Is going from the JWs to another Religion just a "Rebound?"

by braincleaned 52 Replies latest jw friends

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  NewChapter

  Sparkly Clean Brain---you have a pm.

  I think exiting JW's need to work hard to develop critical thinking skills. Confirmation bias is powerful, but if they learn a about the scientific method, which works against bias, they can apply the principals to other areas, even if they cannot apply the actual method. As they widen the lens with which they look at the world around us, it will become obvious that the popular god on the scene, as represented by Jews/Christians/Muslims is a very new god. When one learns that humans have been around for at least 150,000 years by some estimates (adjust accordingly), and even longer if we want to include other human races, and this god has been around for 4000 years, well we can see the problem.

  As our scope of knowledge widens, we learn that humans everywhere have set out on very different paths in their quests for answers. Pagan religions, which were supplanted by the bible god, were unique and crafted to the people they served, relying on the environment in which they needed to negotiate. When it comes to religion, they are the most natural and honest, and have a much longer history than the bible religions.

  As humans, we have similar experiences emotionally. What a beleiver may call spiritual, I call efferzingpow. Yes, I had to make up a word, because spiritual indicates and external cause for a mixture of emotions that humans experience when they are looking at a mountain, butterfly, listening to music, or just experiencing a deeply moving moment where they feel expansive and peaceful. In Awe. Forgiving. However you experience that feeling of 'spiritual', atheists also experience it, but don't attribute it to the spiritual.

  So I think to avoid rebound, we simply have to learn from our mistakes. When leaving a bad relationship, we need to look at it and see where we went wrong, where we were gullible, what signs we ignored. Same with leaving a religion. How did we get snagged? Why did we stay so long? Why did we believe it.

  Not everyone will conclude that there is no evidence for a god. But if they learn some critical thinking and broaden their view, at least they will be making well thought-out decisions. And if they honestly continue growing, their outlook will likely be adjusted often, as they investigate new evidence with open and honest minds.

  NC
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  OnTheWayOut

  Yes.
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  Sulla

  Sulla without the bible there is no proof of a Christian god vs. a Muslim god vs. a Zoroastrian god. Out of the scripture (egg) hatches the god (chicken). There is nothing in nature that says 'Well I am an inerrant sinner and I need a ransom sacrifice to save me." All of that has to be taught to someone. We are all born with a desire to understand the world around us, but we are not born with the knowledge of a Christian god or any other god. That’s why 2/3 of the world is not Christian.

  Diest, I disaggree with the idea that God is the result of scripture. You have it precisely backward, I say! Quite!

  It is more historical to observe that the practice of religion is prior to any sort of scrpture. Abraham perceives God and acts: the writing comes hundreds of years later. This is true for the old religions, too (what we call paganism). They perceive the transcendent and respond to it. Stories are what come later, as part of the attempt to remember what happened. Same thing is true for Christians: the gospels come after the encounter with the risen Christ and as the religion (the practice of specifically Christian rites) spreads beyond the ability of the oral tradition to keep up. That's the way religion works -- with some mostly late and mostly American exceptions like JW-ism and Mormonism, for example.

  And, there is nothing but the natural perception that mankind is broken and in need of salvation. Sacrifice is ubiquitous for this reason: we are wrong with the transcendent and we need to get right; the way we get right is through suffering and pain, even vicarious suffering. This may sound familiar...

  This is my consistent issue with most monotheists. If someone who was not primed with the thoughts that it could be true, then most people will not be swayed by religion. Take someone that has never met a Christian or read about them by age 30. Then explain that god wrote down prophesy about Jerusalem falling in 70CE. Then tell them that the oldest bible manuscript we have is from 150CE. What would that prove? That people could write down things after the fact.

  The practice of religion is damn near universal. What does seem to be part of human nature is this encounter with the transcendent. You want to get into the specific claims of religion as if those are prior to this perception: they are not.
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  Diest

  I guess you are right in one sense sulla, there was an oral tradition before the written tradition. Gods the world over were still created by this mythological process.
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  EntirelyPossible

  Big concepts, baby steps. Ok, suppose for a second that the experience of the transcendent precedes the written record of it.

  Well, yeah. You can't write down the bullshit you made up until AFTER you make it up.
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  EntirelyPossible

  That is more nearly the opposite of being a Christian.

  Oh, look, the "no true Scotsman" fallacy made an appearance.

  This comment...

  One particularly bad habit is the idea that you are just so amazing and insightful and everyone else who thinks differently is stupid.

  ...and this comment....

  But, as I try to point out, this is typical half-educated, JW-leftover bullshit, I'm afraid. I mean, you've just made a pretty uneducated comment here and you are entirely unaware of it.

  ...are what inspire me to write....Sulla, meet mirror. Mirror, meet Sulla. You two should chat. Pot and Kettle will be along soon.

  The practice of religion is damn near universal.

  So is sex, yet Christians try to villify that every chance they get.
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  dreamgolfer

  I think the answer to your question is rhetorical - YES it is a rebound, and why do some do this?

  They feel the need to socialize in a religiously organized setting, it's as simple as that. Good people still feel the need to "belong" somewhere, it fills a spot in their lives,

  Not everyone has that feeling to do that AFTER they leave the Borg, some do, so let them do it if it makes them feel better and fills a gap - and here is the key....> "IN THEIR LIFE"

  If that isnt' for you we understand, but to ask that question is INSANE, It's like saying when you break up with your girlfriend and next week start dating another women, is that just a "Rebound" YES YES YES

  Who gives a Rats Monkeys, what the universe holds or the answers to all the Galactic questions, WE'LL NEVER have the answers to that. Heck, Einstein, Newton and Stephen Hawking do not even know the answers, why do you think WE SHOULD HAVE THE ANSWERS? There may be no answers at all, and what a folly that is looking for something that does not exist.

  Like Jack Nicholson said in a FEW GOOD MEN - "we can't handle the truth" that is why we live on earth for up to 80-90 years, if we are lucky and dont get stuck in a sad Nursing home, and DIE . YES WE DIE, Worm Food, 6 feet under, Dust to Dust.

  That's all it is, why waste your time, with wondering why, we'll never get the answers and all we do is lose valuable time for the more enjoyable things: Playing with our grandkids, or our best friend "Sparky" , having coffee with Mary at Cafe Nervosa or traveling to the Andes to see the ancient world of people that just like us - never had the answers either.

  Just get out there and do something good...er great with your life!

  Thats my take, I have to go bed, I got all worked up over this, sorry folks
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  rip van winkle

  RVW said:-When a man can create something from nothing- not out of something else already existing, then I would have to reconsider my belief that humans are spiritual beings and of God's existence.---------------

  Ksol said-Start reconsidering then:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970918045841.htm Yes, KSol. The light-a source that already exists. I stand by my original statement. ----------------------

  Ksol-Einstein is the one who is credited with explaining matter (something) can be created from energy, and vice-versa (energy from matter is easier to do, obviously), with his famous E = mc².

  Yes, Sol- Einstein's theory used a mathematical equation? From what source does it come from? In 1929,Einstein was asked whether he believed in God. Einstein responded:"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not with a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings."

  KSol said-NOW, prove to me not only that God exists, but that he created anything (whether matter or energy) from nothing.... Pretty hard to do, as God has to be something himself, right? Is he energy? So, who created the energy that he is made of? Himself?

  Your statement disguised as a question is a good one, KSol. "Since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities- his external power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse" - Ro 1:20 NIV.

  How did the Universe come to be? By a spark? The Big Bang? One of life's still unsolved mysteries that has neither been scientifically proven nor disproven.

  Ksol said- It's easy to say impossible illogical nonsense, but simply ascribing them to something imaginary is no solution. I appreciate you holding back on your sarcasm and cynism .

  Ksol said- BTW, you're assuming that matter and energy need to be created: says who? And KSol you're assuming that it did not.

  (Edited- some lines and phrases I did not bold- are in bold)
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  Sulla

  I guess you are right in one sense sulla, there was an oral tradition before the written tradition. Gods the world over were still created by this mythological process.

  Indeed so, Diest. But I think the reason humans have a mythological process is because of this experience of the transcendent. We sense the transcendent, we take steps to unite with it through ritual and sacrifice, we create myths to capture what we think we can about it, we write it up.

  But a criticism of the last stage of this process -- that it is not scientifically or strictly historically accurate -- is precisely to miss the point. We don't get pissy with Gilgamesh, say, for being preposterous when it says Gilgamesh and Enkidu walked for a thousand miles in a day. That criticism would be out of place.

  Entirely Possible, there is not much point in engaging your comment: there is so much remedial work to do with you just to bring you to a point where you can make a coherent point that I doubt we could ever really get a payoff. For example, you have clearly come across a list of logical fallacies in Wikipedia or someplace. You don't understand them, it seems, but I really don't have an inclination to help you fix the many gaps in your understanding.
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  EntirelyPossible

  Entirely Possible, there is not much point in engaging your comment: there is so much remedial work to do with you just to bring you to a point where you can make a coherent point that I doubt we could ever really get a payoff.

  No worries. Performance issues are common when trying to prop up stupid comments with me. Run away and live to say something ridiculous another day.

  Keep reading though, you'll likely learn enough from me to develop an argument that can stand up to scrutiny and, if you are very lucky, how not to come across as such a self righteous jerk. Which, by the way, is not a problem in itself, you just have to be right when you are doing it. Watch me, learn by example how to be right before you start yapping.

  That's your payoff if you have what it takes to learn the lessons.