I don't know whether this has been said already, but what caught my attention about this subject title is its vehemence. Hating the Trinity seems rather extreme. Assuming God's existence, do the metaphysical details of his constitution really matter that much? If the idea of Jesus as God does not help your devotional life, I can understand your not using it. Also, I can understand the sort of academic curiosity that would lead one to try to pin down what the various early Christian belief's about the deity and personality of Jesus and the Holy Spirit were. After that, I think we part ways.
veradico
JoinedPosts by veradico
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343
I hate the Watchtower but I really still hate the Trinity Jesus is NOT God!
by Witness 007 insome bibles use the term "worship" when refering to jesus...at times people did fall down and bow to him........this doesn't show he was god!
the greek term; proskeyneo, means to prostrate oneself, to bow down and show honour.
now, this was done for jehovah.....and his representatives....jesus israelite kings and priests....but for the honour of jehovah not as creature worship which even angels would refuse.. also i studied the non-biblical early church gospels which really does show a slow decline over 150 years, into the trinity as the watchtower claims...........although i still hate the watchtower society at least i learnt something that wasn't a lie..
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It looks like I will become an elder this week!
by outofthebox inthat's right guys.
as i told you before, they boe have been considering me for the eldership.
which i don't care for, but since my family is stuck in this cult, i guess i can use the new position to help them see that the holy spirit has nothing to do with me being an elder.
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veradico
I remember wanting an elder friend of mine who stopped believing around the time I did to remain in his position. I thought about all the good he could do. However, I don't think I realized at the time the sort of pressures an elder is put under and the level of duplicity and inauthenticity one would have to embrace in order to make it work. I think what you're doing will put you in a position to do good, but you may be taking on more than you can handle.
Best of luck,
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Take out your bibles and tell me......with the proper verses
by JH inshould one adore and pray to jehovah or to jesus?.
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veradico
Greg Stafford is a good example of someone who still does not believe in the Trinity doctrine developed by the early Church as a compromise between and harmonization of the dominant Christologies but who accepts that Jesus can be worshiped. Jesus is Jehovah, in Stafford's view, both in the legal sense of being the representative of Jehovah and in the ontological sense of Jesus' having been made the exact image of Jehovah's very being. Thus, Jesus can be directly appealed to and adored, and Jesus can be addressed as Jehovah; however, Stafford can continue rejecting the Trinity doctrine in its full, robust form. The Trinity doctrine and Stafford's doctrine are both attempts to harmonize the various perspectives among early Christians. I think the biblical evidence is clear that Jesus did not believe he was God in the Trinitarian sense, nor did most of the early Jewish-Christians. He was, however, an apocalyptic mystic/prophet who, in the tradition of John the Baptist, had a distinctly private and personal relationship with the Jewish God; he and God were "One". Nonetheless, the evidence is also clear that soon after Jesus' death Christians, especially pagan-Christians, began worshiping Jesus as God. The details, of course, differed from group to group. The NT reflects some of the diverse doctrines and practices of the early Christians, if you start looking at some of the other texts produced by those communities, the situation becomes even more complex.
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I have lost all desire to study the bible... This sucks...
by cognac ini just feel that the bible was put in place so that people can use it for guidelines and so forth.
i don't think that you have to know everything to be accepted by god.... the only problem is, is that i no longer study with my husband either.
now, he's not seeing the truth for what it is and starting to revert back to jw land... but, just the thought of studying anymore makes me sick... it's just, when you study so much after awhile you just can't take it anymore... i would like to actually enjoy my life a little bit.... i'm sick of trying to prove my viewpoint.
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veradico
There's no rush with your husband. Devote your energy to your relationship, getting to know and enjoy each other in new aspects and contexts. When he's ready, he'll figure most of it out himself. We're all essentially alone when it comes to major stuff like this, but he'll know you're there supporting him. And you'll hopefully have an even stronger relationship as the foundation for a new life.
With regard to the Bible study, I agree. Take a break. If we are saved by knowledge (which does not seem fair, since many people will never have access to such knowledge), you've already got more than most. Read some fiction or poetry or even the religious texts of other cultures. The Bhagavadgita, the Gitanjali, and the Tao Te Ching are three of my favorites.
best wishes,
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Lets talk about Jesus!
by real one inluke 4:16-19 jesus, went back to nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as usual he went to the meeting place on the sabbath.
when he stood up to read from the scriptures, he was given the book of isaiah the prophet.
he opened it and read,.
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veradico
"Do you feel that Jesus can fufil His purpose in your life?" I don't really want someone else to use my life to fulfill his purpose. If his purpose happens also to be my purpose, I would be willing to work with him. However, I want to generate my own purposes and meanings in my life. If such things are imposed on me by anyone, even by God himself (presuming such an unlikely being exists), it would be a colossal joke to call my life MY life. There is no freedom where there is destiny and prophecy. I realize that the Christian message, at its best, is that God's purpose for me would not be an imposition on my nature but the true realization of the unique person I am. On a practical level, I don't see any institutionalized form of Christianity really embodying that notion; there is always a major concern with conformity and uniformity in order to self-define one's community against the "other." On an abstract level, I think the reason why the Christian notion is so appealing is that it's beautifully pure and idealistic. However, I ultimately don't believe in an ideal, permanent "self" whose purpose could be realized. We are all dynamic collections of properties. On the macro scale, it's appropriate to speak of a "self," but careful introspection (as Hinduism and Buddhism in particular teach us) reveals that on the micro level the "self" breaks down under analysis. Thus, at different times in my life there have been different "selves" with distinct purposes. I try to realize my purposes for my life as I go along. If any imperceptible beings who inhabit inaccessible realms of existence want to give me aid, they are welcome to do so, but I'm not going to waste my few precious years supplicating and serving them.
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is a homosexual as bad as a paodophile to a jw ?
by looloo inthe same guy that spoke to my mum on the doors yesterday was talking about them in the same catergory , aswell as saying that there are alot of 13 to 15 year old girls hanging around the local night club looking for a one night stands (she should of asked him how he knew about this , is that because he is there ?
) his point was is a man of 25 that picks up a 15 year old plastered in makeup at a nightclub a paedophile ?
which was totally irrelevant to the point she was making about the local ex min servant that had abused his daughters friends in the cong even though he was good friends with thier parents and had known the girls since birth , so did know they were underage .
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veradico
I can't remember anything in the Bible having to do with pedophilia, but a good place to start would be the Society's recent condemnation of it. I believe I recall their citing a scripture to support their condemnation. However, I would not be surprised if the Bible does not contain one. The subjection of children, women, slaves, and foreigners to men in ancient times could be almost absolute. In Greece and Rome (though in Rome laws were eventually made to protect freeborn children from abuse) girls were looked at as dangerously potent and in need of a male influence to tame them as soon as they hit puberty. Thus, it was not unusual for a 13-year-old girl to be married off to a 30-year-old man. This abduction (for marriages were ritualized abductions) was made even more traumatic due to the fact that girls were isolated from and taught to distrust men, and were kept quite ignorant, while an adult male would have a wealth of confidence and experience (sexual, intellectual, political, etc.). I believe this might be another example (cf. their apocalypticism) of a way in which JWs preserve one of the negative aspects of the primitive Judeo-Christian tradition. I don't think the Jews' condemnation of male homosex (female homosex is not mentioned, and this is significant for a variety of reasons) has so much to do with a concern about object choice (the main concern of modern Christians, which they import into their reading of the texts) as it has to do with notions of proper male roles, the centrality of procreation, and avoidance of what was perceived to be a pagan practice. Thus, since object choice per se was not a notion that occupied their minds, it's unlikely that you'll find a condemnation of having sex with someone based on their age.
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What Homophobia REALLY means.
by darkuncle29 ini know from my own life experience, that repressed sexual expression leads to externalizing that repression and projecting it upon others.
fear, anger, and self loathing is the bottom line.
when i finially was freed of the jw beliefs, and then later came out to friends (actually, i was outed), i had a new awareness dawn on me one day.
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veradico
That makes sense, darkuncle. I think we all try to be ourselves in spite of all the influences around us. When I first came out, I played around with a few of the "gay" mannerisms, in part to see if they felt natural, but in part to attempt to make that aspect of my personality more evident. However, that felt just as conventional as when I felt obligated to act straight. Now, I try to behave authentically whenever I can. When my flame is burning bright, I enjoy the glitter and dramatic playfulness in myself. At other times, even my most homophobic-homo friends have nothing to criticize about me.
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What Homophobia REALLY means.
by darkuncle29 ini know from my own life experience, that repressed sexual expression leads to externalizing that repression and projecting it upon others.
fear, anger, and self loathing is the bottom line.
when i finially was freed of the jw beliefs, and then later came out to friends (actually, i was outed), i had a new awareness dawn on me one day.
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veradico
Real One, you keep saying that. Most religious people couch their judgments in the language of scripture. Quoting scriptures is one of the easiest ways to pronounce judgments on others while appealing to another's (God's) authority. However, you would be more precise to say, "I don't explicitly judge; I just paraphrase notions I think are scriptural and occasionally quote a scripture, allowing my judgments to remain largely implicit." You quote the Bible far, far less than, say, Narkissos or Leolaia when they are in full form.
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What Homophobia REALLY means.
by darkuncle29 ini know from my own life experience, that repressed sexual expression leads to externalizing that repression and projecting it upon others.
fear, anger, and self loathing is the bottom line.
when i finially was freed of the jw beliefs, and then later came out to friends (actually, i was outed), i had a new awareness dawn on me one day.
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veradico
I'm with you Billy; I think jstalin's avatar is sexy too. And I'm what I'd like to call homophobic-homos-phobic. That is, I dislike it immensely when gay folks (people who are "out", not the closeted homophobes) I know pick on other gays for being too "queeny". Just because they hate themselves doesn't mean everyone else should. With homophobic-homos around, it's easier to behave and dress in ways that our society arbitrarily associates with gayness if you're straight than if you actually are gay. A lot of it can be explained as, in my opinion, a kind of disguised misogyny. The characteristics which we, by convention, designate as feminine can be criticized, derided, and stigmatized in a man in a way that would be unacceptable if directed at a woman. Likewise, I find that a lot of racism is disguised as a kind of intellectual or economic elitism. Sexist and racist language is avoided, but the underlying problems are still there.
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is a homosexual as bad as a paodophile to a jw ?
by looloo inthe same guy that spoke to my mum on the doors yesterday was talking about them in the same catergory , aswell as saying that there are alot of 13 to 15 year old girls hanging around the local night club looking for a one night stands (she should of asked him how he knew about this , is that because he is there ?
) his point was is a man of 25 that picks up a 15 year old plastered in makeup at a nightclub a paedophile ?
which was totally irrelevant to the point she was making about the local ex min servant that had abused his daughters friends in the cong even though he was good friends with thier parents and had known the girls since birth , so did know they were underage .
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veradico
Real one's notion that all sins are equally sin fits in with his simplistic notions about the universe, but, as in this case, it leads to repugnant results. He wants the Bible to be a simple rule book with an internally-consistent theology, and he recoils from the fact that the Bible is a complex (and inconsistent) library of smaller texts composed of still smaller units, each of which has a unique origin and history. He's being intellectually and morally lazy. He wants simple answers to complex ethical questions, but he's not even willing to spend the effort necessary to determine whether his holy books really (and consistently) contain the precise position he is advocating. And look at the consequence: Even if homosexuality is a "sin" (whatever that most loaded of words means) the way breaking Caesar's speed limit laws is a "sin", it's disgusting to say these sins are equal to the sin of molesting children. Sure. Some parts of the Bible seem to advocate this way of thinking. By means of it, people are reduced to guilt-ridden infants who, after being filled with a sense of relief and gratitude for their forgiveness, enslave themselves to masters who are usually slaves themselves. But other parts of the Bible do not naturally harmonize with this infantile, slavish perspective. There are some truly profound statements in the Bible. But the foolish neglect them, and the wise seem to be increasingly disinclined to search for them there because the Bible's most vocal adherents are folks like Real One.