Are there invisible people? Why not start with that?
Do we hear voices or dream dreams that convince us of something?
I'm not being flippant. I'm addressing a presupposition; a fact not in evidence.
A foundation has been assumed which cannot be demonstrated using the common rules of evidence.
Having a "relationship" with an invisible super-being is dotty unless you are a child with an invisible "friend".
Yet, indoctrinated by religious thought from our infancy, we have no problem at all accepting this startling idea into our mind as: REALITY.
If we pause to think how far humanity has come in understanding how the universe operates we have Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton and Einstein to thank rather than holy books.
Germ theory didn't come from scripture or some divine mind channeling wisdom through human scribes. Millions of lives have been saved and illnesses prevented from this one understanding. Yet, Jesus' own disciples didn't wash their hands. What a pity he didn't mention that to them!
I suppose that sounds tatty on my part. I don't mean it to be. I'm not Atheist or a raving iconoclast. I was reared to see God everywhere and to chat with him like Pinocchio with Jiminy Cricket. But, I'M AN ADULT now and can actually use my intelligence to question odd superstitious ideas!
Rather than speak on behalf of what Jehovah's Witness minds find credible or indulge in their Governing Body's thirst for supererogations to prove their "faith" I want to directly address YOUR PREMISE.
Anything which is NORMATIVE is based on a ideal standard.
Neither Judaism nor Christianity has an AGREED standard. There are and have always been bloody fights about the standard. The same is true of Islam. Their histories have a reddish tinge from the blood flowing from moral confidence the other guy is wrong.
For the first 1500 years of Christianity it was the CHURCH as the avenue of relating to Christ---oh WAIT! Let's not forget about the Saints and the Priests and the Rituals, shall we?
With Protestant "Reformation" and the replacement of Magesterium with Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura--every man Jack could cozy up in a comfy chair with the holy spirit whispering sweet "normatives" in his ear...........while across town.....in a different chair with the same bible some other bloke is convinced his "normative" is the bullseye all others must aim for.
The emotional "experience" of being Born Again is nowhere present in the New Testament with tears and sobbing and such. This is the sort of thing ex-addicts, reformed alcoholics and skid-row turnabouts report with conviction--experienced as they undoubtedly are with out-of-mind visions and other lunacies.
I can flip on my telly and see raving Gits with puffy hair waving their hands in the air and belching bromides and asking for spare change if I want communion with that brand of JESUS. Well, spare me!
My brain works now, thank you very much. No thanks to Jehovah's Witnesses or the previous indoctrinations of my Catholic grandmother.
The idea of snarling devils clustered inside the unwary begging to drown themselves in herds of swine strikes me as COMPLETELY DAFT nonsense!
Jesus as Clark Kent promising to return "soon" as SUPERMAN is equally unlikely.
I cannot base my REAL LIFE on the hallucinations of Bronze Age illiterates hand-me-down campfire stories of a SuperJew who is going to get inside me and grant cosmic GPS to my every move.
That biblically normative relationship would signal I had lost consciousness for sure.
So, why should we pretend there IS A NORMATIVE or an invisible friend or anything remotely historically probative about the bible?
I'm just wondering. I've been down that road and it led to the near destruction of my reasoning faculties.