Pwp,
Thanks for telling your story. I recognized much of the outline of my own journey in your writing. It is not a dark world without religion. Not at all.
Maeve
humbled
JoinedPosts by humbled
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My Story: from JW Elder to Born Again Christian to Agnostic
by passwordprotected ini first posted here on 3rd june 2008. at the time i was an elder, appointed the previous october, i was 36 and i was a born-in.
at the time i'd become disillusioned with the society due to the governing body's letter explaining why the book study in private homes was being abolished.
april 2008 saw me start questioning this decision, privately of course, and this eventually led me to this site, to jwfacts and to many youtube videos, all of which began to errode my faith in the leaders of the organisation.. in july 2008, having discussed my doubts with my wife, i attended the district convention, deciding to give the society one last chance to convince me it was the truth.
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An important message from a PRACTICING Jehovah's witness
by Sparks inhi, i am also a practicing jehovah's witness and very proud of it,to say the very-very least..!
i am a middle-aged man with many decades of being a witness of jehovah god in england.. this important letter is personally to you, just as many of the bible's 88 letters are to be taken personal by you the reader.
i am writing to you to urge you to take stock of your life, think what your future holds for you.
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humbled
You are one of Jehovah's Witnesses? You have no idea what you are talking about.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
PSacramento--
The God-of-the-Bible has always been mute about the purpose of suffering so there can be no understanding it as a Christian.
Not that there aren't plenty of people who try to speak for god--but it falls flat every time.
The only attempt to address this question directly in the bible: Job asks God why suffering was laid on him--himself a righteous man. Job's friends say why God allowed him to suffered. Job didn't buy it. Job never learned anything why he suffered--just this: "God is god, like it or not"
Still, apologists and theologians put words in god's mouth to make up for His silence. Even Jesus tried hard to show a friendlier face to sufferers. He may have had the same questions many of us have. But it is undeniable that 'My God, my God , why have you forsaken me?" is part of his story after all.
That said, PSac, I do use Jesus as my model of a human reaching out to other humans who suffer. Without the dubious overlays of doctrines, he showed me how to think about and treat others in this world. But he is no more and no less a savior than you or I should be--as in the story told of the Good Samaritan. So I respect Jesus profoundly but I have no reason to believe God took care of Jesus or God will take care of me.
Defender of truth--I will as best I can tell her of your compassion for her loss. And i am sorry for yours as well. It is not strange that we have a some sense of connection in times of loss--it is worth our time to stop and say the simple words, I am sorry for your loss. even if there is nothing more to say.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
What if a person cannot enjoy their life?--great question.
On my way to my doctor's I stopped to see my friend who is living this question.
Not three weeks past her 18 year old son was obliterated in a car crash. Alcohol involved.
She has other children, but there is much about this son's death that has shaken her in a fundamental way. She asks: what is the reason to live? Why did I have children?
We have talked before about faith, religion. She was/is uncertain of God's role in life while I told her that I have left my old christian theologies, only accepting that "Love is God" plus the Golden Rule. Later she and I shared the burden of tending to her chickens after a dog attack. Thus the thoughts between us of life, suffering and death had a more practical yet emotional context. Yet, when her 5 year old asked me what I was doing with three badly injured birds and an ax, she uncomfortably interjected a gloss, an obfuscation. She was not comfortable telling him what was occuring and why.
I asked her if I could answer her boy, he being smart, having asked for a real answer. She allowed me to tell him why I was doing a kindness for the birds while the dog's actions were not.
She is struggling to grasp a real answer for living--and not just for herself. To know why life has meaning is a wide open question to her children now. Her one son is gone and her own mother's comment that God perhaps (mercifully) spared him a future agony by an early demise has not satisfied her. Her son is beyond her reach under the ground, she says. He left before she did. Too young.
She says "I have to go on or else I have to die. One or the other." But she has lost her joy and sense of purpose.
All I can say is this: And we know there is death from early on. Her son, from a letter she found in his effects, clearly wanted good for his mother. For his mother never to laugh again -- this would be no monument to him that he would want. he did not want his younger brothers and sisters to have his mother's joy die entirely with him. Yet--- If her laughter is forever changed--well, that is the work of suffering. That laughter changes. But to be stopped forever?
I do not think so.
We all must help each other here. this is where we help and love one another.
We do need to help each other--every chance we get.
Just my thoughts.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
Something really wonderful there is in seeing beauty for what it is: Letting the sight of a baby, new-born come out of your body fill you with tears. Letting the stars on a dark night after a snow only bring you joy. Having the smell of your man's sweat fill you with gratitude for his being there, working hard by your side.
If these things are fleeting, if they are moments so trivial because we die, so what? We give a man condemned to death a last meal of his choice and this is most absurd.
That we will die is certain. But we still seek--and often find--joy in living.
I used to worry that to give up my last shred of belief in God's existence would make my world hollow. But believing in God did not add to these ordinary yet wonderful moments--not at all. Especially when I understood that, by a caprice I could not understand, He might destroy these simple pleasures--as a part of His Grand Plan for my personal improvement???
Various human societies describe the very practical Golden Rule. It still is the core teaching in christianity. God holds Christians to it. The bible says so. But God Himself does not operate on that basis. He has power, justice, knowledge and love we were told. Yet He has no consistency. He is above the Golden Rule.
The Book of Job calls God out on this--and there is no answer.
It seems likely that there is no God.
and still I am glad I am alive--
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Post some niceness ! There is too much negativity in the world.
by new hope and happiness inso here we are on a niceness thread talking about nice things.. yesterday a very pretty girl left her mobile behind at the computer in the libary, i returned it to her and she gave me a hug.
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humbled
Guineas are a wild sort of bird. They sort of take care of themselves. But sometimes they need a little help.
An owl killed my male guinea and one hen this spring. I quickly purchased more baby guineas but the male would not be serviceable this season. Nevertheless, the remaining two guinea hens dutifully and secretly laid eggs to set when the days got long --but without a male their eggs were not fertile.
I knew that hey were in for a long and futile effort--
After a few weeks, I found one nester and replaced her eggs with a half dozen fertile chicken eggs so her faithfulness would result in something. Then I found the other's nest a week later. So I robbed a few eggs back from the first guinea to slip under the other worn out girl--they would be liberated on the same day!
A bit later, I saw Guinea One wandering about in a confused state. Something had eaten her eggs. Poor thing so near to her hatch!
But guinea two went on and--on the day appointed for chickens to hatch(21 days) I sneaked up to her nest
And a bit of white cheeping fluff eye-balled me from her breast---and then another peered out.
In no time at all her ugly raucous voice was warning dog, cat, and any other trespassers to clear out from her babies! But however fierce she was with other creatures she eventually accepted her barren sister into her family.
Now they are wandering up and down the yard and the garden rows with pride and purpose. The chicks have got some real gams on them for sure-- ruggedly keeping up with their wild mama and loving aunty.
O, Life!
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
When there is suffering without understanding--what is that?
Does that one who is not properly educated by religion and who suffers a searingly painful, prolonged and violent end---do they approach godhood?
When a dog tore up my neighbor's chickens, she asked me to help her. The ones who had no prospect of survival, I dispatched for her as quickly and gently as I could. Only the ones that were likely to live and be "happy" were treated and nursed toward recovery. There was no good in letting the terribly injured ones go through suffering.
You assume, PSac, that there is a full recovery for all sufferers? All suffering makes us candidates for godhood?
But the bible does not agree with this model.
Maeve
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Hey There, so...what have I missed in the last couple of years?
by PSacramento inhi everyone,.
so...what have i missed in the last couple of years?.
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humbled
Did any of your theology teachers NOT believe in God?
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Hey There, so...what have I missed in the last couple of years?
by PSacramento inhi everyone,.
so...what have i missed in the last couple of years?.
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humbled
Hello, PSacramento!
I was formerly the poster"Not a Captive" when you were posting before.
There is so much that has gone on here. But for me the most important event of recent times was a tough thread that went on this past winter. It had a winnowing effect on many. In fact it was just bumped an hour ago. In my opinion, it is a must-read if you are serious about living an authentic life. It is a epic conversation and a rare examination of Christian Theism: "The Pastor of My Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday".
Good to see you.
Maeve
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humbled
Job was not an Israelite/Jew.