I wake up thinking: What if my boyfriend and I die a terrifying death during Armageddon? With no hope of any life afterwards?
Do any of you ever feel that way?
i used to worry all the time. eventually, the more exposure i got to "The World" the more absurd the whole idea seemed to me. Exposure has that effect. Now that you're out of it, you have other things from which to frame a point of reference to many of your questions. Not to mention the fact that you're now free to use your God-given common sense if you will.
Now you're free to employ actual logic to any given situation instead of the fear provoking pseudo-logic and rhetoric they use to manipulate people.
Ask yourself there are any logical grounds to substantiate any of these claims:
1. A virgin birth.
2. Four men and four women building an ark, putting two of each species [and six in some cases] on it and surviving a global flood.
In the first place, even if it were only two of each local species or even root species, where did they store all the food all those animals would require during the entire fourty days plus time for the water to recede? The food alone would require much more space than the animals!
3. A man using a rod and god given powers to split the red sea apart and walking across dry land.
4. The dead being brought back to life. Why is it that only religion has reported things like this? No history I've ever read makes any such claims.
Even if we were to assume for the moment that there was an actual ressurection, say, of Lazarus, why weren't the obvious questions being asked: So Lazarus, what did you see when you were dead? Was it one big nothing? Was it like sleeping? Did you see loved ones? Those are the logical and also reactive questions people would ask after getting over their initial shock.
While we're on the topic of resurrection how about some of the odd things surrounding Jesus' resurrection? The stone was rolled away and there was no body in the tomb. When Jesus approached Mary Magdalene, and later others, they mistook him for a gardener. If he was resurrected in a different body, where did the old body go?
The witnesses in one of their books, state the incredulity of the Hindu religion for thinking the Ganges river sprung from the big toe of one of their gods. How is it that this is absurd, but an ark, a virgin birth and resurrection aren't just as absurd?
Starting asking the questions your mind has been dying to ask the elders [but which you wouldn't dare!], and then do some research. Make use of both secular and religious material. Not just the JW or Christian religions, but other religions as well.
The Jehovah's Witnesses religion is a huge sinkhole to attract very frightened people. And for persons like myself, who were more or less born into it, it breeds very frightened people.
Organizations such as this set their watch and warrant on the dependability and predictability of the eventual death of all human beings. One generations comes, another one goes. So, so easy to play bait and switch with doctrine when you can count on no one being around to remember anything they choose to hide.
One of the oft used arguments they use is the apparent lack of logic that humans desire youth and everlasting life but should not receive it. Wow, you mean our desires alone are sufficient to support an argument for a paradise earth where no one grows old and dies?
Ask yourself this for a new twist on it: How is it either reasonable or logical to assume that the possession of the faculties of logic and reason make us any more relevant than any other thing in existence? What is there to substantiate that? If you think about it in that light, you can see just how subjective the very idea is. It's based on the purely subjective human experience.
Your faith should never rob you of living a full life in the here and now based upon promises of something better [or worse!] in an afterlife.
At this point in my life, my religion, if you can call it that is based purely on the blueprint provided by Jesus for how a human being might life a meaningful life.
Love thy neighbor as thyself. Everything else is mere commentary.
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