Can you even stomach the name "Jehovah"? (page 4)

IronGland

This is what I picture(d) him to look like:

"Jehovah making his daily inspection of witnesses bedroom activity"

Earnest

STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP IT! Alright, no one is to stone _anyone_ until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah."

dh

i can't stand the name, or any of the things it represents.

onacruse

FMZ:

Hard to offer any specific examples, as they are quite often more like nudges. You see, recently I have been praying more and more for Jesus to direct me, and guide me. Often times, even during a prayer, the Holy Spirit will give me a slight nudge in the right direction. Hard to explain, almost like he's talking to me, but no voice.

What difference does it make if you pray to Jesus, or Jehovah, or Allah, or Zeus? Tens of billions of people have experienced "nudges," and then some, from their 'deity.' What's the essential and intrinsic meaning of such experiences? I submit that it's all psychological; self-interpretation and projection.

I would be very interested in hearing your stories of prayers being answered, they are always upbuilding to us all.

OK, my very specific and earnest prayers, that I can even now recall as having been answered by Jehovah (as I saw it at the time):

1) That I would be one of the anointed. I genuinely thought that I was, for several years; never partook.

2) That Poland would let up on the brothers and sisters. The next month, Poland did.

3) That the suicidal pain in my heart as a result of my first divorce (an elder with my ex-wife) would go away. The next morning, the pain was gone.

You see the common denominator in these three experiences? They were all highly charged emotional issues, for which I had no resolution, but which virtually demanded answers. I 'discovered' those answers, by necessity: "God" did not provide them; I found them within myself, such as they were.

The key to prayer (and life itself), I feel, is submission. We need to totally submit to hear the answer sometimes. Place it in Jesus's hands, and he will take care of it.

On this, I must take extreme umbrage. This idea of 'submitting under the mighty hand of God/Jesus' is just plain bullpucky. Assuming that IT made us as we are, then we can be nothing other than what IT made us to be, and self-determination (aka free will, as the Bible says we have, according to most interpretations) requires that we take responsibility for our own existence.

If so, then what's the point of prayer, anyway? We must do what we do, because we choose to do it, and for no other reason. If "God" directs (nudges) us, then it's no longer our own free will at work, but "Him" working His way through us. And why would God need to do that?

Craig

logansrun

Ona,

Not to step in the middle of your lively discussion with FMZ, but you said:

If "God" directs (nudges) us, then it's no longer our own free will at work, but "Him" working His way through us.

I don't think that God answering prayers impacts free will at all. From your free will you ask for assistence, much as you would a friend or parent. If God/friend/parent helps you, does that mean your free will was somehow breached? I think not.

Or if God or the Force or Obi-Wan-Kanobi impact your life without your asking, there still is your reaction to the event which is free.

B.

onacruse

Brad:

Not to step in the middle of your lively discussion with FMZ,

Hey, it's your thread! LOL

I don't think that God answering prayers impacts free will at all. From your free will you ask for assistence, much as you would a friend or parent. If God/friend/parent helps you, does that mean your free will was somehow breached? I think not.

A flawed analogy. God is, by "definition," infinite (whatever that means), and parents are finite. We can always dismiss what answers we get from our parents as being flawed by their finity. An answer from an infinite God cannot be so easily dismissed, and in the very act of answering, IT's direction becomes unalterable universal reality; individual free will goes out the window.

logansrun

Ona,

An answer from an infinite God cannot be so easily dismissed

But, it can be dismissed. And that is free will.

B.

onacruse

Brad:

But, it can be dismissed. And that is free will.

Then, as a reverse consequence, I say that "answered prayers" is an oxymoron.

seattleniceguy

You know, it's funny, Witnesses would think this is such an incredibly evil and telling thread. And, of course, they would be totally missing the point.

During the last summer I was a Witness, I remember having a conversation about how I was informally witnessing to someone at a bookstore and how his entire demeanor changed to very, very not interested after I mentioned the name Jehovah. The couple I was talking to was one of those go-go city-savvy ultra-righteous so-in-love super-zealot couples (if they're reading this now, I do like them a lot as people, despite that tongue-in-cheek description), and I remember Sara saying, "Isn't it amazing how the very name of God can show people's true feelings?" It was a really "the word of God is alive and exerts power" moment.

So if any Witnesses are reading this, bombshell news, guys: It's not the fact that it's supposedly the name of God, it's the fact that the name has been permanently besmirched by association with a group so contrary to the combined sensibilities of the rest of the world. That's the revolting aspect. Not the name itself. If the group had been called the Veeblefitzer's Colleagues, then you'd get an equally bad reaction from the name Veeblefitzer.

SNG

SixofNine

Is that the Yipslanti Veeblefitzers? Good people, good God.

Can you even stomach the name "Jehovah"?

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