I'm new, but I'll bite at this one, while I'm busy running down my post limit. It's an interesting topic, for sure.
Okay. I was raised as JW, and it instilled in me a deep fear of God in all the wrong ways. I was not fearful of God because of his righteous judgement, as they claim, nor did I love him. I was afraid of God because of how truly mean, horrible, spiteful, and hateful he was made out to be. A burning lake of fire for all eternity if you don't believe? Seriously?
All of that sort of thing went in direct opposition with the teachings that Jesus came to earth to give us. He told us one simple thing, which I feel is the key to life, the universe, and everything. Our purpose is to love. Just love. No more than that.
How, then, could I follow a god that didn't practice what he preached? No loving god would subject its creations to unending firey torment, as far as I'm concerned. The JW god? He's just as hypocritical as any of the other versions of god out there, from an organized religion standpoint, and just as hypocritical as their organization on the whole!
The God *I* choose to follow is an all-just, ALL-LOVING God. He (I use the male pronoun out of habit and clarity, not because I believe that God is sexually a male being. I don't believe that God has a "gender"; I think he is aesexual.) would never torment his creations, or cause them to hurt or suffer, no matter WHAT "sins" they've committed. The hurt and suffering in the world is caused by mankind's own imperfections, a loss of the all-encompassing trait of love, one might say, giving rise to things like greed, lust, self-possession, and so on and so forth. There is room for forgiveness for everyone, regardless of whether or not they realize the error of their ways and repent.
I DO believe there is a hell, and it is simply this: an absence of God. Those who "sin" unforgiveably-- murderers, child abusers, and so on-- I believe will be denied the presence of God and be forced instead to return to the world again and again, until they get it right. Once they do, and come to realize why human beings are actually here...then they will be able to attain heaven-- which is simply being with God.
(The above is my own personal view of reincarnation, and I don't expect anybody else to agree with me. It's just something that feels right to me.)
Along these lines, I do not at all believe that we as human beings should simply sit back and wait on God to do for us. No, I believe that if we want the world to be a better place, WE have to stand up and DO something about it. As the saying goes, "Faith without works is dead."
We can't expect God to just take care of everything and make the world a better place, while those "believers" sit back and gloat that they're on the winning team while the rest are made to suffer. This is the sort of behavior I see so very prevalent in JW society: they seriously think that just by virtue of being JW, they're saved when 'the end' comes, and they can sit back and watch with smirks on their face as all the sinners get cast into the fires of the burning lake!
Heh, even my own father is guilty of this kind of back-asswards thinking-- he said when The End comes, he's going to sit back and LAUGH!-- and I personally find it disgusting and abhorrent. What I'd like to know is this: who does he really think he is, to presume that God even WANTS him to live, when he is clearly so callous toward his own human bretheren??? Did he learn ANYTHING from Jesus' teachings at all?
Why should ANY human being go out of their way to WANT to see another suffer and die horribly, for ANY reason? I know I don't. I feel just as bad for the aborted baby as I do for the person that didn't think they had any other choice, and for the person that is murdered by some crazy person...AND for the crazy person that murders and is sentanced to death, and everyone in between. I can disagree with them and what they've done if it was sinful, harmful, or shameful in my eyes, yes...but I don't wish for any of them to die horribly. I'm only human, of course, and sometimes I think it...but immediately I realize it was bad and ask for forgiveness for that shortcoming.
...yet, the JWs do it in spades, as do the rapture people and every other religion that thinks it's the "only right and true way" to God. It's the "we get to live and you all get to die" mentality that makes me wonder WTF these people are even THINKING!
None of them get it, so in my opinion, they're ALL doomed to failure.
There is only ONE key to true happiness and closeness with God, and that is LOVE. Anyone that doesn't practice love is doomed to fail. If you really try, God knows your heart, and then you'll be one with him.
...anyways. End rant. lol
