Why I dont go along with the "happiness" crowd (page 7)

Junction-Guy

Seriously though, if I lived anywhere near Maine, I would have at least met up for some coffee with him.

That is my point all along, if you prefer people to not end up angry and bitter, why not try to reach out to them in the first place, and maybe with a little friendship and compassion shown, people wont end up bitter, and they might just move on with their life.

eclipse

Some people will not respond to that....ultimately, the key is knowing that no one makes us angry or sad or happy,

we allow them to.

if we didnt allow others to have control over our emotions, then we wouldn't be the emotional messes some of us are..

I doubt Danny would of gone for coffee...he was too far gone with paranoia, he would probably think they were some JW spy to hurt him.

nvrgnbk

Some of us want someone to invite us to coffee.

Some of us do the inviting.

Sometimes, when you're hurting really bad, the best thing to do is help someone that's hurting even more.

Junction-Guy

If that is true, then Im sure that it wasnt anything that popped up overnight, but something that had been growing for years.

Imagine the pain he must have felt when he first started pointing out the obvious flaws in the JW system, Im sure everyone in his conregation thought he was crazy then and avoided him like the plague. The lack of socialization can lead to many problems.

sweetface2233

Since when it is everyone else's responsibility to make you happy? People, in general, reach out to those in whom they see a lot of theirself. Misery loves company, eh? Same goes w/ positivity. If you find that the positive people here aren't "being active" and reaching out to you, then maybe it's because they don't have the same attitude about their life that you do. They aren't playing the victim anymore.

nvrgnbk

The lack of socialization can lead to many problems.

Really?

Tell US about it.

Junction-Guy

Point is I wont personally rub someones pain in their face, criticize them, or offer hollow advice to someone, especially if I never made the opportunity to try to help them.

Why not be part of the solution instead of excaserbating the problem?

Some of the very same people who have criticized me, are the very same ones offering this type of advice.

nvrgnbk

I beg you to read this, Junction-Guy.

Because I genuinely care about you.

We are not the only ones that have suffered due to religious indoctrination.

Let My People Go

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Religious Dilemmas

Upon stumbling across this website, one may well ask, why does such a negative site like this exist? why attack belief systems that give millions of people such a sense of hope, purpose, security, peace of mind, that promotes compassion and order in society and offers people a moral and ethical system in which to structure their lives, and, one that’s worked very well, for what seems like a millennium? The simple answer is, that, in actual reality, it's promoted none of the above benefits, quite the opposite is the case, if factual history has any bearing on the truth of the matter. Compassion, for instance, vanishes as the mind becomes gradually mesmerized, by a slippery descent to the murky depths of religious legalism where a balanced perspective on life completely disappears, obliterated by unbalanced fundamentalist concepts, people become capable of the vilest, violent and most inhumane acts imaginable, without displaying the slightest hint of remorse, a verifiable fact of historical record, that can be researched on this site. Legalism by definition prioritizes the value of the law above the value of the people. Wherever "laws" exist in a religious context, legalism gains a foothold and the line between authentic or true religion, if there is such an animal, and the more easily identified destructive cult becomes increasingly vague to the point of becoming indistinguishable.

Estimates suggesting that almost 900 million people have died in mostly mainstream religious conflicts throughout history, with many more suffering a vast array of abuses in the name of God, become statistics, that leave the average modern day believer, apparently, quite unperturbed, with no apparent concern, seeing no reason to question the legitimate spirituality of their faiths, indicating a dangerously imbalanced perspective and a chilling insight of the average pilgrim's level of compassion. The “bad luck for them” attitude belies the complete and utter presence of a determined and stunning self centeredness that has no ability to empathize with the tragic misfortune of others at all. Without batting an eyelid, these people who claim to “love the Lord” are demonstrably incapable of feeling anything for anyone else, primarily because they are so consumed by their own self absorption that the fortunes of others would scarcely cross their mind. They believe they are the apple of God’s eye, the centre of the universe, according to their own unfeeling and deluded state of mind. Quite capable of constructing the belief, that although God has not protected others in their hour of need, they are somehow different and more valuable than those who have perished before them, and are, in effect, the chosen, or God's elect. The question of just why God would love them above anyone else is one that is probably never raised, or contemplated, at least by them. One would wonder just exactly what quality they possess that would recommend them to an entity whose highest directive is to "love one another".

Moderate religious belief and practice differ from the extreme fundamentalist beliefs and practices, by degrees, only. Regardless of whether one is moderate or extreme, religious beliefs emanate from the same source. In a sense the fundamentalist extremism that gives rise to violence and spiritual abuse represents stronger, purer belief, remaining truer to scripture as its written, while the more moderate or tolerant views exhibit somewhat less of a potency, tempered perhaps by humanitarian concerns or the challenges that common sense and actual reality present to their faiths. There is another possible explanation of why moderation appears to be more prevalent than fundamentalism, the explanation being, the presence of doubt. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, that many, who profess to having religious faith, have none whatsoever, but rather the pretence of it. I have no doubt that many professing a strong faith, are, rather than being spiritually committed are far more likely to be unconsciously motivated by the desire to be part of a community or a church “family”. The attraction of belonging to a community or having a sense of “connection” seems to be an instinctive desire within people, and goes a long way to explain why people “accommodate” a wide variety of unpalatable “rules” and “events” in order to cater to the expectations of their peer group, and avoid rocking the boat. Typically converts don’t suddenly, enthusiastically and spontaneously recognize and wholeheartedly embrace the doctrinal "truths" of a particular faith in an Ah Ha experience, they rather, typically, accept particular dogmas to be part of the group, an attitude resembling that of a businessman, uncritically accepting dogma simply because, "that’s the cost of doing business."

My observations of some religious people lead me to suggest that many of them appear to be perpetually frightened , unjustifiably scared of the reality's of life and have difficulty interacting with others not of the faith, causing many secular people to form the opinion that religious people cling to religion like a "crutch", it seems to me however that they use it more like a "cocoon" to protect themselves from the nasty people in the "evil" world outside. This paradigm of life is extremely limited of course and is perhaps a conditioned response indoctrinally implanted over many years of church teaching and influence, and which has ultimatley robbed them of the joy of living, perhaps taking life far too seriously, never enjoying the experience of accepting others and being accepted in a genuine unpretentious fashion simply because their conditioning won't allow them to lighten up, how tragic?

The danger is, that people who buy in to religious belief at all, of any persuasion, have an increased potential to degenerate into religious fundamentalism in response to changing or challenging circumstances and stages of their lives. The more conservative faiths or churches could today, be providing the basic training of tomorrow’s dangerous loopy fundamentalist ah la Jim Jones or David Koresh.

It's been my experience that many religious people have a very limited commitment to the truth and not a huge appetite for the practice of repentance either. When for instance, have you ever seen a man of the cloth come forward as a result of a sudden surge of conscience to freely admit to acts of paedophilia or some other form of sexual scandal? It never happens, the only time we hear of such occurrences is as a result of the victim’s accusation, often made years after the event. More often than not, the "respectable" associates of the perpertrator when made aware of the transgression move the culprit on to the next unsuspecting community in order to avoid the consequences of his or her actions, protecting the guilty and ignoring the victim, metaphorically calling good bad ,and bad good, as it were. One need not be an Einstein to realize that church people are just as likely to indulge in deceptive behaviour, lies, cover ups, avarice, hate, lust, theft, manipulation and insensitivity to the needs of others, on a scale not only to match the "lost" secular souls they propose to "save" but in many cases to wildly surpass them.

This lack of faith and lack of commitment to the truth is easily seen in the basically dishonest political power struggles for control within churches where particular families have a long tradition of significant influence over particular local churches. Capable of orchestrating the undermining and early dispatch of many a pastor or minister to who knows where, (and who cares) if and when that pastor or minister attempts to change the status quo and thus meet with the disapproval of these family powerbrokers who feel that the church, rightfully "belongs" to them. They conveniently see and portray themselves as the church's protective guardian angels but in truth are actually, indulging in the subtle art of backstabbing in an effort to maintain respect, influence and position. Bullying of clergy is a huge problem in it's own right occuring as a result of power struggles and is not limited to family power brokers but can be instigated by virtually anyone connected to a church in whatever capacity. Although clergy are often instigators of abuse they themselves are not necessarily immune to it's incidence as this website set op by former clerics demonstrates

There's a growing number of people on the planet that are of the opinion that religion, apart from providing false "hope" and under delivering on the "promises of God" in regard to both our ultimate eternal destinies and any relief for our present worldly woes and sicknesses, has also severely and negatively impacted people's enjoyment of life, in quite a variety of ways, a view, that evidently goes unevaluated and apparently unnoticed by the average faithful pilgrim.

The "supposed benefits" of religious belief are far outweighed by the actual damage done to an infinite number of lives. People only "think" religion serves them purely because they've been indoctrinated to believe that it does, the fact of the matter is that they've never experienced a life without it's all pervasive influence, an observation that might accurately suggest that people are not really in a position to evaluate religion's benefits objectively, they simply don't have a life experience against which to make a comparison.

I firmly believe that the world would be far better off without the dominating influence of monotheistic religions as the balance of this site will attempt to demonstrate, as we consider the various ways in which people are affected. I believe this site will ultimately be viewed as far more positive than negative in the final wash up, as people enjoy the sense of freedom and escape that accompanies the release of fear and guilt.

Religious belief is usually assimilated through indoctrination and conditioning, over many many years and has nothing to do with truth as such, with many of the concepts being accepted without the slightest critical evaluation of their validity. We accept religious beliefs out of a need to satisfy the unanswered questions of life, where did we come from? what is our purpose? what's it all mean? and where do we end up? and secondly because of the influence of other people in our immediate environment, family, friends or significant others. Geography, more than "truth" dictates exactly what we're likely to end up believing, which explains why various faiths are prevalent in particular geographical areas.

As the site will demonstrate the incidence of religious conflict and abuses have punctuated the history of the world with monotonous regularity. Conflicts, due ostensibly to simple religious differences on face value, could perhaps more accurately be viewed as the result of a maniacal desire to dominate the world, as opposed to the pretence of a lofty, altruistic motivation to usher in an age of a virtuous, spiritual enlightenment for the benefit of mankind. Violent coercion, in fact, any sort of coercion hardly contributes to a genuine conversion experience belying the pretence of anything vaguely spiritual in the incidence of religious proselytizing and it's accompanying conflict.

The inspiration of the various religious group's beliefs, and desire to spread the "good word" is to be found in the "holy books" most notably, the Bible and the Koran or Qur'an. Unfortunately for the millions that have been slaughtered over the centuries under the banner of "spiritual truth" these "holy books" are chock full of inconsistencies, contradictions, discrepancies and factual error, and although there seems to be genuinely "inspired" scriptures to be found within the pages of these books, it does not follow that all scripture is divinely inspired, just as music or art may bare testimony to inspiration, we know that not all sounds constitute music and not all strokes of the brush constitute art, overall these books indicate much in the way of man made contrivance, an assertion that can be thoroughly researched in the links section of this site.

Although the inconsistency and contradictions in the “letter” of the "holy books" do question their supposedly "divine inspiration and origin" even greater concern arises in trying to comprehend the consistency of the “spirit” of the God that religion appears to idolate. If God is the same today as yesterday and forever as the scriptures indicate, the implication is that His character is consistent, it thus becomes a challenging task to understand the apparent contradictions in that character. On the one hand He is portrayed as a God of love and yet we read of Him sending in some wolves to devour a number of children who made the fatal mistake of teasing one of His prophets. Perhaps we should take a long hard look at our own moral fiber, if we can hold a God, who’s capable of such acts, in such high esteem and reverence. Is this a God we genuinely love, or are we inspired to "love" this God out of fear? A natural progression of logic may see us in the near future, elevating people of the ilk of Idi Amin or Pol Pot, to the status of sainthood. Just how do we as human beings accommodate such diametrically opposed inconsistency and still be true believers.

In a similar vein, we, on one hand believe, and are actually taught through various marketing strategies that God cares about the many relatively minute details of our lives. Ideas that God has counted every hair on our heads, or that we can have a personal relationship with Him are commonplace, we are encouraged to petition Him through the powerful medium of prayer knowing that he cares for us, or that we can unburden our troubles upon Him, He shall give us rest, and so on and so on. Notwithstanding the fact that we never seem to realize these benefits it doesn't occur to us at all, that while He's so concerned about our financial woes or love lives, He's quite busy elsewhere organizing tsunamis or a variety of other natural disasters that indiscriminately kill large numbers of people of all ages, sexes and faiths. It becomes quite absurd to then be instructed by those of a religious bent that man is the causative agent in this world, God has granted mankind dominion over the earth and as a consequence does not interfere with the affairs of men. Once again we accommodate diametrically opposed concepts, we are encouraged to petition an entity to intervene in certain situations in the certain knowledge that He can't or won't do anything at all in response to our calls. We seem to have an amazing ability to indulge in circular reasoning and create in our minds the sort of God that we'd prefer, often defying reason and rationality in the process.

When two Tasmanian goldminers emerge from a would be grave, against all odds, sections of christianity claimed an intervention by God and a victory for prayer, a claim which I'm sure, didn't exactly inspire the relatives of the third man who never made it back. This of course, is not a victory for prayer, but rather for an incredible insensitivity, towards the family of the man who died because God didn't see fit to save him. One might well ask, if the mine had to collapse in the first place why didn't God delay the collapse until after the boys had completed their shift? Surely this typical example of the sort of illogical, errant and stunningly insensitive thinking, is insanity gone mad!

It appears, that not only can we talk to God, but He also talks to us, or some of us at least. A favored few receive direct revelation from God as nearly every religious cult leader that's emerged over the years would undoubtedly swear to, ( presumably, on a stack of bibles ) while many more believe that God is directing every step of their lives, in some vague way, providing guidance on a daily basis. It's a curious coincidence indeed, just how often God's will turns out to be the exact replica of the will of those faithful devotees who seek it. I know of one couple who both indicated that they felt God had provided each with the other, then later, as the relationship strained, seemed to be of the opinion that if the relationship failed, God would find them someone else, one can only conclude that in their view, it seems like God made one hell'uva mistake in the first place or else inexplicably, changed his mind. This couple have never identified the folly of their faulty thinking and continue to believe that God is controlling their lives and guiding their path on a day to day basis.

The pathetic and sometimes damaging practice of placing responsibility for daily decisions on correctly interpreting God's will is insane, with all positive occurrences becoming a "sign" of God's blessing, a rationale, that in turn implies that negative occurrences are then a sign of God's correction or displeasure. These situations, although often readily identified by the pilgrims concerned, who, unperturbed by the revelation, seem determined to persist in their faulty logic, insisting that God, personally guides every single, insignificant, and mundane detail of their lives. What is adequately displayed in this situation is not really deficient thinking at all, but the complete and utter absence of it. When will we ever learn that the highly moral model of God, that monotheistic religions portray, simply, does not exist?

In my experience, pilgrims do notice the imperfections and shortcomings of their faiths, they see the manipulation, the highly dramatized pretence of "love" and "righteousness", the illegitimate authoritarianism, the bullying, the flawed logic, the fraudulent monetary appeals and focus, the hypocrisy and inconsistency, the lack of genuine love, the inward focus on self, the cliché riddled spiritual speak, the pseudo spiritual fads and stunts, the showmanship, the fake healings and the fraudulent faith healers and T.V. evangelists, the sexist attitudes, the violent histories, the taboos on normal sexuality, the use of fear in regard to eternal torment and excommunication, the baseless attacks on scientific inquiry, the elitist criticisms and persecution of other faiths or philosophies, the common sex and pedophilia scandals, the inherent legalism and accompanying tendency towards judgmentalism along with a number of other weird, irrational dogmatic theological ideas, the constantly new emergence of which, is as perennial as the grass.

The problem is that the average pilgrim sees all these shortcomings in isolation, unwilling to piece together the jigsaw that dismantles their misplaced faith. Terrified to abandon an unconscious source of comfort that promises eternal love and heavenly residence and that appears to address the universal primeval concerns of all people, albeit, offered in a commercial package, that most conveniently, constructs the God that people desire, as opposed to providing believers with the actual truth. "The truth that sets you free" is readily available to anyone prepared to open their minds. It requires a dogged and a single minded persistent determination to retain the fantasy of "faith" and an adept ability to selectively ignore any evidence or rational argument that may otherwise help people to realize that the actual benefits, or value of religion is similar in real terms, to the value one might achieve by having an ashtray installed on the motorbike.

So much for the positive benefits of religious commitment, on the negative side of the ledger one can lose in a great variety of ways. It’s highly likely that religious commitment will affect it’s adherents in one, more or all of the following areas of life. Low self esteem and image along with feelings of low self worth are attributable to standard religious teachings of the inherent evil nature and relative insignificance of human beings. The idea that Christ loved us and came to save us while we were yet in “sin” or that we are the recipients of the “undeserved” favor of God, drive home, into our accepting, uncritical minds that we are totally “unworthy”. This sense of unworthiness sees us approaching life like beggars, gathered around the master’s table waiting for the crumbs that fall, beings, justly filled with shame, we become almost apologetic for the insolent act of breathing. It’s little wonder then, that with this basic mindset, we don’t assert ourselves and set our sights on the good things that life has to offer, because we know deep down, that we simply don’t deserve them. With low self worth and esteem as a starting point our potential for achievement in life is greatly diminished. The inherent features of a human being’s natural desire for growth and achievement are the factors that provide a vital sense of purpose, without which, life becomes a meaningless exercise. Low self worth, similarly impacts our potential to realize happy interpersonal relationships, satisfactory love and sex lives, or achieve a positive mental state that promotes physical health. Religion has a history of denying the natural innate imperatives of the human design especially in the area of sexual expression. Repressed people are depressed people often enduring a lifetime of pessimism and constant anxiety. In addition in many cases, religion dis-empowers people, discouraging the exercise of personal autonomy and resultant decision making capacity, alternately, encouraging a reliance on co-dependent relationships at the extreme end of the scale, to an inappropriate influence at the lower end.

Besides the ever present danger of depression that a religiously limited paradigm of life invites, the religiously inclined can definitely expect a lifetime of financial pillage. If you want a generally unsatisfying life of unrealized potential, along with the alluring attraction of the added bonus of being a victim of spiritual abuse, then join a church.

http://www.letmypeoplego.com.au/index.html And please take a look at this... http://surrealist.org/links/cults.html

Junction-Guy

Im not anti-religion, Im anti-JW.

I have seen both sides of the fence. I have attended churches of numerous denominations, they all have their differences, but none of them cause the "real life" anxieties and problems that arise from the JW Cult. If they did, I would gladly picket them too.

I cant really get into that last long excerpt, just doesnt interest me.

As for your previous comments about inviting and being invited for coffee, I wholeheartedly agree.

changeling

Dear Junction Guy: I'm really sorry that you find the advice to think positively hollow. I and the others who offered it did it in sincerity.

I personally have followed my own advice and have reaped good fruits from it. I feel compeled to pass "my secret" on to others. It is up to them to accept it or not.

I reached out to you last night and you have not responded. I know for a fact others here have done the same. So please, stop saying that you are ignored. You are not. You simply don't like the advice we have to offer.

So sad.

changeling

Why I dont go along with the "happiness" crowd

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