by Factfulness 169 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
is it not reasonable to suppose there are things God can understand that we can’t understand? Like the nature of evil - SBF
No.
The very heart of christianity is the revelation of god to mankind through Jesus.
Jesus taught that god is love and he explained the meaning of love in terms of seeking the happiness of others.
Reality proves that no such god exists.
I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous... Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. - Matt.5
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matt.6
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. - Luke 6
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. - Luke 12
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. - Jas.1
"Love ... always protects" - 1 Cor.13
Bollocks!
The problem is that the Bible writers had the same access to suffering that you do. They were not ignorant of the fact that we live in a world of suffering. And yet they described God as a God of love anyway. They believed that we cannot know God’s mind but we can know the mind of Jesus. They believed that God is good, even if we don’t always understand why he acts as he does.
1 Cor 2:16 For “who has come to know the mind of Jehovah, so that he may instruct him?” But we do have the mind of Christ.
John 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten god who is at the Father’s side is the one who has explained Him.
1 John 5:20 But we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us insight so that we may gain the knowledge of the one who is true. And we are in union with the one who is true, by means of his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and life everlasting.
Romans 11:33 O the depth of God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments are and beyond tracing out his ways are! For “who has come to know Jehovah’s mind, or who has become his adviser?” Or, “who has first given to him, so that it must be repaid to him?” Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
Bible writers had the same access to suffering that you do. They were not ignorant of the fact that we live in a world of suffering. And yet they described God as a God of love anyway.
And they suffered from cognitive dissonance, myopia, wishful thinking, delusions and hypocrisy just as much as any modern day apologist.
Sometimes we see idiots who think they can disprove god with facile logical puzzles like 'can god make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?'.
We rightly cringe at such foolishness.
Then we get apologists like you SBF who ask us to accept a contradiction of such magnitude, by dismissing it as a mystery, that you make the 'heavy rock' argument sound intelligent.
The Watchtower's corporate "Jehovah", has temper tantrums if people worship other gods, or idols. It pisses him off so much when peopled don't kiss his royal ass and so corporate JWs they don't put their hand over their heart during a pledge of allegence to the flag because Jehovah don't like it and I'm sure that if you ask Tight Pants Tony he will tell you tight pants and spandex Jehovah really don't like in fact he finds it disgusting and Tony knows corporate Jehovah like nobody else on the GB.
So you see where this believing Jehovah just has let all kinds of suffering happen to vindicate his o so important sovereignty and settle the issue once and for all time so he can just destroy anybody in the future once the issue is settle who seeks to disobey him with out all the red tape of some sort of trial,,can getcha? The funny farm that's where,, just look at our illustrious Governing Body and how dopey they are. They are face with financial crises and they still have to utter their Jehovah bull shit to their accounting department(can the CEOs of a billion corporation be any more detached from reality and still make good decisions?).
Believers who accept that the problem of evil or suffering is a real problem, and that they don’t know the answer to it, are making a rational judgment that God will understand the reality of the situation and our predicament better than we understand it. The reason for thinking this may be the case is that God must have infinite more insight than we do and there is other evidence for Gos’s love such as his creation, Jesus and his revelation. This is not dismissing suffering as a mystery. It is saying that there does appear to be a real contraction between God’s love and his power to act to stop suffering. But that there are limits to human understanding and that God has infinite wisdom and insight that we cannot ourselves grasp.
It is saying that there does appear to be a real contraction between God’s love and his power to act to stop suffering. But that there are limits to human understanding and that God has infinite wisdom and insight that we cannot ourselves grasp.
I used that reasoning about 15+ years ago. I got no relief until understood that the Bible is all mythology and best not be taken literal. Psychological speaking the Bible is important because it furnishes understanding of the minds inner workings and what we projected on to the unknown. I would suggest read some of Carl G Jung's works on bible themes.
https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9504.html
https://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/subjects/title/religion-biblical-studies-old-testament.html
A parent saw a book lying on the kitchen counter. He opens it mid-way through and reads a bit. The part he read was particularly gruesome. While still alive, someone was getting sliced open with a knife.
He recoiled in disgust and slammed the book shut. He then asked his daughter how she could read such disgusting stuff.
The daughter explained that the book was an autobiography of one of the greatest physicians who ever lived. Not only did he pioneer tedious cancer surgery, his patients had an amazing successful healing rate.
She smirked slyly, and said, "Dad, You just didn't read the end of the story".
God writes the end of the stories, Job's story, my story, & your story.
The problem of evil is very real, but God writes the end of that story as well.
Perry, as far as the Bible record goes, Job's children were innocent of any crime and yet god authorised their deaths anyway. You are using your religious beliefs to justify the deaths of innocents.
Isn't that what terrorists do?
