Why is God Hiding?

by uninformed 22 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  uninformed

  I have been wanting very badly to understand GOD and the BIBLE.

  If it is so important for us to:

  Act a certain way

  Perform certain rituals

  Understand what is required for salvation

  Then why is it so confusing. The Bible says that HE is not the Author of Confusion. Assuming that is correct, then why are there over 34,000 religious groups?

  Does God expect us to 'figure it out'?

  Where does a person begin?

  What are the "core" values and "core" teachings?

  If it is demanded upon us that we serve him in a certain way, according to a certain "theology", then why is he not more explicit?

  HELP!

  bRANT
• 

  Abandoned

  Maybe it's because the only thing that's required is to experience life. Maybe he doesn't need anything from us. Maybe we're not going to understand all the answers. Maybe there is something amazing when we die. Maybe the best solution now, is to just be in awe with what we get to do and feel and see and touch.
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  uninformed

  I've been thinking along the same lines.

  Maybe others are thinking along those lines.

  Brant

  PS--I would just as soon die because I am thinking wrong as die because the WT is doing my thinking for me, or any other religion for that matter.
• 

  AlphaOmega

  Indeed - according to the Bible, 'he needs nothing from us.'

  Also it says that he has scattered us "here" 'so that we seek him out - he isn't far from any of us'

  I think that the differences creep in as soon as you add man to the equation.

  I did the same thing as you - boiled all the teachings down to the essentials.

  Here is a good summary :

  BIGGER version here : http://www.loyno.edu/twomey/blueprint/GoldenRule.jpg

  Surely if we treat others as we wish them to treat us, we can do no better than that.

  Even the story "The Water Babies" has that idea in it with the character, "Mrs DoAsYouWouldBeDoneBy" - it's Karma. The Lord's prayer even says it.

  "Forgive others AS WE FORGIVE those who sin against us".

  Am I ranting ?
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  nvrgnbk

  Great questions, Brant.

  Acceptance of reality as it is brings peace.

  To be fully aware of what's real in the present is all we need.

  This doesn't mean forgetting the past or not caring about the future.

  Regards,

  Nate
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  R.Crusoe

  It is a question which is the reason for organised religions developing answers throughout the centuries and dressing them up as if from God!

  If one is able to lose what some call all indocrination of ones own ego by the plethora of existing dogma each baby is exposed to, one wonders what it is one is left with that makes life so worth the living, amongst all those one perceives as slaves of the dogma one has partially come out from the shadows of?
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  AlphaOmega

  Acceptance of reality as it is brings peace.

  Spot on !

  Again, trying to eek "oneness" and "just being" out of the Bible from among all the questionable material there, that could well be what Jesus meant by :

  Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.

  [Matthew 6:34 CEV]

  ...and similar sayings.

  I think that the "truth" is there to be pulled out, as it is in all belief systems including atheism.
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  Narkissos

  Probably not the kind of answer you're looking for, but:

  I find it most interesting that in spite of so many claims to "revelation" in the Bible texts the deity is still often presented as essentially "hidden," or unknown, or unknowable, or "mysterious," and that its "manifestations" are generally of a puzzling and paradoxical nature.

  Frustrating as this may be to dogmatic and rational minds (which are often of the same "obsessional" type), what is ultimately at stake, imho, is what we use to call our "freedom" and the "ignorance" it implies. From an atheistic perspective: we have written our mystery into the deity. A transparent "God" or a transparent "self" would mean the end of our story.
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  R.Crusoe

  This generation is living evidence of how organised religion adds complexity and weight to its existing psychology by taking on board all other alternative human explanations, entwining it and counter argument within its own ill logic and then passing it on to the next generation of children as an even more tricky puzzle to unravel.
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  hmike

  Surely if we treat others as we wish them to treat us, we can do no better than that.

  If we just take that as it is, for it to make a good world, don't we have to make assumptions?

  What if a person is a masochist? What if a person wants abuse (or feels he needs or deserves abuse)? What if he assumes others feel the same way about themselves?

  Does the Golden Rule need qualifications?