Posts by seattleniceguy

22

I never believed in demons

by drew sagan in

for the entire time i was a jw (1999-2007) i never believed in demons.. a few times i remember this getting me into small confrontations with jws.

a jw would talk about how demons were scary and powerful.

i would argue that i've never seen a demon, and that to be affraid of such things was silly.

seattleniceguy

Say you are an atheist. You tell a believer that you don't believe in demons because you have never seen them. The believer then replies "demons would never appear to you because they know it would convince you to believe in god!"

Yeah, according to that logic, the best way to avoid demon encounters would be to simply not believe in them. The entire spirit underworld would simply cease to exist if people would just stop believing. (Is there something vaguely Peter Pan about that?)

Did any of you guys see the movie Paranormal Activity? It got pretty good reviews as a truly frightening movie, which is actually pretty tough to pull off. My wife and I went to see it, and we found it difficult to believe anyone could be scared by it. Don't get me wrong, the acting is great, and there is a solid buildup of suspense in the beginning. But when the spirits finally appear, what do they do? They make noises, ruffle bedsheets, and move doors. Even in movies, that's all they can do.

For someone who believes in demons, this movie probably effectively plays into fears in the same sort of way as the stories told at the Kingdom Hall do. But for us, it just came off as silly.

SNG

22

I never believed in demons

by drew sagan in

for the entire time i was a jw (1999-2007) i never believed in demons.. a few times i remember this getting me into small confrontations with jws.

a jw would talk about how demons were scary and powerful.

i would argue that i've never seen a demon, and that to be affraid of such things was silly.

seattleniceguy

I have a theory about why Witnesses are so fascinated with demons. I think that in a round-about way, they seem to God more believable.

Here's the deal. I think everyone struggles with belief in God. After all, while he was supposedly performing miracles back in "Bible times"--parting the sea, sending magical food from the heavens, and so on--nothing like that happens at all today. Sure, maybe you read a timely Awake article or get a delivery of groceries from a friend just when you need it, but those are hardly the kind of real, indisputable manifestations you read about in the Bible. If only that kind of stuff happened today, it would be so much easier to believe in God!

"Ah, but that kind of thing does happen today--just not on the good guys' side," the thinking goes. The magic may be flowing in the wrong direction, but it's real alright, animating Smurf dolls, randomly moving chairs across the room, even sometimes breaking the necks of defenseless little girls (I remember hearing my mom tell me about this as a kid, and it scared me for years). It doesn't get any more real than that, right? And if the demons are real, then God must be real too!

When I was a Witness, I didn't believe all demon stories, but on occasion I would meet someone who seemed believable who claimed to have had some kind of demon encounter, and it really did reinforce my faith in God.

For this reason, demon stories are very strongly self-perpetuating. They're scary, exciting, and even help soothe that deepest fear that otherwise rational religious people have--that this whole thing is a big fairy tale.

Glad to be out of that craziness!

SNG
(Who, for the record, does not believe in God, gods, demons, unicorns, leprechauns, ogres, fairies, pixies, or any other mythical beings.)

44

Evolutionists - please help!

by Georgiegirl in

ok. (taking deep breath) i am finally at that point in my recovery where i am ready to look at evolution as more than a loose theory which is clearly disprovable by the fact that all the bones proving it could be in a coffin.

or, um, some illustration like that.. i feel like first i have to "unlearn" the jw teaching of evolution to learn what "real" evolution is.

then, learn about that and then see how i feel.

seattleniceguy

Wow, losthusband, that link from dimaggio.org is completely devastating. This is a great reminder that former Witnesses need to question absolutely all information they learned from the Society.

SNG

20

The movie "2012." Has everyone turned dub?

by parakeet in

has anyone else seen the preview ads for the movie "2012"?

it's like wt armageddon illustrations come to life (except that everyone's not dressed like it's still the 1950s).. what's the deal with the year 2012?

i thought it was just a dub thing.. .

seattleniceguy

Thinking the world will end in 2012 because the Mayan calendar ends is like believing your car will stop running when the odometer hits 99999.9. It's hard to believe people actually take this seriously. See you in 2013! :-)

SNG

10

Help me with research for video: "Evidence: The WT breaks up families"

by seattleniceguy in

i'm interested in trying my hand at a youtube video.

i'd like to do a piece giving evidence that the wt actually breaks up families since, to my mind, this is one of their worst real offenses.

the outline will go something like this:.

seattleniceguy

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and links. I will get working on them. Thanks!

SNG

10

Help me with research for video: "Evidence: The WT breaks up families"

by seattleniceguy in

i'm interested in trying my hand at a youtube video.

i'd like to do a piece giving evidence that the wt actually breaks up families since, to my mind, this is one of their worst real offenses.

the outline will go something like this:.

seattleniceguy

Hello,

I'm interested in trying my hand at a YouTube video. I'd like to do a piece giving evidence that the WT actually breaks up families since, to my mind, this is one of their worst real offenses. The outline will go something like this:

----------------------------

Show evidence for the following claims:
1. JWs are taught that their religion is the only path to God, and that all others will be destroyed.
2. JWs are taught that the leadership is the mouthpiece for God.
3. JWs are taught that questioning the leadership in the organization is tantamount to questioning God.
4. JWs are taught that non-Witnesses are "bad association" and are strongly discouraged from having friendships outside of the organization.
5. JWs are taught that people who leave the organization - for whatever reason - must be shunned.
6. Not shunning is a disfellowshipping offense.

Conclusion: The WT organization breaks up families when one member of that family leaves the religion. It does this by threatening the remaining family members with:
a) Immediate loss of contact with their friends and family
b) Loss of eternal life in the long term
should they maintain friendly contact with the one who left.

------------------

The evidence would come in the form of quotations from WT publications. Ideally, I'd like to show actual scans with the appropriate sections lit up, "60 Minutes" style. This leads me to two questions:

1. Can you help me come up with the quotes? I don't have any WT literature anymore.
2. Once I've nailed down the quotes, does anyone have some storehouse of scans so that I could show images of the actual literature?

Thanks,

Brian

46

Endosymbiosis --- A challenge to Dawkins' Universal Darwinism

by hamilcarr in

jw
friends

inspired by dawkins' notion of universal darwinism, biologists have been trying to prove that all sorts of evolution can be explained by a simple paradigm of random mutation and natural selection.

because of dawkins' ardor to spread the word, many have no idea there's far more to discover about evolutionary mechanisms beyond natural selection.. one of these challenges to dawkins' universal darwinism is called the endosymbiotic theory, popularized by lynn margulis in the 90s.

she's known for her bold rejection of some neo-darwinian interpretations.

seattleniceguy

I also don't see the point of the original post. I don't see how endosymbiosis is a challenge to anything except creationism. It's a fascinating fact of the physical world, and one that fits perfectly with the rest of modern evolutionary theory.

SNG

39

Noah's ark - Can't believe I once actually thought it was true

by sam_sane_now in

when i was a jw i didn't even question that the noah's ark story might not be true.

i didn't realise that it wasn't achievable for a handful of people to gather literally millions of animals - two of each kind - and fit them into a boat where they would all survive for many days.

i didn't think about the fact that if the highest mountain was covered with water then how could plant life like trees and flowers come to exist again, especially so soon after, with the raven grabbing an olive leaf was it?

seattleniceguy

What's with the Jimmy Buffet parrot?

Really and truly LOL!

SNG

28

Funniest Meeting Memories

by YoungAmerican in

there are always so many bad memories related here i thought it might be nice to change it up a bit.

what are some of your funniestmemories of the meetings, or even field service?

things that happened things said?

seattleniceguy

There was an older, kind of absent-minded brother in my congregation, Brother Wood. One day he had a talk from one of the little books in the Galations-Ephesians-Phillipians-Collossians series. He gives a natural enough introduction, but when he opens his bible to do the reading, he flips to the wrong book. So instead of Galations chapter 3, he's in like Collossians chapter 3. Actually the reading wasn't an entire chapter, but a snip right from the middle, like versus 20 through 36 or something, which in Galatians lined up neatly with the paragraph boundaries, but in Collossians made no sense, like it started in the middle of a sentence or something.

Anyway, poor Brother Wood never noticed. He just read the whole thing, then gave his conclusion with a faintly confused look on his face. He must have been thinking, "I swear this made more sense at home!" Everyone in the hall was just cringing the whole time.

SNG

4

What do you need to make a YouTube video?

by Nathan Natas in

jw
friends

i'd like to ask our experts what hardware and software they feel is best for making youtube video.

is familiarilty with the binary language of moisture vaporators a requirement?

about how much would it cost to get the additional hardware, assuming i had a relatively modern computer that is power enough to do the job.

seattleniceguy

I use the "minimum possible barrier to entry" technique, which is to use the video mode on my digital camera (which gives me up to a whopping 10 minutes if my card is empty, but that's just right for YouTube). Then I use Windows Movie Maker, which is included in the OS for free, to put in the titles and transitions and export it to a compressed format.

Good luck!

SNG