I have been reluctant to discuss my personal faith on H20 or JWD or other forums, because I do not want to "preach" anymore. I am sure you can understand my repulsion of "spreading the word" after 25-years of going door-to-door pushing the Watchtower message and distributing their literature. Many ex-JWs over the years have asked me online and in private why I still believe in God, in Jesus Christ, and more recently, why I have reconciled with the Catholic Church. One of the reasons for the question is because many who are well educated often become agnostic or athiest. If you search my postings, you will see where I come across as agnostic or almost atheist, such as my postings about putting "God on Trial," or my most famous post, "Dichotomy of a Schizophrenic God." That last one got me into a lot of trouble with many. I was accused of being a blasphemer, disrespectful of God, and risking everlasting punishment of one sort or another. Some folks never seem to grasp parody and sardonic humor ... as everything is 'oh so serious.' Anyway ...
The whole concept of faith is not about proof. A man has faith that his wife is not screwing another man, but he cannot prove it. People have faith in many things that they cannot see or prove. Unfortunately, when we have been burned badly by a religious system like the Watchtower, we can develop a hatred for anything religious. Thus, anything that suggest God is still there can lead to us holding to a new position that God cannot exist. We began to demand that until we can see, hear, and touch God, then he does not, and must not exist. We demand proof ... and to add fuel to the fire, fundamentalists in all systems try in vain to forge proofs of God's existence in an effort to revitalize our faith in God. They forget the key word ... faith.
Because we have been mislead and taught falsely by the Watchtower, we impute too much humanity to God. JWs tend to recreate God into our image and likeness. Once this happened to the Watchtower leadership, then they can and do twist any verse in the Bible to make it mean what they want it to mean ... because, after all, God is just like us! We hold God to our laws, our sense of justice, and our standards of parenting. Wrong! God is very different from us, though our souls or spirits are made in his image and likeness ... we are very different. This is why when religions become too powerful, arrogant, and full of themselves, they do the most dasterdly deeds in the name of God. We only have to look as far as the Watchtower to see a plethora of examples.
How can we possibly have faith in God now? The above sets aside the basis of viewing God that we knew as JWs. Clearly, it does not work, and does not need to be tested and tried again over and over, hoping for a different result. We can see some ex-JWs, like You Know (Aka: Yadrif, Bobby King) trying to take Watchtower beliefs to a better level, but they end up with the same junk ... because they do not know God as he is ... rather, they recreate God yet again in their own image.
What gives me faith in God? My faith is not based on proofs. Nor would I want my faith to be so constructed. Using my earlier example of marriage, a man's (or woman's) faith in his wife (her husband) must be built upon trust and faith in her (his) love. If he demanded proof, then he would have her followed around to make sure she was faithful. When getting married, he would have her medically checked to assure her virginity ... and if a woman could do likewise, she would have a man so checked. The point is, we act on faith in another human, a flawed person, because of love. It requires faith in something unseen and unproven. The arival and life of Jesus Christ, and his death for us is a proactive act of God that builds my faith in him. On the otherhand, an atheist can make a fair argument that the issue is not about conduct, but about existence, and proceed to dismantle my example. But, my basis for God's existence is about belief, whereas my basis for a relationship with God is about faith. The point of this exercise is to draw a clear distinction between faith in God and belief in his existence.
What allows me to believe in God's existence? When we over-humanize God into our image and likeness, we tend to damand of God what he will not give us. We demand that he act as a parent according to our laws, and we demand that he "answer the phone when we call, and talk to us one to one, equal to equal." When God fails to meet our expectations and demands, we can begin to lose faith, and then question his very existence. From there, it is an easy road to then blame every human ill upon God, and then conclude that he does not exist. All the while, we fail to consider that if God does not exist, then he is not responsible for our ills ... we are. If God exist, he is still not responsible for our ills, but he did, and continues to, permit us to suffer our ills. To many, this has become an insurmountable obstacle keeping them from belief in God. Evolution, while proven to have a measure of scientific basis, only explains that we humans have changed, and evolved. It cannot explain life, or whether God exist. We can only explain that humans have biological cousins in other species, and that we have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. What we do have that cannot be a product of evolution is our sentient self-awareness of existence, our ability to think in the creative and abstract. These abilities are not, and cannot be necessary or useful to the process of evolution. When God, through Jesus Christ comes to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, our spirits are awakened to God, and we have forevermore a constant realization of God's existence. I have never touched God, smelled him, seen him, tasted him, or heard him ... because he is not human. I and millions of others have been graced by God's presense that can only be understood spiritually ... not the kind of false spirituality that drives JWs to go door-to-door ... but the kind that knows God exist, is real, and allows us to become part of the Divine world. One cannot prove or explain such a thing ... one must by definition experience it.
Classic Example: The movie "Contact" staring Jodie Foster as Ellie was about a young woman who was a scientist in the field of astronomy. http://www.turning-pages.com/contact/credits.htm Through a series of events, she is able to convince some to get government funding and then private funding to build a device that will allow for travel ... as they perceive travel. She gets into the device and is wisked off onto a fantastic series of trips into the galaxie, she meets a man that resembles her father, but is merely another life form. It is the alien's way of breaking the news to humans that we are not alone in the universe. It is a touching and kind story. Upon her return she is laughed at because all that people saw from their perspective was her vehicle dropping 20 or so stories into the water. The device appeared to them to do nothing. When she faced a congressional review, she could not prove her experience that lasted several hours. Here is an example of her exchange with someone on the topic of God:
Ellie: Occam's Razor, the basic scientific principle. And it says... all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.
Palmer: Makes sense to me.
Ellie: So what's more likely--thank you.
Palmer: You're welcome.
Ellie: ...that an all-powerful mysterious god created the universe and then decided not to give any proof of its existence, or that it simply doesn't exist at all, and that we created him so that we wouldn't have to feel so small and alone?
Palmer: I don't know. I couldn't imagine living in a world where God didn't exist. I wouldn't want to.
Ellie: How do you know you're not deluding yourself. I mean, for me... I need proof.
Palmer: Proof. Did you love your father?
Ellie: What?
Palmer: Your dad, did you love him?
Ellie: Yes, very much.
Palmer: Prove it.
[Source: http://www.turning-pages.com/contact/machine.htm]
Jody Foster sums it up this way in her exchange before a congress person:
Kitz: Wait a minute, let me get this straight. You admit that you have absolutely no physical evidence to back up your story.
Ellie: Yes.
Kitz: You admit that you very well may have hallucinated this whole thing.
Ellie: Yes.
Kitz: You admit that if you were in our position, you would respond with exactly the same degree of incredulity and skepticism.
Ellie: Yes.
Kitz:Then why don't you simply withdraw your testimony and concede that this journey to the center of the galaxy in fact never took place?
Ellie: Because I can't. I had an experience. I can't prove it. I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe that tells us, undeniably, how tiny and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, that we are not--that none of us--are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility, and hope, but... that continues to be my wish.
[Source: http://www.turning-pages.com/contact/truth.htm]
Some things in life just cannot be proved ... they just are. As a person of science and reasonably good education, I will never attempt to prove that God's exist. God would not want it that way. I can only say that I have experienced God and have faith in him along with millions of others. I can only wish that others too will experience God, and find their spirits awakened to him ... and separate their life in God away from religion without shunning a good Church. I can only wish that everyone experience the love of God.
Tomorrow - Part 2: The Catholic Church