Posts by zen nudist

20

From JW to Atheist; Now, how do I face my family?

by AlmostAtheist in

jw
friends

hey gang,.

i've read dozens of threads here, some sounding similar to what i'm writing now.

i can't help it, i want to talk about it.

zen nudist

I was in nearly exactly your situation, my family were lapsed agnostic catholics who had not been to church in decades, my wife at the time my BORG theological implants failed, was a former pioneer, with mother father, one brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew, all in the TROOF and living in our city.... She had moved to florida at age 5 and grew up with her congregation and they all looked at her as one of their own children....

When I woke up, I thought to simply pretend and go along with things for a while...not make any waves, but my then wife, now ex [not because of leaving btw] seemed to wake up too, but I did not know why at the time...she seemed to have been going through the motions for a long time, but I blamed it on her illness and car accident... but when we started to compare our doubts and discuss our thinking, she revealed that she had been mentally out of JWs for over two years prior to our marriage, and stayed in because the feelings of guilt were less when pretending to be a JW then when trying to exit [really says a lot about emotional blackmail, eh?]

the ironic thing to me was how her congregation, which had now been my cong for some 3 years, immediately turned on me as if I was the one who took their daughter from them...when I was the one who in far longer. They made efforts to seperate us and get her to meetings, they felt I was keeping her from...they never once thought that it might be that she was the one who took me out...they did not even care if I could be brought back, they made NO effort towards me whatso ever... I was to them an outsider and dirt.

26

The Passion of the Christ questions (Spoilers within)

by recoveringjw in

jw
friends

spoilers?

for anybody who knows the story of jesus, it should be like watching titanic---the ship sinks, get over it.

spouse: "nobody in the movie saw the hooded creature.

zen nudist

THE PASSION, AKA the Judean chainsaw massacre

I found it odd that they injected the comedy of Jesus making a table, which is an idea which will catch on...

but hardly anyone remembers or comments on that....too overwhelmed by the needless violence...

the main thought I had watching this film, if Jesus existed and God existed and was really his dad, he was a very nasty piece of work for

allowing such needless and meaningless violence.

20

Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist in

considering that all availible evidence points to the understanding that everything we know is our own mental inventions, symbols our own minds have made... maps of an implied territory, representations, not substance, how can we be sure of anything that arises in our minds at all?

it seems the best we can say is that there is some stability and consistancy to some of the things we experience and some of our beliefs seems useful a lot of the time... but the truth?

what can one use as a standard for the truth?

zen nudist

Doesn't make them false, either, and as I've pointed out, the shared perceptions of billions are really the only evidence we have as to what is reality. Why should we conclude they are wrong without extraordinary evidence to the contrary?

it must be pointed out that those billions are perceptions too which also may only be figments of your own mind... you cannot use subjective mental anomolies to prove that objective realities exist, can you?

I don't recall "mocking" anybody. Again, you are equating simple disagreement with an attack. This is one of the biggest problems I have with those who think as you do; you not only want to maintain your own belief structure, but you are unable to accept the fact that others disagree, and if someone does so, you interpret it as an attack. Don't you believe that my belief that there are objective truths is as valid as yours that there are not? Why are you so intolerant of those who disagree?

you started calling my belief CLAPTRAP which is a nicer term than BULL$#!+ but did you mean anything else?

now you are pretending that it was your disagreement which was the attack... it was not, just your insulting tones

then you pretend that I am unable to accept others disagreeing with me... more self serving condescension.

as to your beliefs about objective truths, I simply ask you for some objective evidence for them which of course we both know you cannot give as the only things we can share are always going to be subjective, no? if I am wrong, please provide the evidence.

where have I been intolerant of those who disagree? that seems like it is you who are the one seeing attacks where there are none.

20

Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist in

considering that all availible evidence points to the understanding that everything we know is our own mental inventions, symbols our own minds have made... maps of an implied territory, representations, not substance, how can we be sure of anything that arises in our minds at all?

it seems the best we can say is that there is some stability and consistancy to some of the things we experience and some of our beliefs seems useful a lot of the time... but the truth?

what can one use as a standard for the truth?

zen nudist

won't say it's impossible for that to be wrong, but it seems very unlikely. In the absence of actual evidence that our perceptions are somehow badly skewed, it seems like nothing more to me than a topic for idle speculation that some people are taking way too seriously.

as to other evidences, when you have had some out of body experiences or near death expeirences and are a vet of dozens of lucid dreams, then you can tell me what we all share is as real as you think it is, while those of us who have had VERY SIMILAR experiences which shows us that the seemingly solid world of current perceptions is nothing but smoke and mirrors, as in a shared hallicination, then we can say more, but my expeirences are not your experiences, my world view has a very different shared view with others who like me have had some very different perceptions which apparently you have yet to share.

does the fact that we seem to have shared them make them true? or what about past life experiences, I share these with many, does that in and of itself make them true?

many questions, but I find few answers and those like you who have yet to expeirence such things seem to think none of them exist, but those who do share them ponder otherwise.

you remind me of those who have never been addicted to anything and can snort heroine and not get a buzz and go around mocking the rest of us addicts who have a completely different experience of the world.

20

Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist in

considering that all availible evidence points to the understanding that everything we know is our own mental inventions, symbols our own minds have made... maps of an implied territory, representations, not substance, how can we be sure of anything that arises in our minds at all?

it seems the best we can say is that there is some stability and consistancy to some of the things we experience and some of our beliefs seems useful a lot of the time... but the truth?

what can one use as a standard for the truth?

zen nudist

It seems to me that you were pretty strongly implying that our perceptions are at least potentially untrue or inaccurate, though you may not have expressed it explicitly. And again, you speak of this "evidence" that you have not supplied, which would prove that everything in our own minds is made by our own minds. What's wrong with the concept that the perceptions in our minds are made by an outside reality impacting on our senses? That is what humans have believed for millenia. What extraordinary evidence do you have that proves otherwise

The site I pointed to shows in images what science tells us, a chain of events which seems to come from an external source ending up as a mental interpretation [symbols, representations, dreams, etc] call it what you like, but the only FACTS we have to go on shows that what we KNOW is not the external world but a possible representation of one...and there is the rub, its a FACT that what we know is within our mind, but it not a fact that it exists anywhere else...so on what basis would one assume it does? you said for millenia we have assumed such, I point out that some of the greeks like Plato did not, he clearly understood this when he spoke of seeing the shadows on the wall cast by a a source beyond our ability to expeirence and mistaking the shadows for reality. the world we KNOW claims that photons hit objects and then bounce into our eyes and get converted to electrical signals which are piped into a brain which processes these in combination with a myriad of others to form some sort of coherent world that we then experience... the images I pointed to on the website shows there is a fundamental lack of understanding of what actually views the final product, what finally is conscious, what sees...but it also points to the fact that we are not 100% sure that what we do see what science and our apparent senses tell us is actually what is going on at all, al a matrix... the source and the observer are both infact mysteries which no one has ever conclusively demonstrated to exist as we suspect they do.... your using the term clap trap reminds me of the RANDROID, those cultish followers of Ian Rand's objectivism. they pretend that objective reality is knowable and verifiable in some objective way, but never deliver more than intellectually dishonest mockery.

245

Are Christians harmless?

by gumby in

first off....let me qualify something.

lets keep this to modern day christians in civilized lands.. many on this board are non-believers, and there are quite a number of christians.....so we have a mix.. non believers feel they need to speak out concerning what they have come to understand regarding the bibles authenticity to believers because they feel these ones need to at least see the sceptical side so they can make an honest choice.. believers feel they need to speak out to others concerning what they have come to understand about salvation.

here's the deal..............if believers can live a happy, good, healthy life, and take this to the grave with them..........should a non-believer try to mess all that up.....or leave well enough alone?.

zen nudist

Yes...I realize going wacko is not the only option for those who leave their faith.....but in many cases it seems christianity works well for those who live by it's rules when they cannot seem to keep sane without it.

the problem I discovered for myself and others was that we really did not live better lives, just pretended to better than others who were not trying to pretend to be christians.

my father in law was an elder, at home he was a closet alcoholic and a wife beater, but he looked real good at the meetings

20

Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist in

considering that all availible evidence points to the understanding that everything we know is our own mental inventions, symbols our own minds have made... maps of an implied territory, representations, not substance, how can we be sure of anything that arises in our minds at all?

it seems the best we can say is that there is some stability and consistancy to some of the things we experience and some of our beliefs seems useful a lot of the time... but the truth?

what can one use as a standard for the truth?

zen nudist

I don't see "all evidence" on that site, or, really, any evidence at all. What I see is Watchtower-style reasoning: it "could be" that everything we perceive is unreal, and because we assert it to be so, it must be true. What is the "evidence" that what we perceive is not what actually is? This is typical postmodern claptrap: 'nothing is objectively true'. My question is, if we say that nothing is objectively true, are we stating an objective truth?

I see nothing in what you are saying to show anything otherwise either

What is the "evidence" that what we perceive is not what actually is?

how do we compare and tell what actually is? from all the EVIDENCE what actually is is just mental inventions, dreams...but that is hardly the point you think you are making now is it

but if you read carefully, you will see I make no such claims, only that the EVIDENCE we have points to everything we KNOW to be within our own minds made by our own minds...not that it is untrue or even inaccurate, I cannot tell that as I have no means to do so.

The page I refered to does not say that everything is unreal, only that everything we KNOW may be nothing more than a dream, not that it is nothing more than a dream, the conclusion is NOT given as that would imply the very thing you falsely accuse me of doing, namely stating an objective truth, which of course I do not believe to exist....

but your RANDROID reaction is typical of those who want to silence opinions which do not conform to your view of the world.

20

Is the very concept of THE TRUTH the reason cults can exist?

by zen nudist in

considering that all availible evidence points to the understanding that everything we know is our own mental inventions, symbols our own minds have made... maps of an implied territory, representations, not substance, how can we be sure of anything that arises in our minds at all?

it seems the best we can say is that there is some stability and consistancy to some of the things we experience and some of our beliefs seems useful a lot of the time... but the truth?

what can one use as a standard for the truth?

zen nudist

i did not know that "All evidence" points to that.

check out http://www.geocities.com/jiohdi/reality1.html

24

How True Are The Testimonies On This Board.?

by Paradise Found in

jw
friends

its easy to belive what we read and accept as truth.when my wife came to the computer i left on the screen a post on what happend at bethel (not intentionally) ..she read it and said i dont belive it?

i would like to belive what i read on this board is 100 % true.

iam grateful for the truth on the u:n and more and more stuff that blows my mind away.and also personal stories that have had a profound effect on me.. sadly iam certain with-out doubt that the majority of exsperinences on this board are true because no matter how sincere a person is when you allow people to have a higher legal position in the land they live in than the law of the land they live in( no matter how bad or corrupt the society of the land we live in.

zen nudist

I never lie unless its abosolutely convenient.

4

what is the real reason for condemning anyone to eternal death or torment?

by zen nudist in

consider that a real all powerful god could wipe out everyones memory instead of everyone.... guess that it did not occur.

to him in noah's day?.

if everyone had to start over and could be educated with the troof, why condemn them for anything done prior to that moment?.

zen nudist

consider that a real all powerful god could wipe out everyones memory instead of everyone.... guess that it did not occur

to him in Noah's day?

if everyone had to start over and could be educated with THE TROOF, why condemn them for anything done prior to that moment?

if there is something systemicly wrong with them that will cause them to become monsters, is that their fault? is it not also something that a waves of the magic wand of an all powerful god could no repair?

I cannot think of any valid reason to condemn anyone when it comes down to it as all things that could cause condemnation seem repairable... what say you?