The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences

  • Island Man
    Island Man

    "what if a person cannot enjoy their life? what then?"

    Then they don't enjoy it. Simple. Life is fragile, fleeting and sometimes even unfair. Life is what it is. There is no rule that states life has to be meaningful, fair and enjoyable to everyone. As intelligent humans we can and should work toward it. But a universe without a just and benevolent creator/controller doesn't owe us anything. There is no law that states life must be fair and enjoyable by all. The fact that some endure unhappiness or even suffering, is no reason to believe that there must be some greater architect out there to right matters in the long run. You're projecting your own human sense of purpose and justice on an impersonal universe. The universe doesn't have to operate according to your own desire for justice and purpose. Accept life for what it is instead of hoping for it to be what you want, or what you have been brought up to think it has to be.

  • defender of truth
    defender of truth

    "But she has lost her joy and sense of purpose."
    humbled- I'm sure that mostly everyone reading this thread feels deeply for her, and having lost someone myself recently in a sudden and shocking way, I hope you can give her my condolences, if that means anything from a complete stranger..
    .....

    According to the best defense that Psacramento has offered on behalf of fundamentalists, such an event as the accident involving your friend's son had a purpose.
    It seems odd to me that (even assuming the accident did have a purpose, which I find repulsive personally) this so-called loving God has not told her what that purpose is, or that all kinds of suffering has a purpose, or even let her know that her son is safe and well in some kind of afterlife.
    Yet the Christian God IS love?...

  • PSacramento
    PSacramento

    According to the best defense that Psacramento has offered on behalf of fundamentalists, such an event as the accident involving your friend's son had a purpose.
    It seems odd to me that (even assuming the accident did have a purpose, which I find repulsive personally) this so-called loving God has not told her what that purpose is, or that all kinds of suffering has a purpose, or even let her know that her son is safe and well in some kind of afterlife.
    Yet the Christian God IS love?...

    No, you are misunderstanding it.

    The accident having a purpose or not is not the issue, the issue is does the suffering caused by the accident have a purpose.

    If it doesn't then suffering has no point, if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose.

    Agreement is not relevant to the argument, only the ability to understand that a purpose for suffering exists.

  • sunny23
    sunny23

    If it doesn't then suffering has no point, if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose.

    You are making a baseless claim that suffering develops compassion. You don't need agreement by us for this claim but you need at least some form of evidence to make it understandable, otherwise its empty. How does the suffering that leads to death of a 5year old teach that 5yr old compassion? You seem to be over generalizing or sometimes too concerned with the survivors. This debate isn't concerning only survivors but also those who die. I could just as easily say to you that raping a girl teaches her submissivness, granted thats disgusting and horrible and needs no agreement but it has no substance until I show you how rape victims learn submisiveness through their experience.

    Agreement is not relevant to the argument

    Agreement with popular Christianity is relevent to this argument and your theory does not seem to agree with popular christianity that uses scriptures like these to support afterlife being more important and this life doesnt matter in comparison and to support suffering as means "to give God glory."

    Suffering for Being a Christian
    1 Peter 4:12-16 New International Version (NIV)

    12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

    James 1:12

    12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

    only the ability to understand that a purpose for suffering exists.

    I undertand that a purpose for suffering could exist it's just that noone here including yourself has offered an understandable one. Its up to you to make it understandable. You provide no support, only opinions. I could make the claim that the moon is green and you don't have to agree with it, you only need the ability to understand that my claim (the moon is green) exists. Understanding that my claim exists does not support it's truthfullness.

  • cofty
    cofty

    if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose. - PSac

    You keep saying that and ignoring my response. These were not rhetorical questions...


    This isn't a theoretical discussion it is a specific question about an actual event. So please explain how the 250 000 victims of the tsunami were made better by being drowned.

    Pehaps I have misunderstood you. Did you mean that you were made a better christian by the feelings of compassion you felt in 2004?

    Do you think 250 000 lives were a reasonable price to pay for your progress as a christian?

    Do you feel a twinge of unease that a quarter of a million humans amounted to a commodity for your benefit?

  • humbled
    humbled

    PSacramento--

    The God-of-the-Bible has always been mute about the purpose of suffering so there can be no understanding it as a Christian.

    Not that there aren't plenty of people who try to speak for god--but it falls flat every time.

    The only attempt to address this question directly in the bible: Job asks God why suffering was laid on him--himself a righteous man. Job's friends say why God allowed him to suffered. Job didn't buy it. Job never learned anything why he suffered--just this: "God is god, like it or not"

    Still, apologists and theologians put words in god's mouth to make up for His silence. Even Jesus tried hard to show a friendlier face to sufferers. He may have had the same questions many of us have. But it is undeniable that 'My God, my God , why have you forsaken me?" is part of his story after all.

    That said, PSac, I do use Jesus as my model of a human reaching out to other humans who suffer. Without the dubious overlays of doctrines, he showed me how to think about and treat others in this world. But he is no more and no less a savior than you or I should be--as in the story told of the Good Samaritan. So I respect Jesus profoundly but I have no reason to believe God took care of Jesus or God will take care of me.

    Defender of truth--I will as best I can tell her of your compassion for her loss. And i am sorry for yours as well. It is not strange that we have a some sense of connection in times of loss--it is worth our time to stop and say the simple words, I am sorry for your loss. even if there is nothing more to say.

  • defender of truth
    defender of truth

    Psacramento said the following:
    "A god of love can still choose HOW and WHEN to express that love and it may be in a way that we find horrific based on our understanding."
    "As some hard-line fundamentalist would say, 'No one is innocent, so no one is above suffering'.
    We may not like the argument, but it is a valid one."

    "I openly admited I do NOT have an answer for this question that would satisfy an unbeliever and presented one that I personally have a hard time refuting myself and believe MAY hold part of the answer.
    All I know is that God does allow suffering and I do NOT know why."


    "It may seem to you to be morally repugnant to allow the death of 250K people and I agree 100%, even the death of ONE person is one too many if it can be avoided, BUT that doesn't have any bearing on whether there IS a reason for it happening.
    We may not like the reason or agree with it, but it is still a reason."


    "If it doesn't then suffering has no point, if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose."

    @Psacramento- So.. even with all of your theological training, after spending time putting together the main points that you've made regarding the topic, from your posts on this thread;
    the best that you can offer in defense of the Christian God, in a discussion of the important and life-altering (life ending for many victims) issue of why God allowed the tsunami to kill those people and berieve countless others, is basically:
    "All these death must have benefited someone, although I don't know how they did.
    This is an argument that even I don't feel comfortable with or find entirely satisfying. I may or may not agree with it morally depending on whether or not it was necessary, which I do not know.
    All suffering may or may not have a purpose, but my point is that we should understand that it could have a purpose, although nobody knows what it is yet."

    Without your even providing a specific example, this is comparable to defending illogical nonsense like the Trinity doctrine merely by saying:
    'Well, God COULD BE (from a human point of view) entirely illogical, contradictory and incomprehensible, or He may not be, but you must admit that it is possible that such a God exists, although I am not entirely convinced that he does, I just have a hard time refuting it as being a possibility. Just because the Trinity's existence is wholly unverifiable; along with being contradictory, illogical and nonsensical, doesn't mean that there is not a valid and believable explanation of it that we are yet unaware of.'
    ... After all, nobody can PROVE that all suffering from natural disasters has no hypothetical greater purpose to make us 'better' people;
    except, that is, by looking at the available evidence, such as stories from events like the Tsunami (if you have even read or seen the accounts of what some families have been through), or by using our own human logic. Logically, for instance, the people killed in the Tsunami are not now 'more compassionate' people..
    And if the people who lost loved ones are supposed to have been purposefully allowed to go through that horrible experience, then their loved ones were seemingly nothing but cannon fodder, expendible pawns that were better able to serve a greater purpose once they were dead.

    Therefore, your statements seem essentially meaningless, unless I've missed something.
    To summarise:
    Your hypothetical God, (who IS love, but at times can choose not to show love, according to you)
    that you defend with a hypothetical argument about all suffering having a purpose, hasn't told us, even if he existed, what the hypothetical purpose for allowing suffering is...
    (maybe because he doesn't exist, therefore there is no purpose? No, that's too simple.)

  • cofty
    cofty

    who IS love, but at times can choose not to show love, according to you

    This is a knock-down argument. Psac has so far ignored it completely.

  • Ruby456
    Ruby456

    thanks for your thoughts humbled.

    It is not strange that we have a some sense of connection in times of loss--it is worth our time to stop and say the simple words, I am sorry for your loss. even if there is nothing more to say.

    Indeed I think that it is in suffering that people can often feel and reprise deeper connections to the world outside.

    I would go even further and say that happiness is connected to unhappiness and nothing exists in and of itself as some are arguing here.

    The loss of life and property in the tsunami is connected to us and to the universe in diverse ways. Indeed social science tells us that some connections produce bad things in some parts of the world whereas those same connections produce good things in another part of the world and this is what makes life unfair and fragile. By connections I mean social connections which would include the past and also the future, geology, geography and also psychology. Theology understands all this very well (although as cofty points out there are inconsistencies and contestations within theology about who or what god and how he acts in the world) Nevertheless theism does have a part to play especially seeing as the numbers who believe in god are rising all over the globe including secular lands.

    Something along the lines of a truth process would establish why the asian tsunami caused such huge loss of life in that area under those social conditions and why it would not have if social conditions and connections were different.

    Another aspect of Theism in action would be to ask the people who lost family and property how they feel now. Do they still see themselves as victims? Which organisations or what thinking helped them to heal?

    edit: cofty I hope you can see that I am trying to be as concrete in my thinking as possible. I don't like giving book refs and page numbers all the time but if anyone here is interested in getting their heads out of airey fairy thinking please consider doing a short course in social science.

  • defender of truth
    defender of truth

    Ruby said: "Something along the lines of a truth process would establish why the asian tsunami caused such huge loss of life in that area under those social conditions"
    ... Something along the lines of God stopping the Tsunami, would have established that he loved the people who were killed by it, and that he loved their families.
    Mark 4:35
    That day when evening came, he said to his disciples,“Let us go over to the other side.”
    36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
    37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
    38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
    39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
    40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
    41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

    ...
    Ruby said: "Another aspect of Theism in action would be to ask the people who lost family and property how they feel now. Do they still see themselves as victims? Which organisations or what thinking helped them to heal?"
    Have you ever lost someone in death that you couldn't ever replace? Some wounds never heal.
    You sound like a philosopher with no experience of what they are talking about.

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