Why Are You Here? (page 6)

cofty

Those of you who are nonbelievers, do you hate faith? - Believer

Hate is not a word I would use. I have no respect for faith as a method of understanding what is objectively true about the world. Faith is a scam. It has positive connotations that it does not deserve. It is a substitute for reasoning.

People who don’t have a live and let live mentality

I am happy for people of faith to believe anything they wish. Just don't confuse your beliefs with facts.

we also have something mere animals don’t, one among them being our spiritual potential

I have no idea what you mean by "spiritual potential". I am equally certain you don't know either.

problemaddict 2

I am not much of a believer recently, but I am still finding my way. I would encourage you to think of things a little more openly. Conversation is just conversation. What makes the conversation hostile....that it is in opposition to how you think and feel?

The time where people could not think differently about of a variety of subject and coexist was a dark time in my life in retrospect.......you see where I'm going here.

Giordano

Thank you Believer for answering my post and especially explaining the animal crack..... now i understand that you were referencing some one else's point. I took it as labeling non believers. I always have to get some distance when I write to make sure I didn't come up with a phrase that muddies the water.

My best rule is while it's ok to write when you've been drinking but don't post until your sober. lol. I have thrown out many a post because it went past what I meant to say.

Wasanelder Once

Everyone who speaks in absolutes is a complete fool! Wasanelderonce

Giles Gray

Believer

It might help if you try to understand things from the unbelievers perspective.

Some of us had our questions when we were JWs but were never allowed to ask them.

When we left we found our voice which had been forcefully muted by dogmatic believers. Some of us paid a high price for our freedom of speech and we are not about to lose it again.

To finally be able to ask the 'difficult questions' is the manifestation of our liberation from a cult-like religion.

So before you pigion-hole everyone who wishes to question your faith as 'aggressive', maybe come at it from the angle that they are just liberated people who can now exercise their right to question.

If you view things that way it might not feel quite as hostile.

Bill Covert

In the 2013 RC talk on "Human Apostates" they mentioned a apostate using a new tactic of writting letters to the homes of individual publishers [NY since 1989, individual residences since 2004]. I am that "apostate". Hence I follow the site very close for the purpose of keeping abreast with the latest happenings. The church is VERY effective in using shunning as a tool to erect a very high fence between 'their people' and 'apostates' so there is no communication. BUT the internal 'grapevine' with in the church works very well, get the information into the 'grape vine' and it gets spread to the those of whom are my targeted elders [every letter gets sent to church Service Dept. by a designated elder].

You are right there seems to be a large number of 'glass half empty' posters. If you wanted to go back and read my posts I connected the biggest story to come out of the new RNWT to a VERY controversial 1987 Wt article "A Time to Speak" When" that sets out church policy on informing on the brotherhood. Yet to date no one of the 'glass half full' posters have taken the time to make the connection that the WTBS did more than shoot themselves in the foot when they released the RNWT as it clearly shows WTBS policies to be apostate in substance.

This is a timely post as locally there is a lot of consternation going on with in the elder community in the Redding Ca. area. In my last few letters I made connection between Lev.5:1, Deut.22:25-27 and 1Pet.2: 14-16. The results being that my disfellowshipped son [now living with me] during the past two weeks has had four sets of instructions as to elders wanting to set up a meeting with to talk, one being we think the circuit overseer. Yet the meetings were changed then postponed. This being Sunday the last of circuit overseer visit to son's home cong. we will see if it is either going to be on or back to silence. That should be pretty unprecedented that they would be the one to initiate contact with a disfellowshipped person.

So yes this site has been valuable for information to be used in a mental chess match between myself and the church Service Dept. that is played out on the chess board of the local church grape vine.

Bill Covert

dubstepped

Believer, you will find less aggression toward you when you realize that not everyone deserves your time or reply. There are certain people that I avoid here just like in the real world. They aren't going to see things my way, nor I theirs. Evidence is often open to interpretation and if we see something different that's got to be okay, but there's no use in continuing a conversation with that person.

I'm no longer really a "believer" as I take you to mean it, but even when I was I still came here because life and exiting a cult is bigger than a single belief structure. There's so much to talk about and to learn. I also like to help where I can when others are hurting while leaving the dubs.

Time and attention are precious commodities. You can't control who responds to you or how, but you can decide who to take seriously and who to ignore. In marketing speak there are people that are your "target audience" and those that aren't. It's tough because their is backlash from those that aren't your target, but your discussions can still prove profitable.

2+2=5

I find out things about the JW's on this site before anyone in my JW family or work circle. And I've learned a great a deal abouts vast many things from reading on this site, for which I am grateful. Praise lord Simon and the JWD community.

Other than that, I could probably take issue with just about everything you say. You are confusing holding people's ideas to scrutiny with insults.

Let's take your beliefs, for example.

You seem to reject all religion outright and reject the bible as being trustworthy. Where did you find your God? What could be said for certain, about this God? (Don't bother answering I could make some shit up myslef, It's all the same when we are talking faith).

Do you not see that you are making a ridiculous claim, while not giving any effort in offering any evidence in supporting the claim?

Can you see the problem here? Anyone can make up some bullshit story, offer no evidence, label it as "faith" and demand that it be respected..... Now correct me where I am wrong, but that pretty well describes your faith, although you have not explained it very well, besides a few God cliches. Not through lack of trying I am sure, I could imagine it is hard to write on a subject that has been plucked straight from someones rectum.

It just becomes impossible for rational people to respect faith.

flipper

Welcome, Believer. Your first posts here have gotten some attention!

I have never been a jw. When I was a child I started forming opinions based on my experiences. I found that "believers" did not have more honesty or kindness than non believers. I noticed that people DID think they did. I decided I would rather be involved with people who behaved well because they were good at heart, not out of fear of punishment by a God.

As an adult, now 61, I have avoided all religion along with clubs, meditation groups, multi-level-marketing, new age stuff and what have you. It all involves a lot of commitment which grows into control and loss of freedom. A lot of people need that stuff (God gene?) but others cannot stand it.

Even when not a member of a religion I find that believers find it necessary to try to convert others. It seems to me they do that to reassure themselves.

In all honesty - no one knows where we came from or where we are going. Believers seem to have a lot of trust in other human beings - believing the stories of God were given to people by God just because people say so. Makes my head spin.

As to why I am here...I came here 9 years ago when I was first married to Flipper to find out why my new husband's jw family were behaving like crazy people. Well, I found out!

I also found a group of kind and helpful people, and saw that there were people that had been destroyed by that cult. Flipper and I have been helped, have helped others, and have made great friends here.

I am not a faith "hater". I still have my opinions - faith makes me nervous because it can cause people to do harmful, illogical things. There is already enough trouble in the world.

I like to see people get their freedom.

Mrs. Flipper

cofty

Where did you find your God? What could be said for certain, about this God?

Believer recommends The Urantia Book as a trustworthy source of knowledge about god. No wonder he wants to limit the freedom of rational people to criticise faith.

987,000,000,000 years ago associate force organizer and then acting inspector number 811,307 of the Orvonton series, traveling out from Uversa, reported to the Ancients of Days that space conditions were favorable for the initiation of materialization phenomena in a certain sector of the, then, easterly segment of Orvonton....

Why Are You Here?

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