Thanks for clarifying Tam. Wish I had a Moms that pushed music lessons on me! Hopefully it is not the clarinet, flute, or tuba.
If Armageddon came tomorrow, would Jehovah kill a billion children?
by just n from bethel 168 Replies latest jw friends
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tec
Its the trumpet. His last choice, (I would love to learn the trumpet, mind you) and somehow that's what he got.
He gets guitar lessons on the side... not for a few months due to some constraints... but I think he had hoped he'd be playing something like that when he ticked off music as an option ;)
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just n from bethel
As I mentioned earlier. Since I've moved on from JW land, I've tried to become more tolerant of other belief systems. But I also enjoy the freedom that I didn't use to have, to discuss beliefs, even semi-heatedly, with others that don't see things like I do.
All of us former JWs have to go in the best direction that suits us for our lives at this given time. It is my belief, that nobody here on this thread, not even JWs, truly desire to see children killed. I don't think anybody can really even comprehend the idea, as it continues to be explained that it is out of our understanding, even when it is mentioned in the Bible.
How could anybody even imagine such atrocities. And for what, being born in China? The good news is, that Xians like Dan and even JWs are not (hopefully never) part of a movement where they would ever actively particpate in killing non-believers. So Dan, JWs, and other extremist non-action believers will eventually grow old and die without ever seeing judgement day. They'll experience even more cognitive dissonance, perhaps changing belief systems many times over. They can believe that God will kill babies like he did in the bible and be just and loving - but they'll never actually see it, no matter how much they believe it. Eventually they'll get tired of their religious mind games and wander on home to reality.
The JWs have their blood policy which kills children right now. That should be stopped. If a person changes religious beliefs and stops believing it's ok to kill babies by refusing them blood in medical situations - then good for them. Even if they continue to believe that God and Jesus will kill the same babies later in the Big A, they aren't actually participating in the killing so no harm no foul. It's disheartening that a few former JWs cling to fundamentalist beliefs that make no sense and have no backing, but being able to openly talk with them, eat with them, say greetings to them, and be their friends, is stll worthwhile. Welcome to freedom.
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brotherdan
What is your hope for the future, just n from bethel?
Also, I appreciate your sentiment when you said:
I've tried to become more tolerant of other belief systems. But I also enjoy the freedom that I didn't use to have, to discuss beliefs, even semi-heatedly, with others that don't see things like I do.
It reminded me of what happened in Egypt when the Muslims surrounded the Coptic church holding Christmas mass so as to protect them from the police and violent protestors. And then how the Christians joined hands and surround the Muslims while in prayer to protect them. Tolerance is a beautiful thing.
But you are right. When the rights of others are trampled on, that is where tolerance ends (i.e blood transfusions, abortion clinic bombings, etc...)
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jay88
"Wynton Marsalis Carnival Of Venice" on youtube, perhaps this with give him impetus to practice. Sorry for being off-topic!
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NewChapter
It's disheartening that a few former JWs cling to fundamentalist beliefs that make no sense and have no backing, but being able to openly talk with them, eat with them, say greetings to them, and be their friends, is stll worthwhile. Welcome to freedom.
It really is exciting to be able to debate these things, don't you think? And I have been surpised that those coming out of the jw daze choose another fundy set of beliefs. For me, leaving the org was an awakening--a freeing--a reduction of cognitive dissonance. I am now learning that it is not exactly that way for others, and I'm struggling to be tolerant of it.
I think that after the years of indoctrination, the LAST thing I want to deal with on an ex jw board is being preached at. Yet, that is what the "world" is all about, so, I'm working on it. I also get frustrated with myself, because I know I used to think like that! And even though it is kind of vague to me now, every so often I remember very well how I saw things.
Now that I look at the bible through my renewed eyes, I know, nothing will ever move me to worship that god again. I remember how I would think about dead children and make that right in my brain. It was exhausting, but humans have the capacity to do it. I firmly believed everything in that bible, which is why saying that I don't know the bible isn't exactly an explanation for why I don't believe like another person. A better explanation is that I don't accept it's authority anymore, and I made the decision knowing what it said, and not on heresay.
On I will go and treasure this life that I have right now. It's the only one I have, and I'm happy I took it back before it was gone.
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just n from bethel
Right now, Dan, other than an early retirement on an island, my future is undefined. When I moved on from the JWs, I decided to live in the present for a while. I'm not going to worry about tomorrow anymore. Despite the JWs quoting that part of the sermon on the mount so often, we were always thinking, talking, worrying, preaching, debating, writing, praying - all about the future. We just had to know with certainity the future as we interpreted it from the bible. We looked down on people that "had no hope" and couldn't define their beliefs with a clear picture that could be rendered by an artist in a book with panda bears or pearly gates.
So I've come to embrace uncertainity at the moment. I enjoy knowing that everything that has ever happened in my lifetime has had either a natural or man-made cause. Good or Bad, there has been nothing recorded that gives any evidence of supernatural intervention. I'm not scared of demons. I'm not scared of fact-based knowledge that might conflict with mythological stories of goat herders. I welcome it. I welcome challenges to my presuppositions. I've studied the Judeo Christian belief systems. I actually find some forms of Judaism appealing. But I'm even open to exploring Zen or Tao - but unlikely to convert to any ism.
John Lennon said it best: Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans.
So, I'm just not making other plans anymore.
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Band on the Run
Since the fifties, I've been waiting for a nuclear Armageddon. The chances of it are much greater than in the 50s when I practiced such survival skills as crouching under my student desk with my hands over my eyes. I had to memorize all the civil defense shelters on the way to school. It was worse than 9/11 and I lived downtown Manhattan. Finally, I realized I was so blessed to live in either NY or DC compared to sucker sin VT or Montana.
This is why I could never believe in Jehovah as a child. God does not do these things. I always felt sorry for Isaac and the flood victims. One billion children indeed. What kind of human endorses this slaughter? Why did my loving family accept this teaching? People who went out of their way to help small children. I love looking at fresh borns in the maternity ward -- now it is hard b/c of security. Welcome the precious ones to the world. Who would worship a God who would kill newborns? What sins could they commit?
When I was in the Witnesses, no one ever addressed how JWs survive. Yes, they survive. How? Does the Society have radioactive proof garb? Would a tsunami or earthquake not function in the very small space of a single Witness. Logic is long since gone. Acts of God have a legal meaning. No one is safe. No liability is attached. They are so destructive no insurer wants to underwrite them.
I grew up with the orange Paradise Lost book. Sounds like Milton, doesn't it? One of the early illustrations showed Bal sacrifices with infants. So Jehovah has a smokin' fire next to Bal. A rose by another name would smell as sweet. A petty, vengeful, force of destruction is just as bad whether named Bal or Jehovah.
On another note, would it not be cool media presence for former JWs to march on Kh with signs of infants slaughtered at Armageddon. It is an arresting image. Trinity or no trinity. Physicial or spiritual resurrection. Dead babies is extremely potent. If A. comes, I will throw myself on a baby to save it from J.wrath.
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ProdigalSon
BOTR said,
Since the fifties, I've been waiting for a nuclear Armageddon. The chances of it are much greater than in the 50s when I practiced such survival skills as crouching under my student desk with my hands over my eyes. I had to memorize all the civil defense shelters on the way to school. It was worse than 9/11 and I lived downtown Manhattan. Finally, I realized I was so blessed to live in either NY or DC compared to sucker sin VT or Montana.
You might find this interesting my friend.... the collapse of the Soviet Union defied many prophecies, and left the Watchtower without a King of the North.
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ProdigalSon
Some interesting reading:
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html
None of the Founding Fathers were atheists. Most of the Founders were Deists, which is to say they thought the universe had a creator, but that he does not concern himself with the daily lives of humans, and does not directly communicate with humans, either by revelation or by sacred books. They spoke often of God, (Nature's God or the God of Nature), but this was not the God of the bible. They did not deny that there was a person called Jesus, and praised him for his benevolent teachings, but they flatly denied his divinity. Some people speculate that if Charles Darwin had lived a century earlier, the Founding Fathers would have had a basis for accepting naturalistic origins of life, and they would have been atheists. Most of them were stoutly opposed to the bible, and the teachings of Christianity in particular.
Yes, there were Christian men among the Founders. Just as Congress removed Thomas Jefferson's words that condemned the practice of slavery in the colonies, they also altered his wording regarding equal rights. His original wording is here in blue italics: "All men are created equal and independent. From that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable." Congress changed that phrase, increasing its religious overtones: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." But we are not governed by the Declaration of Independence-- it is a historical document, not a constitutional one.
If the Christian Right Extremists wish to return this country to its beginnings, so be it... because it was a climate of Freethought. The Founders were students of the European Enlightenment. Half a century after the establishment of the United States, clergymen complained that no president up to that date had been a Christian. In a sermon that was reported in newspapers, Episcopal minister Bird Wilson of Albany, New York, protested in October 1831: "Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism." The attitude of the age was one of enlightened reason, tolerance, and free thought. The Founding Fathers would turn in their graves if the Christian Extremists had their way with this country.