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

Compassionate people will help alleviate suffering where they can. This is a given whether or not you are a Christian theist or not.

The existence of God is not proven by the existence of compassion, is it? Also, suffering and death is a natural occurence you said earlier, Psac. (Although the bible says it is the punishment /consequence of sin--See Genesis and Romans.

How do you think that all this proves anything about God's love?

That the carpenter believed it was true is no proof either. He was as deluded as we all have been. Jesus believed in compassion, as do I.

Edited: It is easier to belief that we have invented God than to believe that there is a god who actually cares for us. I can believe that a jewish carpenter (as other gospels tell it) taught us to become true human beings in spite of the evil and greed that discourages compassion and selflessnes. It doesn't matter to me that he was the son of god.

Good examples are needed to help teach compassion. Jesus, stripped of diety, without pretensions for deity, is one of the best. But the Bible God has been a dry hole for a long time.

.

43

How old were you when baptized?

by Coded Logic in

i was baptized at the age of 11. like most of us, my commitment wasnt to honor god but rather i was gang pressed into the service of the wtbts.

and, at such a young age, it was impossible for me to appreciate the enormity of my actions.

honestly, how could i possibly have known any better?

humbled

They shook the bushes in Madison County, Arkansas and came up with a 37 year old true believer. I was 7 months pregnant with my sixth child when I was baptised.

Born a Catholic, for the previous 10 years I had been reading the gospels and fervently trying to live a christian life--taking in the homeless, immigrants,being a good neigbor,etc. (Note:My non-christian husband, btw, was involved in this too). The Witnessses got a hearing from me finally for their anti-war stand. I got involved in a free home bible study with a pioneer sister who has been locally famous for her "success in the ministry". My husband noted the negative effect the JWs had on my freedom to help others--I told him we were preaching the "Good News" so that took care of it (I felt guilty though).

I came to my senses 5-6 years ago.

I do regret so much those years as a JW.

maeve

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

You, Psac, have not looked at Luke 10's story of the Good Samaritan. To be theological, this rendering of the Judeo/christian text is vital to identifying the union of the dictionary definition and Jesus' definition of compassion.

Though the Golden Rule is often expressed as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" IT IS NOT EVER EXPRESSED THIS WAY IN THE BIBLE. it is consistently written in the OT and NT is this:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Again the text at Luke 10 says the Samaritan had COMPASSION on the injured man!

How is this story not pertinent to the issue at hand and to the thread's question of how God can be a loving all-powerful God and allow massive suffering to persist? To reframe the words the gospel's wording of the Golden Rule and discount this eloquent illustration of selfless active love and compassion is to cut the floor out from under yourself, Psac.

A suffering neighbor is given compassionate care--this is what we are told to do. But it is not what God does.

These are facts. The conclusion we draw from this is ----WHAT?

26

Jesus as a Ransom for Humans or not

by fulltimestudent in

i have not got an answer (theoretical or not) to the above question.. but the main text book (introducing the new testament- its literature and theology - achtemeier, green and thompson) for my study unit (early christian literature and thought) in the assigned reading for today's lecture on the gospel of john, has a section on the ransom.

it says (p. 237): one of the few passages that explicitly speaks of jesus dying for others is mark 10:45:.

"for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.. .

humbled

The ransom seems to be an invention to solve an imaginary problem.

But the teachings of love and compassion that go beyond tribe and family--these are necessary and universal.

If we still look to the bible for any reason we are forced to be cherry-pickers, what? After all, what was left to us-- just the gleanings of the church"fathers" who left behind only what they wished us to find--hiding so much and adding their own thought to it.

Theologians. Wthat a complicated mess religion is!

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

Psac,

Does it matter to ignore the teaching of Jesus you claim to believe? AGAIN:The golden rule is irrefutably linked with compassion by Jesus in Luke 10 (as I wrote you above). This teaching is called one of the greatest. So why is that law not observed by God himself?

It may seem tedious of me to write you this again, but I find it tedious of you not to respond or acknowlege the question.

Maeve

26

Jesus as a Ransom for Humans or not

by fulltimestudent in

i have not got an answer (theoretical or not) to the above question.. but the main text book (introducing the new testament- its literature and theology - achtemeier, green and thompson) for my study unit (early christian literature and thought) in the assigned reading for today's lecture on the gospel of john, has a section on the ransom.

it says (p. 237): one of the few passages that explicitly speaks of jesus dying for others is mark 10:45:.

"for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.. .

humbled

Karen King is one of many scholars whose work in the field of early church writing explores the alternate words and worlds left completely out of our indoctination by the prevailing church.

www.earlychristianwriting.com/gospelmary.html is a site that opens some of the doors to these lost avenues. The Church did no good by suppressing the variant writings.

It has been thought control from the very beginnings of an organized church.

I think Jesus didn't promote a ransom only a little spiritual freedom--

31

Hi! I'm new here

by Powermetal4ever in

jw
friends

thought i am gonna introduce myself.

i am a girl from a country in europe, and not an english speaking one, so if i am writing strange or something, you know why.

anyway, have been reading here for a while now, the other day i thought it was time to register as a member.

humbled

Good to hear from you, PoM.

It is a powerful moment to declare yourself even through the veil of the internet.

So you have a grate ickskews reeson for bad spilling an poor inglish.

Dont worry, theers plenty of folks heer to currect you-- lik me fur instints--who hav iglish as there #1 langwige.

Maeve

10

My Husband Confesses His Sole Regret for My Exit....

by humbled in

( important note: my husband hated that i became a jw.

hated everything about it.).

he is the one who every morning makes our coffee in his beat-up metal perculator.

humbled

Funny stuff^^^^^^, ya'll !

It's Sunday and I am not at the K Hall. After we (husband, daughter, son, his GF and myself) spent an hour and a half eating homemade donuts, drinking coffee and watching a Christopher Hitchens debate online, I decided I should sew my husband a couple of hotpads. If he likes, I'll mark them Watchtower and Awake!--Or not.

It's good now to finally laugh about a period of time that was then so without humor or understanding between us. How amazing to be moving past it.

40

Reflections on 1 year WT Free-breaking the chains...

by MissFit in

hi everyone.. i just realized that it has been over a year since i discovered this site and started to recognize i was shackled by invisible chains.

i am still in the process of chipping away on those chains.. i posted on another thread how these threads here are like little time capsules.

the moment, the emotions, the attitudes are all there frozen.. .

humbled

Watching how you've gone along I can see how there are commonalities between us as we come out from this tightly managed religious group.

I have had a little therapy but couldn't afford to continue. It is hard to sort it all out. But in general I am vastly relieved to be working my life out without the crushing load of the WT on my back.

I am glad you opened your story one year on, MissFit.

maeve

140

How do we set up a "Used New Bike Fund" for Terry?

by BucketShopBill in

jw
friends

is there any way we can try to start a crowd-fund to help terry get some wheels quicker than he currently can?

with craigslist and a couple of bucks from a few members we can help terry get moving.

does anyone have any ideas how we can do a "theists for terry" bike fund raiser and challenge the atheists to a bucket-head challenge?

humbled

Yep--Paypal! Can do!

Maeve

ps. Yadda yadda, it's okay to sometimes drop a few coins for a friend--as someone or other once said: the poor are always with us :)