I don't understand the logic of religion

by Leander 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  Leander

  If you ask a JW why does God allow suffering, more than likely you'll get the response that God has allowed Satan and mankind to follow their own course to prove that only God has the right to govern over man. For a long time I accepted that answer as being correct and I never even took the time to really think about what that meant. Now however when I reason on that logic I realize that it does'nt make sense.

  In the bible Satan challenges God's right to rule mankind, he tells God that man will only serve him for what he can get in return. In turn God allows Satan to test Job. (I use the word test lightly because Job was really tortured) Of course as it is written in the bible Job remained faithful despite the fact that Satan killed all 10 of his children, turned his wife against him, struck Job with a gruesome disease and caused him to lose virtually everything he owned. So in this scenario Satan was proved wrong, but he was allowed to continue on with his challenge that mankind really only served God for selfish reasons.

  Maybe its just that I'm not getting the point but the logic in that scenario makes no sense. For example if someone accused the father of a large family of wrong doing, would it make sense for the father to allow the accuser to beat, torture, rape, mutilate and kill his family members just to prove a point?

  Billions and billions of people are suffering even as you are reading this post. And billions have died and suffered in the past. Is it fair for so many people to suffer on account of a challenge issued by one person? Is it truly justice to allow one individual to cause bloodshed by the billions? If life and blood is such a precious thing why is so much of it wasted to prove a point?

  This is what I mean when I say that I don't understand the logic of religion or the bible. And this is not just limited to JWs but any religion that uses the bible as its basis. The sad thing is that despite my not being able to make any sense out of the bible and religion I'm still attending JW meetings and participating in other similar activities.

  I don't know what the answer to lifes problems are but the solutions offered in the bible are just not logical to me.
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  expatbrit

  Religion begins with a premise and then seeks to fit observable conditions to that premise. Where conditions don't fit, all sorts of convolutions become necessary.

  Much better to observe conditions first and then draw the premise from reality.

  Expatbrit
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  Carmel

  NOt all religions believe in the literalist rendering of the Garden of Eden story or the personification of Lucifer. Pretty much the fundy christians and muslims.

  carmel
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  SYN

  Not all religions are as illogical as the Watchtower. Some of the better ones that are based on the Bible, as others have said, don't take too much of it literally.

  The WTBTS has left open some gaping logical holes tho.

  The earlier in the forenoon you take the sun bath, the greater will be the beneficial effect, because you get more of the ultra-violet rays, which are healing. - The Golden Age
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  julien

  Religion is not about logical explanations.. When religion tries to be logical it fails.. The reason religion is successful is that it has strong emotional and spiritual appeal. In the face of even the most damning physical evidence many religious folks merely look away, throw up their arms, and say "it sure is a mystery.."
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  RunningMan

  What you are saying makes sense. Most of the Bible is illogical. But, when in doubt, it is nice to know that murdering an innocent person will always set things right.
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  Introspection

  Is it me, or does the folks on this board only think of the Judeo-Christian tradition (or Islam) when they talk about religion?
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  Joseph Joachim

  Of course as it is written in the bible Job remained faithful

  That's not entirely true. That's only the simplistic way fundamentalists (including JW) interpret the book of Job but it isn't that simple. Job and Ecclesiastes are probably the most subtle books in the OT, and have been called "the agnostic books" for a reason. It's true that Job doesn't curse God as his wife wanted, but he insists in his inocence and the unfairness of his situation. In other words, he questions God's justice. That is the core of the book of Job, God's justice, not Job's faith. Note that in the final chapter God does not tell Job why all those bad things happened to him. What God tells him, simply put, is: "don't question my ways; there's a reason for everything, but you wouldn't understand it".
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  greven

  another strange thing is the flood. isn`t that "cheating" by God, I mean kill all bad ones start anew?
  thats like playing chess and removing all the opponents pieces.
  weird if you think of it...

  "Fear is strange soil. Mainly it grows obedience like corn, which grows in rows and makes weeding easy. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground."
  -from "Small Gods" by Terry Pratchett-