Jehovah and the Munchausen Syndrome
by Terry 67 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sabastious
The argument is this:
It's all our fault, always has been and always will be. God did not do this to us, we did it to ourselves.
Hmmm, fathers and husbands around the world tell this exact line to their abuse victims.
-Sab
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tec
You are admiting he gave us the illness - Sphere.
I didn't actually admit that. I admitted that I understood that this is what the thread is about, but that I disagreed.
Cult - I don't have all these answers, and the ones I give are personal. I can only speak on what I understand from my faith, reading and experience. We get this 'wedge' (separation from God which is spiritual death) as soon as and every time we knowingly sin against God. The wedge comes because of our conscience, our shame, and we 'hide' as Adam did from God (separate ourselves from God) because of this. The cure is offered by the grace and forgiveness that God offered through belief in Jesus.
Believing in Jesus gives a person the confidence to know that their sin is forgiven, because Jesus taught it. So we can have confidence in that; and do not need to 'hide' because of our shame.
Tammy
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cult classic
sorry tammy but
i understand it's hard to explain. i enjoyed the discussion.
"It's all our fault, always has been and always will be. God did not do this to us, we did it to ourselves"
seems so sab
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life is to short
I have always thought this myself. Thank you for putting it into words.
LITS
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tec
Sorry I couldn't communicate it better, Cult, but thanks for trying to understand me.
If I knew that I had never sinned against God or even against another person, and that God was just punishing me for things that someone else did thousands of years ago, then I might feel justified in railing against Him. But I know I sin... I take full responsibility without thinking that God is making me... and so this Munchausen Syndrome is moot, at least for me.
Tammy
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Terry
LAW treats injury as a situation needing restoration. The thing broken must be repaired or replaced.
That is why the law has a system of increasing penalties for harm.
You can pay a fine, community service, serve time in jail, or go to the electric chair.
But, in the Garden of Eden....WHO IS THE INJURED PARTY? Who suffered the loss?
Was God shot, stabbed, strangled or kicked in the nuts by Adam and Eve?
No. God is a spirit. Man can't even see Him. Man can't reach God. God is above it all literally.
Since God is unreachable----God could NOT BE INJURED. He could only be pissed off.
What's the worst thing the human pair could do to piss God off? Fail to follow instructions. Insubordination.
HOW BAD of an injury to God is insubordination??
Was it an injury that deserves a Fine? Community service? Imprisonment? Or, was it THE DEATH PENALTY?
Remember, this is a FIRST offense!!
Did the injury (insubordination) equal the punishment? (death)
IF NOT, a grave injustice is being described.
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not a captive
Harm as we humans know it wasn't done to God in the story of the fall from fellowship with the maker of it all.The immediate effects the old story tells is of the man blaming the woman, rough birthings and male domination while he works hard to live. There is jealousy and murder, polygamy. God is portrayed as giving wise advise to a sullen Cain shortly before he kills his brother" Why is your face all lowered down--there is sin crouching at your door. It will get the mastery over you if you don't watch out. If you turn to doing good won't there be exultation?" Is this so bad? Is it possible that this spiritual fall did precipitate sickness and death as a natural consequence? Jesus healed sin and connected it often to physical soundness.
"Ill will never spoke well" goes the saying. It seems that much of the wretched state of affairs is blamed on the one who made us. My kids used to fuss at me when I would catch them in some chicanery when they were little:"You got us in trouble" the boys would say. No, I only caught them at it.
If Jesus knew better than we do the ancient versions gathered from old tellings written in rough runic scrawls, then he had a different take on god than a llot of people. In fact he likened the loving treatment of our fellow humans to loving God:"Love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matt. 22:37-40
What if the old tale is saying that we should listen to the one who made the beautiful earth that so many posted about a few days ago? We are not gods enough to know what will happen if we poke a hole in the ocean floor and let the black oil leak out that way. We pee in our own springs.We wreck almost everything we touch. How do we rail at God?
Who can know the way it really started? The story doesn't reflect a bunch of kind folks. As has been pointed out elsewhere, people lived in walled cities and gang-raped strangers for entertainment.
Isn't there some evidence that Jesus was a kind man? Why did he speak well of the one he refered to as his father , the one from the old times?
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nugget
Terry you are assuming the chronology of the JW religon is the reflection of the life experience of Adam and Eve. That is an assumption. We do not know if they had been alive for many years at the point when they sinned. Adam had been tasked to name the animals so this would have been an extensive task on it's own. We also do not know what mistakes they may have made up to this point. If you believe in a loving God he would not feel it necessary to catalogue every time they made an error that could be considered part of the learning process.
You are also assuming this was a mistake for which they were condemned. I would argue that it was not a mistake or accident but a deliberate choice that Adam made. The Bible supports this view in the way Adam not Eve is spoken of as the person condemning all to sin. If all humans were condemned due to a mistake or error then it would be Eve who was the originator of death since the Bible and paradise lost book 9 refer to the fact she was deceived and therefore made a mistake.
I do not suggest that I agree with the viewpoint that billions suffering is a great way to rectify this selfish choice by an ancestor but I do feel that you are placing certain ideas on the Adam and Eve story that may not be supported by the text.
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The Finger
My kids never had a problem not eating the fruit that grows in our garden even when they were very young. Adam chose to eat something he was told would kill him. If God had allowed Adam to live. God's word would have meant as little as the Watchtower. But in his great love and kindness he made away out for us. Of course without God we can live this short existence and die, nothing to stop us choosing that.