Proof There is No Jehovah

by new light 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Flash

  If god answers prayers, we automatically do not all have free will. If we do all truly have free will, god can't answer our prayers because doing so would be interference with our freedom, not so much with the receiver, but the person who is unknowingly moved to grant the request, assuming the prayer was for something physically tangible.

  Excellant question New Light...deep

  I believe that at some level we are agreeable with the new direction when God acts on us to change our course even though the idea is not from our own origination. So our free will is not over ruled or canceled out but worked with and used in a positive way to work out His plan.
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  new light

  What a bunch of great responses! Definitely food for thought.
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  avengers

  Here's the Divine Plan. The Trinity is true after all.
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  Sirona

  What if you couldn't afford to feed your children, pray to god for help, and a bag of groceries appears on your doorstep, courtesy of a good friend. If god did answer your prayer here, he implanted the thought into your friend's head to buy the food. Therefore, your friend's free will, free mind was indeed tampered with.

  NL,

  I think that God can communicate with us on a subconscious level. BUT I don't believe in the biblical idea of God as the great vending machine in the sky.

  There are energies at work in the universe and everything we do has an effect upon them. We can bend and shape these energies, but only within certain contraints. I believe we get permission on a spiritual level from individuals, and that perhaps in this scenario God gets our permission.

  For instance if we were to tamper with something that involved a person's choice (e.g. we attempt a spiritual healing on them) then we have to ask for the persons verbal permission. If the person is comatose, however, or somehow unable to give permission, we seek a spiritual permission. The latter is of course most often avoided, because we don't have the skills yet to be 100% accurate as to the answer. In that case, healing energy can be sent with the attached premise that if the person doesn't want it, it will be put to use elsewhere.

  Sirona
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  rocketman

  BUT I don't believe in the biblical idea of God as the great vending machine in the sky.

  Gee, thanks for bursting my bubble Sirona......I was about to ask God for a Hershey bar.

  Anyway, though I hardly pray, I'll take a stab at this topic. I'd imagine that, since prayer usually involves asking God for some type of intervention on some level (not counting prayers that simply give thanks), we are in effect suspending our own free will in the matter because we've turned the matter over to him, to his providence one might say.

  I guess it might be likened to having a problem at work and going to the boss about it. Once we do, the boss's opinion now becomes a factor and usually then supersedes our own. We've handed the matter over, and along with it, some if not all of the choices on a possible course of action.

  When a jw or most other Christians for that matter give their lives over to the service of God, the expression is often used that they are doing his will and that they are letting him now decide what's best for them. It's their choice to do that, which is an act of free will in itself (putting aside for now whether most jws are in fact pressured into making such a choice), but one in which they seem to be invoking God's will on their future life course and decision-making, hence surrendering to a degree their own free will in favor of God's will.
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  got my forty homey?

  Who is this "Jehovah"?

  Scrub him and bring him to my tent!
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  new light

  When a jw or most other Christians for that matter give their lives over to the service of God, the expression is often used that they are doing his will and that they are letting him now decide what's best for them. It's their choice to do that, which is an act of free will in itself (putting aside for now whether most jws are in fact pressured into making such a choice), but one in which they seem to be invoking God's will on their future life course and decision-making, hence surrendering to a degree their own free will in favor of God's will.

  Well said, Rocketman. I must contend, though, that the agents supposedly used to grant the request are being pawned. That interviewer that

  gives you the job or the vet that saves your dog's life are unknowingly being manipulated, even though they may not gave handed their lives

  over to god. Where is their free will?
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  rocketman

  Good point New Light.

  For example, God supposedly used Nebuchadnezzar to discipline Israel in 607 587 BC. Apparently, Nebby was on board for this and more than willing to conquer Israel.

  But let's say that Nebby had no such inclination. Would God have still "used" him, or someone else?

  Another example, going back to that illustration I used about an employee and boss. Let's say the employee goes to the boss and the boss agrees to try solving the issue. Let's say though that this issue somehow must involve another emplyee to implement the new course of action. The boss tells the other employee that he must do it. That employee has no choice in the matter and is not acting out of free will. On the other hand, one might argue that employees choose to work and hence know beforehand that they may be asked to do things they don't necessarily choose to do.

  Maybe God, as universal shot-caller, reserves the right to use anyone he wants to do anything he pleases. Since God is supposedly good, his doing this would not cause lasting harm to anyone whom he enlists as his gopher.
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  boa

  Additional thoughts on 'free will' (not free willy k lol) regarding that oh so egocentric desire of humans to be the masters of their own destinies.

  I've always had a hard time understanding free will without accurately knowing the nature of time and God's possible omniscience. I don't believe for a second the wts 'selective' omniscience as described in the Insight books under Foreknowledge (?). Too complicated and too full of holes you could drive a truck through.

  It is difficult to believe that God is confined to a linear timeline with all us earthlings and the whole universe as we apparently see it now.

  If God has omniscience, and, we are in a linear time line, the whole free will arguement would seem moot, and in the end I really couldn't care less if all my life and future decisions are already mapped out... the bottom line for me is that the illusion of free will is darn good enough.

  boa's briefest .02
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  Quotes

  Here's more proof:
  
  The proof is accurate, concise, and irrefutable.
  
  And God can't stop me from posting this proof here on the board either, because if