Posts by AlanF

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

AlanF

My, my, beardo. You certainly come up with some compelling arguments.

AlanF

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

AlanF

I don't believe in the existence of the Judeo-Christian God (or Allah, Thor, Zeus, etc.), the supernatural or the paranormal for one reason: there is no clear evidence that they exist. On the other hand, there is a good deal of evidence that the largely anecdotal evidence cited by believers is better explained by the powerful ability of the human mind to create illusions for itself and to misinterpret evidence. Many experiences and observations have led me to these conclusions.

I discount the claims of people who say they've had personal experiences with gods or demons or whatever, because of a number of things like I'll describe below.

Few Christians on this board would allow that the JW concept of "the anointed" is a Christian doctrine. Some years ago I met with two "anointed" JWs and spent the better part of a day talking to them. Both claimed to have been "anointed" for about 20 years, virtually since they became JWs. The older had been in Bethel and attached to the Writing Department for a time. The younger had been disfellowshipped for a short time and was never a Bethelite. Both were at that time loosely attached to the Writing Department and said they sometimes contributed research material which was used by the Society in various publications. I asked the younger guy about what convinced him that he was "anointed". He said that one day he was walking along the street, when all of a sudden an extremely strong feeling about knocked him off his feet, a feeling that he had been "washed clean", as he put it. From that moment on he 'knew' he was anointed. Now, most everyone on this board will agree, for one reason or another, that the Christian God could have had nothing to do with this guy's experience of "anointing". If one believes that this God exists, then he'd have to be insane to so "anoint" a JW, right? So most everyone will agree that this guy's experience, real to him as it was, was most likely a hallucination.

Several decades ago I met a JW couple who were going through some tough marital times. My then wife and I became friendly with them and we got together socially a number of times. As JWs usually do, we recounted our experiences becoming JWs. The guy said that he was heavy into drugs when he was contacted by the JWs, and when he began studying with them he quit the drugs. He also began experiencing demon attacks. These let up as he progressed towards becoming a JW. He said that the attacks came in the form of a "succubus" (a female-shaped demon) getting into bed with him at night and trying to have sex with him. The attacks were often quite violent, and shook the bed around a good deal. I asked him if he had been taking hallucinogenic drugs, and if he thought that these attacks might have been left over from his recent drug habit. He was adamant that he took no such drugs, and that the attacks were no hallucinations, but were real. After all, didn't the Society teach that such attacks were not uncommon for someone studying with the JWs? But some months later, he admitted that he had been taking LSD regularly until after he started studying with the JWs. The conclusion is obvious: the man had hallucinations left over from his LSD habit and induced by his new-found knowledge that studying with the JWs could induce demon attacks.

One poster mentioned "sleep paralysis" as a source of hallucinations that seem completely real. Most people experience this to some extent with the kind of dream where you're convinced you're awake but you can't move. I've experienced it, and it's one of the most uncomfortable things I can imagine. But the next day, I know what happened. It has been proved with scientific studies that some people experience dramatic hallucinations in this state, and even when sleep researchers present video footage to the person the next day of him lying in bed the whole night, he often remains convinced that his hallucinations were real.

Hallucinations can also be produced by physical damage to the brain. My dad's brain was apparently damaged in the womb when his mother caught the Spanish Influenza in 1917 and nearly died. In the last 15 years of his life, he experienced increasing hallucinations. When they first began, he told me that he would see someone sitting on his bed, and would carry on a conversation with this "person", even though he knew full well that he was having a hallucination. It was as real to him as my sitting there and talking to him was.

Many people who have these wierd experiences and hallucinations don't have the wherewithal to understand what they experienced, and so they believe they had a real experience. Nothing will convince them otherwise. After all, it was their experience, and no one ought to throw cold water on it, right?

In his recent book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins gives a list of seven milestones in the continuous probability spectrum of belief in God. This is in a discussion of what atheism and agnosticism means in the context of "true believers in God". The last two are:

6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'

7. Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung "knows" there is one.'

Dawkins comments on this list: "I count myself in category 6, but leaning towards 7 -- I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden."

I'm completely with Dawkins on this. I'm in category 6 with respect to God, the supernatural in general, the paranormal, UFOs as conveyors of alien beings, and a lot more besides.

AlanF

9

Back Cover of Nov15, WT: Did Judah Remain Desolate?

by Midget-Sasquatch in

i quickly read it all and thought.

again they use a poorlyreferenced quote and they leave out who knows what.

i wouldn't be surprised to find that the actual bar article they used disagreed with their "history.".

AlanF

So Leo, have you found the Biblical Archaeology Review article that the WTS quoted? It would be interesting to see the context to see exactly what the author said.

AlanF

36

original sin and evolution creationists

by BlackSwan of Memphis in

jw
friends

ok i've been trying to understand this.... there are a good number of christians out there who most definitely believe that god used evolution as a means of creating us.

for instance, i am pretty sure that the catholic church accepts this idea.. if man came about by evolution, how does sin come into play?

at what point did man sin and how does the story of adam and eve fit into this picture?.

AlanF

Top Hat said:

:: Before rejecting the ideas set forth by these authors (others have also written on this topic) it would be good for creationists to read them.

: Like an exJW reading the Watchtower......and believing every word.

What an idiotic comparison. What solid scientific material have you read, Top Hat, about evolution and about the various topics covered by Dawkins, Hauser and others? If you can't list several, then your creationist agenda, along with your prejudices, will be revealed. If you've read any such, upon what basis do you reject the reasoning? Give clear examples and cite references. Of course, non-creationist readers know up front that you can't.

You're yet another irritating, arrogant and supremely ignorant creationist who is virtually a stereotype, and so readers already know pretty much what your responses will be.

Your comparison is extremely stupid for the following reason: Ex-JWs who quit the JW cult for solid reasons usually can clearly describe exactly what it was about the JW cult that turned them off to it. They can cite chapter and verse in Watchtower publications, along with personal experiences, to back up their reasoning. You can't do the same with the two book references I've cited, or anything similar. Your lack of reasoned response will prove it.

AlanF

149

Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

personal and more than likely good reasons.

and after reading the .

AlanF

Does anyone see a resemblance of the responses of The Wanderer and Top Hat to those of Thirdwitness? Or get the same sense that it's futile to reply, for the same reasons?

AlanF

103

The God Delusion

by Peppermint in

jw
friends

old dawkins is on the rampage again.

.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5372458.stm.

AlanF

Top Hat appears to be exactly the sort of unreasoning true believer that Dawkins describes in his book. The sort that believe mainly believes because he was taught his religion in childhood and has never gone beyond looking at what he learned at his mother's knee.

I just picked up this book yesterday and read the first 1/4 of it. Awesome! I think it's going to be a watershed in the history of atheism.

AlanF

97

1914 ,the Generation that got tossed in the Garbage Can

by OUTLAW in

as many of you know i`ve just got back to the board in the last little while..what did i learn yesterday?..the generation of 1914 means nothing..nothing!

!..back in the day,you could have been disfellowshipped for such a remark..disfellowshipped!

!..what did you think and how did you feel when you found out the generation of 1914,now means nothing?.....outlaw

AlanF

No, Hellrider, I don't think that there is any connection between the two things.

AlanF

36

original sin and evolution creationists

by BlackSwan of Memphis in

jw
friends

ok i've been trying to understand this.... there are a good number of christians out there who most definitely believe that god used evolution as a means of creating us.

for instance, i am pretty sure that the catholic church accepts this idea.. if man came about by evolution, how does sin come into play?

at what point did man sin and how does the story of adam and eve fit into this picture?.

AlanF

The question was raised about "the moral code" and about how such a thing could possibly evolve. In his latest book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins takes a good stab at it. Also, the recent book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong (Marc D. Hauser, Harper Collins, 2006) goes into the question in detail.

Before rejecting the ideas set forth by these authors (others have also written on this topic) it would be good for creationists to read them.

AlanF

97

1914 ,the Generation that got tossed in the Garbage Can

by OUTLAW in

as many of you know i`ve just got back to the board in the last little while..what did i learn yesterday?..the generation of 1914 means nothing..nothing!

!..back in the day,you could have been disfellowshipped for such a remark..disfellowshipped!

!..what did you think and how did you feel when you found out the generation of 1914,now means nothing?.....outlaw

AlanF

The 1995 change to the "generation of 1914" doctrine was one that I and a number of other JW critics anticipated with much enthusiasm. At the summer district conventions in 1993, two talks were given that radically changed some long-held teachings about things described in Matthew 24 & 25, and related passages in Mark and Luke. The "separating of the sheep and the goats" was now in the future, rather than something that current JWs were participating in. These changes were repeated in a February 1994 Watchtower. It was immediately clear to me that many more changes were in the works, because the 1993 talks left a lot of loose ends. This was discussed by JW critics on varous online forums.

In November 1993, a JW family member arranged for me to call GB member Albert Schroeder on the phone one Sunday afternoon. We spent about 2 1/2 hours on the phone. One thing I mentioned to him was that it was evident that the Society had more changes to make with respect to the summer assembly talks, and he confirmed that. He wouldn't tell me what was in the works, though. I suspect there was a lot of wrangling about what changes should be made and how it should be handled. I had the impression that these changes would be only a few months away, but more than two years passed from the delivery of those initial talks to the big change in late 1995.

I remember telling online JWs that more changes were in the works regarding this stuff. Most refused to accept it. After the change was made, one JW quit and wondered how us critics had known about the coming changes. But they simply hadn't paid attention to what we had said for two years previous.

One funny thing happened shortly after the Watchtower article about the change came out. Someone pointed out that the masthead of Awake! no longer reflected JW doctrine, and would have to be changed pretty soon. It was pretty clear that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing in Bethel. Some online JWs pooh-poohed all this and said that the Awake! masthead was fine as it was. But within a few months it was changed. We had a lot of laughs about that. And of course, more JWs quit, again wondering why the critics seemed much more in tune with the Society's doings than they themselves were.

AlanF

19

Why has the 'Creation' book fallen out of favour with the WTBTS!!!

by Gill in

why has the 'creation' book, the light blue one, fallen out of favour?

when it came out it was called 'the final nail in the coffin of evolution theory'.. i've heard a bit about there being 'problems' with the book but would like to know if there are specifics and whether the wtbts find the book an embarrassment, which is why they may no longer be using it..

AlanF

I don't know about a pamphlet/booklet, Gill. All I know about is the latest Awake! (Sept) on evolution, and the 1998 Creator book.

AlanF