Oh, wow, when I wrote my last comment already three more of you replied! Than you so much!ni really appreciate it.
Dagney. I agree with your point. That was also a thing that got me thinking. I hear stories of people giving up their passion (music, sports, art, ...) for the truth. Though this might me admirable, it somehow seems very hard. I "gave up" acting (or rather perusing an acting career, i still do theatre occasionally) when I studied for about a year since I realised that I might have to violate bible principles in order to work in this field. I don't really regret it, since I'm very happy with what I do now and I don't know if it would have worked out at all, but I just wanted to share this to show you why I've already thought of what you said... I know that this can be hard to a person. However, there are also other examples of people being JWs and "living their dream" aren't there?
Giordani. Thanks for the link, I will read that later. The list is quite long and honestly, most of them did not surprise me, though it seemed pretty rough. However, I was not aware that artificial insemination was prohibited. Like the transgender i don't really get why they have this attitude towards it... Thanks for showing me all this. Like I said, I will look through it again later - I just had a quick glimpse.
problemaddict2. Again for a formal thing: I did not mean apostate in a derogatory way, this just somehow poped up in my mind as the right term. So again, sorry if I hurt anyone by this, it was not my intention. Is the term ex-JW better? Or what do you generally use?
you said you would encourage me to learn more. Well, I'm here willing to learn more.
cofty, well, we can now start a very philosophical discussion about what counts as facts and what does not and how we want to deal with the notion of feelings and such... But actually, what I wrote (or rather how I wrote it) was just an expression. What I meant by it was, that this is my personal opinion based on my personal knowledge and general understanding of the bible, religion in general and human interaction with God.
Anders Anderson. Thank you for the example.
incognito. Thanks for your input. I actually already thought about the two questions the candidates have to answer right before changing clothes. They have seemed a bit dodgy to me...
The questions you have to answer before being able to get baptised are of course not biblically relevant (I can't remember anyone on the NT getting baptised after telling someone about fundamental biblical teachings). Anyway, I get why JWs are doing this and though it has no biblical background I see the practicality of it...
Nonetheless, it think I have to clarify something: when I mentioned before that I think baptism is something wanted by God I did not strictly refer to being baptised as a JW but to baptism in general. I hope this makes it clearer.
Millie210. Thank you for your input. I will definitely read the letter since it seems very closely connected to my original question thanks!