Do they really know what they claim to know?

by Blueblades 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  Blueblades

  Everyone in the religious field, it turns out, has relevant expertise. Yet there is prodigious diversity and complexity of religious thought and practice. Do they really know what they claim to know?

  My GOD! MY GOD! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME! I would change the word ME to HUMANITY!

  Why won't a God end all this confusion and stop forsaken humanity? Its been over 2,000 years since Jesus' piercing words fell on deaf ears, at the time. Ok, in time he was not forsaken, about three days later, if, the Bible report is true. But what about humanity, the price has been paid already and billions continue to be forsaken, including the little children, animals, all creatures, even the planet itself.

  Do they really know what they claim to know? I don't expect any sensible answer as to why God won't can't or just doesn't care to end all of the confusion. We all know and understand that when a ransom is paid the exchange is made, why wasn't the exchange made 2,000 years ago?

  Because there is no God, there is no ransom, never was a Jesus, or there is a God and and and and and and and and , what?

  I'm still treading water here, have not gone under yet. I know that I don't know or have the answer to many of my own questions, do you?

  Blueblades
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  Gopher

  Everyone in the religious field, it turns out, has relevant expertise.

  One of the main thoughts I still carry over from my JW days is that religion is hypocritical, or a "snare and a racket" as one of its former leaders said.

  I don't believe every religious leader is hypocritical, or has evil intent. But if they claim to have "the only" answers, or want to say there is only one way to live and worship, and it's the way THEY know, then they are ignorant or deceitful IMHO.

  Their "relevant expertise" does not extend to knowing and giving full answers to life's mysteries. Religious leaders are only guessing, and their guesswork is often based on old "holy" texts written by other men who were guessing too.
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  love11

  I don't have any wise answers for you. I just can tell you what I've realized in my search for god and spirituality.

  Look up or Google:

  Venus of Wilendorf

  Yhwy

  Evolution

  Joseph Campbell

  Anthropology or History

  That should head you in the right direction. And always question everything. If it still holds true after looking in numerous publications by many different people with different beliefs, different cultures, and different agendas ,then it's true.

  Personally, the only thing I've found 99.9% true is science. If your looking for "proof" of god, you won't find it. God is all about belief and faith, not facts and proof.
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  ezekiel3

  I know that I don't know

  Your path to wisdom begins with that phrase. Bon Voyage!
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  jaffacake

  why God won't can't or just doesn't care to end all of the confusion.

  We may both end up athiests.

  I don't think we will ever be able to answer these questions, which seem to assume that God is a kind of Being like a person, but with superhuman powers, and which operates in spacetime like we do, making choices and decisions etc.

  People are all different, and seem to reach different levels of understanding, enlightenment and experience, or not, through such as mysticism, religion, science, etc. For me science and Christianity gets me closest, but not without doubts.

  Perhaps the common attempts to interpret the nature of God from face-value Bible reading are mistaken, and lead to the type of questions posed by this thread. Perhaps our questions in our minds are somehow the wrong approach?

  I believe Jesus Christ was real and was special, but why did he always speak in metaphor, parables, symbolism and hyperbole. But that does not make his words false, even though he was often misunderstood, even by NT authors.

  I always found it hard to reconcile the Bible with science, and the Bible with itself, but reconciled a lot of my questions and doubts this summer unexpectedly whilst reading what I expected to be an orthodox Christian source. I'm almost embarassed to say it was something of a Eureka moment, when I no longer had to apologise to myself for having seemingly conflicting beliefs. The jig-saw started to fit, although I'm not sure I have all the pieces!

  I still don't have the answers, but at least I have a manual in a language I can learn to understand. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0281056803/reviews/202-9610847-2603032
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  GoingGoingGone

  I had this exact conversation with a friend last week! I had watched the movie Passion of the Christ, and I was completely crushed. It's not fair, I said, that people should continue to have to suffer. The ransom was paid 2000 years ago.... so apply it already, and stop all this suffering!! My friend and I sort of were talking past each other for a while, he didn't understand my problem with it all. He said, each person only lives one lifetime.. that's one lifetime of suffering. Doesn't matter how long God lets it continue... each person only lives one lifetime of suffering, and then has the chance to live for eternity with God. MY point was that God loves everyone, and would want his creation to not have to suffer anymore.. Anyway, he finally understood what I was talking about and this was his explaination: Adam and Eve sinned. Mankind is now in a fallen, imperfect state. Each person, now, has to live his life to the best of his ability, trying to do what he believes is pleasing to God. Each person lives one lifetime in sin and suffering. At the end of his life, each person will be accountable to God for his actions. When every human who will ever been born, has been born, then God will judge all people (White Throne Judgement), and those who have been faithful to him will receive life forever with him. The earth is now a proving ground for what happens to us after we die, and since Adam and Eve used their free will to disobey, we are stuck on this proving ground in an imperfect state. That's not to say that we aren't supposed to enjoy life all we can while we're here. The earth is beautiful, and we're supposed to enjoy it. Having heard about a paradise earth for decades, though, it's kind of hard to see the earth as just a proving ground..... But that's the explaination I got.. So I thought I'd pass it on!! GGG
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  Blueblades

  GGG. Tell your friend that when Adam sinned, unborn humans were set up to inherit sin ,imperfection, suffering , sickness and death immeadately, not 2,000 years or more later. So, why has not the ransom price put into effect immeadately. He can't answer that, where is the equal justice. Humans should be benefiting from Jesus death, not have to prove anything at all.

  Adam's offspring were not given the opportunity to prove anything after his sinning, we were directly punished for what he did. Hence, we should be directly rewarded for what Jesus did. NOT to do this is an injustice to humanity.

  There is no waiting whena ransom has been paid, the exchange is immeadate. Case closed.

  Blueblades
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  jaffacake

  Going

  Thanks for your friend's take on this question.

  The Adam & Eve thing is similar to JWs and many Christians, and flies in the face of good scriptural interpretations. An alternative: Adam symbolised humanity, all of us, our nature. We all see pleasures & rewards in fame, success etc, and are tempted. The sin of Adam is the sin of all humans. We each meet our serpent, who whispers to us, and we each taste the fruit and die as we cast out from our hearts the life of God.

  There was no Adam, and why would we be punished for anothers fall by a just God?

  "There is no-one who does good, not even one" (Romans 3:12)

  "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23)
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  GoingGoingGone

  when Adam sinned, unborn humans were set up to inherit sin ,imperfection, suffering , sickness and death immeadately, not 2,000 years or more later. So, why has not the ransom price put into effect immeadately. He can't answer that, where is the equal justice.

  Very good question! That's what I was asking... why not apply the ransom immediately, or for that matter, why did we have to wait 4000 years for the ransom at all? What's the point of that? The answer was that each individual person hasn't suffered more than one lifetime. No matter how long this world continues, each of us will stand before God with one lifetime's worth of suffering under out belt. If you're thinking purely 'fairness', then it wouldn't be fair that some people are supposed to live in difficult circumstances and then be accountable for their actions, and others are allowed to live in a perfect world and have to be accountable based on that.

  Jaffacake - I'm assuming that there was an actual Adam, and that we will be able to go to heaven and live with God if we are good people, only because that's sort of where I'm at right now. I haven't really considered Adam to be anything but a literal person, partly because of the Biblical lists of the exact names of Adam's decendants, among other things. But, I'm always open to new ideas.... and it's a great feeling, I might add!!

  GGG