Ok, I NEVER post about anything having to do with god or the bible, but....

by Jesika 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Jesika

  I was in chat a few days ago, and the topic of god came up. I was trying to understand how people can still believe in one. That is not my ? now, just wanted you to know where this ? is coming from.

  My question is..............What is sprituality???

  Some say they have been abused spirtually, I can honestly say I have NO IDEA what that means.

  Anytime I prayed I never felt any "connection" to anything other than me talking to myself. Hell, I can talk myself into something or out of something, but that doesn't mean a "higher power/god" had anything to do with whether I did the right thing or the wrong thing. It is my choice, and when I write things down or talk them out, I can see what the right thing is, but to me that is common sense. (should I steal the candy?? yes or no?)

  So, basically what is spirtuallity?? Is it that warm glow you get all over when you pray? I never felt that, or does it mean I just don't get it?

  When I hear people in chat, on the board, on tv, or in person talk about their spirit, I have no connection to what feeling they are talking about.

  Am I just dense???

  Please don't give me scriptures to look up, I get a quezzy feeling in my stomach when I even touch the bible anymore.

  I just want to know what it is.

  Jes
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  be wise

  I think it’s just a feeble attempt to describe part of our complex makeup. I felt the same as you when I was a JW. I think our spirituality is our contentment within ourselves, with who we are as individuals.

  We all have ups and downs but we should also have times when things just seem right. When u wake up in the morning and things seem to make sense …just don’t turn the TV on, although I hardly watch it [just too patronising for me].
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  Big Tex

  Let me only talk about what I believe.

  First, I don't know anything. I choose to believe, a leap of faith if you will. And I think that is the deciding factor. There is no iron clad, black and white proof that would hold up in a court of law or a science lab and I don't think there ever will be. For either side.

  But, to me, that is the nature of spirituality. Making a choice. I believe in a Higher Power that has enough respect for us that he will wait for us to want to know him and that we want to believe. I'll give you an example. A couple of weeks after Bill died, I smelled something odd in the stairwell here at work. Everytime I went out into the stairwell, I smelled it, but I couldn't quite place the smell. The janitors weren't there yet and no work had been in the stairwell, but it was really bugging me. Finally I just stood out there until it hit me. The stairwell smelled exactly like Bill's apartment. A few hours later I went to the 19th floor to get something from the candy machine and I smelled it again. I've never smelled it before, and I've never smelled it since. There was no weird sounds, no feelings, nothing like in the movies, just a smell that I've always associated with Bill.

  What does it mean? I don't know. One side could make a very good argument that it was a psychosomatic response to a recent tragedy. The other could argue that it was Bill's spirit coming to say goodbye to the person he was closest to in life.

  Which is right? I don't know. It sort of depends on what you believe, doesn't it?

  There's the rub. And I doubt there will never be any absolute proof one way or the other. I believe that is intentional.

  But to answer your question, to me spirituality is feeling a sense of peace with my God. I try to live my life by my truths and then I let everything else go (or try to). My spirituality at this point in my life is more about feelings than facts. No scriptures, just me and God. And if that's all it ever is, than it's enough.
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  Shakita

  Hi Jesika:

  There are days when I am soooo glad that I don't need to have the crutch of religion to get me through. I lean on myself and those around me to help me through because God has never answered my prayers, and seems to be very silent as his children suffer here on this big rock floating in space. While my parents lay dying, did God help in any way? When the innocent people of Iraq were being blown apart by bombs dropping on their houses, did God help them? History has shown that the God of the bible shuts his eyes to the sufferings of his children in order to achieve some higher purpose for his own sake.

  There are other days that I crave to have a belief in something higher than myself who cares what happens to me and my children...who cares what happens to all future children to be born and live on this planet. I think that religion has been so successful because of this inner need to feel wanted, to feel protected. I had that feeling once, but it is gone now. I wish that I could get it back, but I will not sacrifice my personal freedom again for the sake of any organized religion.

  I try not to post too much on religion either, it just leaves me with an empty feeling inside. Spirituality after the JW's is now defined to me as being the best that you can be, hoping that when you leave this life you leave it feeling complete. My father was not a religious man. As he laid there taking his last breathes in this life, I knew he was leaving it with a sense of completeness. He died a wonderful, kind, and loving father and husband. You could not ask for any thing else.

  Mrs. Shakita
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  Satanus

  Spirituality has all kinds of connotations. The wt really doesn't have a clue about it. My impression of the meaning of the term 'spiritual abuse' is that it is general, applying to the scamming of people in the religious, psychic or esoteric arena.

  I see spirituality in a stricter sense, i.e., that there should be spirit involved. Scientism aside, we would either have some traces of spirit ourselves, or some action toward us from spirit, whether a personal being, or impersonal. Altered states of mind would be included (by me) in this definition. In altered states, subconscious areas could be accessed. I would include the subconscious within the field of spirituality.

  SS
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  DJ

  Hi Jesika,

  I know what they mean when they say that they have been 'abused spiritually'. It just the fact that we have been lied to over and over again about our creator...not only who he is but also about what he desires and what he stands for. It was an abuse of our inner man, so to speak. It is hard to explain spiritual things. First off, it is NOT your breath....lol...Spirituality is the connection made with your creator. Just look at a tulip tomorrow, they are blooming everywhere in PA. Take a look at a flower and see how it is made, see how it feels. Do you ever consider where it came from originally. The dirt? See a baby being born and ask yourself, how did that all come to be? Sex? Look at all of creation and ask yourself where it came from. If you have the desire to know who the creator is, just seek him. No one can make you spiritual, except him. The things that are spirtual are not generally things that we in our flesh care about. It is a heigher realm. The holy spirit enables us to have the fruits that Scully posted. All we need to do is ask. I hope you got something out of that? Love, dj
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  gumby

  If a person can believe in something enough....it produces an emotion. The warm glo a woman can get from thinking of her man is a type of inward emotion christians say they have. It's a feeling of acceptance, of being loved, protection, and hope.

  If a person is said to be spiritual........he thinks about it often, walks the talk......kinda like an amway salesman.

  Some spirituality is a personal feeling or belief in other things other than just god.

  There Jessica, .....now you have it, ...a precise definition from the greatest man who ever lived.......

  Gumby
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  Carmel

  Interesting question. One I've harbored all my live especially since growing up a JW pup, every other sentence had the word "spiritual" in it. It was so overused that it became meaningless. It seems even more incongruous that a cult that does not believe in the existance of the soul uses the term that most describes the atributes thereof.

  carmel
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  cruzanheart

  I think it's the feeling you get when you do something you KNOW is right. It makes you feel good, like you've connected to something bigger than just one individual.

  Nina
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  Introspection

  Hi Jesika,

  You're probably better off listening to a bird or say the engine of a car, but a definition of spirituality that most people won't have an issue with is probably the essence of life, which of course can be read in different ways. I would encourage you to not take any ideas anybody give you too seriously, because that's all they are - ideas. If this whole thing is about life and what that really is, then all you have to do is look to yourself and all around you - that's life.