Without God - Questions?

by Blueblades 53 Replies latest jw friends

Gopher

we must think outside the box, watchtower, or whatever flavour we prefer.
That's way too reasonable!
Actually though, for folks who are convinced that there is only one way (such as some of those in Oprah's audience who kept repeating in robot-like fashion 'Jesus is the only way') it's too hard to think outside the box. It's almost as if they're scared to be open to the possibility that other approaches to spirituality might have merit too. Their religions teach "believe us or you'll suffer/die". As one of our presidential candidates said, many people are feeling insecure these days and so they cling tightly to their religion.
PrimateDave

Without God, what is left of morality?

Indeed, there is no morality without God. It is up to Him to tell us exactly what to do with every single moment of our day. God is love. All morality is based on love. We should love our enemies, even as God is destroying them in His wrath.

Without God, what purpose is there in man's life?

Certainly, there is no purpose in life without God. God is love. We must think about Him every moment of the day with warm feelings of love.

If we do not believe in God, how can we be certain of anything?

We cannot be certain of anything unless we believe in God. We can only be certain of anything as long as we listen to people who tell us about God and read books written by people who tell us about God. This includes the Bible. We can only be certain that God is love, because that is what we have been told by other people.

If God does not exist, whom can we turn to in a time of crises?

In a time of crisis, we must pray to God and have faith that he hears the prayer of the righteous one. If we are delivered from the crisis, then it proves that God is love. If we suffer during a crisis, then it must be because God is letting us be refined that we may learn faith in Him. This proves that God is love. If we die during a crisis, then it must be because God wants us to be with Him. This also proves that God is love.

If there is no afterlife, who will reward virtue and punish injustice?

Absolutely. Life is Fair because God is Love, and He wants everyone to have a chance to know Him and love Him. Anyone who could reject such a loving offer simply must be a horrible, wicked being worthy of punishment. Anyone who gets away with murder or rape in this life will surely be punished for it in the next life. In this way God shows the victims of such crimes that He loves them.

If God does not exist, what becomes of the worth and dignity of each person?

Without a doubt, if God didn't exist, we would be no better than yeast in a petri dish, eating up our food supply and dying in our own shit. However, since God is love, each and every human is worth something to Him. The Bible is full of examples of God dignifying humans.

Without God , how can man achieve happiness?

There is no happiness without God. That is why He gave us all the plants of the Earth for our use. Now if only those damn Feds would de-criminalize cannabis.

I know the answers to these type of questions, do you?

Sure do. Atheists are deluded.
OnTheWayOut

With God, what of morality? 1 Is it a sin for a single man to visit a prostitute? 2Then what of Judah?
3Who decides what God's morality is? 4Does a polygamist group in Texas define itself as moral?
5If you say no, why is the OT full of polygamists? Even Abraham lay down with someone other than
Sarah. 6If you move forward to the NT, then is morality defined by Paul? 7Are moral homosexuals
considered immoral, 8but 40 year old men who marry 17 year old women are moral?
according to the Bible yes to your first question that is fornication.2what of them?3He does! 4 who knows?5there are many that sinned in the Bible. does it mean that God approved of their behavior, I think not! 6if Paul did what God asked of him then he is moral 7according to the Bible people who lie with the same sex are an abomination 8 if they are married according to God's will they are correct and moral
#2. The man named Judah went to find a prostitute and slept with his daughter-in-law
Not recognizing his daughter-in-law and assuming her to be a prostitute, Judah had relations
with her. When it later came to light that Tamar was pregnant, Judah demanded that she be
burned as a harlot. She revealed him to be the father and was not burned.

Judah can lay with a harlot, but nobody in his family can be one.
Judah was considered one of the better sons of Israel. I guess laying with prostitutes and wanting to
burn any in his family didn't matter.
#3. Why does God define morality then let different groups of men tell us what God said?
Why can't morality be defined clearly by God?
Is homosexuality immoral? Where does God say so? How does he tell the non-Judeao-Christians?
#5. David, Solomon, Abraham, etc. These men were considered good. So why is polygamy considered
so wrong today? Did God overlook it then, but not now?
#7. Are you saying the Bible is God's standard of morality? How do you know that it wasn't MAN
who decided which books should be included, therefore putting MAN's morality instead of GOD's
in place?
Blueblades

First, let me say thanks for all of your responses.
These questions and similar ones like them reflect an intimate connection between religion and values in the minds of many people, as was demonstrated by the many different and opposing views in the responses to the topic.
As a result the question of God's existence becomes more than a simple philosophical problem.
How can we know the unknowable?
As for me, I know with a certainty that I just don't know the unknowable. I am content to leave it at that until the unknowable becomes known whenever that may be.
It will take more than a group of "Holy books" to convince me otherwise. Thomas a close follower of Jesus ( according to what is written in one book ) was not punished for his doubts, he was rewarded ( Jesus made a personal visit to him ) and yet he got tagged with the label "Doubting Thomas". I follow in his footsteps, just call me doubting Blueblades.
Blueblades
jwfacts

Without God, what is left of morality?
Belief in God seems to have little affect on morality. One set of (im)morals is traded for another. i.e. Sex in condemned, but bigotry towards those of opposing beliefs encouraged.
I know with a certainty that I just don't know the unknowable.
I too am at this point, and it has changed little in my life. My morals are not overly different, my joy of life is no less, meaning has not gone. Afterlife or not, the present is where we live.
real one

UHHH...anybody could predict this because there have been floods, food shortages, earthquakes and pestilences since before humans were human
real one

This is what I love about religions like Christianity and Islam. The message is "listen to us or die". I love that sort of spiritual blackmail. (Not really.)
i think christianity is more wholesome than Islam cause mohummad was a murderer and the Koran teaches hate.
listen to us or die, well that means christians are trying to help you learn how to live a peaceful life.
Guest with Questions

This is in response to LtCmd.Lore’s post about Hitler.
These are just two sites. There are so many more that prove that Hitler was not a Christian. He may have been raised a Catholic and may for his own purposes used Christianity, but he was not a Christian. According to some sites he used the occult also for his own purposes; that he twisted and perverted occult practices. He combined lots of religions and philosopies for his own selfish purpose.
New evidence has suggested that Nazism was not just a political movement but an occult religion with Hitler as the Messiah...
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/thenewage.html You have to scroll down a bit.
While most Jews are sure that Hitler represented the Christian community, his associates knew better. In this section we see not only that Hitler rejected Christianity, but that there is also ample research showing that Hitler founded far more than a political regime - the Third Reich was an occult-based religious movement to usher in the same New Age examined in this series. [For documentation besides the Angeberts, see also D. Sklar, _The Nazis and the Occult_; Joseph Carr, _The Twisted Cross_; Robert G.L. Waite, _The Psychopathic God - Adolf Hitler_; Gerald Suster, _Adolf Hitler, The Occult Messiah_; Trevor Ravenscroft, _The Spear of Destiny_.]
Hitler turned against Christianity from his early teens and sought his destiny in the occult. He later joined with associates who also embraced those teachings, and together they built a state guided by the same occultic principles and goals repeated in today's NA. And no wonder, because he drew on the same esoteric sources as the NAers of today. [How have so many scholars overlooked this all-important key to understanding the Nazi mentality? In the words of the Angeberts' English translator, Lewis A.M. Sumberg, nearly all historians missed the "militant neo-Paganism" and "Gnostic racism" in Nazism "because they have brought conventional outlooks and methodologies to their examination of an unconventional phenomenon." (_The Occult and the Third Reich_, p.x)
Hitler and the Nazis - an Occult Order using Ancient Esoteric Knowledge and Practices....
http://www.livingstonemusic.net/hitlerandtheoccult.htm
LtCmd.Lore

This is in response to LtCmd.Lore’s post about Hitler.
These are just two sites. There are so many more that prove that Hitler was not a Christian. He may have been raised a Catholic and may for his own purposes used Christianity, but he was not a Christian.
I didn't say he was a christian, I said he was a believer. A non believer would have no interest in the occult.
My point was simply that Hitler did NOT have atheistic or evolutionary reasons for what he did as RealOne suggested. Instead, he used religion...
“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people." –Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” –Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
BurnTheShips

Eesh, not the Hitler card again. I repost here:
You seem to imply that Hitler's religious beliefs are what led him to the evil he did. So he killed all those people and started a war because of Christianity?
Hitler said what he needed to say to sway the population. Christianity was, when looked at cynically, simply a tool to spread the Nazi message. The things that Hitler said when he was trying to get into power and trying to consolidate his power after receiving the Chancellorship are very different than what he said afterwards once the reins were firmly in his hands. There is a difference between what Hitler told the masses and what he would say privately.
Here are other Hitler quotes from "Hitler Table Talk":
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity....
"Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity....
"Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse....
"...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little....
"Christianity the liar....
"We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night
"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
21st October, 1941, midday
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer....
"The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation....
"Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65)
21st October, 1941, midday
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer....
"The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation....
"Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... ....
"When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119)
14th December, 1941, midday
"Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself....
"Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics." (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner
"There is something very unhealthy about Christianity." (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday
"It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie."
"Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)
Night of 11th-12th July, 1941
"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity....
"Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6 & 7)
10th October, 1941, midday
"Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)
14th October, 1941, midday
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity....
"Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its structure will collapse....
"...the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little....
"Christianity the liar....
"We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52)
19th October, 1941, night
"The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity."
21st October, 1941, midday
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer....
"The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation....
"Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65)
21st October, 1941, midday
"Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer....
"The decisive falsification of Jesus' doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work... for the purposes of personal exploitation....
"Didn't the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65)
13th December, 1941, midnight
"Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery.... ....
"When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119)
14th December, 1941, midday
"Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself....
"Pure Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics." (p 119 & 120)
9th April, 1942, dinner
"There is something very unhealthy about Christianity." (p 339)
27th February, 1942, midday
"It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie."
"Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I couldn't... behold ." (p 278)
BTS

Without God - Questions?

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