"Belief" and "Faith" are Simply Emotional Terms for Ideas and Opinions (long post)

by xjwsrock 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  You are one of the most tortured people I have ever met. I hope you find peace. - Perry

  What makes you think I am not at peace? I understand sensible readonable answers to life's biggest questions. I'm not the one who has to run away from facts and evidence in order to maintain an indefensible belief system.

  I don't have to look forward to an eternity of massaging the ego of a capricious deity, while listening to the agonising cries of my family and friends in hellfire. And every minute of every day having to lie to myself that this is perfect love.

  I don't have to defend slavery, rape and infanticide in order to go on worshipping a book written by Iron Age nomads who had the moral sense of an ISIS warlord. I have a rational, objective standard for morality and ethics as opposed to the capricious ravings of ethics by divine fiat. I'm not raising my children to be superstitious, self-righteous, anti-scientific and afraid of everything and everybody.
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  xjwsrock

  Well said Cofty..
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  steve2

  Malcolm Muggeridge had a way with words that "passed off" religiosity as if it were sociological commentary. All pursuits were dim unless they were cloaked in Christian terminology and influence. That he said very little about other belief systems is very telling of the man and the age in which he lived. He lived in an age when human rights were emerging and framed by religious thinkers in the most negative of terms. It is no coincidence that the man was born and raised in a patriarchal society that viewed any deviation from the patriarchal norm (i.e., a threat to the "accepted" order of things).
  
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  Half banana

  Further to Steve's comment, Muggeridge was a vastly entertaining speaker and writer influenced by his long experience as a journalist and foreign correspondent... but... in later life had the fundamental defect of subordinating his world view to a rigid deism of the Catholic variety. It appeared to me to be a form of penance and atonement for earlier misdemeanours.

  @exjwsrock, do bear in mind that the path of waking up (usually) travels from the closed and fixated religious JW mind to being a responsible free moral agent using reason and evidence for decision making instead of belief. It is like growing up. Many get snagged on the way by the familiar lure of the rewards of faith.

  When people post who have exited, it is possible to see just where they are on this path and I think recognizing the folly of "faith" and "belief" is a necessary hurdle to jump in escaping the old mind-set.