Really, how do you decide?

by startingover 29 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  startingover

  Over the last 9+years, I have read many discussions between believers and non believers. Each side supports their claims with research which includes links to websites. My question is, how do you decide what information is really the truth and unbiased? I have a really hard time doing that.

  This thread was inspired by this thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/203648/2/Why-do-people-look-to-the-Bible-for-answers-when-it-is-obvious-much-OLDER-works-exist There are many good comments on that thread, which really expose the situation that exists.

  Right now, I am of the opinion that the saying applies, people believe what they want to believe. Presently, as a non believer, I really don't want to think that applies to me, but could it? Raised as a JW since birth, I never gave non belief much thought until I was over 40. I have read many people relating how they always connected with god etc, but I can't say I ever felt that way. So non belief is a very comfortable place for me. That said, I have a hard time understanding how some believe based on voices, feelings etc, and feel they use a lot of metal gymnastics to justify their beliefs.

  I am a huge fan of threads that are debates between these 2 groups. Maybe this thread can shed some new light on what I think is an age old subject for discussion. Back to the first question, how does one make a decision in this information age who to believe?
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  Broken Promises

  My question to you:

  WHY do you want to believe what anyone is telling you about belief/non-belief?

  Why not just do what works for you?
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  GrandmaJones

  I am really staying away from the believe/not believe debates if possible. I'm too fragile right now. I am used to thinking in terms of right and wrong and good and bad. (Also, old light and new light!) I need to settle down, and I have already spent too much of my life accountable to those who told me what to think and expected unquestioning obedience.

  I don't want to decide. I am not even ready to listen to both sides. Right now, it is enough just to be....
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  Satanus

  'how does one make a decision in this information age who to believe? '

  Yah, why feel compelled to choose, right now? Why not just let it go the way it goes? If something happens that gives you some kind of belief, then go w that. If nothing happens, and you go into the nonbelief of atheism, then go w that. You can always choose to not believe or not disbelieve, as in agnosticism. Taking a standfor belief or nonbelief takes effort/energy. Why not let your direction in this come from within you, when it's the right time? Then again, maybe nothing will come....

  S
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  tec

  My husband is like you. Even growing up Catholic, on a few sacraments away from being able to be a priest, he never felt that connection either. He chose the baptismal name, Thomas, because Thomas doubted.

  I am the opposite. I never grew up religious at all; a couple sunday school classes in a United Church... but I always felt it, I always believed. I never questioned it, and when I did decide to study for myself, to see what was false in the churches compared to what was actually in the bible - well, I accepted a study with JW's :(

  But still I never lost that feeling of connection, even when I doubted myself. The one thing that scared me and made me doubt was all those comparison charts from Christ-mythers. I kept shoving it aside, not dealing with it, until my husband came home one day and said 'aha, I knew I was right about all this religion being fake (which kind of says that he isn't totally convinced that God isn't real, yet)'. So I finally researched it, then felt guilty for having doubted at all... because the comparisons were baseless.

  But I guess you have to research everything yourself. Don't rely on anything anyone tells you, and check even the sources that the scholars get their information from.

  I would say pray and ask for guidance, ask to be shown the truth... and keep asking. But not everyone is able or willing to consider this, much less do this... and I understand that it is kind of hard to do if you don't have any faith to begin with. But even just a little faith will let you ask, and no one else ever needs to know about it :)

  I have reasoned my way to a creator... but I believe in the Father of Christ, who I believe in because of His teachings and example, and also because I 'feel' him. I cannot conceive that we are here by any other means. (I mean, I can conceive of it, but it seems so wrong and unrealistic to me.) Some of it is a choice that I make, I guess, (at least to start out) but the rest is just there, a part of me that gets stronger as time goes on.

  (I love this topic, Starting Over... I have to go to bed, and then I have family for a couple days... I will try and get back and see how things are going)

  Tammy
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  smiddy

  First of all I`m with you on your assumption that people beleive what they want to beleive,I wasn`t born into the religion,I converted at age 19 when things wern`t going well for me in life and I was looking for some direction (unknowingly)When the witnesses contacted me ,I thought this was the answer to all my problems, and what was presented held out a prospect of a glorious future) It was an opportunity to take a new direction in life. I WANTED TO BELEIVE WHAT I WAS BEING TOLD ,and it sounded so good.I was also ignorant of the early teachings of the organization,and lapped up everything that was presented to me.Without doing research. I beleived all they told me.It took me 33 yrs (I know I`m a slow learner) b4 the cracks got big enough for me to start questioning seriously things I took for granted. I went through 1975,knew they wer`nt truly honest when they blamed the r&f but I rationalised it.I thought I really had found the truth.I did not want to be an elder because of the higher responsibilty it brought but I was happy enough to be a M.S. My experiences in this role brought me to the conclusion it is a man made religion,manipulated by elders to their own advantage. When I challenged them over an issue and threatened to expose them to the branch office in aust.and also in brooklyn,naming the individual elders concerned,I found I was manipulating them.(that scared the shit out of them ) They didn`t want a bad report about themselves.That was a turning point in my life.It took a few years and my joining this site and looking at a few others has been a rewarding experience to me ,one that I will always be gratefull for

  smiddy
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  AGuest

  I do not mean to sound trite or flip, dear StartingOver (peace to you!), truly. But my answer is pretty short: I didn't decide. I didn't choose God and Christ; they chose me. I am sorry, truly, if that doesn't sit well with some folks, but it is the truth. I would be lying if I said different. Now, I DID choose the WTBTS (well, let's say we chose each other) for a time. But it was the Most Holy One of Israel, JAH of Armies, and His Son, the Holy One of Israel and Holy Spirit, my Lord, JAHESHUA MISCHAJAH, who called me... by name... and subsequently... and chose me.

  I guess that means the decision was made FOR me. But I absolutely don't regret it, not one bit.

  Well, except maybe when the dogz are trying to run me up a tree. Naah, j/k - not even then! I just hiss right back at 'em!

  Again, peace to you!

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
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  behemot

  We may ask, “Why do many people accept unverified occult explanations when they are clothed in religious or paranormal guise?” The answer, I think, in part at least, is because such accounts arouse awe and entice the passionate imagination. In an earlier book I have labeled this “the transcendental temptation,” the temptation to believe in things unseen, because they satisfy felt needs and desires. The transcendental temptation has various dimensions. It was resorted to by primitive men and women, unable to cope with the intractable in nature, unmitigated disasters, unbearable pain or sorrow. It is drawn upon by humans in order to assuage the dread of death—by postulating another dimension to existence, the hope for an afterlife in which the evils and injustices of this world are overcome. The lure of the transcendental temptation appeals to the frail and forlorn. There may not be any evidence for a transcendental realm; but the emotive and intellectual desire to submit to it can provide a source of comfort and consolation. To believe that we will meet in another life those whom we have loved in this life can be immensely satisfying, or at least it can provide some saving grace. It may enable a person to get through the grievous losses that he or she suffers in this life. If I can’t be with those I cherish today, I can at least do so in my dreams and fantasies, and if I submit to and propitiate the unseen powers that govern the universe this will miraculously right the wrongs that I have endured in this vale of tears. Thus the transcendental temptation is tempting because it enables human beings to survive the often cruel trials and tribulations that are our constant companion, and it enables us to endure this life in anticipation of the next. It is the mystery and magic of religion, its incantations and rituals, that fan the passions of overbelief, and nourish illusion and unreality. There is a real and dangerous world out there that primitive and modern humans need to cope with—wild animals and marauding tribes, droughts and famine, lightning and forest fires, calamities and deprivation, accidents and contingencies. Surely, there is pleasure and satisfaction, achievement, and realization in life, but also tragedy and failure, defeat, and bitterness. Our world is a complex tapestry of joy and suffering. The transcendental temptation thus can provide a powerful palliative enabling humans to cope with the unbearable, overcome mortality, and finitude; and it does so by creating fanciful systems of religious overbelief in which priests and prophets propitiate the unseen sources of power and thus shield us from the vicissitudes of fortune […] I think that the temptation has its roots in a tendency, and this in a disposition. In other words, there is most likely within the human species a genetic component, which is stronger than temptation and weaker than instinct. The hypothesis that I wish to offer is that the belief in the efficacy of prayer and the submission to divine power persists because it has had some survival value in the infancy of the race; powerful psycho-sociobiological factors are thus at work, predisposing humans to submit to the temptation […] belief in the transcendental had adaptive value, and those tribes or clans that believed in unseen myths and forces to whom they propitiated by ritual and prayer had a tendency to survive and to pass on this genetic predisposition to their offspring. Thus religiosity is a “heritable” factor within the naked human ape.

  - Paul Kurtz (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo), “Why Do People Believe or Disbelieve?”, in Free Inquiry, vol. 19, n. 3
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  behemot

  sorry, I'll repost it bigger:

  We may ask, “Why do many people accept unverified occult explanations when they are clothed in religious or paranormal guise?” The answer, I think, in part at least, is because such accounts arouse awe and entice the passionate imagination. In an earlier book I have labeled this “the transcendental temptation,” the temptation to believe in things unseen, because they satisfy felt needs and desires. The transcendental temptation has various dimensions. It was resorted to by primitive men and women, unable to cope with the intractable in nature, unmitigated disasters, unbearable pain or sorrow. It is drawn upon by humans in order to assuage the dread of death—by postulating another dimension to existence, the hope for an afterlife in which the evils and injustices of this world are overcome. The lure of the transcendental temptation appeals to the frail and forlorn. There may not be any evidence for a transcendental realm; but the emotive and intellectual desire to submit to it can provide a source of comfort and consolation. To believe that we will meet in another life those whom we have loved in this life can be immensely satisfying, or at least it can provide some saving grace. It may enable a person to get through the grievous losses that he or she suffers in this life. If I can’t be with those I cherish today, I can at least do so in my dreams and fantasies, and if I submit to and propitiate the unseen powers that govern the universe this will miraculously right the wrongs that I have endured in this vale of tears. Thus the transcendental temptation is tempting because it enables human beings to survive the often cruel trials and tribulations that are our constant companion, and it enables us to endure this life in anticipation of the next. It is the mystery and magic of religion, its incantations and rituals, that fan the passions of overbelief, and nourish illusion and unreality. There is a real and dangerous world out there that primitive and modern humans need to cope with—wild animals and marauding tribes, droughts and famine, lightning and forest fires, calamities and deprivation, accidents and contingencies. Surely, there is pleasure and satisfaction, achievement, and realization in life, but also tragedy and failure, defeat, and bitterness. Our world is a complex tapestry of joy and suffering. The transcendental temptation thus can provide a powerful palliative enabling humans to cope with the unbearable, overcome mortality, and finitude; and it does so by creating fanciful systems of religious overbelief in which priests and prophets propitiate the unseen sources of power and thus shield us from the vicissitudes of fortune […] I think that the temptation has its roots in a tendency, and this in a disposition. In other words, there is most likely within the human species a genetic component, which is stronger than temptation and weaker than instinct. The hypothesis that I wish to offer is that the belief in the efficacy of prayer and the submission to divine power persists because it has had some survival value in the infancy of the race; powerful psycho-sociobiological factors are thus at work, predisposing humans to submit to the temptation […] belief in the transcendental had adaptive value, and those tribes or clans that believed in unseen myths and forces to whom they propitiated by ritual and prayer had a tendency to survive and to pass on this genetic predisposition to their offspring. Thus religiosity is a “heritable” factor within the naked human ape.

  - Paul Kurtz (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo), “Why Do People Believe or Disbelieve?”, in Free Inquiry, vol. 19, n. 3
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  FloridaPerry

  The JW's reject the Holy Spirit. He is the one that brings truth to you. It's not about religion.