Posts by humbled

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

Well, cofty, I hate being an impotent mom(ahem).

I really DO love my kids, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't have the absolute power to help them--even if they are in desperate need.

It's a crying shame, but maybe the carpenter was pretty disappointed to find out that his Abba didn't have a way to stop shit from happening either.

Maybe an impotent god is having to do as much as he can with love. And we all are just going to have to deal with it.

But that is a very good question-- If I were writing propaganda to win folks to my religion I would definitely tell them my God was all-powerful.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

Possibly the higher force is loving and limited. As good a guess as any.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

To the issue of lacking knowledge of why a loving god doesn't act...

When I've had my children one by one they have had to discover that love alone cannot take away great pain.

My love, my breast, could do a lot--often a great deal toward easing their suffering. But there are frightening moments when an infant's pain cannot be relieved by a mother's love.

A baby is not resentful of the mother's failure to stop pain, but appreciative of having mother's love near her. Given time and speech they cry "Make it stop hurting, Mama!" Sometimes we can. But when we can't - they have to learn that my love isn't limited --but my power is.

So I have been able to rescue them sometimes--from drowning, from bullies, an animal attack, etc. But I don't protect them from everything. Because I can't

My power is limited even if my love is not.

I am happy enough to be loved now that I am grown and a relief not to expect God protect me from every suffering.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

Caliber, Yes it is possible that a higher being has a reason to appear unloving and weak and unfair.

But nothing changes a simple statement:the tsunami does nothing to prove God's love and power.

Our old training gave us really involved excuses that laid reason on reason for shit happening. But that is presumptous. As others have said--Job's friends (who thought they were better friends of God than Job was)--they supplied reasons for the natural disaster of Job.

We could sit on the edge of our seat reading the book of Job to find the answer to cfty's OP. But, ironically the ancient story of Job lost it's innocence when later editors supplied,without foundation, the behind-the-scene drama of satan in God's court of heaven....

It is so tempting to write a happy ending to the Job story---but it IS more complicated than the fixers could fix----even their attempt o write a happy ending left something out---Job's dead kids

Let's move on

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

It isn't possible to look "behind the scene" with any God that we've been told exists.

This is an ex-JW site. We are familiar with the description we were taught of the Christian God--who,btw, isn't significantly different than any other christian-church version of him.

Isn't it fair to say that a natural disaster doesn't prove that God is all powerful. Isn't it fair to say it doesn't proveGod is love.

How can a tsunami prove these things?

It is fair to say the discussion can move to another phase of conversation, slowly and deliberately. We are still each free to believe as we will, the discussion of God can remain on the table. But how can we say the death of 250,000 gives evidence of a loving all-powerful God?

Isn't it fair to say that John 3:16 does NOT read:For God so loved the world that he sent a tsunami so that none should perish.....

3

untitled

by quellycatface in

jw
friends

humbled

Cat got your tongue, Quellycat?

It happens to me,too

78

Can you prove Jesus existed outside of Bible (so called) evidence?

by punkofnice in

i thought i'd done a thread on this before but can't find it.. so.

did jesus actually exist?.

without using the bible i'd like to see obvious proof..

humbled

Runasfast--You value a free and open(not bought and closed religion) appreciation of Jesus A lot of people hate anything that faintly resembles the crushing religion we escaped.

So many of us even without scholarly credentials like leolia eventually get to what her studies told her:No proof but a Jesus who was crucified probably happened.

Rest assured that there are plenty of individuals who don't have to meet HIGH standards of proof of existence for their "lives" to affect people. Robin Hood, Shakespeare,socrates,Homer, etc.--My great-great grandfather Thomas Dolan and Mary Kelly had a past that melted into hundreds of other Dolans and Kellys that left Ireland and melted into the U.S.--they came from obscurity, lived without leaving much proof--Except I am here now--yet only Mary knew if Thomas WAS my grandpa's daddy--o well..still, here I am.

What do we know for sure? about anything?

Still, in that ignorance,I choose to do what you seem to do. I follow Jesus' teachings and stay out of church.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

Kate--I am thinking about me in running up against painful reality and yet having a sense of a "Good" beyond the evil parts of life. It is hard to define or name it. It doesn't fit the picture of the god I was taught. I wonder what it is. Earlier in the thread I wondered why, if there isn't a god of love, why we have an immense need for love and value fairness so highly. Others allude to this being an evolved trait, an encoded part of our DNA.

But these are clinical terms that do not translate well to many of the 7 billion+ humans on the planet--If we want to talk to many about god as DNA we are likely to be met with a response similar to "Thanks, but keep your bullshit to yourself."--Yet we on this thread are no longer able to accommodate explanations of human turmoil and transcendence in terms of a talking snake, a great flood.

This thread allows me to hammer away at my cultural idea of God. I can't avoid even the incidental effects of culture since I was bound to be born smack dab in the middle of some culture no matter what--None of us avoid it.

My hope is that this thread doesn't shut down when we hit a critical point. You and cofty are at such a point,imo--I feel that we are finally, after going through 56 pages of draining pus, reaching the site of the injury.

Please let this go on.

7

Just wanted to share something BEAUTIFUL . .

by nicolaou in

there's more to life than arguing about stuff .

.. hilary hahn.

goodnight folks .

humbled

Apog, Yes!!!Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette is woundingly beautiful.

And yes, much more to life than arguing--or even talking...