newhah, You are touching on a difficult topic. At least it is for me.
As a cradle Catholic I learned the Apostles Creed along with all the other indoctrination of catechism. Even though I got into a lot of loose living in my early twenties never doubted the teachings I was raised with.
By the time I was thirty I had had a genuine revelation of a Supernatural Goodness. (I called it God then and I must also say that my reference point was Jesus.) At the time I lived so remotely and without any phone or electicity that my experience took place without church or the influence of other people. There were no religious "agencies" to lay claim to my soul.
But I went to church as soon as I was able--certain that God expected me to sign up again.
Now--thirty years later and 22 of them spent as a JW, I doubt that Jesus ever wanted me to squander my simple and clean experience of contact with the Good in Organized religion of any sort.
Which leaves us wondering--who WAS Jesus, really. How free are we really to seek that answer outside of the formulas we have absorbed as through osmosis in the world that surrounds these matters? And don't we find ourselves afraid that other Christians--even UNorthodox ones-- will find our questions toooo extreme?
There are threads that ask for historical reference for Jesus' existence. So there is that. I know he lived.
Why though must I trust the theology that followed after him? I truly love his core teachings. I truly despise the quibbling about the theology. Jesus, as I understood him, rescued me. And it took me a long time to climb out of the indoctrination and become desperate enough if not brave enough to trust that he will lead me without believing the creeds of anyone else.
Maeve
