Why is God speaking in riddles?

by sosoconfused 82 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • sosoconfused
    sosoconfused

    It seems for most of the bible that god spoke directly to people and told them what to do. He wrote things on Rocks. He gave them laws. Then the New testament comes around and everything seems good for a while and then BAM... riddles.

    No one wants to tell you anything directly. It's like you have to guess at things or wait for someone else to tell you what they think he might have meant based upon an idea they had while they were sipping on some Merlot... I am beginning to find this funny - and also wonder why it took so long for me to just wake up.

    Even when you look at the New testament for the most part Jesus speaks directly - so does Paul, but people start with all this guess work. Turning simple Parables into enigmas that only an elite few can somehow deceipher.

    WHY WOULD GOD WANT TO DO THIS INSTEAD OF JUST TELLING PEOPLE WHAT HE WANTS?

    It just seems like so much time is wasted trying to figure out mysteries that man seems to have invented out of the simpliest texts of the bible. Didn't someone say be good to your neighbors / widows and fatherless boys - that was like the simplest formula. What is with all this other stuff? Calculations? Days for years added to some obscure events?

    It gets tiring and seems like a God that really loved people wh=ould not be in to this type of gaming.

  • rebel8
    rebel8

    That is one of the main reasons religion exists--because of the belief that we need to associate with the special group that understands the riddles.

  • garyneal
    garyneal
    What is with all this other stuff? Calculations? Days for years added to some obscure events?

    I obviously believe that all of that stuff is manmade if for no other reason than to make the inventor and/or the followers feel special. (as rebel8 pointed out) I believe that real truth that is closest to anything that would come from G-d would be so simple and yet so profound that many would not choose to believe it simply because truth just cannot be that simple. Especially to the individuals who love riddles.

  • Comatose
    Comatose

    Welcome to reality. The longer you are away the clearer it gets.

  • prologos
    prologos

    get rid of the idea that "GOD" speaks in riddles.

    worse the wt riddles, when you think you have figured out the latest light, its changed again

    keep guessing , darn dates

  • StAnn
    StAnn

    SoSo, you are right, it really is quite simple: Love God with your whole heart, love your neighbor as you love yourself. That's what Jesus said and it works pretty well. Regarding adding numbers and calculations, remember that Jesus said no one would know the day and hour that he would return, so it makes all of those people who are trying to come up with dates and numbers look rather stupid. They believe they can "out think" God. Even if they could figure out when God planned to return, all Jesus would have to do is change his mind and come another day just for the fun of it.

  • Heaven
    Heaven

    It's about authority, power, and control over illiterate, uneducated people. The Bible was written to increase membership in the then very new Christian faith.

    If God really exists, he wouldn't need a factually inaccurate, intellectually dishonest, forged, literal... uh... no, wait.. allegoric holy book to tell us what we need to know.

    Bible Warning

  • Seraphim23
    Seraphim23

    Matthew 13:

    10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

    11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:

    “Though seeing, they do not see;

    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

    14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

    “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

    15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;

    they hardly hear with their ears,

    and they have closed their eyes.

    Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

    hear with their ears,

    understand with their hearts

    and turn, and I would heal them.’[a]

    Matthew 13:

    34 Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. 35 So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

    “I will open my mouth in parables,

    I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”

    I think Jesus did not speak directly most of the time and I think the reason is kind of obvious. For those who want the truth they will search for it and those who think they know it will not. So if you have some pearls of truth and also wisdom, which is a subset of what we call truth, how are you going to attract only those who will take it seriously knowing that truth is hard to bare and hard to swallow? You will need a way of filtering out those in an audience who are there to mock or there for a day of fun, or to see the new teacher for entertainment value, from those who hunger for truth and purpose. What better way that speaking in parables! This protects the perceived value of truth because a crowd and the public can run away with truth or lies for good or ill, very easily.

    When it comes to philosophical truth and ultimate questions of causation and purpose and what lies beyond the great unknowns of death and the universe ect, of which Jewish thinking was not traditionally accustom to, there is an additional problem. That problem is to do with ineffable things that cannot be adequately described in words. People who come back from NDEs always have this problem because the reality they experience is not like anything they have experienced in this mode of existence and is thus ineffable. Interestingly the only way they can communicate such things are often through heavy use of similes, metaphors and parabolic narratives. This does not surprise me because ultimate and precise truth is never going to be a simple matter.

    In short I think this is why we see what seems like a gradual transition between old and new testaments. It looks like God is being ever so direct in the Old Testament and it gradually becomes more opaque later on. This is just an illusion of the 21st century reader though. In reality there its opaqueness all the way through and what seems like certainly all the way through. This is because the bible was written by human beings and it is that simple. It doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist or didn’t have an influence through human beings because he does so all the time, often without people even being aware of it. The glass darkly is how it will always be in this world for good reason.

  • transhuman68
  • sosoconfused
    sosoconfused

    @seraph - Jesus never spoke in riddles. Parables are the type of thing that if you are not willing to sit and listen to you will not understand. As in being to busy to put aside 45 seconds to listen to what the person is saying. Being to busy or occupied to be enlightened.

    Jesus parables did not deal with numerology... and guesswork... and links to other bible books concerning info from another bible linked to events 2000 years later. They WERE SIMPLE. You just had todevote the time to sit and listen to it completely

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