lindyhopper

Seems to me, Def. People get terribly disappointed and hurt regardless of who they put thier faith in. But that is the point right? To keep the faith, thru all the pain a nd disappointment? The difference between your faith and mine is that we can always blame people. They are not perfect. We know this from personal experience. But God on the other hand, we do not see. We believe that he is doing all right and is perfect, all knowing, everywhere present. We don't see him tripping as he walks down the street. Your faith is not only that he exists, but is in every attribute that makes him what he is. So you can not blame him. He (or we IMO) claims to be perfect and since you can not watch him perform his duties you must believe on him word only. Boy, if we did that with a human, we would be up **** creek real fast. So you need to hope and believe that you are right. My faith, on the other hand, takes into account that people are foulable, but knows from experience and from history the great and amazing things they can do. Greatness is always possible, so is horrible terror and pain. We can't see the future, don't know what a person will do, so I have faith in those unseen things, not naively though. I did not choose to grow up in TWI, and I hope I would not have chose to. But inspite of that, I was raised a good kid and live a great life as an adult outside of TWI. Go figure. Guess it was good to have faith in myself.

Actually, in the two senarios I just gave, it seems that between me and God, God is the one that is bitter.

I'm sorry Zix, I didn't think I was being an armchair lawyer, I just assumed you would understand what I was saying. My bad. I'll do that little syllogism for you. If one believes in Jesus Christ, one must believe in God. I don't believe in a god, but don't deny the possibility of one existing. Therefore, i don't believe in Jesus as the Christ, but don't deny that there is a chance that he could be. I add the caveat because I don't know what the future brings, and I don't know all of the past, but as of right now, I don't believe. I could be wrong. That is one difference between us, you can't. There, did you get pleasure out of that? Just curious. Seems like a strange request. Like I just did the opposite of Romans 10:9 and now I'm going to hell and all heaven can't stop me. lol Lets see who would look more pathetic, or more like an a$$. Me (Christian that no longer believes) on his deathbed and does not call upon God or Jesus to save me. OR God (all loving) sees me (son of God, gone astray) on my deathbed, and He leaves me there to die a miserable death all because I don't think he is really my Dad. Hmmm. Tough one. Call it bitter, call it what ever, your the one that posed the silly hypothetical. Good point, just in case, right? I think I remember that chapter and verse. Lets see what was it now? I've said it before. If there is a God, I would rather be judged by using the brain he/she/it gave me, than by the fear of being wrong (ie believing just in case). I think Jefferson said something similar. Besides if there is a god and he/she/it is all love and all knowing, and I am wrong, I'm sure it'll understand.

Your a character, Zix. You, being such a fan of logic and mathmatics, would know that we could just make a real simple syllogism to show that those that don't believe in a god would also not believe in Jesus as the Christ. Why you want people to publicly renounce Jesus Christ is beyond me. Accepting JC is a personal matter, so should not accepting, rejecting, whatever. Besides if the "once saved always saved" crowd is right, we don't need an "out", do we? As I have said many times, I don't believe in a god, but I don't deny the possiblity of one existing. Insert that into your syllogism, or anywhere else you please. :)-->

I'm sure for many different reasons. we crave answers we crave love we crave acceptance we crave comfort we crave surety life is hard life sucks life doesn't make sense because we can't really know I saw a piece on suicide bombers. When asked why they would do it (this was those that didn't or couldn't follow thru to completion), they didn't automatically say 71 virgins. They said they would get what ever they wanted in the next life, life would be happy and great there. "Here we don't have anything." Blowing yourself up for a better life is a pretty strong faith. Why that faith? Desperation, pain, suffering, in short, life sucks. For most people in the world life is hard and hope provides comfort and something to live for...or die for. Purpose. For me the best alternative is faith in oneself, your own ability, faith in others, and faith in life.

Actually, looking back I don't see anyone saying they "reject" Christianity as a result of thier terrible experiences while in twi. The only reasons i see have to do with general Christian concepts or the concept of the Christian god. Curious trend indeed.

Funny how that is, this being an ex-way site and all. --> I kind of expected a statement like that at some point, it usually is implied at some point. And twi not Christian? That is debatable. I guess you are a "true" Christian? Just because TWI was not the perfect picture of a loving orginization, does not make our decision to disassociate ourselves with Christianity illegitimate. No more than your decision to run to a more loving accepting christian group. My reason, as you may have noticed, had little to do with Christianity specifically and more to do with faith in general.

For me it was a number of things over time and I don't think I can put my finger on the exact event or idea or sequence of thoughts that brought me to the point of saying Christianity wasn't for me. To be honest it isn't really that Christianity isn't for me, just that believing absolutely in a god isn't for me. I think there are many positives to Christianity as there are with many religions as there are in many sciences as there are in driving your automobile. There are also many negative things about everything. I think perhaps one of the beginning points for me was while sitting thru one of the foundational classes, for the millionth. "The Integrity of the Word" was at the foundation of it all. Without knowing its integrity, we could not go any further. Well, the answer always started with something like, "well let's see what it says about itself." I began to imagine the size of the bookcase I would need to hold all the writings that claimed to be "revelation", "god-breathed", "the will of god", etc... Would my floor joists be able to hold it's weight? As much as twi wanted to deny the idea of typical religious blind faith, they were stuck with it all us believers were. My problem was, I couldn't base my life on blind faith. Outside of blind faith I realised that people have experiences that they believe prove thier god's existence. I didn't have that either. Everything that had happened to me that could be constued as "God in action", could also have an alternate explaination. I fell back on SIT for a long time. This was all while I was still in twi. I've (we've) all been thru that discussion at length many times, IMO, my many questions were never answered. (look it up, dear) Since my departure, lol, I have come to see a number of common human elements as well as commonality in religion. There are also many differences. It would take too much time and space to list these things and couldn't possibly do justice to either group. In short, we like to belong. We like to be right. We like to have definition/classification/answers. I find that these things can be found in everything and in nothing. I have also found that we can be left wanting and longing in everything and in nothing. So, instead of classifying myself by a religion or by what I think i know, I don't. I just look at the world (it's religions, it's science, and it's fine automobiles) and learn what I can, take what I like, and keep that learnin' I received from the things I don't. I call myself agnostic because I realise that I don't know much and the things I think I know don't lead to a god and they don't lead to things absolute. So I guess you could say I have classified myself. It is hard not to when trying to converse about these topics. I am still fascinated by the idea and the belief in gods. So I discuss it with believers and non alike. Progress is slow but I feel the answers are relatively simple. Form these conversations I have found that the Pope would say I am a Christian, regardless of my lack of belief. He would say this based on my life and my actions. Like I said I think there is a lot of good in it, I take that good and apply it without a sense of superiority and without guilt when I don't.

I would also like to answer sky's question of, This comes up quite frequently when these topics arise, although, I don't think Oak is questioning the existence of a peticular god. I would ask this. Am I any less worthy than Paul? Am I any less needy of proof? I would say that if God or Jesus or God-Jesus were to stop me on the road somewhere and audibly speak to me and blind me and then have a stranger or rather one one I would normally hate come over and heal me miraculously, I think I would believe. I haven't even killed any Christains. And I think that if God did that to me I could do a lot of good for God. Contrary to what you or many may think, agnostics and atheists for the most part wouldn't be dead set against that kind of proof in there personal life just because they don't like the idea of God. It's not like that. I don't know about you, but I know in my Christain experience i heard this plenty, just insert "Bible" were you have Koran. "It's full of contradictions and it repeats itself a lot, old traditions that dn't apply today, etc etc." How about how the teachings of Moses are basically plagerized from Hammerabi's Stele. Ever heard that one. In fact many texts of world religions bare many similarities. But somehow just because the Bible tells of a historical figure that is raised from the dead, eternally, makes it the most credible text? How does that make sense? I think mabe you have discounted Islam too quickly. For by your own words, you need to believe first and then see and besides, why get all hung up on doctrine. Right? Actually, what you refer to as "Christ himself" was much less than secondhand information. The gospels are believed by scholars to have been written hundreds of years after Jesus's death. And the Epistles were written or dictated by a second hand believer and one that the apostles questioned at first and later turned away from. Paul's "revelation" is only supported by Paul himself. The same can be said of the God of the Bible. "There is no other god before me" Who can validate that outside of "the one true God", right? The Bible speaks of other gods like Baal and the Devil, but they are evil, of course. Why? because the one true God said they are. Oh, OK, easy enough. I'm not trying to be patronizing, by the way, just trying to make my point clear. I would say that perhaps you shouldn't discount other religions too quickly, unless your have already chosen to believe first, and then put a fraction of the amount of time you have devoted to the Bible into thier text(s) and still come up wanting.

Not to be totally typical by posting definitions, but I think it is rather important to this arguement. While we typically use this word in the sense of definition (1b), a skeptic might notice how hard it may be for a true believer to even consider thier "proof" as something that is "only in thier mind". It goes against thier belief system. For it to be "proof" to them, it must be truth beyond thier own five sences or cognitive abilities. (I'm not refering to all believers here, but most in my subjectiveexperience) THe word objective is not as clear in this respect either. The skeptic again can see that by definition alone the true believer will again see thier "proof" as objective, actually existing in reality, and uninfluenced by emotions or person bias. While we usually refer to it here in terms of definition (3b) or (4). To think that thier proof is biased or that it is based largely on emotion or outside of existence, directly threatens thier reality. There, this is the end of my stereotypical exwafer hyper-semantic post. or at least one of them. ;)--> editing? Y ask Y

Right on, Chas. I do wonder if LCM is still running things to a certain extent. Some may remember the tape they played when he confessed to his adultery. He said he would still remain involved in the day to day but Rosie would be the new Pres. and that position was being re-defined. A thoughtful gal at our meeting asked if this was not just a way of changing titles for political and legal reasons. They said it wasn't, but as LCM said that no man could take away the calling of God. (or something like that) Remember, that He was not demoted untill things were going public. His acitons were known years before and all he got was a slap on the wrist from the cabinet "leaders". Then it wasn't until droves of people were leaving the ministry that his new title (head of research) and his corps status and his cushy chalet were stripped form him. I know in my area people were ready to forgive and forget and I don't doubt that many at HQ were ready to do the same. He was worshiped as the MOG. Perhaps as much or more than people worshiped VPW. So, I wouldn't doubt that he still has his hand in the fix somewhere. IMO of course.

JT, I am pretty sure I have seen DM on thw Way Mag recently at my P's house. I also think I have heard them say something about her teaching on STS hook ups. I might be wrong but I think it is true.

Hi Tonto, I was around 12 to 13 yrs old. I had a younger brother that must have been around 3 to 5. I also had an older brother that was Junior Corpes and he was about 15 to 17ish. You can PT me as well, if you like. You to Karmi. I don't know if we have ever spoke about this. I know others have mentioned you were F12 in the Chat room. Unfortunately, I am the only one "out" in our family....but the air sure is clear out here. :)-->

Mr. Razorblade? The music begins to play, then they start snapping, then the dancing..... Oh God, not the dancing! *****! your thread has lost its humour and turned into a censored version of Westside Story! What the ****?

Steve!, I think you left out a few options and a few choice words.

Hey dirty Tonto, I was F12. Mini/junior Corpes.

Interesting. I have never heard about this stuff.

Of course it is, OM. But, many times people in controling situations can't see the forest thru the trees. It isn't untill they reach a clearing that they can turn around, take a step back and realise how lost they were. It is in that clearing where many realise that they didn't really know what happiness and satisfaction actually feels like.

Well, first, as usual, it "proves" nothing. Just so we're clear. It makes it a possible answer, but not proof. And for that matter, when we look at things scientific, and I mean anything scientific, it is most reliable when it is published in a reputable scientific journal. The studies published in these journals have been given a peer review to filter out the hogwash. Now some "scientists" think they are right in spite of the peer review and publish elsewhere. That in mind, many reputable and unreputable are repeated numerous times so that we won't be fooled into thinking things are proved by one person. For that matter, things scientific are not usually proved. Thankfully, this sort of thing is taught in almost all colleges these days, even in communitee colleges. So, Bible fans, don't be duped by the words "study" or "clinical trial". You need to dig deeper to find out whether an idea is one you can hang your hat on.

Chuck you may have scared off more possible CES coverts just by your endorsement. ;)--> OM, I know way too many people who would say this about the current state of twi.

Great post Satori. highlights... This would be great for everyone to do, but most won't ever try. My journey in this area started after years of not "winning" one person to da ministry. I couldn't figure out why someone who never believed in God would suddenly believe. Escecially if we were supposed to believe first and then see. never thought of it quite that way, but WOW, how true. "You can only go as far as you've been taught" was repeated like a broken record. I just heard the remix while reading "Can I trust the Bible". The first paragraph says it all. Four million robots can't be wrong. Genius! I totally see this as I talk with innie family. It is sad and hard to deal with their reality. A 2D reality, like looking at a culpture and only seeing a charcoal drawing on paper. One-sided. Gotta go. Are you still standing, John?

Right, Def, something like that. Late 90's is what I remember. LCM said that eternal damnation was a fantasy of the adversay and his realm. It would not be godly to toment eternaly. The devil would be allowed to consume himself and all his spirits and all us infidels. That is what he said was refered to as the "second death".

LMAO Sudo!

I never heard that thsught or mentioned either, Belle and Smurfette. But knowing the different wacked out things leaders in different areas have said, it wouldn't suprise me. Actually, I was discoursged as an adult from getting too close to an "unbeliever", but I did anyway. In hind-sight....it was the best thing I ever did. Yea for me!

Well, Oak, if Zix is telling truth....apparently Rocky thinks so. :o--> Of course, Rocky can't confirm.