For those of us who still believe in God...

by MrMoe 90 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  JustAThought

  I believe in God.

  I believe that the Bible alludes to Him, as in ... men recorded their impressions of their interactions with, understanding of, as well as their current cultural history of God.

  I believe that there is no problem with attributing (in the main) the writings found in the Bible to the inspiration of God. I believe God inspired men to write, but that he did not dictate to them (in the main) what they wrote. You'll note that when God considered it necessary to convey a word for word communication (i.e. with the Law given to the Hebrews or the Ten Commandments), He wrote the message personally or dictated the message to the writer.

  The Bible seems to suggest to me that ... we are part of a creative event which has a progressive purpose. It seems reasonable that the Creator is a being who exists outside of the boundaries our universe of space and time, and, thus, is not subject to the limiltations of space and time, as we are. I believe that the Creator exerts a creative/maintainive effect in His environment and that we were created to hopefully join with Him in this effort. I do not believe that the Creator is all-powerful in the way that we usually comprehend. I believe that His work is work for Him, and that He battles against opposing, destructive agents and agencies, some 'natural' (entropy, for example) and some not.

  I believe, as has been postulated earlier in this thread, that we are an adolescent species and that we are now undergoing a process of development and maturation. I believe that the goal of our maturation is to become viable partners with the Creator in His creative/maintainive work. Thus,we grow in perfection (actually completion) as we becaome more and more capable of joining hands with God in this work. I believe that this maturation process necessarily consists of all of the various experiences of our lives, ... good and evil, joy and suffering, ease and difficulty, success and failure, love, grief, peace, loss, growth, and pain. I believe that we can think of this life as a 'boot camp'.

  I believe that all created souls who wish to join with God ultimately will, but that, we have the choice to be forces of life, creation, and maintenance allied with Him, or forces of death and destruction arrayed against Him. I believe that God gave us this choice, most simply, because He has it Himself.

  I believe that God has many ways of manifesting Himself to us (ways in which we can hear) and that we each ought to seek our own relationship and communication with Him, and not envy such among our human brothers and sisters.

  I believe that God is who He says He is. It is interesting to me that His first identification of Himself to the Old Testament Hebrews was that of ... "I AM", or 'I exist'. It's sort of like the plot to 'Horton hears a Who?', except in reverse. I believe that He cares for His creation, as we would care for ours, and that He has our and His best interests at hearts.

  JustAThought
• 

  Vienna

  I enjoyed your post Frenchy. I, too, believe in God and the Bible, and it's always refreshing to find others like you and Moe who are ex-JWs that still believe in God and know there is real truth to be found.

  quote from Frenchy from the Bible:
  “…for them to seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us.”

  So true!
• 

  Tallyman

  I believe that all created souls who wish to join with God ultimately will, but that, we have the choice to be forces of life, creation, and maintenance allied with Him, or forces of death and destruction arrayed against Him.

  I believe in God.

  JAT, I agree with your observation above.
  I believe God will be Fair in the Most Ultimate Way.
  All souls who demonstrate in this life, that they want to join God,
  they will be granted their every desire in this regard.
  Conversely,
  all souls who demonstrate in this life, that they want nothing to do with God or Heaven, will be granted their wish to dwell eternally apart from God and the Higher Countries.

  Why would God force anything on anyone they did not want?

  I'm getting back into C.S.Lewis lately, and re-reading a lot of his stuff, which I read profusely when I exited the Watchtowerkult.
  I'm reading again, "The Great Divorce"...
  whereas William Blake spoke of a kind of "marriage" between Heaven and Hell, Lewis wrote this book in disagreement with that view.

  Heaven and Hell have 'irreconcilable differences'.

  The story starts out with a gigantic, but bleak city, which expands for million of miles in all directions... and the main character finds himself walking down the streets of this city, and there are lights on in most of the shops, but they look abandoned, as if the residents, got bored with their dwellings and just left them, moved out farther from the center of the city.
  The city held no appeal whatsover for this man.

  He walks up to what looks like a bus stop with a line of people waiting to board. They are bickering and arguing, jostling for position, fighting, kicking some out of line... and eventually the brightly colored bus arrives with a smiling driver.

  The man boards with the others, and the bus takes off, up into the sky until it finally comes to a High Country, where everything is Extremely Solid and Vivid... and once the bus parks and the riders get out, this man notices that they all, including himself look like vaporous ghosts- almost transparent, because of the comparison to the Super Density of their Surroundings.

  Long story, short. This High Country turns out to be Heaven, and the vast lower city they came from is Hell.

  But this Magical Bus (hey, wonder if The Who or Ken Kesey got any of their inspiration from Lewis' story?) had brought "tourists" from Hell up to Heaven to see if they'd like it, and that if they did, the invitation was that they were welcome to stay, if they'd be willing to make some changes (and really not very hard changes to make at all!)

  Well, most didn't like Heaven, even though it was incredibly beautiful and was the Most Real and Most Substantial Place of Dwelling one could ever imagine. Most couldn't wait until their "holiday" was over and they could board the bus for the trip back to Hell. There, in Hell, they could live their lives the way they had on earth, with all their petty pride, arrogance, materialism, and all the rest.

  It is a great story.

  Heaven-On-A-Platter, and most turn it down.

  - - -

  Hey, I wonder if people like Ted Turner (CNN mogul) who now say,
  they WANT to go to Hell, when they get mad at someone, curse and say in anger:
  Go To Heaven ! ?

  .
• 

  AGuest

  Dearest JAT... may you have peace.

  With the exception of leaving out the MEANS by which God is to accomplish all of this... His SON... you are ABSOLUTELY... correct. May the undeserved kindness and mercy of my God and Father, the Holy One of Israel, who's name IS... JAH OF ARMIES... and the peace of His Son and Christ, my Lord, he that comes in the NAME... of JAH... JAHESHUA MISCHAJAH... be upon you... you and your entire household... to time indefinite.

  I am your humble servant... and a slave of Christ,

  SJ
• 

  SixofNine

  we have the choice to be forces of life, creation, and maintenance allied with Him,

  Uhmm, no. That is demonstrably untrue. Many people get no such choice.
• 

  Tallyman

  Six,

  we don't have the choice to be Creative or Destructive?

  What?

  Maybe I'm not unnerstanding you, or maybe I didn't unnerstand JAT.

  .
• 

  SixofNine

  Nope, you got it right. Many humans do not get a choice. They may be killed while still innocent children, or they may be raised in such a perverse environment that they cannot be a creative person.

  No choice whatsoever
• 

  Abaddon

  Shelby; I may have missed something, but I asked;

  "If god cannot offer us unconditional love (without holding a large stick behind his back), then what exactly can he offer us?"

  ... and I don't seem to have got an answer. Humans can and do offer their children unconditional love... not all, but it is an ideal...

  God's love seems very conditional, yet logic intuits that god's love should excell that of any human.

  What do you think?

  As for the handle, well, I'm not so sure whether Abaddon is a bad guy or a good guy, as the scripture isn't clear (and personally I think Revelation is a little insane - or rather, it reads like something written by a slightly insane human, not by a loving god), but in anycase, it's as much for another non-biblical literary reference and the sound alike of the pronounciation to 'a bad one' when spoken by a Londoner, and is rather tongue in cheek
• 

  JustAThought

  Many humans do not get a choice. They may be killed while still innocent children, or they may be raised in such a perverse environment that they cannot be a creative person.

  No choice whatsoever.

  This would be the case only if you believe that physical life is all the life there is, in which case, nothing in my prior statement has any basis for consideration.

  If, however, you believe that there may be more to life than that which we live out in this physical sphere, then there would exist many alternative approaches to developing, and, ultimately eliciting a choice for GOOD (creation/support of creation) or EVIL (destruction of creation) from every created soul.

  Abaddon,

  I believe that God does give us unconditional love, but that love is like the love that we would give to a child of ours who is undeniably destructive in my and their home environment. To, ultimately, decide that, though I love my child (because he/she is my child), I must insist that he/she leave the home environment, because to allow him/her to stay would mean destruction to the home environment, and so, to those (my other children) dwelling in the home environment is not an act inconsistent with unconditional love.

  I was raised in a family where, at some point, adult siblings were asked to leave the home environment because their presence and activity in the home environment was destructive and deleterious to the others in that environment. I recall, that at the time, my parent's message to their child was that the child seemed to be expressing that they desired a different living environment than that which my parents were offering. My parents went on to say that they were not willing to change the home environment to meet their child's wishes, so it was best if the child left and settled him/herself in an environment of his/her choosing. They further said to their child that, as far as they were concerned, the environment they supported would always be the home environment for their children, but that their children could only share that environment with them to the extent that they were non-destructive of that environment.

  I believe that God says to us ... My children, I extend to you the opportunity to live with Me in the environment with I have created (in part, for you) and support. Indeed, it is my earnest desire that you share this environment with Me. But, if you wish to live in a different type of environment than that which I offer, to the extent that you would act to destroy this environment which I have created and support, then I must insist that you follow your will and find another environment more to your liking. I support this, your home environment, such that it maximally benefits all those, myself and my other children, who live within it, and I cannot allow you to destroy it. This would not be fair to myself, and to those others living here peaceably. So go, follow your will, and find, or mold, an environment which works for you. And always know that I love you, and will not hesitate to welcome you back, if and when the time comes that you would choose to live here with Me non-destructively.

  JustAThought
• 

  bboyneko 2

  ultimately eliciting a choice for GOOD (creation/support of creation) or EVIl (destruction of creation) from every created soul.

  that is far too a simplistic take on good and evil.

  Think about this:
  If a lesser good prevents a greater good from happening, it is evil, and if a lesser evil prevents a greater evil from happening it is good.

  If i were to create a nuclear bomb, i may have created but thats not a very good thing is it?

  Good and evil are not always black and white. For example, to say 'Killing is wrong period, murder is murder' is far too black and white. What if an attacker goes after your wife with a knife, and the only way to stop him is to kill him. Should you be punished for murder? After all killing is killing. Obviously everything in life has a grey area. Intollerance is idiotic. In the united states they have something called zero-tolerance policies on drugs and weapons.

  Sounds good on paper. Are we going to tolerate weapons in schools? NO! Are we going to tolerate drugs in school? NO! So the moronic policy gets written up. As a result a child bringing a butter knife to school to cut his birthday cake is suspended from school or bringing in a weapon, a child who brings her cold medicine to school is suspended for drugs, a child who pretended his hand was a gun and 'shot' a fellow student was suspended. Black and white polcies, zero-tolerance policies, now thats evil.

  The best definition of evil I've heard is that it is an act without empathy.

  -Dan