up...........
back to basics
by cnn77 41 Replies latest jw friends
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Black Man
Pushing this up..........
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Francois
God makes a whole lot more sense if we could get rid of some of the more ridiculous notions that have been invented by people wearing funny hats over the millinea. Chief among there are:
Original sin, which led to the
Antonement doctrine, which led to the
Ranson sacrifice, which led to
All manner of foolishness, especially that craziness about the nature of a God who would dream up all the above nonsense.Think how simple an approach to the spirit and spirituality would be absent these things, these primitive teachings left over from a time when the collective IQ of the entire human race was about 12.
It's time we abandonded these nutty notions.
Francois
Where it is a duty to worship the Sun you can be sure that a study of the laws of heat is a crime.
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circe
God makes a whole lot more sense if we could get rid of some of the more ridiculous notions that have been invented by people wearing funny hats over the millinea. ... Think how simple an approach to the spirit and spirituality would be absent these things, these primitive teachings left over from a time when the collective IQ of the entire human race was about 12.
Exactly!
The Bible is simply a collection of various writings by persons who were trying to figure out (and explain) the meaning of life and what the future holds. As an attempt I don't find it very enlightening.
It makes more sense than other religious writings, but not by much.
Contemplating a Creator from a perspective in which no "holy" books are involved has been incredibly liberating. Right now I'm studying cosmology and quantum physics. WOW! The picture of God I get from such studies is definitely not the anthropomorphized, petty, judgemental, illogical twit that the Bible describes.
Leaving the Bible behind does NOT mean leaving off a belief in God. Actually, for me, leaving the Bible behind has allowed me to believe again.
circe
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Farkel
cnn77,
I see that AlanF has already commented on the subject of the ransom. In order for the ransom theory to work, the concept of "original sin" must also work, so we must deal with that issue first.
In September, 2000 I wrote "Original Sin For Dummies" based upon an essay of AlanF's. Here it is again. I will see if I can dig up the follow-up on the ransom doctrine itself. But remember, the ransom doctrine means nothing without the original sin doctrine.
Original Sin For Dummies
Here's a hackneyed summary of some of A.F.s key points from his Essay on "God's Justice --Sin, Imperfection, and the Ransom Sacrifice."
The Bible expects us to take as a given that sin (and thus misery, wickedness and death) came to all of us from one man. (Romans 5:12) Thus, according to the Bible, sin is "inherited." How do we inherit stuff? By means of genes, fellow dum*ies. Therefore, man's genes somehow became screwed up from the time of Adam's sin forward.
So, who actually screwed up man's genes? While Adam did the sinning, it would have to be God who altered his genes. There is no other explanation. He either did it directly, or indirectly by having Adam made with some sort of "mechanism" that would automatically screw up Adam's genes as soon as he sinned. If the latter is true, then Adam's body had a designed-in "booby trap" from the very beginning, waiting to trigger the moment Adam sinned. Since there can be no other conclusions, is was GOD who is DIRECTLY reponsible for mankind's inherited sinfullness and all its effects. God himself screwed up the genes and the screwed up genes are what gives us "inherited" sinfullness.
Of course, the standard argument Christians use is that "Adam had free will. He didn't HAVE to disobey God and therefore sin. It was his OWN FAULT." Fine and dandy, but why did hundreds of generations of children have to suffer as a result? Remember, it's the GENES, dummy, and God changed them. God could have easily waited to mess up the genes of the first couple until AFTER they had children. Then he could have messed up that couple's genes and let them die, while letting their children be perfect, and able to be tested on a par with the test Adam and Eve had to take. But he didn't do that? Why didn't he do that? Where is the righteousness and fairness in the way it was handled?
"The soul that is sinning--it itself will die. A son himself will bear nothing because of the error of the father, and a father himself will bear nothing because of the error of the son. Upon his own self the very righteousness of the righteous one will come to be, and upon his own self the very wickedness of a wicked one will come to be." - Ezekiel 18:20
This verse seems reasonable enough, except it is an OUTRIGHT LIE and what God did to Adam and Eve which was passed along to the rest of us, proves it is a lie.
If God did not want us to ever disobey Him, he could have easily made us incapable of doing so. "Oh, but then we wouldn't have 'free will,'" some will say. Would you hear anyone complain if God said, "I'm gonna give you all the free will in the world, with one exception. In order to insure that you live in perfect health for ever and ever, I'm going to make you in incapable of disobeying my commands. But take heart, my commands are always perfect and just and ALWAYS in your best interests." Do you think someone would raise their hand and say, "But God I OBJECT! I WANT to be able to screw up and disobey your perfect and just commands which are always in my best interests, and then be made miserable, and then get sick and die and rot? I WANT the opportunity to have my wife be miserable when she's bearing children and I WANT to work by the sweat of my brow and have weeds grow all over the place." I don't think so. Anyway, if such a jerk did make such a demand, I'm sure God could have easily made an exception in that case. After all, he wants us to be HAPPY, doesn't he?
Adam and Eve were total dorks. Here they were absolutely perfect with every thing handed to them on a silver platter, and they had the most dorky little test to pass: don't eat fruit from only ONE tree. Tests to determine an eternity of blissful living don't get much simpler than that, folks. And they blew it.
But what about US? We're born with "inherited" sinful tendences and all sorts of other problems and infirmities, so what does God in his infinite mercy do to mitigate matters for us since we had NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CONDITION? He gives us TONS of tests that are infinitely harder to pass than the ones the first two dorks had to pass! He gives us birth defects, vision problems, rotting teeth, poor hearts, livers, kidneys and general human misery. And what's he going to do if we don't pass these tons of tests? He's going to KILL us, that's what.
Why didn't God just forgive Adam and Eve or maybe give them a nasty case of diarrhea for a few weeks as punishment? The standard explanation is "oh, no, he couldn't do that! God's justice is PERFECT, and he would look like a liar if he did that?" Want my answer to that one? If God is so smart, why did he open his yapper in the first place and state he would kill Adam and Eve if they ate a piece of fruit? Why didn't he think to himself, "You know, there is a distinct possibility that this couple could end up being a couple of dorks and eat of that fruit. Maybe I should anticipate that and use a little restraint on my punishments until they wise up." NO! He didn't think that way! He had to jump in there and announce the worst conceivable punishment possible. Then, to save face he had to screw us all up for the mess that he could have easily prevented in the first place.
Why didn't God just kill Adam and Eve and be done with it? The standard explanation is, "Well then we wouldn't be here today, would we?" SO WHAT? We wouldn't know the difference that we wouldn't be here, so it wouldn't be any skin off of our backs. I had no problem with non-existence before I existed. Did you?
If God would have killed Adam and Eve and made another couple, perhaps the other couple would have passed the tests, and everything would be just fine today. God may even have had to do this several times until he had himself a couple who wised up. If God would have shown some home movies of what happened to the couples before them, I think eventually a couple would have got a clue about what not to do. Did he do that? NO!
God screwed up things for everyone, when he could have easily not done so. As a result of his own screw-up he had to wipe out the entire planet save for Noah and family and allow and personally do a whole bunch more killing over the generations.
But he came up with a plan to get himself and all of us out of the mess he got us into in the first place: he would kill his son.
But that's the subject of another story...
Farkel
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Quester
Wow! Great thread.
The ransom is something I've been struggling with
for a long time. Getting his son tortured to death
was God's plan for saving us?! And I'm supposed to
feel good about that? That is suppose to show God's
love for us? Doesn't make any sense to me.Mulan, you brought up some very good questions.
I am saving all the posts to read offline.
Here are some clues about the ransom doctrine
that I am currently researching.1. Adam and Eve as myth--by "myth" I mean not literal.
2. There are several different atonement theories, not just
the one we all know about.3. Jesus as sacrifice is a metaphor, not literal.
Just like "Jesus is the lamb." We all know that is not literal,
but is symbolic. Jesus is not literally a sheep. So what
could it mean that Jesus is a sacrifice? What did Jesus
accomplish?Also, I recommend the book:
"Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time",
by Marcus Borg.Quester
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cnn77
To all of you on here,
Thanks very much for the responses. Many of you have eloquent ways with words and I am relieved to see that many of you have thought long and hard about this issue. It is a very discouraging issue and I am not sure that everyone (although it is very obvious some of you guys have realized it) has realized or thought about the impact of the issue.
Farkel - you said it well....Before one even thinks about the issue of the ransom one has to come to terms with and understand the "fall of man". The fall of man and the way "free will" is explained is totally illogical. Knowing that God made all the rules makes it hard for one to accept that things could have been like they are as a result of the simplistic explanation we all have to swallow.
Ask any parent if they would risk the life of one of their children by betting on the behaviour of someone else. We are told that God can exercise for knowledge but chose not to in the case of Adam and Eve. Well, was that flawed judgement by NOT using this power back then? for now let's assume that God did not exercise his abilities of foreknowledge though - the next question is: Did he think about the consequences of what would happen if Adam did sin? That I just can't buy!! He must have thought about it. He must have known that he was essentially "betting" the life of Jesus on the behavious of Adam and Eve!! I just cannot come to terms how that can be true. What was the upside? the probabilities in that situation seem as if all they carried was downside risk - and a terrible one at that.
Thinking on this issue is what has caused me to start "falling away". I sat in the memorial this year and everyone was saying how grateful they are and how it is such a loving arrangement and I just sat their feeling like a reject. I felt terrible because I had no appreciation for the ransom. I felt like I was the only one seeing the naked emperor prancing up and down and everyone else was admiring his wardrobe.
But then I came here and discovered all you other problem chidlren!!
Any idea why when one explains this issue to most JWS and other Christians they just don't get it? It is almost as though they get are in a trance and don't have any idea what you are saying...perhaps I have been blinded by the light of the Devil.
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Carmel
CNN,
Me thinks you are being too hard on yourself for activating your brain cells! Now that you are aware that you can challenge the idea that the sand box is not the whole world, you have already set out on a journey of liberating yourself from the many myths of antiquity that anchor and control you. No red guy with forked tail out there controling your mind. You are in control! Love it!
Hope you stick around and keep sharing.
Carmel
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Francois
AlanF: You said, "According to this, it was God who received the "ransom payment". So if God could demand a ransom payment, he could equally well not demand it. What standard (if you can call it that) aside from God's arbitrary demand dictated what was paid to who?"
And in that you perfectly illustrate a point made on this site before about the atonement doctrine: The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of God - it presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration of that shameful doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God.
Great work.
Where it is a duty to worship the Sun you can be sure that a study of the laws of heat is a crime.
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Black Man
up.....