"Aren't you going the wrong way at this stage of your life?"

by donny 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • donny
    donny

    That was a question posed to me by a friend who just recently discovered my switch from one who used to have a belief in God to one that has a lack thereof.

    They stated "Most people I know, including your truly, were not much interested in closely following the tenants of the faith we were brought up in when we were in the prime of our young adulthood. You on the other hand, were much more zealous back then and now have pretty much left it all behind. Why? Surely it is not because you are not sowing your oats at this time."

    I went on to tell him he was correct that I was not going through my second puberty. I told him it was because I wanted to believe what was true regardless of where that led me.

    After leaving the Jehovah's Witness religion I tried going to various other denominations. However my exit from the JW's had taught me to be much more skeptical in my thinking and I applied this to these other avenues to the Big Guy in the sky I was then traversing.

    After a few years of this it became obvious while these other faith systems might be more palatable and easier to believe, they were just as untrue.

    I also used this time to read the bible from cover to cover and I had no choice but to conclude that this piece of literature was the thoughts and musings of bronze-age nomads who were trying to keep their small but growing clan spirits high and more importantly to maintain control. An invisible being in the sky who watched your every move and knew your every thought was the best security system of the day.

    In due time it became obvious to me that there was no evidence of a benevolent (or malevolent) entity above who listened to our petitions or exclamations of thankfulness.

    Since I was now interested in only believing true things, I was led to the path of agnosticism and atheism.

    Can I say for 100% certainty that there is no God or being existing outside of the natural world? Of course the truthful answer has to be "No, I don't"

    But I am 100% certain that if such an omniscient and omnipotent entity does exist, it surely was not the one who revealed himself as Yahweh (Jehovah) to Moses and Abraham who later had a child out of wedlock and named him Jesus.

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe

    Yes it is odd that your friend thinks you are going the wrong way when surely gaining more knowledge and insight into reality is a vital thing to do as we progress through life.

    Just a thought Donny, I have noticed many people on here lately saying that religion had always been about control, whether control of a family, tribe or entire nation. Do you think it has also been about trying to answer the big questions for people who didn't have science?

    For example why do our children die? Why do we get sick? What's the point? I know that priestcraft has always been about control of the masses but haven't ordinary people always been seeking answers to the big questions, which of course has left them vulnerable to the rulers and priests and their power hunger?

    By the way I am not defending a personal relgious belief - I don't have one, in case you were wondering.

  • Doug Mason
    Doug Mason

    Excellent Donny!

    I am now 73 and I am comforted with the thought that when I die, which by the law of averages cannot be in the distant future, that I shall return to the non-conscious state that I came from. At peace. Death thus has no fear for me. Religion works on fear, saying that you have a problem and we have the only cure.

    For many people, religion provides them with comfort and meaning in a threatening world that is out of control. People generally look for patterns and when there is none, they blame it on their God punishing those who have strayed. The ancients had their multiple Gods, each assigned a task.

    But the reality is that chaos is the norm. Everything is random. The only constant is variation.

    Whether God exists or not is God's problem, not mine.

    Doug

  • donny
    donny

    Xanthippe I do believe that some sincerely believe that religion is the answer to all things unknown and this was definitely true back before the dawn of modern science. However I believe that many of todays outspoken represenatives of things like young earth creationists, i.e. Ken Ham,. Eric Hovind, do it more for the money and adulation they get versus they sincerely believe everything they say.

    Great statement Doug!! I myself am 55 and based on my familys history and the law of averages, I definitely have put more days behind the cart than what lies ahead.

    Donny

  • 4thgen
    4thgen

    Marked

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe

    However I believe that many of todays outspoken represenatives of things like young earth creationists, i.e. Ken Ham,. Eric Hovind, do it more for the money and adulation they get versus they sincerely believe everything they say - Donny

    Yes I totally agree. I suppose recessive genes will keep throwing up sociopaths.

  • Terry
    Terry

    Here is what I have had to admit about myself. I'm a "god-a-holic" and I can't stop at one drink.

    I fell in love and it was the love of my life and it didn't work out.

    **

    Now there is a hole in the middle of me the size of that love. GOD fits in that space exactly.

    That break-up ruined me for other belief.

    God is god is Jehovah is . . . and despite the differences it is all one sameness of profound NEEDINESS.

    **

    The worst thing I ever did was give in to my neediness. I just kept pouring glass after glass of Jehovah

    and it numbed the pain, the lonliness and the existential depression for almost twenty years.

    But, it was ruining my life. In fact, it did ruin it until I quit cold turkey.

    **

    No, that's a lie.

    I didn't quit. I moved away from it and it quit me.

    **

    Now, in the quiet moments of loss or rejection or emptiness I can feel the cravings. But--I push it away.

    Why?

    It isn't the taste of it on my tongue and the warm glow of it sliding down my throat or the flash of hot comfort spreading

    through my body giving release . . . it is the fact it isn't a real solution--it is only an escape from a real solution.

    **

    And that's the poison.

    You turn to God and you postpone the one important next step of fixing the problem.

    God is postponement of taking your life into your own hands and setting about the repair.

    **

    You postpone the important things long enough and one day . . .your whole life is behind you with nothing real.

    It is all a promise of a better tomorrow and a ruined highway of nothing behind.

    **

    God is whatever.

    You need? Whatever.

    You want? Whatever.

    You hurt? Whatever.

    **

    I'd rather be real than wrong.

  • designs
    designs

    Maleficent and Captain Jack Sparrow, now we're finally talking about real Power...

  • Apognophos
    Apognophos

    donny, does your friend always speak like an elder character in a convention drama? Is he still a JW? Questions like his give you a great opportunity to talk about how much you've grown in knowledge and learned to think critically, as Xanthippe pointed out.

    Xanthippe, don't underestimate the usefulness of sociopaths! They make good leaders.

  • clarity
    clarity

    Terry ...

    "You turn to God and you postpone the one important next step of fixing the problem.

    God is postponement of taking your life into your own hands and setting about the repair.

    You postpone the important things long enough and one day . . .your whole life is behind you with nothing real.

    It is all a promise of a better tomorrow and a ruined highway of nothing behind"

    *

    clarity

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