by jeanniebeanz 32 Replies latest watchtower bible
even if there is a god or gods, what guarentee any of them are sane?
seems to me that the bible god is not all that sane, supposedly knowing exactly what his children would do long before he made them, and yet get supprized when they go astray and angry because they dont listen to him... dont sound very sane to me.
love your neighbor, shoot to kill shoot to kill.....
I know what you're going through! However, if it's any comfort, I found that the liberation to research and discover things on my own made up for any moments of panic at no longer having a imposed-from-without set of beliefs.
Do yourself a favour and read Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. It is his critique on the Bible and religion in general. He wrote this in, I believe, 1794.
There are too many gems in his book to reproduce them all here, but I have inserted some notable quotes from his dissecting the Bible.
Interestingly, Paine never lost his believe in a supreme deity. I would certainly be curious to know his thoughts had he lived during and right after the time of Darwin et al and their discoveries.
From The Age of Reason:
?Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God.
It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, the Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, we find a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the power and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higher rank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as well before that time as since.
The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most probably a collection (because they discover a knowledge of life which his situation excluded him from knowing), are an instructive table of ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin.?
?? It is somewhat curious that the three persons whose names are the most universally recorded, were of very obscure parentage. Moses was a foundling; Jesus Christ was born in a stable; and Mahomet was a mule driver. The first and last of these men were founders of different systems of religion; but Jesus Christ founded no new system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues and the belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy.
The manner in which he was apprehended shows that he was not much known at that time; and it shows also, that the meetings he then held with his followers were in secret; and that he had given over or suspended preaching publicly. Judas could not otherwise betray him than by giving information where he was, and pointing him out to the officers that went to arrest him; and the reason for employing and paying Judas to do this could arise only from the cause already mentioned, that of his not being much known and living concealed.
The idea of his concealment not only agrees very ill with his reputed divinity, but associates with it something of pusillanimity; and his being betrayed, or in other words, his being apprehended, on the information of one of his followers, shows that he did not intend to be apprehended, and consequently that he did not intend to be crucified.?
??Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of ideas and expression all the books that are now extant in the world, I would not take it for my rule of faith, as being the word of God, because the possibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But when I see throughout the greater part of this book scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by his name.?
re: Jesus? sacrifice:
??If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate revenge.?
the link to the complete book is here:
Following on from JamesThomas:
OSHO
When you have emptied all the content - thoughts, desires, memories, projections, hopes - when all is gone, for the first time you find yourself, because you are nothing but that pure space, that virgin space within you.
Unburdened by anything, that content-less consciousness, that is what you are! Seeing it, realizing it, one is free. One is freedom, one is joy, one is bliss.
Jeannie,
I too know exactly what you are going through......
I got baptized when I was 13 and from that day on I was plagued with occasional doubts but it really came to a head when daily Bible reading was constantly emphasied. So like a good little Witness I tried to do that but everytime I did it brought up more questions. Three years ago I confided in an elder that I was feeling this way and his answer was "just read the parts that don't make you feel that way". Well, that turned out to be good advice because I found out that night that there wasn't anything written in that book that didn't make me doubt.
econaut
Jeannie,
I'm going to take a different approach than others who have replied.
First, don't be too concerned about the references to God in the masculine gender. Male/female is not an issue; if there was a genderless pronoun that could be used to refer to an intelligent, living entity, that is what would be used. Perhaps the masculine pronoun is used because the Bible was written in a male-dominated culture.
My personal opinion is that it has to do with the idea that the man provided the seed to the woman that brought about conception--life. Sometimes, the word of God is referred to as seed. So, naturally, if God's word is seed, then the one providing it would be referred to as male.
As for the other problems you are having with the brutality and violence of the OT, it has long been a problem to people. Some church leaders couldn't accept that the God of the Gospels is the same God as mentioned in the OT. Some believed this was a different deity altogether, some wanted to throw out the OT. Yet, doesn't it seem strange that NT writers Paul and John, who wrote the most about love, didn't seem to have any problem with the way God did things in the OT (Tanak)? In Romans 3:2, Paul refers to the OT as the "very words of God," so there is no question about his opinion of inspiration. Here was an expert in the OT, far closer to its events in time and culture than we are, yet he doesn't have a problem with it.
I don't think we are in a good position to evaluate God or the Hebrews through our modern, Western civilized eyes;we weren't there, and we don't have all the facts.
To me, the amazing thing is that this God is patient and tolerant with the world today, and that Jesus suffered in his body a personal measure of this wrath. And, if the book of Revelation is to be taken literally, one day this same kind of bloodshed will be poured out on the earth. This is not WT dogma, as I am not, and never have been, a JW. This is from my own heart as I read the accounts.
Paul refers to the OT as the "very words of God," so there is no question about his opinion of inspiration. Here was an expert in the OT, far closer to its events in time and culture than we are, yet he doesn't have a problem with it.
True; however IMHO Paul, even though converted, reverted to his old mindset: behavior control, and the vengeful God of the OT that he grew up with. Did Paul view it as literal, or as allegory? I don't think we can be dogmatic about this.
While some, maybe most, would say that I am off base, I really feel that by organizing believers into congregations and power structures that Paul was NOT carrying out what Jesus was really all about.
Think about it: Not 50 years after Jesus, local "spiritual leaders" were again making decisions for the individual believer about circumcision, idolatry, care for widows, eating blood, etc etc....As I see it Jesus' focus was on each person following the 2 laws of love for God and neighbor, internalizing the lessons of his life and death and then MAKING THEIR OWN JUDGEMENT.
He did state to them that NO one of them should be called father; in my mind, that means spiritual leader. So it seems to me the that the original idea among the apostles to preach in an organized manner quickly reverted to the old style priest/elder vs laity distinction: the type of power structure that Jesus made obsolete.
My 2 cents.
I got baptized when I was 13 and from that day on I was plagued with occasional doubts but it really came to a head when daily Bible reading was constantly emphasied.
Welcome, econaut. Sounds like we have taken a similar path.
confided in an elder that I was feeling this way and his answer was "just read the parts that don't make you feel that way".
That's amazing that he would tell you that. These people have never been very good at answering direct questions, have they?
Jeannie
The bible is just a Book.. Written by a god knows who, about a bunch of mythological stories that make no sense to the modern person. That is all it is. No one can prove to me without doubt that any of those stories are true, unless I have blind faith. For one to follow it today is as ignorant as those that believed the stories thousands of years ago.
Will
"They have created 'god' in their own image.
It does show that just because millions of people believe something, it does not make it true."
Here, here!
All I could figure is that he must have doubts as well and that the advice he gave me is how he deals with his doubts.
Oh, also when I told him that I had doubts he just said, "Well, we should talk about those sometime." Well, that sometime never happened. He didn't want to touch them with a ten foot pole, I think.
econaut
