Cappytan, please see the new post that just went up from AFreeBeliever, perhaps you will appreciate it
A Mind at War
by cappytan 28 Replies latest jw experiences
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Village Idiot
Red pill or blue pill? If you don't follow your mind's enlightenment you will become the living dead. -
DJS
Cappytan,
A lot of us have been on your journey. I've called it my Pink Floyd sojourn - Another Brick in the Wall. I didn't worry about it as you are, however. It was an excellent, rational journey to me. I took my time, removing and evaluating each JW/Christian/Theist brick at a time. If I found it lacking, and I did, I threw it away.
After a few years all that was left was the foundation - a belief in god. I remember referring to myself to my closest friends as an agnostic, then an atheistic leaning agnostic, then an atheist. No drama. No angst. No fears.
Good luck on your journey.
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cappytan
Man, freemindfade, you're right. This does feel like a detox.
Thanks all for the words of encouragement. I'm using y'all as a sounding board, a therapy. It's selfish to use others, but as Ayn Rand implied, there can be a virtue to selfishness. (Paraphrasing)
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MissFit
Cappytan, I really like the way you summed up the struggle of waking up.
You discribed the journey I am on and the battle I am fighting. Thank you.
Vent away here. Just know you are not alone. Many here can relate and have faced the same dilemma.
What is great about this site is we have the benefit of others experiences. They are able to help avoid pitfalls and encourage us when we slip into dispair.
Don't forget the adage:"misery loves company".Lol.
You will also find lots of encouragement and moral support.
I look forward to more of your posts.
Miss.Fit
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Richard Voss
aye, aye, sir... beggin, your pardon, sir, but may I ask, in your reference to Jesus' words of 'a kind yoke and light load' applied in the sarcastic sense toward WT, the organization/corporation, might you have in mind the many 'laws' enacted to keep the organization clean? Many of which accrued over time and space to form something unrecognizable to the original Christians.
In the next part of Mt., after Jesus offer to 'refresh' his followers from their toil, he himself is challenged by the Pharisees for his 'breaking' the Sabbath Laws as they understood them , pardon my repetition, many of which accrued over time and space to form something unrecognizable to the original. Jesus then goes on quite a crusade of thinking ability and reasoning to undermine their objections. Do you find his logic persuasive, even compelling...?
I was raised on these Bible stories ( if I was born into a Muslim family it would have been Muhammad and the Koran ) and they are 'dyed in wool' for me. A tapestry of stories woven into existence with my own experiences, hung on the wall for all to see.The apostle Paul struggled mightily with your questions ( so much for the light load ;-) as did many before him and we to follow. How to stay true to the truth is the same as heading North, follow the Northern Star...the rest is all in the details.
If you happen to be in the Southern Hemisphere, I here the Southern Cross is way beyond anything we have in the night sky.
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Richard Voss
pretty sure I meant to type 'h e a r'... -
Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Do I take that path? Or do I ignore my reason and thinking ability to preserve such things as family, friends and comfort?
I couldn't ignore my reasoning and thinking ability. During the years of my still attending meetings while learning more about TTATT were very painful. Once I was able to move away and stop attending meetings, my thinking cleared many hurdles.
Sometimes I missed the collection of friends, but that passed surprisingly quickly. It's only a very few JW relatives that I still have any conversation with.
I don't have the paradise fantasy. WT had that carrot of paradise, the resurrection of loved ones, and pet pandas. But the longer I was a JW, the more I saw all the strings attached to that carrot. And after slaving for years in bethel, the thought of the whole world being run like that was no paradise.
Once I got away, I don't have a codified belief system that is handed to me by some suits in Brooklyn. There are very many things I don't know, and it really doesn't bother me. Now I find it sad when I see so many people in the world that have made terrible life decisions based on the direction of the GB and other religious fanatics.
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FayeDunaway
Cappytan, if you want to leave this thing and still have a faith in God, study. Read apologetics websites. Read the New Testament. Notice how often Jesus is mentioned next to God, and notice how often he's mentioned in wt literature or in talks or comments. It's completely different, and this is a result of brainwashing. Even when scriptures are read about Jesus, follow up answers will be about Jehovah. Witnesses have changed the bible. Get yourself a good version. Some include Yahweh in the Old Testament as it should belong, but don't add It wherever the heck they want to in the New Testament, where it shouldn't. There is absolutely no case for adding it there. Do some research. Get out your interlinear Greek Scriptures bible. The purple one. It helped me immensely!!! When you've researched every single thing witnesses differ from mainline churches on, then read about fundamentalism. It helped me a lot to move from fundamentalism. It's the only way that I can have a faith, because I have a scientific mind. We can talk about these issues later. But I am completely at peace now, I have a strong faith, I am part of a very good church community, where people care about each other but they don't judge each other (seriously!) and there's just a lot of worshipfulness gratefulness and joy. -
Odrade
cappytan, most people arrive at their core beliefs over a lifetime of small decisions. When we leave the JWs, we get a crash-landing in "what do I really think?" It's okay to be confused, and it's okay to believe one thing today and something completely different tomorrow until you get things somewhat sorted. After awhile, you will find you're no longer deciding foundational things, but fine tuning. For right now though, it can feel a little bit like "what's behind door #2?!"