humbled

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Posts by humbled

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  2596

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

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  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.

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  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.
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  2596

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

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  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.

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  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
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  2596

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

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  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.

  1. 
  2. 
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  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.....
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  3

  untitled

  by quellycatface in

  1. jw
  2. friends
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  humbled

  Cat got your tongue, Quellycat?

  It happens to me,too
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  78

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

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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..

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  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.
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  2596

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

  by cofty in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  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.

  1. 
  2. 
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  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.
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  7

  Just wanted to share something BEAUTIFUL . .

  by nicolaou in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  there's more to life than arguing about stuff .

  .. hilary hahn.

  goodnight folks .

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  humbled

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

  And yes, much more to life than arguing--or even talking...
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  78

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

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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..

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  humbled

  Phizzy and Nic--I'm pretty pragmatic about Jesus.

  If you have time, check out a web page. It's rwandanstories.

  There is a choirmaster who tells how he climbed out of his sunday clothes to kill people with a machete. On the other hand a video interview (about 3 min.) tells of a man so good that his killers--They couldn't kill him--they had to find a stranger to do it. Those stories and many others are followed by the practical repentance and practical forgiveness communities(without any mention of religion) have taken up to recover from the gravest of mental and other wounds left by massive slaughter. Wounds of victims and perpetrators.

  the accounts illustrate what I mean by pragmatic.

  Do I have faith? When I first followed Jesus' teachings I was a conventional believer-- fully indoctrinated by the church. It wasn't until I actually undertook to apply the teachings that I experienced profound effects. Was that faith?

  Then I see now there is no proof of his life and actual words and yet I still experience the greatness of the lessons. So I am not a person of faith, am I?

  I do not see a reason to throw the baby(Jesus) out with the bath just because I'm "smarter" now.

  Phizzy said he can respect my faith. may be there isn't a word for my lack of faith. He has some of the same things going on in his consideration of Jesus. I confess, I eat hot chilis too.

  As I say,I am a pragmatist.

  edit: there's no more proof of Socrates as there is for Jesus either--Socrates never himself wrote anything either.....
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  78

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

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  humbled

  The NT Jesus (pre-WT)was a good teacher for me. The RCC had me in my early years and then in my latter 20s I just read the bible.At age 36 was baptised a JW.

  I credit Jesus with setting me straight in a life derailed and finally getting me out of the cult. His teachings made me be honest with myself.

  I don't care if he was divine or original or even a little delusional. If he was a wine drinking carpenter who loved Mary Magdalene especially-- that's okay,it's fine!

  If I can't prove Jesus lived by citing written acounts, my own life experience and that of other foolish people prove the value of the "myth". We have let Jesus "live" by having our lives restored by the message of the gospel--in the various ways we have understood it.
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  12

  A letter from my brother Nathan to my uncle in 1978 when Nathan was at Bethel

  by Magwitch in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my uncle recently died and apparently he never threw anything away.

  among many things he held onto was a letter that my brother wrote to my uncle in 1978 from bethel.

  my brother was in the same hall as howard zenke (a real heavy at bethel) and nathan rode to all the meetings with howard and beana.

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  humbled

  ...and very telling that they are afraid to say what they actually do believe.

  cowards