I remember very distinctly thinking that to do that would be to give up being myself. I just couldn't believe God would want us to be so extreme in our worship.
what you have here is systemic of all cults derived from religions that teach SELF SACRIFICE, not just JWs, but all "good" christians are taught to sacrifice their own desires for the glory of the kingdom....
what made me pause was the idea.... how is it that I am being saved when what is saved bares no resemblance to me?
minimus quoted and added:
I just wanted to be right".....I think many become JWs so that they can feel superior to everyone else---be the ONLY ones that are right!
that is a really hurt reading of what I wrote. I wanted to be right in what I was doing, not in any sense being superior to others
I think you need to stop seeing being a JW as totally diabolical or evil and start seeing that some of us were in it because it seemed right to us.
I became a JW because in this confusing world...I just wanted to be right. I did not want to join any religion when JWs crossed my path and I went to the library to find anything I could use against them in my fight to stay free of them...but in a small town, the only books I found were written by people who had no real arguements other than we say so... and JWs had CONviNc ED me that the bible was the way to judge rather than long standing traditions.
so against my desires I joined because I could not see that they were wrong and they had CONviNc ED they were right.
I dont think it is so much about being robotized as much as taking a stand and trying to defend it from that point forwards...even if you doubt somethings, you weigh that against the greater amount of things you do not doubt.
it takes a lot to change anyone's mind once they are CONviNc ED they have found THE TRUTH
i work for a fairly large organization - we have over 35 satelite offices spread out across the state.
there are jw's in some of these satelite offices that i deal with on a regular basis.
i have never had a problem with them because i view work as work, it is a professional environment and each individual is judged based on their work performance.
in Transactional Analysis or TA there is something called a GAME TRIANGLE and the three parts are victim, rescuer and persecutor.
in any GAME, which means a not completely honest set of transactions between people, these three elements will eventually arise.
the key to avoiding the out come [where both victim and rescuer become persecutor of each other]. the main goal of anyone giving advice is to avoid doing something for the victim that they cannot do for themsevles.
when they come to you instead of telling them what to do or how to do it, you say:
that is an interesting problem, what do you think you can do about it?
make them do what they can do for themselves
there was a time when jw's wouldn't buy anything that wasn't brand spanking new.
it might be a way for the demons to enter your home!.
this is from the wt, dec 15, 1966:.
dont know how to explain this...but there was one time when my brother gave me something written by another religion with calculations from the bible....and after reading it, I kept getting this repeating inner voice saying "Jehovah is a jerk" which made me feel very guilty and fearful because I could not shut it up....and I worried that I might lose my salvation over it.... but amazingly, when I got rid of that document, the voices stopped.
not saying I believe in demons, mind you, but one for the x files to be sure...
life should be a honky tonkin romp... with a long neck in your back pocket... and a hot lil oklahoma, back-sliding baptist honey in your arms.
just boots scuffin across a peanut shell littered dance hall floor.
in a overheated hall on a dusty road.
alcohol is like love
the first time is magic
the second is intimate
the third is routine
after that you dont even care about foreplay any more
.
i guess i'll always believe in god and his creation no matter what.. how about you, which side do you lean on...creation or evolution?
consider:
if we survive another say million years without returning to the stone age several times inbetween, the techological advancements we are capable of achieving.
perhaps meeting others out there and joining with them, we may infact find that one day we may become the GOD via a BORG unity that many believe responsible for making this realm....what then? we reach point OMEGA.... but point OMEGA would seem to be close to, if not identicle to point ALPHA were we believe it all began... so what to do? faced with the possibilities of an ever expanding universe ending in heat death vs pulling it all back together again, our melded combine may be the X factor that science has not be able to quantify to explain how the universe could open and close again....perhaps it was we, who set in motion this realm in the first place and gave it some sort of encoding on a quantum level which would insure that we would arise once again to be able to continue doing it.....evolution to creation to evolution etc.etc. etc.
so, what's everybody reading these days?.
i used to read so passionately, but i've lost the hobby due to everyday life stress and distractions.
i want to get back into reading again.
let us not forget
THE HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY ---Douglas Adams. [more than 4 of them I think]
and
Stranger in a strange land -- Heinlien.
so, what's everybody reading these days?.
i used to read so passionately, but i've lost the hobby due to everyday life stress and distractions.
i want to get back into reading again.
if you are not afraid to warp your belief system [BS] beyond recognition here are my recommendations:
games people play --Eric Berne
Using your brain for a change --Richard Bandler/john Grimes
THE TRUE BELIEVER -- Eric Fromm
Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors by Colin Wilson
One Minute Wisdom by Anthony Sr. De Mello
Jesus Mysteries by Freke and Gandy
Prometheus Rising -Robert Anton Wilson
Reality is what you can get away with --Robert Anton Wilson
30 days to lucid dreaming --Stephen LaBarge
A Guide to out-of-Body --Albert Taylor
Societies of the mind --Marvin Minsky
Living Zen by Charlotte J. Beck
i was thinking this morning that we some where along the evolutionary trail we as a species developed a superior intelligence to other species.
where will it eventually lead,,i mean the evolution of our species could take a sharp right or left turn not to mention a complete u-turn.. will we as a species ever keep progressing in our explots of technology or will we start a reversal?
will we come to a realization of some sort and see all this grasping to learn more and more as a waste of time and start a reversal in that direction of our evolution as far as intelligence goes?
zen nudistalpha male types, which make up 1 out of every 22 malesDo you have figures for this? I'm not disputing the figure, I'm interested in getting more.
the source is a book called ROGUE MESSIAHS
in that book they sited studies of populations of male's, mostly from POW camps.... when the guards isolated all leaders from the rest, they numbered on average 1 out of 22... the rest never made trouble nor tried to escape once the leaders were removed.
