Posts by OldGenerationDude

70

Would mankind be better off without religion today ? A topical debate .

by Finkelstein in

this is an interesting debate paneled by people representing both pro and con aspects of religion as a ideological concept in human sociality.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1qnbm.

OldGenerationDude

Vanyell - Were all those atheists who endorsed and embraced Communism/Marxism/Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism really atheists or opportunists? How many politicians really embrace the religion or set of convictions they claim to cherish? If the millions that supposedly chose these types of government were steadfast in their atheism, where did they all go when their states crumbled? How did religions suddenly pop up when they did? Apparently more than merely the atheist politicians are being opportunists, huh?

Low-Key Lysmith, my mothers, who are lesbians, are very religious women. One of them has just been ordained as minister of a major Christian religion (UFMCC) that embraces homosexuals into their fold. Their interpretation of the church and state issue is that the state cannot interfere with any person's religious convictions, whether they choose to exercise them privately or publicly, including in the political arena. Their denomination fights for the right to exercise not only freedom of convictions like atheism but for the freedom to worship God, a fight that as gay people they have to bring into the political arena. Are they, one of millions of gay religious people who are doing the same thing in connection with MCC churches around the world, wrong? Explain in detail please if they are, so they can read it and send it to their current moderator (who is also a lesbian, by the way).

You know what is stupid? That people let these booksellers sell them the idea of the "debate." These people are booksellers just like the Watchtower is (or was). Some might help a little here or there, a few might even be genuine, but the rest--they debate and like to have their debate published because it's a business.

Debates don't settle issues because by nature the debate forum is not about who brings the best evidence for full examination and test to prove something but who is the better debator. Do some study on forensic debate and you'll see. Debate is designed to make the better speaker the victor, not to settle issues.

Mankind is neither better off with religion nor is better with it. The truth is that even with all the good that religion and atheism can bring to the human race, we manage to screw things up with bloody inquisitors and religion-crushing Communists in the name of both. If neither set of convictions existed we would invent something else to take their place and then blame them for our shedding blood and crushing others. It's not religion that's bad, it's us.

You and I, we can and will do evil. It's part of our nature. We don't have the courage to blame ourselves, and anyone who does tell us the truth we stone or gas or murder.

We just want to be right, and we'll shed the blood of anyone we have to keep that illusion alive, whether it's in the name of a god or in the name of believing there's no god to do so.

9

Religion's simple recipe for authoritarian and absolute CONTROL of the "dumb sheeple"

by Fernando in

the bible is god's infallible word.we are god's only and infallible representatives.

we are always right no matter how wrong we are.thinking for a minute about the outcome achieved using these premises, they simply can't be true and reflective of god's intent with the bible, and the reality of the bible's current content and condition..

OldGenerationDude

Actually, any person that labels others as "dumb" is neither a good atheist or theist or human being.

We will blame any other group of people we don't belong to except ourselves, and when we do something "dumb" ourselves we tend to blame the set of values we hold dear to us, non-religious or otherwise.

We left a religion that labels others as "dumb" and "blind" and claiming that the set of the values of religious people is believing in "magic." They endorsed "hate" of others whose conscience moved them to hold different convictions and then patted themselves on the back for endorsing these "values" in print for others to copy.

Then we come out and claim we are englightened by 'hating all religion' and when we call others "dumb" and "blind" and claim they are following some sort of "magic."

That's not enlightenment. That's still being blind. You just traded one set of convictions for others. You have traded the Watchtower brand and their sale of goods for your new "non-religious intelligence," but have done no better than someone who changes their clothes while forgetting to bathe themselves of the stink.

You are still Jehovah's Witnesses, except you threw out Jehovah and now have "the enlightened human mind that does not believe there's a God." You changed the label and nothing else. You still judge others, criticize the beliefs of others, and elevate yourselves as being better and more enlightened than others. What's the difference? You might as well go back to the Watchtower because they do exactly the same thing.

Neither atheism or religion causes man to do evil. Man can do evil without either. But one thing man does not like to do is take the blame, so like a coward we blame the set of convictions we had and blame our evil on them. "I did horrible things because a religion brainwashed me!" or "I was a freedom hating Communist who murdered people because I was an atheist then!"

Excuses. Lies.

And you know what's bad about this? Some of you will read this and, just as you would have done when you were in the Watchtower, you will likely try to say how wrong I am or something terrible about my character--anything but admit you haven't changed a bit inside (or if you do, you will still try to be critical of me or someone or something).

No, if being atheist or non-religious means I can still have the same kind of attitudes toward others that the Jehovah's Witnesses teach, practice, and endorse....wait, isn't that why I left the Watchtower in the first place, to avoid people like that and because of being mistreated by people who did such things?

Blind people will never get out of the hole they've fallen into, especially when they believe they can see. Go on, continue to feed me this enlightenment. I really want to call more people “dumb” and hate all religions. I hope to have some children so I can teach them to call others dumb who have different personal convictions too.

Yes, let’s send the Jews back to the gas chambers, if not literally, at least our religion. Oh wait, we are our religion. Hate me, hate my religion, hate my people. (Anti-Semitism by any other name still smells as sweet?)

Go ahead. Let’s hear more hate for me now. Come on, that’s what enlightenment does, right?

You’re not real atheists. My friends who are real atheists would disown you and your hateful ways in a second. You thought you had the truth one time and you were wrong? What makes you so right about what you’re saying and how you’re acting now?

You’re still Jehovah’s Witnesses, still those people who want to feel superior on account of their current convictions. You just crossed out the name of the religion or put the words “non” in front of it, cleaned the outside of the cup but did nothing about the inside.

19

Jesus is pro-gays and anti-religionists

by Fernando in

.

simple version:.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrlzyw6ulyw.

OldGenerationDude

Actually to say that Jesus was pro- or anti-gay and anti-religionist is a paradox.

First of all, the concept of sexual orientation as being separate from the physical gender was never taught in Scripture or even a part of human language until relatively modern ages.

Because of this it makes it difficult to next to impossible to define texts that talk about things such as the same sex intercourse of the Gentile men in Romans chapter 1 as restricted to or inclusive of the modern concept. The current theology understanding is now very mixed, even in traditional religions (see the footnotes to such texts, such as 2 Corinthians 6:9,10 --others not listed here for brevity sake--in the New American Catholic Bible Revised Edition).

The fact that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality is also circular reasoning, the same type of paradox. Again except for the Mosaic Law and its restriction on same-sex intercourse (directed in literal language by some to "men," as the prohibition in the Law never mentions or even suggests women in any context), and an understanding of the Jews' first-century views regarding Sodom and Gomorrah (which may or may not have been as focused on homosexual activity as it has been in the early 20th century), nothing can be deduced from nothing. The absence of a direct statement could also mean he did not disagree with the Mosaic Law (he likely agreed with it) or it (logically) is missing because, again, such a concept of an innate sexual orientation that was in disagreement with one's physical gender had no word or was even thought of in the past. One cannot say nothing means something, because it doesn't mean anything. Zero is zero, forward or backwards.

According to many scholars, Jesus belonged to the same Jewish denomination that the apostle Paul came from. That's right, kids, Jesus was likely a Pharisee.

"But he condemns them so much in Scripture!" you say. Exactly.

Jesus of Nazareth lived what he taught too. He said:

"Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when there’s a log in your eye? You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye." --Matthew 7:3-5.

This is seen as more directed to who Jesus was constantly correcting or condemning (in the eyes of some). Because the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and the Essenes, while possibly holding some connection with John the Baptists in the eyes of some scholars, did not live out their faith to fit the practices Jesus is seen to engage in (Jesus' accepting the liturgical practice of reading in the synagogue and later foretelling the destruction of the Temple would also not fit into any other type of tradition of his time), the Nazarene preacher was likely like Saul of Tarsus once was, a Pharisee.

He knew their teachings very, very well. He described them in detail and then harped on them and those practicing them more than any other of the Jewish traditions of the time. But when the Temple fell in 70, what did the Jews who survived and were scattered among the nations hold on to? Which tradition survived? Ask any Jew, and they will tell you: we're Pharisees--literally speaking (I'm Jewish, I know these things).

Jesus was "preaching to the choir," the Pharisees, because he was one of them too. They were the Jews who were going to survive the Temple's destruction, and through them the physical Jews, to whom the Promises and Oracles of HaShem belonged, would survive. Unlike the Watchtower, modern Christians believe that salvation will come to the physical Jews too, but they do not know how. This body of Jews today and tomorrow and at that future time--you guessed it, they will be the descendants of the Pharisees.

Jesus was being hardest with his own group, the group that was to survive. So if Jesus was anti-religionist, this wouldn't make sense. Even if he wasn't a Pharisee, why spend so much time not only telling them where they were wrong, but spending the equal amount of time telling them what they needed to change. If he only wanted to condemn them, why tell them how to survive? Why give religionists instruction on how to practice their religion better if you didn't want them around?

Believe what you want to, but simplifying these complexities just so you can walk away and live with a cute answer is also another one of those JW traits we have to get rid of. Religious or atheist or agnostic--whatever we become when we leave the Watchtower, outside of the JWs all these others share one thing in common....They all embrace the idea that there aren't always easy answers, and sometimes there are no answers, period.

"Since Jesus didn't say anything about NAMBLA, it's okay for me to be a pederast--especially since I was born with these desires! If Jesus was against man-boy love he would have said something. The fact he doesn't means he's for it, and pansexual marriages too! Yea!"

Yeah, right!

13

"...baptizing them in the name of the Father and of Watchtower Society and of the holy spirit "

by irondork in

if baptism is really a symbol of one's dedication to god, as the wts agrees it is, then why would someone who was baptized years earlier need to be re-baptized after studying with jehovah's witnesses?

in discussing the two questions asked of baptismal candidates, the watchtower, april 1, 2006, page 22 par 4 says:.

therefore, those who qualify for baptism have usually studied the bible for months or even a year or two, so that their decision is neither hasty nor ill-informed.

OldGenerationDude

A major oversight of the JW religion is that it lacks spirituality.

We do a lot of talking here, reasoning, discussing, and it's all good and healthy and should continue.

One thing we don't do if we have come from under the Watchtower's shadow is discuss the mystical side or the experience of theophany or like spiritual matters. It's all scholastic. It's all very dry, like constantly having to pull out a ruler a measure everything that comes our way.

Baptism in other religions is seen as something they call a "sacrament." It's not a symbol. It's not a legal contract. And it's not something that can be undone or repeated because of its sacramental value.

Most of us would say we don't know a thing about sacramentality, and that's right. JWs don't have much beyond academic/scholastic discussions about Scripture. There are no "experiencing the divine" or any of that that comes from it. There's no contact with God by means of their religion like with others. It's just a way to pat yourself on the back that you are in the right religion, equipping yourself to tell others they aren't (another pat on the back for being able to do that), and more education to keep learning the circular reasoning mind-mush that gets cranked out constantly from that organization. No spirit or theophany at all.

Band on the Run has it right that in many cases it's views as a "threat of loss of love." Where in most religions it is a happy time, with gifts, photos, pictures, celebration, custom, tradition, it is none of these. A sacrament (according to the belief) gives people a grace or physical contact with the spiritual by means of the spiritual species or elements used in the ritual.

The JW experience? How boring. How sad. How dry.

88

The Tower of Babel - Languages: Isn't this story unhinged?

by james_woods in

besides the obvious fact that it is historically ridiculous - can anybody make any sense out of this story?.

god was somehow afraid that man was developing too much technology?

just because they were building a tower?.

OldGenerationDude

It's not merely the teaching of the Watchtower that is damaging; it's the way they keep the mind of people from learning to think outside the box.

If you're applying that Latin saying to you, it's not religion or atheism or anything that's done this. It's the Watchtower. And believing you've been "ruined" for anything, conviction of any type, is a lie the Watchtower wants you to think. They want you to believe that if there is something else religious or spiritual or requiring faith outside their organization that it is impossible to believe in outside of their light.

That's a lie. There are people to believe in, promises of loved ones to trust and have faith in. There's the spirituality of music, a work of art, maybe, yes, maybe even in some type of religious path if you so choose.

I'm not saying anyone should believe in the Bible or in religion or a god. But I don't believe we should do so because of the stupidity of the Watchtower alone. They're not representative of anything but their own ridiculousness. Besides, if you are going to want to speak at the level of Jews and Christians to show them the Bible is not to be believed in, these points don't work as they only work against the views of JWs.

We give too much credit and power to the Watchtower if we claim it can ruin us from developing a new set of convictions, theist, atheist or otherwise. I believe you can become a better anything--theist, atheist, whatever--in spite of anything they can teach or do. That’s my bottom line.

88

The Tower of Babel - Languages: Isn't this story unhinged?

by james_woods in

besides the obvious fact that it is historically ridiculous - can anybody make any sense out of this story?.

god was somehow afraid that man was developing too much technology?

just because they were building a tower?.

OldGenerationDude

Also, the doctrinal view: "God wanted to show that man could not rule himself" is an earmark of Watchtower theology.

Scholars (real ones) teach that accounts like the Adam and Eve story and this one teach not that "God" wanted to show that man is incapable of ruiling himself (we can). What this and the Adam and Eve story tell us is that humans tend to not want God to rule them. That is very different.

This is not, according to non-Watchtower sources, a God that tries to show that we cannot rule ourselves. On the contrary, God hopes for us to do so, as most Judeo-Christian religions teach (i.e., democracy is considered compatible and even a paramount illustration of values that agree with Christianity).

The God of the Scriptures teaches that when offered, humans tend to reject God or throw any influence God might exercise out of the picture. And that is true. The other view, that is GB Hogwash and has nothing to do with genuine Biblical theology.

Perhaps we need some "Wash That Watchtower Out of My Head" Shampoo. We are arguing in circles, claiming the Bible is wrong on the basis of a trademark JW doctrine. That reasoning would only work if the JWs wrote the Bible to begin with (if we don't count the NWT, that is).

88

The Tower of Babel - Languages: Isn't this story unhinged?

by james_woods in

besides the obvious fact that it is historically ridiculous - can anybody make any sense out of this story?.

god was somehow afraid that man was developing too much technology?

just because they were building a tower?.

OldGenerationDude

This account would only reach the conclusions that James_Woods claims (i.e., God is jealous and or fearful of human accomplishment and trying to prevent or limit progress it) if like the Watchtower teaches, the building of the Towel of Babel was in fact a historical account.

Atheists and Judeo-Christian theology both teach that this is not an historical account.

So to come to such a conclusion from reading the story means you neither agree with atheist or mainstream theological views (especially critical theological analysis). It would require you to be stuck with only the Watchtower and other uneducated views as the ones necessary to derail.

If you don't believe in the Bible to begin with, how would you develop a literalist view as developed and championed by Fundamentalists and Adventists? Why would an atheist, especially a self-acclaimed educated and open-minded atheist who claims to use logic, rational thought, and critical thinking adopt a view that would not counter the Judeo-Christian view or be found taught by any serious theology scholar? Why choose a literalist interpretation--the uneducated one, the one used by those who generally demonize the mainstream interpretation from higher education circles? Wouldn't a real atheist or person who has rejected the Bible on the basis of education be familiar with and thus reject the Judeo-Christian view, the one that teaches that this is not an account about human technological advancement or a literal act of God in response? If the Judeo-Christian view is that this is mythological or legendary, how does one account for arguing against the Biblical account by using Watchtower-based definitions?

In other words, doing this is saying: Since the Watchtower view is wrong, then the Bible is wrong.

That's un-rational. To believe that the Bible has to be wrong because the Watchtower failed us is to agree with the Watchtower, that the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses is the One and Only Channel used by the God that the Jews worshipped. In other words, you have arrived at your thinking because you still believe their claim. Why are you trying to counter it? That’s what you’re doing, because you are holding on to the view that this is a literal description of people, progress, and God.

“Since the Watchtower is wrong, and since it could be the only channel of truth and it proved false, therefore the Bible must also be false.” This has to be the logic being used by more than a few on this board because the arguments generally used against the Bible are almost never applicable to mainstream and current theological scholarship.

If one were really trying to show that this story were "unhinged" wouldn't it be better to try to defeat the mainstream and current theological views, ignore the ones taught by the Watchtower (since they don't really represent God or the Bible like they claim)? If we are basing our arguments on "just what we know," then the decisions we make about God and the Bible are just as limited. If our arguments are not aimed or even make reference to the current, traditional, and even critical theological thought because we have not studied them, then we can't say that our arguments based on our limited experience with the Watchtower--a wrong source to begin with--can help us decided one way or the other whether any detail in the Bible is wrong or right.

In fact, trying to do it that way keeps proving the mainstream view of the Tower of Babel account, that we as humans naturally want to judge things our way, according to our "language," to ignore that there is something "higher" than us, and then claim we have replaced the higher source. In reality we have just argued with our limited experience. We built a scarecrow, knocked it down, but in this case the scarecrow is us.

Forget the Watchtower. Unlearn that stuff. These arguments attempting to make the Bible sound unreasonable are not even smart enough to be child's play. They aren't worth the spit out of an unfaithful clergyman's mouth. That's because they come from the GB. Those cronies know NADA about Bible theology and scholarship. They've never stepped into a hall of higher learning--their very shoes wouldn't even been admitted. These arguments presented to try to make this account look “unhinged” just show people up who use them as ignorant and uneducated in Biblical matters and theology.

If you want to prove the story makes no sense, drop these approaches and take a few years to go to a university and get a degree--heck, you don’t even have to do that. Just read the stuff on the Internet (not the stuff that agrees with you or Watchtower stuff) and unlearn these childish arguments.

But really learn it. Reading one or more articles does not an education make. Neither does adopting a conclusion that hasn’t been put to the test by others who do not agree with our conclusion.

I tell you the truth, an educated atheist wouldn't find any of these so-called "good points" enlightening because they have nothing to do with the accepted understanding of this account in the first place.

88

The Tower of Babel - Languages: Isn't this story unhinged?

by james_woods in

besides the obvious fact that it is historically ridiculous - can anybody make any sense out of this story?.

god was somehow afraid that man was developing too much technology?

just because they were building a tower?.

OldGenerationDude

The Hebrew text is not meant to be taken literally. Only those who reject an education in college or who can't be bothered to research the past several thousand years of Judeo-Christian theology try to make it sound like it is supposed to be a literal historical account.

In fact, the first 11 chapters of Genesis contain the legendary history of Jewish nation. It isn't seen or made to be seen as literal history in any sense. That's why when you read it like history it sounds illogical. No one reads The Legend of Paul Revere as if its details are meant to be taken literal. And like that legend, it is not that the story has no historical basis (just as Paul Revere was a real person, and the legendary events in the poem took place, just not as detailed in the story), but the object is meant to be the lesson or moral of the story.

The story of the Tower of Babel is written in the format of a humorous anecdote. What it is really telling us is that human nature tends to be self-centered, that we as humans tend to think we can do great without any divine assistance, in fact without any god to guide and teach us. We can even get to the point of deifying our own reasoning and our own achievements.

In the story this is symbolized by all humanity working on a ziggurat (the Jews were poking fun at their heathen neighbors), believing they have made a tower so high that they would become famous. But God has to make an effort to "go down" and look at the folks and their tiny achievement. The story ends with God causing their languages to be changed so they cannot cooperate.

In fact, this probably is not explaining how different languages came about. This, like the story of Adam and Eve, is often misinterpreted by first blush and other elementary read-throughs of the text see in this type of storytelling as giving a definitive answer on "how" something "came to be." In fact, this type of mythology is about "what state we are in" or in other words explains a basic truth about society: humans cannot cooperate together for good because we are self-centered; we believe that our way is the best way. It also highlights that even if we all spoke the same language, humans can get so proud as to throw God aside and deify themselves and event their own "godless" government (the reason a King is involved in the story). Such attempts are always futile, the moral of the story says, because our self-centered behavior and thinking that our view is superior to others prevents us from "speaking the same language." This causes our hopes of unification, separate from God, to be useless and crumble, no matter how much we might seem to achieve at first.

Because people keep insisting that the Watchtower has it right to demand that the Scriptures be read the opposite way that the Jews and Christians intended them to be (and still do, according to most outside of the Watchtower) and like those blinded Jehovah's Witnesses agree to accept their interpretation over all others that the Bible has to be historical or false, the story looks unhinged.

Doing so just proves the point of the original intention of the story: if we try to do things the way God does not intend, substituting what we think is right, we end up with a whole lot of babel!

It's not the story that's unhinged. It's the mind of those who keep trying to squeeze non-JW literature into the mindset of the Watchtower's Governing Body.

44

People leave the Org but don't drop the doctrine?

by Momma-Tossed-Me in

jw
friends

this deserved its own thread.

one thing i have observed being able to speak freely to individuals now about the wtbts is that even though they fade, they hold one to all or a portion of the doctrine.. if you examine the doctrine openly and fully you will see it has as many holes in it as the org does.

although it may appeal to you it doesn't make it sound scripturally.

OldGenerationDude

I believe there's more to it than just doctrine or brain washing. I really believe that most of us, at some point (and some of us still) found the Watchtower attractive enough to join because it fulfilled something in us. We wanted to be right, or we needed something to make us feel we could be right, to feel we had made the right decision and back up our choices (or hand them to us). In a confusing world it's not the surprising that people want answers.

While you can approach it that way, religion itself is not supposed to be about critical thinking. It's not supposed to a scholastic exercise of the brain. It's supposed to offer something that transcends all of that. It's supposed to be beyond the reach of science and inexplicable and mysterious and comforting and (guess what, Watchtower) spiritual. Yes, there is study and, as I stated before, there are schools of critical thought, but in the end it's about giving up control, not gaining it, and getting "unspoken" answers and some sort of enlightenment you can't get from the certainty of something like scientific methodology.

But somehow, a lot of us, didn't find that satisfying. God, or religion, wasn't good enough for us. Because it supplies mysteries instead of answers, and faith in exchange for empirical evidence, it didn't supply what some us apparently wanted, and we were looking for some guarantee that what we were believing was "right" (and some enjoying the false feeling of being superior or smarter than others that it supplied)? Thus we may have wholeheartedly fell for and agreed in the canned Watchtower response: "Why belong to a religion if it’s not the right one?"

You come here or to some other board and you find people debating again, offering their latest set of convictions that they now claim ownership in exchange for what they gave up (or lost) from the Watchtower, and promote that with the same fervor, same zeal, and same approach as they did in the Watchtower. It's still the "I'm right" and "you're wrong" and "here is the long argument of proofs to prove it (so I hope you have an hour or two to spare)."

In other words, I don't always think the religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses is completely to blame. I think it's people who stay in that type of mindset, people who need to have everything marked to fit into boxes to neatly mark all things as "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong." When some of us discover the Watchtower isn't "right," we then make the erroneous mistake that our current position is the "right" one, and then we are back to "preaching" and "declaring the good news" of this new 'kingdom' we've found. And it's not just religious either. How many "new" atheists who have left the JWs now "preach" their belief and go after religion exactly the way the Watchtower does.

We may not have moved on much at all. While the Watchtower is being dishonest, I think sometimes we forget that we were capable of making that mistake ourselves. We were among the dishonest, and we are therefore capable of being that now.

While I am sure this does not apply to everyone, and I am sure that if it does it might apply partially, in some cases, all the same I think the worst "doctrine" of all from the Watchtower is likely the one we may have had going in (which is why we still hold on to it). That doctrine is the need to compartmentalize because we refuse to live in the world like everyone else. Nobody has all the answers. No one had a guarantee that what they believe is 100% right. It's arrogant to think so, whether your theist or atheist.

We are tiny little specs on a tiny little globe spinning through an enormous universe that we can't possibly wrap our minds around. Of course we want to feel we have some control. The "controlling God" issue by "having the right doctrine" or "open mind" is just a symptom of this "doctrine."

We need to grow up. When the end of our lives face us, religious or not, we will still be asking ourselves if our convictions are right. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., questioned his atheism as his days came to an end. I am sure it wasn't easy for Pope John Paul II either, and he was the Pope.

It isn't easy. We won't have all the answers. We aren't going to know everything. It is all a leap of faith. Instead of dividing ourselves into categories on the personal details, we should be realizing we are all on this branch hanging over the same watering hole, just waiting for our turn to come around when we have to jump in. There is no other branch, no other ending to this story, and instead of holding hands and helping each other take the plunge like we should be, we are up here arguing or ("stupid-er" yet) claiming we have the best understanding of what being on the branch means and what it will be like to jump into the lake (when in reality none of us have been on this branch before and have never been in the lake below).

We need to let go of ourselves and take each other's hands. No, not popular, and takes courage to do so. We fooled ourselves once when in the Watchtower thinking we had it all right. We are all capable of doing it again. So it's time to grow up, acknowledge where the Watchtower was wrong, realize no one gets all the answers now, and do the best we can, helping and appreciating one another along the way.

Doesn't mean there's not direction out there. Doesn't mean there isn't some truth to know or believe in. I'm just saying that it's the falsest of doctrines to believe you can have the truth, in its entirety, and that whatever we found to replace the Watchtower shouldn't be used for returning to our old "witnessing" ways (to both theists and atheists--and you agnostics too--no free rides to nobody). Blame the Watchtower for what wrong its done and doing, yes, but don't forget to take the blame and medicine we deserve for what we did while there (and still doing, if we are) to "sell our one and only Truth" to the public now.

186

Questions From Thinkers

by Perry in

how do you explain david's graphic portrayal of jesus' death by crucifixion (psalm 22) 1000 years before christ lived?.

how do you account for the odds (1 in 10 to the 157th power) that even just 48 (of 300) old testament prophecies were fulfilled in jesus christ?.

in what sense was jesus a "good man" if he was lying in his claim to be god?.

OldGenerationDude

While I am a theist, I am very embarrassed at the hypocritical challenges like these aimed at those who feel differently about things.

I know that some people think that some of my convictions may not be fully in line with their own views, but I am very, very tired of Christians complaining about the "atheist threat" while at the same time fanning the flames (and adding fuel) to the so-called debate.

I am also very tired of the "we tolerate atheists" view too. Tolerating is not the same as accepting someone on their own terms. If you don't like the way somebody believes and want to attack it, then you are saying you don't like the person. People are what they believe, it's part of the complicated tapestry that makes them unique. You pull one string from it that you don't like, then its not the same tapestry and may even begin to unwind, destroying the "work of art," so to speak.

My friends who are atheists never throw challenges at me. I never do likewise. We know where we disagree, but guess what, we're friends because we share so much in common.

And I've learned to be more critical in my thinking because of my atheist friends. Sure, critical theology is often frowned upon in traditional religion, but there's 2000 years of it, and we wouldn't have the translations of Bibles that we have today if it were not for this type of thinking.

If you live a life that has qualities to it that are admirable and others want to imitate, they will. But if you don't, they won't.

In a world where I can put up a Christmas tree or a menorah without anyone raising a holler but my atheist neighbor gets hell because he puts up a billboard that tells people to open their minds to reason and think whether or not believing in God is reasonable...I'm sorry, that's a sorry world, especially for one where the majority of its population claims to believe in and worship a loving God. What use are all your questions if you can't answer why the atheist is not as free to express her or his beliefs, hmmm? That's the answer I would like to hear--no, that's the answer I want to see at work, not just in words.

Someone said that if people really let the atheists speak, people might listen and far less people would claim to believe in God and go to church. When then maybe that has to happen. Because if that's all it will take to shake people's faith, then they're just taking up space in the churches (and likely the one's making religion look idiotic as it does to many with an open and reasoning mind).

Besides, if there is a God, then take a lesson from God in how to deal with atheists. He brought them into existence, he gives them air for every breath, a life to live and enjoy, doesn't toss a bunch of challenges at them but lovingly lets them freely choose to live they life they wish, never insulting them or calling them for their convictions. If believers are supposed to be reflections of God, why aren't more believers like that when it comes to how they deal with atheists?

Who do you think will enter the Kingdom first? Those who claim to believe but hate and persecute those who do not share their beliefs or those who, though they use their minds to search for God find none and say: "I won't believe unless I have rational reason for doing so"? If the believer hates the unbeliever who doesn't hate back, will God reward the hateful unbeliever in the next life and damn the unbeliever who didn't want to possibly offend God by making a mistake and believing in something that was truly not real? Be careful. God may give these people just what they need to satisfy the rational mind, and should that happen, where does that leave you, the claimed believer filled with hatred for the one who is just giving intelligence its rightful due? Who sat you in the seat of judgment reserved for your Lord?