To all the other atheists/agnostics out there

by robhic 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  AlmostAtheist

  
  Isn't all about where you start? If you start from "The Watchtower is God's organization, the F&DS are his representatives", then everything the JW's teach is right. You explain away the UN, the child abuse issues, the discrepancies in the Bible. Everything starts from "this is right, somehow", and then you spread your thinking out from there.

  If you believe in God and believe he's just and right and good, then everything gets explained in the light of that. "How do you know that God doesn't have a heavenly plan for the men of the Kursk?" they might ask. Or they'll point out that perhaps one of the men onboard was going to commit terrible crimes later and God intervened. Or my favorite, it's a "test" for the survivors, or a "lesson" in appreciating the life they still have. "God works in mysterious ways", "God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts".

  Then there's your non-theist. I start from "there is no plan, no unseen forces intelligently directing things". I have found that the world makes a ton more sense this way. Why did this family get financial assistance for their funeral-related problems, but many other familes don't? Because they got into the news! And the Saints stepped up and took care of it. Good on the family for getting attention for their problem (very enterprising) and good on the Saints for helping out (very generous, and probably soon forgotten so likely not done simple for publicity).

  "God helps those that help themselves", "The harder you work the luckier you get", I'm sure there are more...

  This is not to say that I don't believe in "unseen forces". Perhaps there are spirits of some sort or another. Perhaps not. But I definitely don't believe that they have an active part in directing/assisting/attacking the lives of humans.

  Dave of the "generally agrees with SNG" class

  Edited to add: Terry, the concept of praying for others is one of the major reasons I questioned my faith and eventually abandoned it. Let me see if I get this: If I pray for me, it might work. If it doesn't and then YOU pray for me, it has a better chance. And if we can get the whole congregation to pray for me, all the better still. Sooooo... God's impressed with me having friends? Sorry, that one was enough. I didn't even need Noah's Ark to drop the Bible like an inside-out woodchuck, it was just icing on the cake.
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  Cygnus

  As a nontheist, this thread makes me sad, because my father, who abandoned the JWs 6 years ago, recently urged me to pray to Jehovah for help with my maladies. I wish I could come fully clean with him about my nontheism but it would break his heart, and probably his spirit as well, and I won't do that to him.
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  Terry

  As a nontheist, this thread makes me sad, because my father, who abandoned the JWs 6 years ago, recently urged me to pray to Jehovah for help with my maladies. I wish I could come fully clean with him about my nontheism but it would break his heart, and probably his spirit as well, and I won't do that to him.

  Somebody I trust gave me some advice and I'll pass it on to you for what it is worth.

  Nobody has the right or the duty to deny others a view of reality by hiding it from them. It is the worst form of theft.

  Your dad can't cope with reality if it is hidden from him.

  He deserves to know and proceed from there.

  We can't successfully build a world when the parts are made of mere nothings.

  T.
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  BrendaCloutier

  miraculous intervention from Jehovah and the assembly finances

  Therein lays the real issue with that assembly GaryBuss.... They weren't concerned about the foodservice being closed down, they were concerned with the finanacial aspect of losing revenues from the food service AND/OR having to rent i.e. pay $$$ for the refrigeration. If I recall, most of the food was donated, and now the refrigeration was donated and the WTBTS could profit from others generosity.

  I personally believe prayer works because I believe there is "something" out there that gets involved. However, I am an agnostic - non-deist. I don't 'Praise The Lord' when prayer works, but I am thankful when there is human intervention and thankfull to those who intervene.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  robhic,

  that's hilarious! you know, i don't mean to sound rude, but you probably have a high percentage of blatantly religious folk down there in new orleans. jesus or voodoo or whatever. you probably see it a lot in your daily life, and that sucks. it would make my head spin too.

  i see the sort of thing you are talking about on the american news channels often enough to know that there seems to be a majority of people in the states who do not see praying as dancing the hokey-pokey (sweet, terry). otherwise it wouldn't get air time. and the senate opening with prayer, or the congress, i forget. it's really quite primitive. it's people who for all intents and purposes, look dressed up and modern, but are actually using primitive brains. prayer is a primitive form of problem solving. it's the ability to absolve one of responsibility, and get the problem fixed via random probability. this pisses me off sometimes, because we are supposed to be civilised, and yet we still pray for guidance, or more often, when we are in a tight spot. it irritates me because if some of us apes can "get it", then what the hell is the matter with the rest of them?

  i think being a witnoid has made me hyper aware to this sort of thing, like you say. i remember deconverting myself (reading books), and actually entertaining the thought of other religions. and wanting to pray to god for direction. and then thinking "wait a damn second. if there's so many religions, god obviously doesn't care for any of them, since they're all pretty much in the same boat. or perhaps, there is no god!". and that was one of the best things i ever did for myself, because once i arrived at the neutral position, it was clearly obvious how much more the world made sense, like Dave said. and i made the world make more sense on my own. i did not need to pray about it. that was the day life started for me.

  As a nontheist, this thread makes me sad, because my father, who abandoned the JWs 6 years ago, recently urged me to pray to Jehovah for help with my maladies. I wish I could come fully clean with him about my nontheism but it would break his heart, and probably his spirit as well, and I won't do that to him.

  cyngus, when i told my mom, she cried for like two days straight. it was a huge blow to her. it was worse than the news that i did not want to be a JW. but she is doing fine now, after many more conversations. she respects the fact that i have to make my own calls on what i think the universe is about. she doesn't have to agree, but at least we're still on speaking terms. and atheists can no longer be evil people anymore, because now her son is one, so she sees us in a different light now. i think if all the atheists came out of the closet, and told all their friends and familiy, the world might begin to change for the better. TS
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  AllAlongTheWatchtower

  Yes, I agree with what you're saying, Robhic. I too hate when people use that copout phrase 'god works in mysterious ways'...it is such blanket idiocy, and is used both when something good happens and when something bad happens-to assure people that some unknown good outcome must be there after all, we petty mortals just don't know what it is. BLAH!

  I feel so strongly about this issue, that unless something happens to put me in extreme pain like hitting my thumb with a hammer, I won't even say "goddammit" because it seems to me like such an empty thing to say. After all, nobody would say nonexistant-deity-dammit. I also refuse to say "god bless you" when someone sneezes. (If you've ever seen the episode of Seinfeld about this, you know that can cause problems of itself...such a simple thing) That's been a bone of contention for my wife and I in the past, because she didn't like that I wouldn't say it when she sneezed, and also I didn't like when she DID say it when I sneezed...now all a moot point of course, since she is studying with JWs and they don't believe in saying it.
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  the_classicist

  2000+ year old superstitions of some nomadic goat-herders

  I take that as an insult. Get it right: non-nomadic fisherman!
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  FreeWilly

  What has annoyed me lately is when people discuss the question of God's existence, conclude there must be one, and then automatically default to the God of the Bible. It's like they assume that if there is a God, then it must be the one in the Bible.

  I'm agnostic. I don't completely discount the existence of God, but all available evidence IMHO, leads me to conclude there is none, or that God has long left his creation to their own devices. If I were to someday conclude there is a God and seek his guidance through ancient writings, then I would have to weigh the Bible along with other religious works. So far the Bible seems to hold everything in common with other apparently fictional religious representations of God. That is, an incredible collection of stories about superhuman creatures interacting with heroic people (also possesing superhuman abilities), who witness unbelievable events, in times long ago and places far away which, coincidentally, is NEVER replicated in the present day and can NEVER be reliable verified.
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  BrendaCloutier

  2000+ year old superstitions of some nomadic goat-herders

  I take that as an insult. Get it right: non-nomadic fisherman!

  Based on doctrine formulated by nomadic goat-hearders
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  luna2

  People praying for the submariners to be saved... what's that all about when there's countless (unreported) lives in peril. And it seems these submariners were more worthy than those on the Kursk.

  Exactly! What makes some people more worthy of salvation than others? What about kids who are being beaten or sexually abused, people starving or having their houses burnt down or being murdered, everyday in every country on the face of the earth.

  What makes "God" answer some prayers and not others? Are a bunch of guys in a submarine this year more important than a bunch of guys in a submarine last year or other suffering, dying people? Is the desire of the family of the guy who died in California to have his body returned home for burial more important than some other family who also can't afford to bury their dead? How bogus! Guess God only acts if you can figure out the right words or the right set of actions to tickle his fancy.