Nice words are just nice words. Humans will never lower the complexity of just a few words. Find something that can harness these complexities and give humans a reason, a focus to benefit themselves and mankind. Only mankind and nature itself can do that. If only mankind comes up with an idea to harness these complexities they will only use their own imperfections and fantasies to base it on. And nature is pitiless and blind like tetra said. Put them both together and you have something that is always changing and always advancing. Our minds and nature itself. Best mix possible.
Would acceptance of the gospel change the world?
by greendawn 37 Replies latest jw friends
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Daunt
And not all social problems will be solved. You will have to deal with the dampening of our human instincts. I doubt any man will get any woman he wants in this world that follows the gospel. He might get angry, and I doubt telling himself, "Oh I must love my neighbor I must love my neighbor" will keep him in this way for long. If there isn't anything sticking the person to these beliefs they're no more than words floating in a person's head. And thinking that people will just automactically follow the gospel is wishful thinking in itself. We're too human for that.
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Terry
That's not the innate nature of the gospel, if it was genuinely applied up to and including the top echelon of society, given its anti ego anti instinct message it couldn't possibly be a source of darkness. Don't do to others what you hate when it is done to you.
The fundamental nature of man cannot be changed. It is a kill and eat world. Things have to die for other things to live. Man did not design life that way.If God was behind a benevolent universe none of us would be deficient. Even if you accept the Adam myth you can see Adam was deficient in many ways. He had to eat and sleep and drink and comprehend the incomprehensible because God made him deficient. This mythical Bible God created inferior creatures.
The so-called Gospel is supposed to be GOOD news for mankind?
How so? It tells mankind they are worthless creatures deserving of death who can only hope for mercy from their judgement if they sacrifice the minds they have by believing invisible friends and disavowing invisible enemies. This Gospel tells them God's justic consists of punishing the unborn for what their parents do. This God's justice allows him to let the innocent die and the guilty go free even if the victim is his own son. This God is so wonderful you have to beg him constantly for what you need and simply BELIEVE the silent reply means He's busy working on your behalf. This Gospel Good News promises Jesus will return quickly and his coming is imminent and has been for over two THOUSAND years!
The old saying that Justice Delayed is Justic Denied applies this wonder God with all his hype and promises like it would to any other situation.
The only job given to a Christian Believer is to passively accept that your life is meaningless unless you labor on behalf of the invisible and your reward, undeserved as it is, will come on the other side of death.
What a bargain!
No wonder it has NEVER WORKED FOR EVEN ONE SINGLE GENERATION OF HUMANS!
That is the only way, don't you know, mankind kept limping forward hoping for a better life while having to rely on their own armies, politics, sweat and labor as always.
The Gospel is a complete and total pig-in-the-poke nonsense sold to the gullible on hearsay evidence, half-cracked illogic and a heap of authoritarian puffery. Christians have just as miserable lives as the persons who are reputed to serve Satan. Humans are frail and can only flourish and make progress when they roll up their sleeves and use their rational minds to accomplish something IN THIS WORLD and not throw their life away on the world-to-come.
The only change the world will ever see will be brought about by the mind of man and the hands of human beings.
T.
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jaffacake
I believe Greendawn may have been referring to the gospelmessage as it was actually intended, not most people's interpretation of scriptures. Even the New Testament is largely misunderstood, including by its authors, who repeatedly misunderstood Christ when he was alive and subsequently. If the gospel & NT was properly understood in its deeper non literal sense, and Christ's commands followed - these boil down to treating others in the way we would wish to be treated, then that would indeed be progress.
The problem is, fundamentalists believe the Bible teaches many things that it does not, eg they miss the point on the likes of women being submissive to men, and on homosexuality etc etc.
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DanTheMan
I interpret the idea of a country "accepting the gospel" as a country that gives vast power to religious clerics. Like Iran. 'Nuff said.
"And of all the plagues with which mankind are cursed, ecclesiastical tyranny's the worst" -- Daniel De Foe
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Seeker4
Nicely put, Terry. You're dead on there.
And Jaffacake's response that the reference was to the "gospel message as it was actually intended, not most people's interpretation of scriptures. Even the New Testament is largely misunderstood, including by its authors" goes to the crux of the problem - that in order for the gospel message to be effective, you have to understand what was 'acutally intended' by the author. In other words, forget all those other interpretations, listen to MY interpretation, the ONLY correct one. This is what they REALLY meant.
Sorry, that's the WTS to a tee!
No, religion and the Bible and all other holy books are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Anytime you have something that purports to be from God, and that it takes special knowledge, available only to a few, in order to understand and use it properly, you are going to have a mess.
Come on, Jaffacake, "Even the New Testament is largely misunderstood, including by its authors." That's such an illogical statement. Think about what you're saying - "The people who wrote it didn't understand what they were writing, but I, living 2,000 years later, understand what the gospel message actually intended to say." What bullshit, and the very essence of what makes religion so toxic. Make your point and prove it with logic and reason. Otherwise get the hell out of the way.
S4
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Daunt
So the people who support this gospel message was "intended" to be, do you think your interpretation of it is better than say, the Jehovah's Witnesses? It seems to be anybody's guess as to what they REALLY intended. And that's where the problem comes in. Everybody's interpretation is the REAL interpretation that they intended it to be. That's why we've been in this intellectual stinker for so long.
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Carmel
Which gospel?
carmel
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LouBelle
To me the simple gospel is "Love God with your whole being" & "Love your neighbour" - If we practised those two commands in the true spirit of what it means, I do believe that society would deffinately elivate itself into some sort of eutopia. I do not think that we would go back into the dark ages or the crusades - as they were not practising the gospel in it's simplicity & truth.
What I think you are asking is that if there were no single persons' agenda attached to the gospel, would it change the world? Yes it would.
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hmike
If you're talking about a theocratic government abrubtly and forcibly administered, forget it! As long as people are in charge, using their own discretion, there would be problems. Power would corrupt many good people, and many would just go along with it and profess whatever was expected to get what was in their best interests. Humility and a true sense of service to the Master and humanity would go out the window. And, there's too many know-it-alls; it would lack productive direction.
Of course, if the world was united in purpose and direction under any system, tremendous things would be accomplished. But for good?.... That's the point behind the Tower of Babel and the breakup of mankind.
The kingdom of God is in the heart; it cannot be compelled on anyone. It starts like a seed and grows, but expect the tree to be pruned to be fruitful. In this world with the way it is, the kingdom has to be subject to persecution and oppression.