I don't think that type of question toward the original poster is fair.
All I meant to say is that God was Adam and Eve's mother and father and that couldn't have been so bad, if you know what I mean.
Paradise? Was it?
by TerryWalstrom 48 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Fisherman
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Vidiot
David_Jay - "To begin with, the story of Adam and Eve as written by the Jews, my people, and as currently understood by us, is not, nor has it ever been understood or meant to be taken as historical."
Funny how the WTS never seems to mention that.
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Vidiot
Fisherman - "...real intimacy with God..."
Fisherman - "All I meant to say is that God was Adam and Eve's mother and father and that couldn't have been so bad, if you know what I mean."
"If you know what I mean"?
Seriously???
Okay, this almost feels like it's drifting into sort-of-Game of Thrones territory here, which is weird.
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TerryWalstrom
Fisherman: Sounds to me like you never experienced any real intimacy with God. Or maybe you forgot.
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A fair issue to raise and a fair one to answer...
An honest assessment leads me to confess that when I got baptized in 1963 (November 23, day after JFK's assassination) I was 16 years old and only partially spiritual in my understanding of things of a spiritual nature.
I had Jehovah's Witness head knowledge.
But something would happen to me.
Something which made intimacy with God extremely important to me.
At 18 years of age, I registered for the draft and by 1967 I was standing in District Court listening to Judge Leo Brewster bang his gavel after explaining to me I was being sentenced to a Youth Corrections Act "indeterminate" sentence in Federal Prison.
The shortest to longest span of this was 6 mos. to 6 years.
I entered prison in 1967 and received parole in 1969.
IT GOT REAL IN A HURRY!
As a scrawny, shy, virginal Jehovah's Witness, just being in the Tarrant County Jail (before transfer 10 days later to Seagoville Federal Institution)
was a horribly terrifying experience.
I prayed constantly.
The REALITY of God ramped up one hundred fold.
I had a copy of the NWT with the cover ripped off (strange regulation for jail) and I read my Bible and memorized verses and went over the "meaning" constantly.
I was a sponge and all things God were soaking into me for survival and to stave off panic and terror.
Once I arrived in Federal prison and joined about 40 other Brothers, we had 5 meetings each week and special study sessions on the side.
I had become a TRUE BELIEVER.
I was actually a fanatic.
The letters I wrote read like a wide-eyed cult member in every way.
There's no doubt in my mind--I was talking to God (inside my head) day and night and my sense of His presence was palpable.
Then I was sexually attacked and I went into a kind of recoil and shock.
Even though Jehovah had obviously deserted me at the moment I cried out to Him for help--I made excuses. I was stunned and brooding but putting on a happy face. Stoic. Good sport. Look Ma--no hands!
By the time I received parole and returned to my congregation in Fort Worth, Texas, I had split into fractured parts. The public side of me was the brave little Witness, faithful and true. I became a Pioneer.
And...
I slowly started losing my mind.
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So, that's my answer, Fisherman. I have been very intimately involved with God and I got a really good glimpse of Him.
Because I was there for Him and He wasn't there for me--I slowly turned my anger on myself rather than blame Almighty up above.
I was a walking, talking case study in cognitive dissonance.
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Then, one day--I decided to escape.
I packed my JW wife and 3 little ones in a 1970 Ford Maverick and drove to California to pursue a career in Art.
It took 7 or 8 years for my separation from Jehovah and his mighty band of Witnesses to come to fruition because I slowly faded (with several relapses).
Finally, I got my "divorce" from everyone and everything JW.
There have been many years of healing.
I never have quite recovered from rape.
Go figure.
But--I decided I'd spend the rest of my life trying to help other Dubs get out or at least wake-up.
It was around 1989 when I was lying in bed one night praying that I suddenly myself WOKE UP and realized the painful truth: I was just talking to myself. -
Fisherman
Terry, what you said happened to you in prison is an outrage. However, many faithful servants of God as yourself, suffered at the hands of wicked men, from Abel to Zechariah and after that. Take Isaiah who was beheaded by King Mannaseh, Job, Jesus, Peter, Paul, brother in Hermany who was beheaded, brother King who was jailed and tortured for 40 years in a Chinese jail, JW who get injured while in fs....
I went up to a blind man one time and asked him how he felt about God -him being blind and all- I expected that he would be angry or say that God did not exist but instead he said: " Oh, no, no, no, God helps me."
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berrygerry
would have eaten anything to keep her.
Almost anything. Needs to be Anthony Morris approved.
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deegee
Fisherman,
So God helps the blind man but he didn't help Terry? Why?
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sparrowdown
Your god seems pretty fickle who he helps and who he ignores.
Mysterious and all.
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David_Jay
So God helps the blind man but he didn't help Terry? Why?
Again, realize you are describing a concept of God that is Watchtower-based (and Christian-based, for that matter).
The paradigm of God in this concept is that "God" is someone you are supposed to ask things of and expect this of, to "believe" in, and that prayers are supposed to be heard by God and not be said to be things heard by ourselves.
These are very opposite of Jewish concepts, and some of them even shared among Catholics, and the Orthodox. For these prayers are pre-composed, inspired by God in the Psalms, and recited, rarely spontaneous. In them, the person hears God speak to them. The prayer is often actually to themselves! Occasionally they ask for their own needs, but mostly they praise God in this inspired liturgy. It's not about asking for God to do this or that for them. It's about thanking God for this and that, and asking God what more they can do for God. A Jewish proverb states: "Pray as if everything depends on God, but act as if everything depends on you."
The prayer of Jehovah's Witnesses is not composed of inspired words from the Bible. Instead people must come up with their own words, spontanously and extemporaneously, unlike the way the Jews and original Christians did. Witnesses ask God for things and expect God to give them things in return. They are taught to believe hard in God and not let doubt drown out their faith or else their prayer might be ineffective. Reciting prayers is forbidden.
Because they have been taught no other way, nor have they been exposed to other religious paradigms or traditions, even some ex-Jehovah's Witnesses expect that all other religions are based on a "faith/pray=ask" system. Since the Watchtower mocked and taught that recitation of prayers was bad, not explaining that the recitation was from the Psalms (the Jews, Catholics, and Orthodox use the Psalms as their official prayer and song book, have been doing so for thousands of years--compare that to the official song book of the Witnesses and who is making up the prayers offered at JW meetings), it is a wonder whose prayers and prayer system is actually more authoritative and makes more sense.
Therefore it is not that 'God is fickle on who God helps or ignores.' It is Witnesses and some ex-Witnesses who are still clinging to Watchtower indoctrination that still applies a paradigm of "God" being a type of "Santa Claus" system who only rewards who God wants and is stingy with others. We then blame God for not fitting our view when we forget that we might be holding on to a view that was given us from a cult to begin with.
It is far better that we strive to find practical ways to serve our neighbor, find what their real needs are and meet them than merely point people to prayer. All the talk about God in the world is useless compared to real action. There is no help in talking God when someone is left without what they truly need. Do something. God is the action you do, not in the belief or faith you have. Faith does not move mountains. Pushing moutains moves them.
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deegee
David_Jay,
It seems you and Terry are saying the same thing about prayer.
Terry:
It was around 1989 when I was lying in bed one night praying that I suddenly myself WOKE UP and realized the painful truth: I was just talking to myself.
