My belief is that I shall die.
So I have a feeling it's all going to work out very neatly.
Would you die for your current beliefs?
by SweetBabyCheezits 55 Replies latest jw friends
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Crisis of Conscience
In the past I MAY have. Now....well....
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SweetBabyCheezits
JamesBrown: Russell making his mind up about there beiing no God at 18 was/ is just as arrogant and subject to being mistaken as I was in knowing there was a God and the Jehovahs witnesses were his mouthpiece at 18.
I have a 10 year old who has made up her mind that the traditional description of Santa Claus is unsubstantiated, therefore not worth believing. Does that make her arrogant?
At what age is it no longer arrogant to find a particular description of God baseless and unworthy of attention?
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NewChapter
Russell appears to have lived an easy life, when all your needs are met from early on
when life presents no struggle and your mind is made up at 18, You might not see any
need for God, or any evidence of God.
Does this mean that a certain amount of desperation or needfulness reinforces one's belief in a god? Interesting. Desperate people do desperate things, and you seem to think this is good.
Belief in God is strength for the believer.
I will make my most important decisions while not under duress when possible---thank you.
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ziddina
Well, first of all, I really don't have a "belief" system anymore...
And I'm a firm believer in that old adage, "He[she] who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day..."
I think I'd be far more focused on living for my current value system.
After all, dying a martyr's death is in some ways easier than living out an obscure lifetime.
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SweetBabyCheezits
Gladiator: My belief is that I shall die. So I have a feeling it's all going to work out very neatly.
You, sir, are a philosopher and a prophet. A twofer, if you will.
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James Brown
Does this mean that a certain amount of desperation or needfulness reinforces one's belief in a god? Interesting. Desperate people do desperate things, and you seem to think this is good.
To me, looking around and observng the world and life for 60 years it seems to be a no brainer that a certain amount of
desperation and needfulness draws one to God.
And when people prosper and do well they drift from God.
Poor people go to church, rich people use their free time to intellectually argue their is no need for Church,
or God. They argue there is no God.
You can read minds? You must be very rich, thats why you dont need God.
It is what it is, There are not any times in my life I remember saying desperate people doing desperate things is good.
I've always advised people to stay out of desperate situations.
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LongHairGal
SWB:
No, I would never sacrifice my life for any religious beliefs. Freedom, however, is another matter entirely and I don't mean to "sacrifice" my life but it would certainly be something worth fighting for.
We were wrong about JW beliefs and can you imagine dying for them? I feel sorry for those who did and I don't CARE how they may be "rewarded" by god or the universe. I remember saying to a sister that I "would " (what an idiot I was). She looked at me with disbelief and said something along the lines of 'well you'd never know....' I wondered to myself how bad her faith must be!
Now, after all I have seen and heard and gone through, I can say I have had quite enough of "beliefs" .
If people want to nobly die for their beliefs, go right on ahead!
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james_woods
This is one of the most interesting thread topics I have seen on JWN in months.
It leads me to a philosophical question: Under exactly what circumstances COULD a person really be said to "die for their beliefs"?
Let us say we were trapped in Iran - and the Mullahs demanded that we become Islamic and deny Christian faith, (or renounce Atheism) on the pain of death. Even if you did so, you would be doing so against your will. Thus, your belief itself was still there. Your death if you refused would merely be a demonstration against their demands...sort of "for your beliefs", but your belief itself was never really in danger - unless it died with you in a demonstration of protest. If you lived on (under silent protest) the belief would still be there, and might even come to the surface and spread to others because you had lived.
In an even more ridiculous example - think about those JWs in Malawi who died (not because they were asked to denounce God) - but because they did not want to buy a mandatory government registration card. It was no more a religious issue than paying for a drivers license - but quite a number actually died.
I think Bertrand Russell was correct in this - it is really rather silly to vaingloriously "die for your beliefs".
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botchtowersociety
I think Bertrand Russell was correct in this - it is really rather silly to vaingloriously "die for your beliefs".
Did he feel so strongly about it as to be willing to back that with his life is the real question.
