"Life after Jehovah"

by butalbee 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  butalbee

  Ok, you're out of the cult, that's great, it's the best thing you ever did. But I have a question for all the EX-jw's......Now that you're out, do you still believe in God? Do you practice a different religion? Or are you an agnostic? I mean nothing personal by asking this, which I am sure has been asked, oh, a million times, I'm just curious.

  When I was studying, I had a hard time believing in Jehovah's witnesses view of God, cuz of my own personal belief's and emotions on faith, not in general, but as a whole. That was one of many things I couldn't grasp. For example:

  There's no life after death, just a common grave, no soul. Just ash to dust. Every inch of me knew that that could not be true: There's more to being alive, than being alive, there is a spiritual essense that lives inside everyone.

  There is no hell, satan is an earthly association. I could not fathom the idea, that all the child molesters that die, just greet that common grave and sleep, no eternal damnation, no suffering, no nothing. That to me seemed like a double theory on their part--why have this conscience of perfect human qualities when you die, and just rot in the ground? I couldn't understand that.

  I could go on and on, but I was only attempted to be brainwashed for a short period of time, less than a yr., and a lot of what they tried to cram inside my heart and weigh down my heart has healed, with the help of this web site(believe it or not), so I consider myself a survivor.

  Thanks in advance to anyone that takes this post serious enough to respond.

  Lara
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  Nikita

  When I left, I still believed they were God's organziation. I saw things I questioned in my heart but was just so naive about the world.

  I had always believed in God before studying, then they (JW) were all I ever knew. Even when I left I would not have called myself an "Apostate". I didn't say anything negative about them-I just avoided them as much as possible and tried to just live my life-but still always in the back of my head there was all that doctrine I'd been taught! WHen I met my husband, the son of a Baptist Minister, we had heated debates about both of our beliefs. Even then I didn't want to believe there could be anything terribly wrong with the JW's.

  Then, one day, my husband (then boyfriend of 5 months) just shared about Jesus, who He was and what He was all about, it was the turning point for me. I became a "born-again" Christian, but it was just the beginning of my journey. I still had many doubts about what a Christian was all about versus a JW.

  I can still remember feeling so awkward if I even looked at anything that cast a bad light on JW's. The first time I saw a video about them, I can recall my heart racing and that anxious feeling I was engaging in something terribly wrong, but it definetely opened my eyes up! Even now, 16 years later I am learning more and more about them thanks to the internet.

  So, yes, I still believe in God, I don't think any one Christian faith has the "only" true religion. I am a Baptist by name. I believe as long as you admit that you are a sinner, believe & confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you are saved. Period.

  Nikita
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  Gopher

  Butalbee,

  This is an interesting subject, and not one with sure answers. After leaving JW's, my first inclination was to "find a Christian faith" of some sort that would work for me. But that hasn't happened yet.

  Then after doing some more thinking and reading, it seems plain that a lot of the Bible has to be taken on faith.

  It still seems reasonable to believe that a Creator exists, looking at the sophisticated universe around us. However, it is hard to find evidence that he really gets involved in the day-to-day lives of individuals. If an argument is made that he does benefit some people (of faith) directly, then one could (as a counterpoint) say that God is equally cold-hearted toward all those who have been suffering needlessly for thousands of years.

  So where does this leave one? I am neither an atheist nor a worshipper. Someone said this may make me agnostic. I'm not even sure about that. I think we need to live our best, reflecting any good qualities that God has made it possible for us to express, and leave the world a better place than we found it. And we should live each day to the fullest, knowing tomorrow is not promised to us.

  The things about the after-life and eternal destiny, I believe those answers will come when we need to know them.

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  2SYN

  Well, the Bible is out for starters. So Christianity in general is currently a big no-no to me (smacks too much of Dubdom for my tastes!) at this point!

  One theory I do enjoy subscribing to is the Gaia theory, i.e. the whole planet is a giant, sentient organism.

  Unfortunately this means we are parasites of Gaia.

  Oh well.

  Or perhaps we are the spores of Gaia, destined to spread her Gaianess to the stars? It certainly seems like it. Even women have birth pangs...surely our current brash technological soiling of our own crib would be a very good anology to birth pangs?

  "Until they become conscious, they will never rebel. Until they rebel, they will never become conscious." - George Orwell
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  LucidSky

  Since you asked!...

  My transition to agnosticism took a few years. Once I learned that others had similar teachings and that the JW's had some things wrong, I slowly left. I read the Bible for the first time and did some intensive studies and reading. As I explored my spirituality I found it actually growing. I still believe to this day that JW'S have more correct Bible teachings than most Christian churches. So I later attended meetings of The Bible Students. Eventually though I came to accept that the Bible was not infallible. And finally that the morally perfect God of the Bible did not fit the pattern of reality.

  My thoughts are similar to Gopher. I also think there could be a higher power that gave the universe life. What that thing is, I do not know. I also do not know what happens when I die. There was a time when I didn't exist however -- and it was a really big change for me when I found myself suddenly living. But this may be all the life I get so I hope that my existence will improve others' lives as well.

  A thoughtful post, Butal.
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  LucidSky

  Perhaps because we were taught these ideas from different perspectives as children is why we continue to hold on to some beliefs. Some thoughts for you...

  There's no life after death, just a common grave, no soul. Just ash to dust. Every inch of me knew that that could not be true:

  What's wrong with believing in no life after death? Do puppy dogs get life after death? What about aborted human fetuses? Bacteria? It doesn't seem fair that some life gets this and some doesn't.

  I could not fathom the idea, that all the child molesters that die, just greet that common grave and sleep, no eternal damnation, no suffering, no nothing

  You like torture I gather? Seems like a fair sentence... a few big transgressions during a brief stint as a morally imperfect human for the sentence of: immortality and an eternity of suffering.

  why have this conscience of perfect human qualities when you die, and just rot in the ground? I couldn't understand that.

  The JW's believe that your consciousness resides in God (his memory) after death. You no longer exist though in material form or otherwise, but you could be recreated at will. Thus, what is called the resurrection.

  Anyway, just some random thoughts I had as I asked these same questions at one time. Keep searching for answers, Lara. I am!
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  AlanF

  I no longer believe in the God of the Bible, that's for sure. Obviously I don't believe that the Bible is "God's Word" either. There are far too many cases where such belief runs smack against reality, and I find that it takes far too much mental gymnastics to try to fit biblical beliefs into a realistic worldview. I won't go so far as to say that I flatly reject the idea of a Creator of some sort, but whatever he or it is, it certainly is not the Bible's God. I figure that if this Creator exists, and it cares about its creation, then he or it will have enough sense to deal with its creatures as it made them -- including all the warts it made them with. But if he or it doesn't care, then its existence is moot.

  As far as life after death goes, I don't believe it. We are a product of more than three billion years of evolution -- whether that evolution is directed by some Creator or is undirected doesn't matter. Humans and human-like creatures have been around for two to five million years, depending on how you define your terms. Did all of these have "spirits" or whatever that survived their deaths? I think not. So we run into the problem of just where in the stream of evolution a postulated Creator might have somehow "attached" a "spirit" to humans. It makes no sense. And what about animals? Do they have "spirits"?

  Some people argue that "creation requires a Creator", and that the "design of creation" implies a supremely intelligent Creator. But that leads immediately to a logical circularity: who created this supremely intelligent Creator? And if you argue that no one did, that the Creator has always existed, then it is equally logical to argue that the macrocosmic all, of which our universe may be a miniscule part, has always existed. So claiming that a Creator must exist boils down to just an emotional feeling.

  As I said in another thread, the knowledge that you're going to die and go out of existence at the natural end of your life is very calming, once you learn to accept it and accept that this is what has happened for billions of years.

  AlanF
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  sleepy

  I don't believe in the Bible so like many others I reject that style of God.
  Evolution has some compelling evidence but not enought I fear to totally convince me that it is the total explanation.
  There are too many questions , that it seams noone has answers to , the most important to me are those relating to consciousness and what it is .
  Without understanding this I can not see how anyone can proclaim to know were we , that is our conscious existance , came from or how it is that we are here.
  I am open minded at the mo.
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  Liberty

  Hi Lara,

  It took me years to clear the brain washing but eventually reality shown through and I realized that there was no evidence of substance for a serious belief in the God of the Bible. This "holy" book is a confusing mess far too illogical, flawed, and unclear to be inspired by a super being of any kind let alone one capable of creating the whole Universe. If there ever was an intellegent source for the Cosmos it likes to remain unseen, unknown, unheard, and completely neutral because there is NO evidence for such a being. We are left to figure it all out on our own. All we have is each other and the observable evidence around us. This is enough I think.

  We have made remarkable progress. We are not "fallen" creatures but self realizing evolving animals who see farther and farther each day making our own way through the Universe and getting better at it little by little. We may someday visit other star systems, harness clean unlimited energy, cure our ills, and perhaps even overcome death. The progress we have made in just the last two centuries is powerful evidence that even greater things are possible in the future. But for now, since we are like other animals, we must eventually die. We have no evidence for a continued consciousness after death so I am inclined to believe that this life is all there is.

  Sinners are not punished after death as far as we know, and good folks get no rewards. On a Universal scale I'm not sure there is a way to measure good and evil. In my own life I have bruatally killed billions of organisms by choking them with poisons, burning them with fire and chemicals, freezing, boiling, beheading, crushing, etc. all done for my hunger, convienience, or pleasure. Am I evil? I'm not justifying that which we humans have deemed evil but am just pointing out that in bacteria court I'd been seen as a mass murderer of billions. The same goes for pig, chicken, cattle, insect, and tree court. In short, evil is not universally defined so how could it be judged and punished beyond the scale of our own civilization? Hell is our fantasy of revenge reserved for our own kind as sharks,lions, and wolves are usually exempted from Hell's punishments when they kill or maul us. If a person has no conscience then they are free to be "evil" as long as they are not stopped by the rest of us. Once again, it's up to us. Many sociopathic rapists, torturers, murderers have gotten away with their crimes scott free if we didn't catch them. We have no evidence that they are punished in an after life despite what we might wish. This is what we know. Maybe there are other beings and realms and even life after death but it's all speculation-Big Foot and UFOs-because we have no hard evidence for any of it. I choose to live my life by basing it upon logic, evidence, and scientific principles whenever possible. My emotions still win sometimes, I am also often irrational but I at least don't want a philosophy system based upon emotion and irrational fantasies. No offense, but Christianity seems to be based on irrationality rather than logic and evidence so it does not appeal to me any more.
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  Carmel

  bee,

  soon after I departed the mudd ship, I became a proclaimed agnostic as it was the only honest evaluation of my knowledge base. I firmly believe it is better to be honest and say "I just don't know" than to fall into one camp or another and begin gathering evidence to support that position. As a science student, I preferred to leave the decision to later when all the atheists and non-atheists had their way with me. I have never related to the OT God as iterated by the Jdubs. Buddhism, as personally rewarding as it was, left out the component of "ultimate source" and most contemporary atheists I know only successfully argue against the god of the bible, something we have in common.

  Through my formal studies in the hard sciences, I've now become a believer in a spiritual existance that reinforces my unarticulated feeling as a little dubbie, that there is more to us than a piece of meat (no pun intended, sweetie). We are more likely spiritual beings having a material experiance rather than protoplasm seeking to self perpetuate.

  I find that God is an unknowable essence and that when we try to describe "it" we are like a painting trying to describe the painter. Way out of our league to attempt. I'm happy with my religion as it does not paint God in the biblical dualist, anthropomorphic mold yet is more logical and scientific.

  Now, what cha gonna do with all this information?

  kisses,

  carmel