What drives exJWs to atheism? (page 6)

spinner

Hi! I'm new, and I hear all your negatives about why believe in the
God of the Bible. From my experience, until you study the Old and
new in the languages of Hebrew and Greek, you cannot make an informed
decision based on facts. I have found so many mistakes, whole
sentences changed from the original, no wonder there are so many
confused, and unhappy people trying to find God. The fact that you
are in this chat room means to me that you DO need God in your life.
You need to look up the actual verses you are troubled by. I am
very happy with my faith in Jehovah. But I believe MY WAY, with MY
learned confidence. If you care, YOU CAN find the TRUTH. Love
to truth seekers.

proplog2

Ros:

You said you don't like to argue. That's an opinion shared by many.
However, argumentation is a very humane endeavor. Everybody is entitled to their oppinions but sooner or later humans have to do something together. Doing things as a collective requires that we weigh arguments to make sure we don't do things that waste our collective resources.

Whether you like arguing or not there is one person you will always have to argue with - "YOURSELF". Another word for that internal argumentive cuss is "conscience". Some even try to shut down the internal arguments with piety or drugs. But when you do that you lose more than an argument - you lose a large part of your SELF.

Farkel

: I don't perceive creation the way you think it has to be for God to exist.

What did I say about that, ros? And where did I say it?

Farkel
Hates to be Misquoted Class

JanH

Ros,

First you ask a question, then you claim that those who claim logic lead them to disbelief are wrong, and when challenged on this, you "don't play those games." This has become a recurring pattern. If you can't deal with a rational discussion on these topics, why do you keep bringing it up?

This is what I call an example of flawed logic.

Ros, do youself a favour and don't try to explain what logic is and is not. You haven't the faintest idea, as you repeatedly demonstrate.

First of all, premises 2 and 3 are reversed; logically premises 2 should follow 3.

LOL. Please explain how the order is significant. I am waiting.

Second, the word "good", if you are applying it in the sense of Genesis 1, and "good" in your premisis 4 have different meanings.One (2) means accomplished according to plan, and the other (4) means wicked or painful. The two do not correlate.

So you say, but you have done nothing to substantiate this assertion. of course, if there were two meanings of "good", your attempted debunking could be successful. I did not post that example of a deductive argument to prove god's nonexistence conclusively (which requires more elaborate work and discussion!), but to show that as long as premises and arguments are correct, the conclusion is necessarily true and in accordance with facts.

However, I have not seen any evidence that the word "good" in Genesis has such a restricted meaning.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary says:

"God pronounces the light good, beautiful; the phrase will be repeated six times of created elements ... The declaration is not a deduction from human experience but a divine declaration that all creation is good. ...
31. All creation tout ensemble, not only its component parts, is pronbounced "very good", the climactic seventh divine pronouncement. There is no evil, only beauty, in the world that God makes." (Richard J. Clifford and Roland E. Murphy, "Genesis", The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, NJ, 1990. Page 11.)
Naturally, this leads directly into a contradiction with the existence of evil.

However, before this gets off on a prove-or-disprove-God by deductive reasoning (logic), we both know that cannot be done.

Of course that is just rubbish. The universe does behave in accordance with deductive logic. There exists and cannot exist anything that leads into a logical contradiction. What you say above is totally absurd, and again demonstrates you don't know what logic is.

Either God exists or He does not, and neither way can be proved by logical deduction. Otherwise you could surely have presented a much better example.

Yes, either God exists and he does not! How can you know? Because logic dictates it! And in the next sentence, you contradict yourself by asserting that logic does not apply. Again, you do not know what logic is or how to use it.

To me, basing disbelief in a Creator on the fact that evil exists is not viable deductive reasoning. You might not like God because of it, but it is not evidence for the non-existence of a Creator IMO.

It is conclusive evidence against the existence of an all-powerful and all-good deity. Such a thing cannot coexist with evil. Of course it does not disprove an impotent, insane or evil deity. But few people believe in such a deity.

- Jan
--
Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]

Tina

Hi spinner
Welcome aboard.
Just wanted to mention that being here doesn't mean all are searching for a god. There are many here who have concluded otherwise.There are diverse people with diverse reasons for being here.
Our common background as JW's. Philisophical issues. Socialization. Helping those exiting thru pain and hurt(one doesn't have to believe in dieties to do this btw) etc etc etc.Anyway,happy to have you aboard! regards,Tina
(Not all who wander are lost)

psssssst BETHelMOle's the name

dedalus

Spinner wrote:

I have found so many mistakes, whole sentences changed from the original, no wonder there are so many confused, and unhappy people trying to find God.

How about an example? Or maybe you prefer to remain vague and unsubstantiated?

The fact that you are in this chat room means to me that you DO need God in your life.

Great, another self-righteous hypocrite. [8>] First of all, this is a discussion board, not a chat room. Second, you yourself are participating in it! By your "logic" (a word getting thrown around quite a bit in this thread), you need God in your life.

Dedalus

Liberated

Hi Ros,

I was glad to see someone start this thread. It's something I've
wondered about too.

Mulan

My opinion: Arguing, or discussing, whether God exists is as pointless as discussing whether the Trinity is a true teaching of the Bible. Neither side is likely to convince the other. The only one who might make a decision is one who is unsure of either viewpoint.

I just had to say that. It seems everyone just goes round and round, like arguing the Trinity at the door.
Marilyn

larc

ros,

I like your reasonable and kind writing syle. I think, however, that the topic you started is bound to get an anguement going. I agree, with Mulan. At the end of the day, no one will change their beliefs. It is nice to be able to express them, however. I have expressed my opinions on this subject on many threads. Presently, I intend to keep light under a bushel basket, just not in the mood to go through it all again.

teejay

Ros, you said, "What is it that eventually draws so many of us (not me) to agnosticism or atheism? ... the ONE influencing factor that I have observed to reign supreme over the years ... is the convergence on us by never-been-a-JW-"bornagain" evangelicals driven by a schizoid holyspirit mission to preach to exJWs."

I really don't think that true of most. I've found that most who 'turn atheist,' particularly after having lived a significant part of their life giving in to "faith" as a JW, do so because they begin to rely on those areas of the brain that they have long ignored. "Faith" is no longer enough to explain the world they live in -- they require evidence to provide direction for life.

I thoroughly enjoyed proplog2's explanation of the brain's development, how years ago intuition (and its byproducts faith and imagination) was a useful, even necessary function of humans. With the development of religion as a means to explain the unexplainable, intuition was no longer effective or useful since intuition requires some form of tangible evidence, if only on the subconscious level.

Later you said that, "logic, in of itself, can be flawed." I think you're right. Logic is a study no different than paleontology or biology, and what is logical to one may not be to another. That's why it's common for scientists to "logically" arrive at different conclusions. However, prop2's reasoning takes it outside the realm of logic to the need for evidence when he mentioned the "water on wool, not on dew" miracle. ANY evidence that points to a living god other than the created elements and cycles that have been at work for hundreds of thousands of years would help people like me have a stronger "belief." Rem touched on this also when he mentioned Santa Claus.

EVIDENCE, or rather the lack of it, is what leads many to atheism/agnosticism, imo. It would be a life altering experience to hear god's voice, see a miracle, ANYTHING that could be scientifically affirmed that would give birth to a belief in the invisible that staunch "believers" have without question. Insistence on the need for evidence says to me that atheists aren't out of their minds. Christians say that God answers every prayer, that if the requests expressed in the prayer go unanswered only means that God's answer was "no." While the prayers aren't to me, I 'hear' the prayers of countless defenseless children all over the world who hope the beatings and the sexual assaults will stop; of the mothers who simply want medicine or food for their weak and starving babies. The only way that any of these prayers receive a "yes" is when humans get involved.

What logical reason does an all-powerful, supremely loving, god have to answer "no" to such prayers? The evidence points to -- "there IS no god."

peace,
todd
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A new idea is the result of the dethroning of a reigning God. - Christopher Hyatt

What drives exJWs to atheism?

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