Sliding Fast; Meanwhile, those god-forsaken atheists are working to understand our world, solve it's problems and make life better for it's inhabitants. There are no guarantees that we will succeed, evolution may say otherwise "-- Atheists are not the only ones doing that, believers, deists are involved too. The premise that any defined "god" or "satan" wants to prove that we need them to succeed is wrong, to the contrary, success is rewarded in this existence, but, to assert that just because we are figuring out how things work, does not mean at all, that at some very deep level a creator is not behind the all.
Do you still believe in God?
by FormerlySandL 162 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
LisaRose
onestly, like all other ex-watchtower I understand the horrors of realising that we've been hoodwinked and the feelings that induces - and I can imagine how easy it is to simply discard God to put an end to any chance of touching belief again. But that attitude - and I mean attitude - loses us so much.
Even after realizing the Watchtower was a bunch of lies I wanted to believe in God. I liked the comfort of belief and being part of a religious community. But my need or desire for those things doesn't mean God exists, and I couldn't fool myself that it did.
In a real sense, the watchtower is making people believe even after they've left: they're making them believe that God and the watchtower are somehow genuinely linked, so that they must reject both.
Not really, at least in my case. I could see how the Watchtower has twisted and manipulated the scriptures and that there are other ways a sincere person could interpret the scriptures. I found churches that were acceptable to me and that I felt were compatible with the scriptures. But finding an acceptable church doesn't mean God exists any more than bad churches prove he doesn't.
They're making people believe in no God ever again. Didn't we leave to be free of that influence? why should we have to disbelieve, just because we leave them?
Obviously we don't have to believe or disbelieve because of the Watchtower. But questioning the Watchtower started me on a path at looking at many things in a more critical way. Once I disproved the Watchtower I couldn't just stop there, I had to look at the evidence for belief in God as well. If the facts had supported belief in God I would have been happy to continue believing in him, but they did not. I had to go where the facts took me.
-
Heaven
Acts said: Well Heaven, as any child who cries at having a painful operation comes to realise, there is usually a reason.
What if the child were determined to hate his father who sent him for chemo? Even a child could understand that, in the longer term, there was a good reason.
There's a reason for our Heavenly Father's inaction too, but it seems people would rather enjoy their hatred than consider they might be mistaken.
Willful negligence is not a painful operation. It is willingly and completely ignoring the problem. The one sure way to make a problem worse is to take no action and just ignore it. The JWs do this with their 'Pray More + Wait on Jehovah' advice. This a formula for failure.
Acts said: I know its painful to revisit the seat of disppointment - but children manage it. They are made upset, they cry, they go into a lonely corner,... but they don't build a barrier, they don't say "never again". They wipe their eyes, they try again - perhaps because they're too young and vulnerable and they don't know how to build a shell for themselves - and there is too much in the world that they feel is out there for them to waste blocking out what they do not yet understand. Its only as we get stronger that we feel we can isolate ourselves - but that strength keeps out many things.
Being left without the necessities of life is not a 'seat of disappointment' nor a painful operation. One does not get 'stronger' in this scenario, but weaker and sicker until one dies. This is a sure fire recipe for an agonizingly tortuous death.
The 'Heavenly Father', as described in the Bible, is not an example of ethics or morals to emulate. He pitted 2 brothers against one another. He setup a system of perpetuating the human species via incest. He encouraged the murder of children. He agrees with slavery. He demands a raped woman must marry her rapist. He created evil. He is the god of war.
His authorities justify their actions using the factually inaccurate, contradictory Bible as a foundation for their made up doctrines and dogma. They perpetuate lies and browbeating, particularly the one that if we don't believe the way they believe, we will be judged and, if found unworthy, punished. In the ancient past, punishment was doled out in a number of gruesomely, horrific ways. In our modern world, some religions still perform these kinds of barbaric rituals. For others, it's the threat of torture in the afterworld that is made to coerce people into believing, without any evidence, lies as truth. For JWs, it is the threat of not living forever on paradise Earth. Some religions, like the JWs, coerce people into performing tasks for their organization without compensation. Religion is abuse, oppression, and slavery. They get this from God's word, the Bible. To espouse these virtues is psychopathic and evil.
-
My Name is of No Consequence
I am not quite ready to stop believing in a "higher being", but one thing is for sure: if there is a "higher being" or "god" out there, it does not give a **** about us. -
nicolaou
I am not quite ready to stop believing in a "higher being"
Why not noname? Genuine question.
-
done4good
Were God to intervene in a small way - heal a famine, abate a war, remove some dictator - we would rely on it and never actually learn, and God would become a kind of on-call fixer rather than the Father He should be.
I usually stay far away from these atheist vs. theist discussions, as rarely are they productive, (although never hide the fact I am atheist), but this is quite possibly the worst rationale I have ever seen for the explanation of why an omnipotent god would allow suffering. What kind of "father" would allow those things if it was in his power to do something about it???
d4g
-
cofty
Acts5 seems to have vanished. -
Coded Logic
Good riddance, their departure is a fresh breath of air.
I enjoy honest debates - honest questions and honest answers. But I have little patience for subterfuge or fallacious apologetics.
-
OUTLAW
Acts5 seems to have vanished....cofty
.........Acts5v29 is Nursing a Convalescent Relative..
............. -
cofty
How kind of her to supply a picture of her sick relative.
