by spiceant 17 Replies latest jw friends
The WTS teaches many things:
which of these points do the ex-JWs among you still believe?
If you are looking for a consensus of opinion from ex-JWs on any of those, you haven't been reading the posts on JWD.
Blondie
i havent read a lot of posts but there are only a few about this point and i havent found those few
I no longer believe anything the jws teach. I would consider myself an agnostic, with atheist leanings nowadays, and after 25 years in the jw cult, I have no time to spare for any kind of religion anyway.
Linda, of the won't get fooled again class
None of the above in the JW context.
For infomation on why Jesus can not have died on a stake go to http://jwfacts.com/index_files/cross.htm
In regards to paradise, I reccommend look up that word in the bible. You will find it always refers to heaven. Reading the New Testament cover to cover shows that there is a resurrection to heaven, not onto the earth. I have just finished an article looking at what the bible says about an earthly paradise that I plan to post one day.
There are many things I learned from jehovah's Witnesses:
1. Man does not have an immortal soul.
2. The dead are concious of nothing at all.
3. Religion is a snare and a racket.
4. There is no God.
My beliefs are still the same as when I was a Witness:
I still don't believe in the Trinity
I still don't believe in hell
I still don't believe in immortality of the soul
:-)
As an exJW, I don't believe any of those things. Why would I toss out the absurd idea that a loving God is willing to destroy 6 billion people at Armageddon, but still believe Jesus died on a stick? Your list doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, I get warm fuzzy feelings from the image of intestinal worms peacefully eating straw in the new order. Hard to give up that pleasant picture.
Okay, I'll play.
End times (at hand)
I'm going to assume you mean "end times" as Jehovah's Witnesses believe? No I do not. I read once a comparison of life in the 13th century (14th?) versus the 20th century. It was remarkable the similarities. War, disease, famine, unrest, earthquakes - these are not what Jehovah's Witnesses would have you believe them to be. No I'm not saying there aren't very serious problems, nor am I saying that mankind won't end up destroying itself, but events of 2006 are remarkably similar to events of 1975, 1925, 1919, 1918, 1914, 1874 . . . . . .
Armageddon (to come within <25 years)
Nonsense. Don't listen to dates. Didn't Jesus say no one knows the day or the hour? I choose to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, and whether we choose to call that Power God or Jehovah or Allah or Fred, doesn't matter in the final analysis. I choose to believe that one commonality amongst the spiritual centers of humans is love of this God and the need to show that love to others. Everything else will be filled in. And if this Power chooses to wipe out this world, that is beyond my control. In the meantime, it is my responsibility to live my life to the best of my ability and leave everything else to God.
Resurrection (to paradise)
Nope. Oh sure I'd like it, I'd like it very much but this is the epitome of the cruelty of Jehovah's Witnesses who wave a carrot in front of people in order to get people to do their bidding (which is sell their literature). This is not a Biblical teaching.
Paradise (beyond armageddon)
I don't know what happens after we die. In point of fact, no one does. I'd like to think that the lessons I've learned in this life would not be wasted. The times I've spoken to my Higher Power, the answer I've felt is that I must live this life and not worry about what happens after. Perhaps this is faith, trusting in something unseen with the hope I will be treated benevolently. One day I'll find out if that faith was misplaced. Until then, I have a real sense of peace about it.
Satan deceives all earth
You know, who cares? I can't control something or someone, if Satan truly exists, on that scale. Again, I live my life to the best of my ability. The rest I let go and let God deal with it.
Jesus died on a stick, not cross
Don't care. Truly. The total tonnage about which I do not care about asinine religious doctrine (the cross, the Trinity, whether Mass is said in Latin, etc.) would be enough to sink the Titanic. You know in my humble opinion one religion cursing another is no different than a commercial on TV telling me to drink Coke instead of Pepsi. I'll be triple damned by God before I let some arrogant, judgmental man/woman tell me how to live my life and what to believe in.
Demons
Don't know. Maybe. Again, who cares? Can't control it, whether they exist or not, so I let it go and focus on improving my own sorry, miserable self.
Animals eat grass in paradise (including carnivores)
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
