MANY QUESTIONS,Few Satisfying Answers.

Blueblades

"Nature is mute,we question her in vain.We need a God who speaks to the human race."Voltaire.

Throughout human history,tragedies and disasters have raised questions in peoples minds.Today, many wonder how a good and loving God can seemingly remain passive in the face of so much suffering and injustice.

Confronted with the reality of famine,war,sickness and death,many reject outright the notion of a Creator who cares about mankind.Nothing can excuse God for allowing the suffering of a child,unless,of cause,he does not exist.By far the simplest explanation for the Holocaust ie.Auschwitz,is that there is no God to intervene in human affairs,ie.the genocides in Rwanda in 1994.

Many questions,few satisfying answers.Why does God not intervene to prevent bad things from happening?Is it possible to believe in a God who stands by helplessly while millions of innocent people die and whole populations in the world are massacred and who does nothing to prevent it?

Where is God? Is his existence as an all - loving God,all-powerful God,as presented in the Bible,compatible with the prevalence of human suffering?

Was Voltaire asking too much when he said "We need a God who speaks to the human race".

Blueblades

imallgrowedup

Blueblades,

You bring up a great question. After coming to this board, I've noticed a lot of people asking that question, really wanting to know one way or another about the existence of God. I've seen some who are hopeful for his existence, and I've seen some down right deny his existence. I think it is another commonality of the people of this board to go through a phase of thinking this through. I have to say, it kind of surprised me to see this because I naively thought that anyone who had come from being a JW realized the "need" for God in their life, and upon leaving, would automatically be seeking him and would choose Christianity. Boy! Was I wrong! But through reading the posts in here, I've come to believe a few things that may or not be true, but fit within my own world view. Here's my two cents:

I personally believe in the God of the Christian Bible and in Satan of the Christian Bible.

I believe that God allows Satan to rule this earth until the return of his son, Jesus Christ.

I believe God never promised us our lives would be rosy or easy, only that he would be there to help ease our suffering on earth while Satan rules it. Even the Apostle Paul speaks of and glorifies suffering.

I know that the WTBTS has it's roots in the occult and relies heavily on "theocratic warfare" when it is their only way "out" of sticky situations. The definition of "theocratic warfare" is plain and simple: it means "lying through one's teeth in order to perpetuate other lies." And who does the Bible say is the father of lies? Satan. So, we have occult and we have lies. Therefore, I believe the WTBTS is not lead by God (Jehovah), but by Satan.

I know that Satan was the angel of light, so therefore, he can appear as "light" to those who are really in darkness. So, if he can appear as "light", then he can appear as "Jehovah" to those who have been "tricked" into believing he is Jehovah.

I believe that Witnesses were unwittingly mislead by Satan into believing he was Jehovah, and when Witnesses were hurt in "his" name, it drove an even deeper wedge between them and the real God because they became so angry with Jehovah for not being there for them when the chips were down, that many abandoned belief in any God altogether. I believe this is Satan's ultimate triumph because it's a win-win situation for him. First, he "tricks" people into unknowingly believing in his organization, (or sub-organization) and then, when they leave and don't want anything to do with the real God, he still wins because if they are not a part of the real God's organization, they are STILL part of Satan's larger organization!

I believe this makes the real God in Heaven, and our Lord Jesus Christ very sad indeed because he wants to have a personal relationship with each and every one of us.

I know that my life has changed TREMENDOUSLY since I stopped fighting God and accepted him into my life. I don't have so many quesstions, and I don't feel like there are few satisfying answers even though I am going through the hardest time in my whole life right now, and that ain't no joke. But I don't feel defeated and I don't feel depressed like I was before I invited him into my life.

Just so you know, the last thing I am trying to do is "cram" my beliefs down anyone's throat, nor am I saying that my beliefs regarding Witnesses is the absolute answer. I am simply answering your post from my own experience, and hope that I've been able to help you in some small way, whether you share my beliefs or not.

Good luck in your search.

imallgrowedup

Elsewhere

"Nature is mute,we question her in vain.We need a God who speaks to the human race."Voltaire.

I've never heard peep from any deity... and I am constantly "hearing" from nature. Everything about nature can be observed and measured... this is how nature speaks to us.

I think Voltaire was ignoring nature's voice in favor of the voices in his head.

Carmel

My guess is that when He does speak, most of humanity deny it could be true. Not floating on a cloud and shooting sparks out from His crown....

Me thinks His voice is disquised as a mere human.

carmel

kgfreeperson

Perhaps it is not that nature is mute, but that we don't like the answers so we keep looking for ones we are happier with?

bebu

I have weird images in my head sometimes. I'll share one.

In my mind, I often think of God as a chess player of sorts. The game isn't really chess, because new pieces appear on the board all the time, and all the pieces must leave as well. The pieces affect each other and the strategies are complex. Our piece may be used for bigger strategies than we can conceive, all the while making a significant choices for its own fate. But all the pieces are kept to the side of the board after they leave; though they must be removed, they will not be "lost" at all. They wait there unseen until all possible pieces that would be won, are won. And then... the pieces that were won may share the victory in the game (and the whole game finally gets revealed in detail).

A strange metaphor for trying to think beyond the horizon of death, and the odd game of life we must play. Yeah, I know.

bebu

Edited to add: I have to agree with Imallgrowedup. Seems to me a devious win/win situation here... having read "The Screwtape Letters" a few times, it fits right in to that kind of devilish strategy...

Sentinel

This is a good thought-provoking post. We've all been there. At times we still go there, when bad things happen to good people, where we see injustice and unfairness.

The thing is, THIS is the testing ground for our Souls, through us. Our experiences, no matter how bad, helps our soul on it's path back to home. We have to remove ourselves from the "box" we are in, due to centuries of embedded human conditioning, and think differently. Once we begin to think differently, in a brand new context, we will begin to realize that we have no control, and the one(s) in control know exactly what they are doing. Trying to "second guess" these things will only make us depressed and unhappy.

We just play a part in the program, and as a special creation, we have a genuiene reward when all is done. I'm not talking about the heaven/hell programming, but something much better. Something our souls remember, because they've been there, and they want to return, and we are the host for their journey. There is a much bigger picture. Love and compassion continues to be shown to mankind, just in the fact that we exist at all on some level.

czarofmischief

I think that by enduring life here, we develop as souls - we get stronger, smarter, kinder, better. We know what works best, and we figure what is truly important.

I think that some of us have to make many journeys through this life, reincarnating here and there, until their soul develops beyond the mere animal and accepts the reality of the spirit realm... I think that lessons learned in previous lives are shown up in personality traits we have in new lives. People with bad traits might be immature souls who have to keep recycling until they learn the true nature of what's important.

That's how I resolve the question of suffering.

CZAR

wannaexit

This an interesting post.

I have been grappling with similar thought since being liberated from the borg.

wannaexit

got my forty homey?

This was a question that always stayed in the back of my mind as well. Especially on 9/11/01. How can in the name of religon can so many atrocietes occur in mans world history? I live in New York and work for a governement agency, and the horror stories i heard after 9/11 from fellow workers and the real tragic stories from people who lost friends and loved ones that day. Even a JW on my job who knows I am a DF'd told me about a JW who perished in the World trade center. He was a pioneer who had a part time job fixing phone systems, and he happened to be in the Windows of the World resturant that awful day.

Thats when I asked my Father who is a active JW, how could Jehovah allow a full time servant die in this attack? Of course you always get a biblical answer twisted in favor of the JW belief were only a few words of a verse are read and not the entire context of the verses surrounding the desired verse.

So right now i don't know what to believe. On the one hand you have marvelous creations like the human body, and nature and the planets and universe, and then you ask yourself of God created all of these things who created God? Where is he from, what was he doing for an indefinte amount of time before he decided to create us? Maybe God is a George Burns type of character.

MANY QUESTIONS,Few Satisfying Answers.

Share this