Posts by Mackin

104

Do You Believe In God Or Not?

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you've been associated with the witnesses, believing in god was a necessity.

do you still feel that god exists?

if you believe in god, do you feel that he cares about you?

Mackin

UnDisfellowshipped said:

Mark 9:23: Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."
Mark 9:24: Immediately the father of the child cried out with tears, "I believe. Help my unbelief!"

That is my point: Anything is possible if you believe it's possible. If this account of the demonised boy being healed is true, for it could well be a story made up to supply proof to a dogma, then it appeared to come true because the people involved wanted it to. They chose to interpret the evidence before them as being of divine origin.

But how do you know there wasn't another perfectly rational explanation of this boys cure that did not involve any kind of supernatural power? Just because you choose to believe that Jesus had supernatural powers, or was some kind of divine being, doesn't necessarily make it true.

Mackin.

104

Do You Believe In God Or Not?

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you've been associated with the witnesses, believing in god was a necessity.

do you still feel that god exists?

if you believe in god, do you feel that he cares about you?

Mackin

I stopped believing in God during my time in Bethel (while still serving as an elder). I do not believe the bible is anything more than an interesting book, it has some value, yes, contains some wisdom even, but I do not believe it is in any way "divine" or of supernatural origin. I do not believe there is any "God" who cares about me or anyone else.

Similarly, I do not believe Jesus Christ was any more than a wise, insightful man, in as much as there have been many wise, insightful men and women down thru the ages. In the same way, I don't believe in Angels, Demons or Satan. I am now an Atheist.

Farkel is right, you do not have to believe in God to remain in good standing in the Watchtower Society. Of course you'd have to keep that fact under your hat and continue to go thru the motions, but no-one will question your core beliefs if you appear to be "walking the talk".

The conclusion I have come to is that God exists if you want him to. If you believe that God exists then he does - for you. If believing helps you cope with life and sleep soundly at night then that's great. But for me, all that maters is that you are happy, do what you can to help others, and if you are especially lucky you might even find someone to love who will love you back.

Mackin

5

organs?

by Cyre in

.

if witnesses don't believe in blood transfusion, then does that mean they dont believe in organ transplantation, too?.

diana

Mackin

Refiners,

I remember the Convention when this came out. They had a cardboard mockup of a human figure on the stage and the head would light up when the person was "reasoning with their mind" and the chest area would light up when they were "reasoning with their heart". At that time the view was that the physical heart organ was the "seat of motivation".

There was a very subtle change at the time that Insight on the Scriptures was released in which the viewpoint was changed to say that the "seat of motivation" was the "figurative heart" not the "literal heart". I rather suspect that they began to realise that the bullshit they had published in the '70's about a person taking on a different personality after an organ transplant was just that - bullshit.

This change was not publicised much however and there are still plenty of 'dubs who beleive you will turn into Hannibal Lecter if you have a heart transplant.

Mackin.

15