Why do/don't you believe in God

by LouBelle 153 Replies latest jw friends

  • hmike
    hmike

    Hi Tetrapod,

    I'm glad you replied. I thought you might appreciate the invitation to state and explain your point of view, but I was beginning to think that this question of a somewhat personal nature may have killed the thread.

    Looks like you would agree with a bumper sticker I saw recently that said something like "Atheism stops religious terrorism."

    No question there have been problems with religions historically. I may come back with a more detailed answer, but I think the fundamental problem occurs when there is too much man and not enough God. What I mean is that God becomes the servant, not the master. People may think they have God as the master, but not really. Now I know I should qualify that, and if the interest is there, I may try that on a later post in this thread.

    Here's just a little bit of biography so you understand where I come from on this. First of all, I did not come out of a JW background in any way (sometimes I don't feel right about being at JWD). My father did not openly deny God, but I never saw anything that affirmed God either. My mother came from a staid, old German Lutheran background. She was saintly and patient, but not assertive. She also read horoscopes and Jean Dixon. Although my mother attended church and I was taken to Sunday School, it wasn't every week. There was never any pressure on me to conform to any kind of doctrine, or achieve anything in the church. I didn't grow up under the cloud of anything being expected of me in this area. My friends weren't Christians, and I didn't have the influence of Christian teachers or mentors. My chief interest was science, but I later studied some philosophy, psychology, and eastern religion. In short, there was nothing in my childhood that pushed me into Christianity. I grew up in an environment as close to neutral as one can get, with some exposure but no pressure. By all indicators, I should have become an atheist, but I didn't. So, as I tried to stress earlier, we aren't always aware of why we decide what we do, but information in itself is not the key factor.

    As a Christian, I know the good it has done me and I've seen the good that true faith has done for individuals, and that's what I look at. Help on an individual level, and if enough individuals find and live out this faith, change occurs in the larger social units.

  • jaffacake
    jaffacake
    very few christians that think like you. would you consider yourself (here are some labels to mull over, sorry): a deist/christian? a pantheist/christian? and if any of these are close, how do you justify the association between the two (or three), philosophically?

    Tetrapod, I hadn't heard of these terms until I joined this board a few months ago, so forgive me for not feeling able to choose a label - at least for now. In any case my beliefs are not developed. I have only just begun my education at age 47. I've read 20 books in six months, that's double what I had read in the previous 30 years.

    When I turned my back on adventism in my teens, I turned my back on all religion, and although I never addressed the question, I suppose I was agnostic, with atheist tendencies. My Christian upbringing did however influence me greatly. Only when my athiest friend was clearly getting into JWs too deep, did I start to do something about it - too late.

    If I surprise you, it is because my opinions and posts lack consistency, and sometimes I'm just thinking out loud. I'm pretty mixed up really, and will probably end up a full blown athiest. For now, perhaps my subconscious is just trying to show my friend and myself what Christianity really is. Or maybe my return to Christ is a human reaction to my wife's serious illness, God only knows.

  • tetrapod.sapien
    tetrapod.sapien
    I have only just begun my education at age 47. I've read 20 books in six months, that's double what I had read in the previous 30 years.

    jaffacake,

    thanks so much for replying. i find your case so interesting.

    i am in a similar boat, except that i'm 28 and just starting my education. it's amazing how our minds atrophied in the org, and yet now i'm reading like a curious child, soaking it all up. i love it. i never want to stop.

    cheerio,

    josh

  • LouBelle
    LouBelle

    jaffacake & tetra: What you say is so true. I've found that I've had to unlearn everything. I've only been educating myself for the last 6 months now. It's like the brain can't get enough.

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