sense of what is this life, this universe we live in? I think it's much better when we are driven by a curiosity than a fear of being deceived, and that would be more of a matter of wanting to discover than a defensive kind of guardedness. If you're really occupied with this kind of inquiry, then you may find that you don't even have time to worry about what other people think of you - maybe some ideas, but not personal opinions about you.