NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU EXCEPT YOURSELF,BE IN FEAR OF YOURSELF

by ko38 32 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Narkissos

  ko,

  I answered early on this thread -- as soon as I read it -- because I wanted to try and avoid a huge misunderstanding (actually it could have been much worse). There is a big clash potential between (1) people who are just out of the WT, who think that for being out they are already SOOO different, yet still unwittingly stand by a lot of WT belief and standards (or prejudice) and (2) people who have left the WT long ago and dropped much more of the WT thinking and have really begun thinking and living by themselves.

  I think the only possible modus vivendi is to be found along the lines of Romans 14: let (1) not judge (2) and (2) not despise (1). We can benefit a lot for each other, provided we are cautious not to insult anyone either way. Perhaps some topics should be avoided for some time. For example, the WT teaching includes a lot of shameless prejudice on homosexuality. It may take years, and getting to know different kinds of people on a non-judgemental basis, to realize how prejudiced we could be. In the meantime, it could be safer to keep "your opinions" (how much "yours" they are you can't even know now) to yourself, because they can be really offensive to others. My 2 cents.

  This being said, you are really welcome.
• 

  OldSoul

  Very thoughtful post, Narkissos. I could have used those same words on December 02. Sorry, BTW to anyone I unintentionally offended with my abrupt entry.

  ko, it takes time to get used to the fact that 99% of the world disagrees with what you have been taught. If you are willing to give yourself that time, you will eventually figure out what your own free will is there for.

  Peace,
  B_Ing Invisible
• 

  Abaddon

  Excellent reply Narkissos.

  ko: full credit to you for coming back with a more moderate reply to the initial reactions your first post got.

  You have many preconceptions I do not share. You obviously believe in god, and that the Bible is his book. You are very concerned at this point about the choices you are making.

  Been there, done that, and, man, I can sympathise. Horrid horrid nasty. You have my sympathy.

  My path has ended up as more-or-less an atheist with a belief in humanism, which is basically being excellent unto one another, just because. I suck at it, but I think it is an excellent idea.

  Your path may end up somewhere else.

  So your belief that my premarital sex and pot smoking (don't worry, I neither know or care if you meant anything to do with me) make me a less good person is based on believing the Bible say so and that is what god say.

  Well, for a start, find me a specific prohibition against cannabis. You won't. You can't wear fabric made from mixed threads, or boil a kid in its mother's millk; they really were quite thorough, they didn't leave it out by accident... and, yes, it was known at the time in that area.

  You might wave a scripture at me that you, in your opinion, says I shouldn't smoke pot. But that would just be your opinion. I'm sure you would rather we were true to ourselves (and do no harm to others) than orship your opinion.

  And premarital sex? Apparently it was custom for the Jews to become betrothed and co-habit. If the union was fertile, they got married. If not, the woman was sent home.

  Seems the customs of the Jews differed from the letter of the law; or at least of the law as we read it. Because how we read it is often just an opinion.

  So, even given the Bible is god's word, seems I am not in the darkness of god. I live just as many have before me. I'm not Ghandi. I'm not Hitler. But I know who I'd like to be.

  And I don't even believe in god, least of all in the YHWH Bible-god guise. Read the OT with an open mind and think of the mythologies of other cultures, and think of the state of civilisation at the time of writing (as in when proper scholars and not JW chronology-apologists think it was written).

  It all gets rather obvious. YHWH was just a pretty standard tribal diety. Pretty succesful; even without Jesus we'd still have Jews, but then again, we have Zorastians too, and they've been around ages. But just as prone to sounding like a spoiled child as Zeus or Apollo. A very human, very petty god.

  Then, some dude has some really nice ideas. He was a Jew. For me it is the important that the message that Jesus, whoever or whatever he was gave, of how to live our everyday lives, with love, is what we remember. Pointing the finger and judging just gets messy.

  All the best.