Posts by lifeisgood

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

tec,

"True. I hope that I have not implied that I think anything bad about him. I just didn't see anything of Christ in his evaluation of his previous beliefs. Since Christ is the whole point of being a Christian, I felt I should question that. It is Him that a Christian should follow".

I'm going to answer your second part first. Since the book that tells us how to follow Christ is make believe how can I learn how to follow Christ? The New Testament is no more "the truth" than the Old Testament.

The Christ story is a fable. The OT describes a murderous, genocidal, hard hearted maniac called "God".

The Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden story is a fable.

There is no inherited sin that needs to be redeemed by a sacrifice. No firstborn son of "God" needs to be sacrificed to make up for the make believe sin that we inherited from our make believe ancestors in the make believe garden of Eden. This entire concept of the first humans being misled by an ancient supernatural creature and then 'God' condemned all of us to die is just insane.

The Bible is a collection of half truths, lies, fables, propaganda, and philosophy. It is not the truth.

I said several times that I became a Christain at the age of 9, read the Bible costantly, was a lay preacher for many churches from 13 to 15 and then became a Jehovah's Witness. So, not sure how you thought I did not know Christ.

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

saltyoldlady,

You are very mistaken about me. I loved God with my whole heart, mind, and soul from a very early age. I was a lay preacher from 13 to 15. People loved hearing a "child" tell things that he had seen "God" do. Things that he had experienced directly. Then I fell into the Watchtower cult. I still loved God with everything I had. I did not get turned off on God by the Watchtower cult, I got turned off to being in their cult.

I realized at that point that I did not really know the Bible, yes I had read it many times but I had never really studied it. I study other subjects so I know what that means. So, I took two years off from attending the JW meetings and just studied the Bible.

You said "Perhaps the Bible is simply a document that yields what we desire from it's pages". No way. I wanted the Bible to tell me how to be right with God. But, what I found instead is a book of lies, half thruths, fairy tells, and doctrine. A book that really makes no sense and can be twisted to serve nefarious purposes. I did not desire these conclusions.

I cried bitterly when I figured out that all these years I had been deceived. Not by the JWs, but by the Bible itself.

It seems that you are saying that what I discovered is what I wanted to discover. Not true. From the age of 9 I thought that my father was going to kill me or hurt me very badly. So, God was my parent. YOu said "Perhaps you prefer the "impersonality" of God as a mindset". No, I do not prefer this, I just realized that this is the truth. The "God" as described in the Bible does not exist. Whatever it was that created the physical universe has not contacted mankind. Why, I do not know.

I have traveled all over the world and I have been involved in many spiritual quests. I have danced around the fire at night with aboriginals and sought to know the unknown. I have seen a lot of strange things but I have never found the Creator.

This used to sadden me, but it no longer does.

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

pontoon,

No, mankind does not have the characteristics of the First Cause. This is impossible. The First Cause existed when there was no matter, only energy. Humans are not energy beings, we are material beings. We are not infinite, we are finite. The story that God made man in his image is a lie. The First Cause has no gender. The First Cause is not from our universe, there is no way that we can be like the First Cause. The First Cause has never contacted humans, does it even know we are here? Does it care?

I'm not sure if human violence is caused because we are humans or because we are "civilized".

I had a lot of very serious health problems and sometimes I could not work. I lived on a Sioux Indian reservation for a while while I was being treated by one of the medicine men and Little Dove In The Snow (a sort of medicine woman?). They saved my life. Little Dove told me that I should travel and visit other aboriginal people. So, I did. I found tribes that could not fathom the concept of lying or violence or hurting or cheating or stealing. It made them, not upset exactly, but just sit very still and be quiet. Like the ideas were so horrific they just could not respond to it at all.

I have never met a "civilized" person who acted like this or responded to evil like this.

I think that perhaps humans in their aboriginal state do not lie or steal or cheat or harm or murder. Only civilized humans do these things.

So, perhaps the fault is not in being human, it is in being "civilized".

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

tec,

Christ is a myth. The Bible is some half truths combined with lies being told to paint the insane, murderous Israelites as "holy people", and many lies, and some fantasy, and some philosophy.

'God' as presented in the Bible is a myth. This 'God' does not exist. No Christlike being can redeem us from sin because sin is a madeup idea. There was no garden of Eden and no perfect human pair that was led into sin by Satan. The entire story is nonsensical and similar stories are found in mythologies that predate the first book of the Bible. Since sin does not exist and there was no time when humans were perfect and living forever, then Christ as explained in the Bible serves no purpose. The whole thing is made up.

30

Recognizing Christ's leadership involves submission to his "brothers." 5/15/2011 WT

by miseryloveselders in

jw
friends

i hesitated to do this thread as i thought it was the same article flipper did, but its not the same article.

here's flip's thread for those who missed it.

it's a must read.. http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/207377/1/april-15th-wt-wt-society-says-obeying-us-is-same-as-obeying-god.

lifeisgood

miseryloveselders,

Where did brother Hitler get those cool headphones?

39

Went round and round last night

by sinis in

jw
friends

so, my mother is still in.

last night at my parents home she starts in with me on how she is going to ask my sig other to the memorial (puke), and that i should not forbid her to go.

we went round and round about how the jw's are bs, gave many examples and it always came back to some twisted circular reasoning, that i still do not fully understand.

lifeisgood

sinis,

You are not a NAZI? Darn, that is why I was sticking up for you bro.

7

if something is spiritual what is it really?

by Evidently Apostate in

jw
friends

examples:.

spiritual paradise = not real.

spiritual shepards = says who.

lifeisgood

I have met people who are very spiritual. Buddhist monks, South American shamans, Central American witch doctors, Papua New Guinea witch doctors. They can see a reality that you and I cannot see. They can heal you when no one else can, and you feel it, you feel that it is their care and concern and love that is healing you. It is quite a powerful and unsettling and amazing experience to be around people like this.

The WTBTS use of the word "spiritual" is a fabrication. It is a lie to hide the fact that they have nothing.

What is so devestating is that the WTBTS COULD have something if they actually cared about God and other humans. They could actually DO THINGS. But, they don't care and they don't actually do anything. They just spread their drivel.

Imagine how much good could be done if they really cared enough to spread real spiritual food. Or, if they really made a spiritual paradise. I lived in Papua New Guinea with some tribespeople who lived very isolated. They did not have words in their language for fight, hurt, harm, lie, steal, fight, kill, murder, rape, rob, beg. I tried to exlain to them what one of these words meant. The interpreter told me to be very careful. I wanted to explain "murder" and the interpreter refused. He said we could use "fight". So, I tried to exlain it. The entire tribe got very quiet. Some of the women were crying. It was awful. I felt ashamed. I started crying. Some of the women comforted me. Imagine, I made them upset and crying and then they felt an obligation to comfort me because I cried. The interpreter said "You see why I would not burden them with the concept of murder?".

There was a TV documentary about this tribe fifteen years ago or so. I don't know if it is still around or not.

So, to me a spiritual paradise would be a group of people who lived this way. They did not lie, hurt, fight, harm, steal, etc. Everything that they did would be done for the happiness of all. Anyone who was in pain would get relief from the others. I think that we can imagine this, but most of us have never seen it. The WTBTS only wants to keep all of the cult members in line. They do not want to give them this gift.

The WTBTS has so much power over their cult members that they could have this effect on the cult members if they wanted to. But, not only do they not want to, they are so enwrapped in their lies and their mindgames that this idea does not even occur to them.

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

I'mStuckIn,

Something that really startled me when I started reading the Bible's different versions. And, then I started reading other methology. Assyrian, Egyptian, Medo Persian, Babylonian, etc.

The same stories appear in all of them.

And the writer's voice seems to be the same. This really startled me. When you read a book you can see the writer, the writer comes through in the writer's voice. You would think that you would see many different writers across the mythologies of many cultures. But you do not. You read the same voice.

It is as if, all of our mythology was written at once by a small group. I found this to be very very strange. I have no idea what it means.

79

Why I no longer believe the Bible is "God's Word" and I no longer believe in "God"

by lifeisgood in

jw
friends

i became a christain at the age of 9. not by going to a church or asking a preacher to baptize me, or anything like that.

i started reading my mother's king james bible cover to cover at the age of 8. my father was very abusive and when he was abusing me, i would close my eyes and pray.

i never hated my father, which is one good thing i got out of prayer.. when i turned 13 i became a lay preacher and traveled, on my own, preaching in any church that would let me.. when i was 15 i studied with the jws and was baptized after four months of study.. i was a zealous christain but not a zealous jw, according to them.

lifeisgood

I don't beleive that the First Cause is a douche. I was saying that if you believe the Bible story then you must believe that the First Cause is a douche. But, I don't believe the Bible

I think that the First Cause is just beyond us somehow. I'm not even sure what that means, exactly.

39

Went round and round last night

by sinis in

jw
friends

so, my mother is still in.

last night at my parents home she starts in with me on how she is going to ask my sig other to the memorial (puke), and that i should not forbid her to go.

we went round and round about how the jw's are bs, gave many examples and it always came back to some twisted circular reasoning, that i still do not fully understand.

lifeisgood

Okay, so I was just glancing at this and this struck me as incredibly odd: "My mother made it sound like I was satan himself for refusing to agree with her decision to ask my wife to the memorial."

According to the Bible and the WTBTS the husband has headship over the wife. Your mother cannot make a decision affecting your wife. Only you can do that.

I don't read the Bible any more so I don't know where the headship scripture is. But I would use that.