Do you believe in God now? (page 9)

freein89

amen,

yeah, that praying thing is a toughie. When I was still in I prayed ALOT. I was so unhappy, had a lot to be unhappy about, but anyway, I prayed and prayed and then I left my husband and my religion, they both deserved it he was cheatin and so was the WT with the UN I guess but I didn't know what either one of them were up to but I knew something was TERRIBLY wrong, maybe I got my answer, it took 7 years to meet my new husband - what a man. He is one of the few things that might make me believe in god, if there is one, but why would I assume such a thing. I am sometimes confused too. Anyway my husband is kind, patient and he knows how to communicate AND he cleans toilets, what can I say, a man who cleans toilets-maybe there is a god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

onacruse

free:

AND he cleans toilets, what can I say, a man who cleans toilets-maybe there is a god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL...your hubby is ruining the work of millenia of male efforts to convince the world that God made men genetically incapable of such activity!

amen:

I am still searching but there may be no answer to that.

That is perhaps the highest hurdle to jump...admitting to ourselves that there may not be an answer, and yet feeling validated nonetheless. imo that's one of the biggest hold-overs from JW-thinking: that there must be an answer, we have it, and because we have it, we are therefore better than the average Joe.

All we can do is keep searching. Life is a dynamic process of discovery, or, to paraphrase a saying: It isn't the destination that matters, it's the journey.

Craig

freein89

sorry about that Onacruse, oh, did I mention he cooks and does laundry? I'm serious he's great but he doesn't like Mozart. I was telling him about my favorite Mozart piece I told him I think ole Amadeus was thinking about making love to his wife in a beautiful meadow when he wrote that piece-its that beautiful and my man came back with the sweetest compliment I ever recieved, "Well if that was me, I would have wrote(yes he said wrote) alot better song than that!!" am I off subject here? Oh yeah do you believe in god now? Maybe god made Mozart. So for you fellow atheist/agnostics out there, is there anything so beautiful it would make you believe ?

logansrun

starScream,

starScream, I will grant that the origin of life remains shrouded in some mystery, although you certainly make a straw-man argument by insinuating that evolutionists say life sprang from mud.
Damnit. Alright folks, Bradley got me. It wasn't mud. It was "soup." Big effing difference with the " " thingies.

Actually, YOU are the one that believes humans came from "mud" (clay, dust, etc.)! Isn't that what Genesis says? The irony...

Bradley

Brummie

Ron

Yes I do believe in God, but I do have questions and not blind faith. I guess that comes with the exjw territory. Just because I do not have all the answers yet does not mean that there is no God. The answers that I do have are sufficiant enough. The thought that Christianity has no intelect behind it is narrow to say the least, but thats ok with me, I do understand what its like to have a narrow mindset. God gave us a mind, we should use it.

Brummie

logansrun

A few random thoughts on this entire thread:

1) No one can prove or disprove God's existence or non-existence, period. Yet, confronted with a lack of evidence it would seem the default position would be to suspend belief, hence agnosticism is the most scientifically and logically correct viewpoint. I've never heard of any atheist that actually says that she/he can PROVE God(s) doesn't exist.

2) A belief in God is a leap of faith, period. Yes, there is what can be called "circumstantial evidence" for God's existence, but that very evidence can be looked at in more than one way. For instance, many point to the fine tuning of the the fundamental forces of nature as circumstantial evidence for divine creation (unfortunately, fundamentalists will mistakenly call this "proof"). But that is not the end of the story. It's just as possible that there are an infinite amount of universes each with different laws of nature. Ours just happens to be one of the ones that can support life. And there are other ideas to explain the exquisite nature of our universe (ie the weak anthropic principle, etc.)

3) Many equate a belief in God to a belief in the Christian God. Why is this? Culture. That's the only thing I can think of.

4) For the believer in the Biblical God there are a cornecopeia of intellectual, moral and philosophical dillemmas which present themselves. I challenge any Christian to defend Yahweh's destructive actions against men, women, children and beasts in the Old Testament. Doubtless, if one saw the sanguinary verses of the Book of Judges in, say the Koran, the Christian would be appalled. But, since it is in the Bible they try and come up with ingenious ways of manufacturing a justification for such reckless acts. For this reason among a myriad of others, I cannot be a Christian and I feel, if there be a God, it is blasphemous to connect him to the such a book.

Bradley

logansrun

A person really has to take Bradley with a grain of salt. I have learned that.

Well, I agree that my rhetoric can push the envelope at times. All the same, I have yet to see a good argument against what I have to say in this area. And the arguments I present are not mine, by the way. They are the collection of thoughts from numerous thinkers from the Enlightenment onward.

As Six of Nine said somewhere: "People who cannot distinguish between feeling and thinking, suck."

Bradley

Brummie

"People who cannot distinguish between feeling and thinking, suck."

I agree totally with this Bradley, thats probably why I remain a freethinker. I also think your posts on these issues are valuble even if I disagree. If a person can only "feel" something and not think it through I'd prefer not to discuss a point with them. I'm glad that some people can "feel" something and "think" something at the same time...tis a skill huh

Brummie

Francois

Amazing thing about that. I never did believe in Jehovah while I was a JW. Couldn't believe in the contradictions in his nature or character from one end of the bible to the other.

NOW however, I do believe in God. But it's certainly not that Bronze Age bloodthirsty war monger Jehoober. The God that lives within me and vitiates all I am has never revealed himself by name.

"The God that you can name is not the eternal God." The Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu.

logansrun

God, I'm such a pernicuous bastard.

Francois,

I respect your feelings on this matter and agree with you whole-heartedly on the subject of the OT. At the same time -- (here it comes) -- I cannot UNDERSTAND your thinking on the matter of God/religion/spirituality. I think I've brought this up before but you either didn't want to answer me or didn't see my response. So, in perhaps another vain attempt, I will repeat myself:

1) You don't believe in the OT, fine. But, you repeatedly make reference to Jesus (and Paul!) of the NT. What gives? How do you take the one and not the other? Jesus obviously made repeated references to the OT and defended the actions of (his Father?) Yahweh. He talked about the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the coming apocalypse and, possibly, eternal hellfire. Paul makes repeated obnoxious comments that could put one through psychological torture (they did for me). In other words, why do you accept this at all?

2) You claim to have had a mystical experience(s) and this is your personal "proof" of God's existence and the "indwelling spirit." Other people, perhaps many millions throughout history, have had similar experiences which lead them to a belief system radically different from yours. Was their experience not genuine and yours genuine? Did they misinterpret their mystical experience? Let's get empirical here.

Please, don't take these strong words of mine as an attack...they are not. If anything, I find your thoughts fascinating and attractive. Just explain yourself a little, okay?

Bradley

Do you believe in God now?

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