Gumpy
you post really put it into a nice Nut shell in terms of How Belief Systems work- regardless of what name they want to go by- the end result is all the same- death to those who don't accept our way- botttom line
born again Christians
by ymrah 212 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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gumby
Mornin JT,
I guess if I can call you Suddam H.....you can call me GUMPY. LOL
When a Christian tries to explain the anwers to the things I mentioned........it gets even more bizzare.
They explain that first god will take his church to heaven......then there will be a tribulation period of seven years in which all those who are christ disposed will show their true colors and also be saved if they accept him. God is also going to save a remnant of the Jews who don't believe in him but will turn around in their thinking.( he going to give them a SPECIAL chance.......but he's not partial or anything )
Gumby
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Billygoat
I'm going to quote myself since I think some of you missed my VERY long post earlier. (Sorry!)
Once again, remember that you are boxing in what Born Again means. Some people that are BA say that the only way to heaven is through being Baptist or Catholic, JW, etc. No I don't subscribe to every belief of a Hindu, Muslim, Jew, etc. But is there a possibility that God could use that religion as a tool to speak to those people? Even a faint possibility? I believe so yes. I believe there are different tools that God uses to draw people to His heart.
I remember as a child asking my parents about the Native Americans. Would they have salvation? Of course my parents being JWs said "No. They didn't love Jehovah." That always bothered me. It bothers me today that they believe the children of India or Indonesia or Africa that have never heard of Jehovah don't have a chance for salvation. How terrible for God to NOT give them the opportunity to decide before they died! I wonder sometimes if there is another phase of Life after Life on earth. I wonder if He makes Himself known through other avenues (ie. Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, etc). Again it boils down to right now - I DON'T KNOW. But I have faith that God at SOME POINT makes Himself known to everyone on earth. Maybe not in the past, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point...maybe in another life? I just don't know.
To JT and anyone else that isn't a Christian or is a Christian and does NOT believe what I believe...it's okay. Many know by now, that although I attend a Southern Baptist Church, I am not a Southern Baptist. I am a Christian. I am a follower of Christ and not man. I just happened to find a church family where most of my associates believe as I do.
Please do NOT think that I am the only Christian that struggles with who gets salvation and who doesn't. I struggle with hellfire too. But what matters in the end is that I've been true to what I believe. I do believe in living my life as Christ did. I do believe that God is a loving God. The picture of an angry, hateful, waiting-for-us-to-screw-up God that the JWs gave us IS NOT CORRECT. IT IS WRONG. There are WAAAY more scriptures in the Bible that say God is a God of love - not destruction. The JWs never saw that. Or chose not to...I don't know.
I hope that people see the peace that this brings me and understand that I am just another human struggling for answers. This is the one that makes the most sense to me. My God is not one of anger or hatred. I don't believe that he will needlessly kill people that haven't ever had the chance to meet Him. But this life is temporal. Nothing on this earth is going to compare to what we can look forward to later. If I die today I'm okay with it. Because I know there is something better for me in the next life.
Andi
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Dansk
Andi,
I know you are an all right person. No problem!! Please help me with this, though. I get the impression that you are a Born Again Christian, but that your BA beliefs don't always fit with other BACs beliefs. Am I right?
If so, what kind of a BA are you? I know you say you follow Christ, but how can a BA pick and choose what parts of Born Again Christianity they want? I'm perplexed over this. I earlier posted from a BA site. It clearly states that one who is not a BA. i.e. who doesn't accept Christ as saviour, goes to Hell! That's a BA teaching! Therefore, if you don't believe in such and such and other BAs do then it seems to me that you are not a BA and will go to Hell or you're a BA from a separate Church, in which case you'll still go to Hell because you aren't following the "party" line!
Is it any wonder many of us have had it with Christianity!
Dansk
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Gordy
Maybe its not so much Christianity that is wrong.
We have made it very complicated through the ages.
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JT
Please help me with this, though. I get the impression that you are a Born Again Christian, but that your BA beliefs don't always fit with other BACs beliefs. Am I right?
If so, what kind of a BA are you? I know you say you follow Christ, but how can a BA pick and choose what parts of Born Again Christianity they want? I'm perplexed over this. I earlier posted from a BA site. It clearly states that one who is not a BA. i.e. who doesn't accept Christ as saviour, goes to Hell! That's a BA teaching! Therefore, if you don't believe in such and such and other BAs do then it seems to me that you are not a BA and will go to Hell or you're a BA from a separate Church, in which case you'll still go to Hell because you aren't following the "party" line!
Is it any wonder many of us have had it with Christianity!
dansk
you are on the money, once one leaves the jw due to questioning things --for many of us it lead right into the next issue
questioning the bible and the concept of a Loving God, etc and for many of us we REFUSED TO MAKE IT FIT
as billygoat pointed out:Please do NOT think that I am the only Christian that struggles with who gets salvation and who doesn't. I struggle with hellfire too
I CAN'T TURN THE RED OFF---
why is she struggling???, for many --it is trying to make dogmas fit that don't make any sense-
as you so clearly pointed out-- either you believe what you belief system teaches or you pick and chose which one you want to believe
many former jw will tell you they struggled for years with many of the teachings
recall the one on -- THEY WILL NOT MARRY AFTER THE RESURRECTION IF THEY DIED PRIOR- dogma for many they just struggle with the concept of living for 1000's of years and not being able to marry, so what did they do to get back THEY TOLD THEMSELVES "in due time jah will help me to understand"
Understand WHAT!!!, understand that the dogma itself was goofy --
as we all know now there was no need for god to help aperson to "understand or wait on him" the entire dogma of NOT MARRYING WAS A LIE- something that Freddy thought while riding the Metro train probably- smile
great pot my man-
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billygoat
if you read this-- please don't take this as an attack on your person FOR I DON'T KNOW YOU FROM ADAM smile-
but merely how religious belief systems in and of themselves are inhert with inconsistences due to the extraordinary claims that they often time make
if your belief system gets you thru the day-- great---
but keep in mind- despite being sincere as we all are former jw-- we can attest to that being sincere has nothing to do with being right
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Sirona
Hi LT
You say:
I think that I'm fair in saying that most believe that if someone doesn't make a connection to God in this lifetime, then they've missed the boat.
As for the consequences of that, belief's vary but generally surround the concept of an eternity away from the face of God. Whether that's annihilationist through the whole gamut to Hellfire, it's based on that.Personally, I do not hold this view. You speak of God as though he is "up there" or somewhere where we need to strive to reach him. I believe that a connection to God or Goddess can be made by non-religious individuals - through something occurring in their heart that affects their life. God is everywhere and IMO we can touch God as easily as taking a breath.
As you may know, a factor in my current belief structure is the idea that "that which you do not find within, you will never find without". Viewing God as a distant being who is unavailable unless we fit some criteria just doesn't make sense to me. God's love is ever present and ever accessible, IMO. I realise this throws the whole "why is there wickedness" question into my argument - but I'd like to leave that for another debate, if I may
I do make distinction between those who seek God and those who don't - but in my opinion the distinction is that those who seek God will more readily realise spiritual truths and widen their experience beyond the 5 senses. They may experience deeper personal learning than those who tend to mundane aspects of life whilst ignoring the spiritual.
The idea that we could in one lifetime be condemned for eternity (whether that be hellfire or removal from God's presence) also appears to me to be unbelievable. This puts the Christian God into the category of being a tyrant. I know people who never seek God because its just not part of them to do so. They are fulfilled enough as atheist, they have no desire whatsoever to even discuss religion. For some, its an effort to even think outside of the physical, not because they are unintelligent, but because that is how their brain works.
Anyway, I've enjoyed reading this thread, mostly because its refreshing to see a few born again christians mostly demonstrating that they're not all "hell fire and brimstone" fundamentalists. I guess there are fundies in all religions so we should take each individual for who they are rather than generalising. I know it riles me up no end when people categorise all pagans as "satanists" or whatever, so I suppose I know how you feel regarding the attacks of certain posters on this board.
I'd be interested to know if you really believe that a pagan can make a connection to God. (you know, just to start a controversial subject up...lol)
Blessings
Sirona
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Sirona
Another point that I just thought of is this:
It is not clear whether to be spiritual is more beneficial for an individual than being non-spiritual.
I believe in reincarnation. I think that we learn and develop through our lifetimes. Just recently whilst thinking about reincarnation I started to wonder how many lives I'd had and what stage of development I was at.
Questions that arose were "does a soul become more spiritual in each incarnation? or is it in fact the case that the non-spiritual persons are the most advanced of us all because they no longer need spiritual things to feel fulfillment?" It has occurred to me that there are some people who truly are in this life, they live it, they enjoy the physical. Remember the film "Michael" with John Travolta? Michael in the film was in his last incarnation on earth and what did he do? Laugh, love, have sex, eat (lots!) and generally do all the things that many religions tell us we are to abstain from.
Because of all of this, I respect non-religious people just as much as religious people and if I may say so, I think God does too. We are all just at different stages.
Sirona
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Dansk
I'd be interested to know if you really believe that a pagan can make a connection to God.
Well, my dictionary defines pagan thus: a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions.
As far as I can see none of the major religions can make a connection to God, so perhaps yours is the way!
Dansk, a lot karma these days
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Abaddon
Obviously it is illogical to doubt a well intentioned person's subjective internal experiences.
But that is different from believing them to be true in any objective external sense.
A question that no Christian, born again or otherwise has satisfactorily answered is the exculsivity of these subjective experieneces.
It's convenient. Doesn't mean that you don't feel it happened to you, but it's convenient, especially it you replace the term 'Jesus' with 'Easter Bunny' and see how if some one was claiming to be born again in the Easter Bunny they would be locked away.
Equally convenient is the unprovability of god.
The fact that miracles do not happen in any repeatable or scientifically measurable or recordable fashion is convenient too.
The fact that the entirity of scripture is an open ended game of 'what can I fit this to' is also convenient.
To me, this stack of conveniences over never ever ever having to PROVE anything is what drives me away from belief in any form of god that is as unreasonable as one that would supposedly expect belief in the face of the logic (from these supposedly god given minds) that things that can't be proved probably are not real.
Whether there is a god of some description or not is another question. But the Christian god seems no more valid, other than in the head count of adherants, than Amon-Ra as far as logic goes.
The balance of probability is that it's just like all other religons seem to be; a stack of mumbo-jumbo that, just as the JWs beliefs have evolved to defend their inexplicability, have also evolved doctrines to defend their own inexplicabilities. They evolved these unfalsifiable doctrines to stop them being disproved every generation by the ones who poke questions in the cracks begging to have questions stuck in them, as religion is a nice little earner and tool of social control.
To those who have had these internal expiences, I'm no more think you're lying than a Fakir or Dervish or Shaman or Witchdoctor lies. Please try not to be insulted my lack of belief in the external reality of your validation. I am sure you doubt the external reality of a Fakir's, Dervish's, Shaman's or Witchdoctor's internal experiences, and I'm just doing the same to you.
I really did try to find god. He never turned up. The experiences people recount give me no clue as to this exclusion other than my mind isn't susceptable to that form of belief. Either that, or the Calvanists are right, which is a thought so chilling I'm gonna stop this post now.