by Rattigan350 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Cofty
Good argument. I have very often found that Religious minds/persons need the comfort of a super “DAD” who is going to take care of everything that fails. I think our brain has its own methods to stand the conditions that “life” brought us, with death, diseases, pestilence, war, tsunamis etc.etc.
Bugbear
cofty, for one thing, it adds pleasure to my life, and to those with deeper feelings than mine, those that have the privilege to work in the sciences, see the fruits of their labours, because it seems to be in harmony with the big SCHEME of things. Things are working out, and I am a worker.
On a grander scale it is like the enormous stone works of the past, in the Orkney's, Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Easter island. we do not need ALL these ancient builders any more, but we would not be alive without them (one of the "Daughters of Eve" was discovered in the Faroes),
and they left these monuments to remind us, or just to impress, or just because building was fun, satisfying an addiction.
The creator might not be a god at all.
in practical terms? It is comforting to see that nature is not tinkered with, by talking snakes, water canopies, graves opening.
God helps those who help themselves.
That is what I have always heard
and seen with my own eyes.
Man has done more to help man than God has ever done.
That is what I see also.
Certain writings in the bible may inspire man to do good helpful things.
But at the end of the day God helps those who help themselves.
Which might be retranslated to
"If you want something done, do it yourself"
Religious meetings and church not JW meetings.
Could be like pep talks once a week to focus and go out and do something good.
Help the poor and needy.
That is what the bible and Jesus were about helping the poor and needy.
James, even that help should be done with the wisdom you see in nature. Think of the welfare systems running amok, creating a lazy class, an abundance of offspring with no work ethic. Harvesting where they did not sow, sowing wild oats. But
I agree with your main premise. Nature rewards the successful, the doers. The adapable. the cheerful givers.
That way, the creator himself can be seen to be inactive, like me, in my ninth decade.
"If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science."
"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." --Carl Sagan, from "A Demon Haunted World"
ADCMS - you're right. Religious beliefs almost always depend on FOG (Fear, Obligation and Guilt) as the prime motivational force. Everything else is downhill from there.
I think there is a lot of ego involved when we say we know how the world should or shouldn't function. Our perspectives are so limited and even the smartests among us have tiny brains. Whos to say that if you where in charge the world wouldn't even be worse than it is?
This reminds me of an awesome Futurama episode called "Godfellas". Bender gets to play God for awhile. It goes horribly. The take away from the episode is that God wants to move in ways that are not obvious at all that he is moving. If God where to directly intervene it would mess everything up. We are the ones that need to go out and make a differnce. Gods mode of action is to work through us, and not by constantly setting aside the laws of physics to fix every percieved wrong in the world.
Changing the human heart is a MUCH bigger miracle than parting of the Red Sea(or any other physical intervention of God).
little Socrates, I'd take it even further. The belief that Christ died for "me" and has given "me" a special relationship with Him and that He has a mansion for "me" to dwell in forever in the next life, smacks of repugnant narcissism. It's part of humankind's need to feel noticed and loved - which is fine, except when it is part of a "salvation this way only" belief system that has an " in" group (that must include "me") and an outgroup (which must include "you" if you disagree with me). Next time a Christian preaches to you in person, look deeply into their self-flickering, dewy eyes to the soul of a covert narcissist.
I see what you did there Steve :)
However Christianity (at least true Christianity IMO) isn't about me, but about what we can do for the least among us.
