Gumby,
I've noticed from a few of your posts that you seem to be in a bit of a culture shock here on this board. Good. Nothing like expanding your thinking a bit to really do some intellectual and spiritual growing. You remind many of us of where we were in past years as we tried to make sense of leaving the WTS.
Personally, I'd lost my belief in the Bible shortly after I lost my faith in the Witnesses, all of which happened in the late 90's as I was slowing down and eventually stopping all my participation with my congregation. It was around the time I discovered the Internet, but long before I came here.
I became agnostic/atheist through a long process of study and research and reading that is still going on. Discussions here on this board and at H2O were by no means the main source of that change in belief. It did always seem though that the true believers couldn't begin to hold their own against the atheists.
Take Erich for example, or RR or some of the other fundamentalists or JWs who post here. They rehash the same arguments, have their reasoning just obliterated time and again, and then resort to insults and threats from their gods. I've watched it happen over and over for the past four years. That was a big factor in helping me see that these believing folks had nothing to offer me.
You see, I WANTED to continue believing. It's so much EASIER that way. But I found that even the best thinking fundamentalists and literal Bible believers on these boards were just like the elders who failed to convince me not to leave the Witnesses. They just presented the same sad arguments and reasoning, and when that failed (because I'd aleady used those ideas myself for years as a JW elder - and knew how full of holes they were), they would resort to the old, subtle threat of "well, Jehovah will judge which one of us is right in the end."
I also wrote about this on an earlier post with Ilong4truth (something like that!). I'll quote my response there, which may be of some help to you:
"The second way to go (after leaving the Witnesses) is a genuine transformation of consciousness, a radical step up in your world-view. It doesn't mean totally rejecting all that you believe now, but it does require recognizing its limitations and expanding your thinking beyond them. I'm afraid that fundamental and literal religion, especially fundamental Christianity, will have to be shed if you're going to take that step.
Or you can merely seek a new translation of the same level of consciousness that you had as a Witness. That seems to be what RR and some of these others are offering you. The same deadend fundamentalism.
A genuine spiritual transformation will require that you grow up though. Whining about what terrible times we live in and how powerless we are and how we need the Big Daddy God to come and make everything right for us are the hallmarks of the low tier of consciousness where JWs and fundamentalists of all stripes find themselves stuck. It feels like it's a safe place to be because it presents the world in such black and white terms, and sees that higher power out there somewhere who will fix it all for us as long as we all obey the rules and rigidly follow the code.
It's essentially a literal interpretation of myths that were meant to be understood as metaphor.
A genuine integral transformation will bring you into a much more complex world, one filled with all the colors and not just black and white. It will require that you stand on your own two feet, that you stop whining, and that you face a world that is both wonderful and tragic with great personal courage and integrity."
I think that explains why many who leave the Witnesses have become agnostic or atheistic in thinking. It's not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it's not "throwing God or the Bible out the window" as you worried about in your post here. It's acutally a growth in spirituality, moving up to a higher level of consciousness in your worldview. It's not a loss, it's moving ahead. It's not getting worse, it's getting better.
It's moving beyond that low tier of spirituality that is mired in ancient superstitions and a mindless biblical literalism. Aren't you tired of living in the world of "grumpy old gods?" Don't be worried that your family will expand their thinking by coming to this website, be concerned that you seem to be stuck in the same old place.
I really do hope you continue to think and grow, Gumby. And lose that fear of new ideas or ways of looking at the world - it's not helping you.
S4
