How to identify the quality of FAITH and BELIEF by its uses (page 3)

Judge Dread

Terry,

Forget FAITH and BELIEF for a minute.

I just want to know WHO of WHAT set you off?

Judge Dread

PSacramento

Terry,

You've got me pegged! Bitter and shallow! Ask any of my family and friends--they'll tell you!

Dude, IF you read what I wrote you will see that I was talking about ME, not YOU.

I know myself, I have been there, I would be a total prick if I viewed thinsg that way.

ME, not YOU.

Don't take things that are NOT directed at you, personally.

designs

I Believe, I Believe I still see a fine hairline crack through the Spackle

Mall Cop

Faith and belief is not owned by christians who believe and have faith that Jesus is the answer to all life's problems.

So, I don't think that this topic is against faith and belief in Jehovah, Jesus,etc.

It's concerns all of the various belief systems,faiths and cultures wherein each one has their own faith and belief whether taught from birth, learned from reseaching other belief systems, or experiencing a personal revealation.

Conclusion is that all of those persons throughout the world who have faith and belief are using spackle to fullfill their lives and are not facing reality.

Is that a correct understanding on this topic?

tec

Mall Cop - I think it has to be the correct understanding of this topic.

Tammy

Terry

Terry,

Forget FAITH and BELIEF for a minute.

I just want to know WHO of WHAT set you off?

My best friend in the 6th grade. He set me off. He use to show me scriptures out of his bible and tell me what they "meant."

I didn't know either way. It just went on and on and on. We had arguments. He had indoctrination on his side and I only had a 12 year old's mind on my side.

I ended up going with him to meetings at the Kingdom Hall.

It was a gradual thing. Years passed.

In High School I was slightly pressured to get baptised. I did.

A few years later I got my draft notice.

The Congregation overseer let me know what was expected of me. I thought about it and decided I believed in something. I weighed my values.

I went to prison. I got out and Pioneered. I married and had kids.

I couldn't earn much of a living. Pressures mounted to either live in poverty or move to California from Texas and get a job which tapped my talents as an artist.

We moved. I got a career in art and made friends who were just christian. They treated me better in a hundred ways than my so-called brothers and sisters at the Kingdom Hall.

Gradually I detached from Absolute Certainty in dribs and drabs.

My JW wife became an alcoholic after 1975 came and went without incident after years of certain build up.

We split up.

I was called up while I was staying at a friend's house and asked to come to the Hall to talk to the brothers. I complied.

I was blindsided with disfellowshipping!

I wept. I pulled myself together. I started over.

My "friends" and spiritual "brothers and sisters" shunned me!

Nothing I had been or had done meant anything to any of them. I was a walking zero.

My JW wife and I divorced and she moved back to Texas with my 3 kids.

I fell apart.

I had them come visit me during school vacation. While they were visiting I got a phone call from my mom. She told me my ex-wife was dead.

She'd been chased by the cops on a drunk driving jag and she crashed into a parked car.

I had to break the news to my little children. Saying "Your mother died last night..." just about destroyed me.

But--suddenly I had them to myself again. The worst/best day of my life.

I began life all over again.

I reassessed. I started reading history, philosophy, science. Little by little.

One day I was talking to a friend of mine who is a children's therapist at lunch.

I was spouting off about the Nephilim and how angels came down and had intercourse with women and produced giants.

She looked at me in a way I'll never forget. It chilled me to the bone.

I stepped back from myself in horror!

What a stupid thing to actually believe! What was I thinking? How had I accepted such nonsense???

From that moment forward I started a mental housecleaning that hasn't stopped.

I always try to root out nonsense, passive accpetance and supernatural mysticism and replace it with solid information....

Does that answer your question??

PSacramento

So you revolted against being manipulated and controlled by an organization?

Well done Terry, well done indeed.

Stories like this are what show the true and real damage that groups like the JW's can do to a person.

Judge Dread

Does that answer your question??
Actually, I should have been more specific.
You were away from this site for a long time, and suddenly, you come back. Who or what set you off in that regard.
Judge Dread

Terry

I think life is a process. We become who we really are.

Beliefs can retard that becoming.

We get sidetracked.

We get in our own way.

By representing a "cause" which is imaginary I threw away my youth and wasted my time and didn't produce a productive thing at all for many years.

Others don't get sucked in quite so deep and remain more evenly keeled.

Life goes on...

PSacramento

Ah dude, you fought back from the abyss and NO ONE can ever take that away from you.

I may not agree with where you are right now, but I have the highest respect and admiration for what you have had to go through to get there.

How to identify the quality of FAITH and BELIEF by its uses

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