Do you have the hope of going to heaven

[JehovahsWitness]

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I do not have a hope of going to heaven (when I speak of "heaven" I mean the spiritual abode/realm where God lives).

- Do you personally entertain the hope of going to heaven to spend eternity with God when you die? (if this question is too personal I respect if you do not want to share this information)

- If so, do you believe such a literal spiritual realm exists?

- Do you believe that Jesus is presently in heaven where God exists?



* My question is for people that do believe that a God exists, since I presume that those that do not believe in God do believe he exists anywhere and therefore there is no "heaven" where God is.

[onewithhim]

(IDOL: "An image or anything used as an object of worship in place of the true God."

Crosses and effigies of Jesus are not objects of worship in place of a true god. Unless of course someone is praying to them, thinking that those objects ARE God.

IDOLATRY: "Strictly speaking, denotes the worship of deity in a visible form, whether the images to which homage is paid are symbolical representations of the true God or of the false divinities which have been made the objects of worship in His stead.")

Praying to Jesus is
1) Not praying to a deity in visible form.
2) Not considered a symbolic representation of Jehovah.
3) Is not necessarily the focus of ones prayer or worship.
4) Usually an attempt to pray to Jehovah.

You haven't answered my question: "Then why make images AT ALL to USE in worship, even if you are not praying directly TO it?"

[OnceConvinced]

Being able to do supernatural things is not he same as being a supernatural being. Some people can levitate. That doesn't mean they are supernatural beings, only that they have access to supernatural powers.

Well until its proven that Santa Claus was not a supernatural being we can't go anywhere with this.

I don't know what you prayed for.

I prayed for wisdom, strength and faith. I prayed for others - that God may touch them, heal them and save them. I prayed that starving children would be fed. I prayed for a lot of things that Christians generally pray for. Hundreds and hundreds of things.

Did you give up because you didn't get the answer you wanted or didn't recognize the answer was from God? Did you not like the silence in between?

I gave up praying for many reasons. You can see my list for that.

If God is incapable of getting messages to me, then that shows him to be a rather incompetent and impotent god.

Please remember there is a promise in the bible. Knock and it shall be opened. Seek and ye shall find. That promise... that assurance from God proved to be false.

As I said, I don't know the circumstances of your journey but you could have unwittingly put up a barrier.

Which God could have easily knocked down if he wanted to. No barrier would be enough for an all-powerful god, especially if he claimed to love me as he does.

However I can't see how crying out to God for help is putting a barrier up. Crying out to God should be enough to destroy that barrier if there were one, but why would I have put a barrier up to God? I loved God. I wanted to hear from him. I prayed to him regularly throughout the day. What kind of a callous god would ignore someone that genuine?

The true Christian journey is very hard. One must expect to suffer at the hands of Satan.

I was a committed Christian for over 30 years of my life. I experienced many trials but remained strong for many years. How long has your journey been?

Sure, this is the theology , doctrine and dogma sub-forum. You can quote scripture as authoritative, but for me it is unconvincing. I have followed the bible, believing it to be God's word. I did so for over 30 years of my life. I no longer see the bible as God's word.

Or perhaps you didn't understand it.

What's so difficult to understand?

I can address some things that can be addressed:

2. Realising that things I thought were from God were not from God at all. I had been kidding myself.

Satan can pose as God.

Many of those things I thought were from God were written in the bible. Is the bible Satanic?

Beliefs that stem from the Bible being false don't make all what is said about God in the Bible is false. That is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If the bible is God's word, then one mistake is all it takes to cast doubt on the entire bible. There are many false things in the bible.

8. God has not notified anyone I know that I am no longer a believer. I have not been laid on anyone’s heart. Only some people know because I have told them.

Since when is the onus on God to inform anyone of your lack of belief?

I never said the onus was on him. It's just that I had heard so many testimonies about how God did this to people. The fact he didn't do it for me was evidence of his non-existence or that he just didn't care enough.

10. There is more evidence against God’s existence than there is for his existence.
11. God choosing to remain undetectable just looks way too much like a non-existent God.

Which God? God is a very vague term.

Any god.

Pantheists believe God is the universe. Sending Jesus into the world is not remaining undetectable.

Jesus remains invisible to us too! LOL

God remains invisible to us now as does Jesus. Neither come out into the open and reveal themselves. God remains undetectable and will not be tested. Sending someone else on his behalf is still remaining undetectable.

12. If there is such thing as design, then the universes shows us malevolent and incompetent design which does not line up with bible claims.

God is not the only designer. It is clear that because it is an imperfect world, then another force that is malevolent to destroy perfection as come into play. And that is Satan.

The things I have included in my list are not up for debate in this particular thread, Claire. They are the way I see it. They are true from my perspective. If they are true then they are surly good reasons for not believing anymore?

13. When people claim that God did something for them, eg answering prayer, performing miracles… there are always natural explanations you could give. None of their so-called miracles can be shown to be supernatural.

How can there always be natural explanations when you don't even know of all the miracles performed. Have they all be documented?

This is all for now.

Going through he list one by one trying to convince me that they are not true, is wasting a lot of time. They are real to me and are valid reasons why I don't believe. As you can see they are varied reasons. Whether you agree with my view on them is irrelevant. They are still my reasons for disbelief. You can't just narrow them down to a few and try to put me into a box. It's not all just about disillusionment with the bible. It's not all just about not having prayers answered. You can't just pluck out one of two things and try to make them the main things.

If you want to address individual things on my list, then perhaps new threads should be started on them.

It's not infallible but one just needs to understand the gist of it like Jesus witnessing for the truth, dying for sins and then resurrecting.

No Christians can even agree on the gist of it. As proven by the numerous topics we have on the subject that are debated.

Can you give me an example?

Would we not just get into a big debate on it?

Yet I had the foundation.

As did I. I had a very firm foundation in Jesus.

Perhaps you thought you did.

Perhaps you think you do?

Once you have made spiritual contact with God, there is no going back.

Oh here we go with the No True Scotsman fallacy again. Be careful where you go here as you will lose all integrity with me if you continue with it. I believe I had a real spiritual connection with God. I believed I had a relationship with god. If I was only kidding myself, then you probably are too.

I was thinking aloud. Jesus because you think you are kidding yourself, it doesn't believe I probably am kidding myself. Perhaps I know something you don't.

I somehow doubt that. So far you haven't come up with anything I haven't already heard a hundred times before or preached myself.

[OnceConvinced]

OnceConvinced says

I just can't see the Jehovah of the bible being as petty as what you are saying and if that's the JW perspective on Jehovah, then it's one I reject.

To be honest, OC...I can.

Well I admit, I was putting on my old Christian hat, thinking as I did when I was a Christian.

The god of the bible is very pedantic in many ways, but I still don't know if I could possibly view him as a god who got all human about being called the wrong name.

Now of course, if we were talking twenty years ago, back when I was a Christian, I would answer just like you did there. I would have praised God with as many positive adjectives as I could think of, and say "Pfft! God ignore me because I don't use the name Jehovah? He's not that ignorant!" (ignorant being local vernacular for rude, or anti-social)

Exactly!

Did you see the name Jehovah as an old fashioned name for God? I even went to a church where Jesus was sometimes referred to as JC. Even Jesus Christ is becoming a bit old fashioned it seems.

Indeed. From what I was hearing and still do, there are Christians all over the place having Jehovah answer their prayers even though they didn't call him Jehovah.

Aye. As a child, I learned that Joan of Arc and the girl at Fatimata had divine visions (God directly and the Virgin Mary respectively).

A few years back I was debating with a Seventh Day Adventist (she said she was a former member from here who got banned). Tried to convince me with the use of UTube videos that it was sinful to work on the Sabbath and used an example of a Christian business men whose businesses thrived due to the fact he refused to run the business on the Sabbath. God supposedly blessed his business because of that stance.

I then referred her to a different Christian business man who operated his business on the Sabbath but was a stickler for tithing. So it was all about how if you tithe, then God will bless you. No problem with working on the Sabbath. God of course blessed his business hugely even when he insisted on tithing when his business was on the verge of collapse.

It's funny how God does different things for different people regardless of what their doctrine is, isn't it? It seems he will bless anyone for any thing even if it clashes with what someone else is doing who he's blessing.

? Direct their prayers towards Jesus? Towards God, with Jesus being a conduit?
Unlike what onewithhim says, I am open to the possibility of both a Trinity, and not-a-Trinity. I don't say one or the other, and it's ironclad.

To be honest, as a Christian I never saw the whole trinity thing as a big deal anyway. It wasn't like it was a crucial matter for salvation. If it was true that the trinity is a myth it didn't matter to me because as far as I was concerned I was praying to the creator of the universe anyway.

[OnceConvinced]

IMHO, it is you who have not grasped what the Trinity is. In its very name, "trinity," it is revealed just how many Persons make up this version of "God." They are three different Persons, supposedly, who are altogether one God. If they all make up one God, then how can a trinitarian say the following?

The Father is God
The Son is God.
The H.S. is God.

Add them up. There are THREE Gods. Trinitarians are worshiping a polytheistic god.

Nope, that is not the case at all. You seem to be making up your own version of the Trinity. No Trinitarian sees it that way. Those who understand the trinity understand that it is one God with three different parts. Each part performs a different task.

Don't you think a Trinitarian should know what he is worshipping? No Trinitarian thinks of themselves as praying to three different Gods when they pray.

You say the Trinity is one individual. Then please explain to me why Jesus would pray to himself. And how could Jesus be on the earth and hear his own voice from heaven saying "this is my Son in whom I am well pleased"? Why would he keep saying that God was in heaven when he, Jesus, was here on the earth? If the Trinity is ONE individual, tell me how that would be feasible.

Simple. This part of God is on Earth in a human body and as such is restricted to being human. Thus he has to pray just like any other human if he wishes to communicate with the father. If he was sharing the same consciousness, he would hardly be considered human, would he?

So for God to be human, he has to have the same handicap as any other human. The only difference here is that Jehovah used the human body to exhibit his power.

Of course one who understands the concept of the trinity would not need to ask the questions you are asking.

[OnceConvinced]

(IDOL: "An image or anything used as an object of worship in place of the true God."

Crosses and effigies of Jesus are not objects of worship in place of a true god. Unless of course someone is praying to them, thinking that those objects ARE God.

IDOLATRY: "Strictly speaking, denotes the worship of deity in a visible form, whether the images to which homage is paid are symbolical representations of the true God or of the false divinities which have been made the objects of worship in His stead.")

Praying to Jesus is
1) Not praying to a deity in visible form.
2) Not considered a symbolic representation of Jehovah.
3) Is not necessarily the focus of ones prayer or worship.
4) Usually an attempt to pray to Jehovah.

You haven't answered my question: "Then why make images AT ALL to USE in worship, even if you are not praying directly TO it?"

You would have to ask them that. I've done no such thing myself. Maybe one of our Catholic members may be able to enlighten you.

I notice though that most Christians build churches. If we go by your reasoning, then building a church is also idolatry. Do JWs build churches?

Just going to a church and congregating together, doing church activities would also be idolatry too, going by your logic.

Just because someone builds something to honour their god does not make it idol worship.

[OnceConvinced]

Jehovah is not referred to in the Bible as having "many different names." He has inspired the Bible writers to present his name as YHWH only---translated most commonly as "Jehovah" or "Yahweh.". This name, YHWH, appears in the original Hebrew/Aramaic text 7,000 times, and ONLY that name is the name that Jehovah says relates directly to him. To view the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, click on this site:

Names of God in the old testament:

Abba Father
Adonai
Alpha & Omega
Beginning and the End
Bread of life
El Shaddai
El Elyon
El Olam
Elohim
Father
God
Jehovah
The Light
Lord
Lord of Lords
King of Kings
Morning Star
Prince of Peace
Qanna
The Rock
Rose of Sharon
The Word
Yahweh

Jehovah himself has numerous different versions of his name.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 182 by OnceConvinced]


"However I can't see how crying out to God for help is putting a barrier up. Crying out to God should be enough to destroy that barrier if there were one, but why would I have put a barrier up to God? I loved God. I wanted to hear from him. I prayed to him regularly throughout the day. What kind of a callous god would ignore someone that genuine?"

Even Jesus prayed for The Cup to be taken away from Him but
the Father did not do it.

To not give God the right to do according to His Will
lacks any concept of the idea od 'God'.
I would think this to be priority of any religion including Christianity.

[rikuoamero]

onewithhim says

IMHO, it is you who have not grasped what the Trinity is. In its very name, "trinity," it is revealed just how many Persons make up this version of "God." They are three different Persons, supposedly, who are altogether one God. If they all make up one God, then how can a trinitarian say the following?

The Father is God
The Son is God.
The H.S. is God.

Add them up. There are THREE Gods. Trinitarians are worshiping a polytheistic god.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you the person who talked about little g gods, about how personages such as Jesus were seen as little g gods?
So who are you to criticise others for holding polytheistic beliefs?

In either case, Trinitarians would say that the above is a gross mischaractirization of their beliefs. They would say the Father, Son, and H.S. are three facets of the one singular God.
Zeus, Hades and Poseidon would be three gods, according to their own followers. Zeus in the form of a thunderbolt, in the form of a bull and in a third form, would not be polytheistic, it would all still be Zeus.
Or to give a modern example: the Necromancer from the Hobbit movies/books is but a facet of the Dark Lord Sauron, a different form that entity took in the story.

[2timothy316]

In either case, Trinitarians would say that the above is a gross mischaractirization of their beliefs.

Trinitarians say this same thing to other Trinitarians. I have found that Trinitarians don't believe the same thing about the trinity. There are different doctrines. There are some that think Jesus became subservient while on Earth while others say he didn't. So there will always be a 'gross mis-characterization' of the trinity to some Trinitarian somewhere. One thing they do agree on is that it's a mystery and no one can really understand how it 'works'. Yet that is not how they talk. They tell people they understand it all but then turn around and tell you no one knows.

I think the saying goes, "If you try to explain the Trinity, you will lose your mind. But if you deny it, you will lose your soul."

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 189 by 2timothy316]

They tell people they understand it all but then turn around and tell you no one knows.

That would be why I do not believe it now, this blatant contradiction.