by gumby 245 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
James:
No offense here at any point (why are people interpreting my posts as my being offended, at the moment???)
Frankie:You dont think the bible might contain plenty of ancient spiritual experiences, interpreted in their own eras?
Some of us interpret "Jesus" experientially, and find him to be far more like the NT depiction than the WTS god.
LT,
Frankie:You dont think the bible might contain plenty of ancient spiritual experiences, interpreted in their own eras?
Yes, but just because they are of a spirtual nature does not stamp them as trust worthy and a good guide,, remember spirtiual does not alway translate as good.
Some of us interpret "Jesus" experientially, and find him to be far more like the NT depiction than the WTS god.
Well that may all be well and good,, but then the ugly question that you dislike so much needs to be asked: How do you know you were experiencing Jesus?? Could you be mistaken??
Frankie:
The question isn't ugly, It's just moving into an area that I'm not willing to express on this board.
I guess I've also taken the thread a little off-topic
Back to your own experiences, if that church were to your taste, and you felt it was worth the money, maybe you might have continued. We all pay for our pasttimes, in one way or another.
Needing funds to run doesn't make a religion harmful.
If it were to insist on a set amount, regardless of dire poverty, that would be wrong, IMHO.
Nonetheless I've not yet been to a church that did so. A rare few have a "plate" handed around, but most have a box at the door (so much for the JW's being the only ones with such an arrangement, huh?).
LT,
When I left the JWs I still felt the Bible was God's word. I felt the need to keep searching and thought if I could see some miracles from God that I would perhaps be in the right place so I opted for the Penticostals. I did not share their views of the Bible but felt the need to "not forsake the gathering of ourselves together" so I hooked up with them, even though different. I see it a very manipulative.
I'm glad I no longer beleive, and that I can just check christianity off my list as a "true religion".
Frankie:
...I can just check christianity off my list as a "true religion".
You can check them all off, as there's not one that has the "ultimate truth" and is correct in all it's practices.
Such is the joy of living in an imperfect world full of imperfect people and imperfect religion.
But I suspect you already know that, without singling out Christianity.
There's certainly a lot of variety out there, with the Pentecostal branch tending to be the more volatile in it's views (albeit they are still not usually into burning people at the stake )
My apologies Ross, for seeming to refer that you were offended.
The reference to "Ease of offense" was meant to be more of a sweeping generality pointed at no one in-particular.
j
Hi Funnyderek:
Atheism is "lack of a belief in gods"; no more. Grouping all "atheistic philosophies" together makes no more sense than grouping all non-Buddhist philosophies together. The fact that I don't believe in gods doesn't mean I have any connection with a communist dictator who may also have not believed in gods.
Exactly! The question was "Are Christians Harmless?". An example of their harmfulness that was given by some was the tragedies of the Inquisition and/or Crusades. It has been my experience that those who bring these up usually want to show that in general Christians are harmful or these examples are listed to show the inherent evil of religion in general.
It is my position that the fact that people claiming to be Christian do stupid and cruel things inconsistent with the teachings of Christ does not make the teachings of Christ harmful or wrong. It does however, show that people are sinners and make serious mistakes and can do much harm.
The Inquisition was perpetrated by people specifially claiming to Christians, acting in the name of Christ for the purpose of spreading and enforcing Christianity.
Yes, and clearly Stalin had an Atheistic Marxist agenda as well and killed off those who opposed him. In fact, he was extremely effective at it. Much more effective than the Christians in the Spanish Inquisition and even more effective than the Nazis which is why I said I think the Spanish Inquisition is the lesser of the two evils.
The only reason why I brought this up was because I hear this criticism of Christians so often but I rarely hear anyone bring up the faults of those in other belief or non-belief traditions and their shortcomings. To me, this whole argument is a wash. I know that people whether Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Atheist do mean things.
But claiming to be Christian obviously doesn't make it so. Am I correct in assuming that you would denounce all those involved as unchristian, despite their claims?
Claiming to be a Christian does not make it so. Behaving as a Christian is very difficult under the best of circumstances so all Christians exhibit unchristian behavior unfortunately (myself included). And, yes I do denounce those actions done by Christians in the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, etc as terribly sinful and wrong.
Jeff S.
Hi Gumby:
You wrote: That's one thing I have trouble with as far as christianity goes. Christians who believe in the bible are forced to believe that all those who do not believe in gods son as being an actuall godman and savior are all going to burn/die. Although thats a bad and negative thought toward your fellowman, I don't know that it is harmful to a great enough degree to "rain on their parade" ...as LT put it.
I know that there are many fundamentalists who will tell you what you write above. I do not believe that. God reaches out to all of His children. He wants nothing more than to spend all of eternity with you. However, God does not force Himself on anyone. Those who wish can choose to spend eternity without God. That is what Hell is in the Christian tradition. The imagery associated with Hell is that of fire and brimstone and suffering because Christians believe that eternity without God would be terrible. Is it a literal fire? Who knows. I prefer to think of it more as a state of being rather than a place. Interestingly, the Catholic Church has never said anyone is in hell. They have stated that a lot of people are in heaven with God right now...We refer to them as Saints...but the Church has never said anyone is in hell.
Also, God does not punish people for ignorance. Those who do not know the specifics of God's plan can be saved. God can do whatever He wishes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 847:
"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-these too may achieve eternal salvation."
Jeff S.
Hi Jeff.
Also, God does not punish people for ignorance
Cannot you think of some examples in which god had indeed done just that?
Would you say the Cannanites ALL knew about the jewish god enough to have a desire to worship him....kids included? Would you say Noah preached to every soul on the planet in his day?
Would you say there were many children and those who didn't really know god who lived in Sodom and Gommorah?
My point is......god HAS punished many who were ignorant.....that's a tough one for me and others to swallow.
Gumby
My point is......god HAS punished many who were ignorant.....that's a tough one for me and others to swallow.Gumby
Men want us to think that God punishes like that. If we believe that then they can control us.
Once upon a time there was this little green planet where people had not advanced far enough in medical knowledge to invent reliable birth control, antibiotics and condoms that didn't break. Faced with a record number of unplanned pregnancies and STDs, the men, because they were bigger and stronger had to come up with solutions for the problems.
They tried beating up people who got pregnant and caught STDS. That got to be tiresome and they didn't like broken knuckles and stuff. Soooo, they came up with the idea of building cages to put the offenders in. It ended up being too costly and smelly and took up a lot of room. Soooo, they held a meeting and came up with another solution. What was that?
Tell people that God will burn them forever if they don't stop getting pregnant and coming up with cooties.If we can convince them that God will punish them forever, then we won't have to beat anyone up or put people in smelly, costly, ugly cages.
So they tried the fear of God technique and it worked like a charm for many centuries to control most of the people.
Hey, that worked so well that the big, strong men decided to tell everyone that God wanted women to be slaves to men or else. Guess what: it worked! It worked so well that the guys decided to tell everyone that God said men could have as many wives as they wanted. And the poor scared women allowed it because they were terrified of God.
By the way, this fear solution worked very well at keeping homosexuals under control, too.
Flyin'
