Posts by maksutov

137

Something interesting!

by John Aquila in

i was invited to a small get-together by a long time friend.

we both served as elders for years.

he is in his late 70s.

maksutov

Cool. Any idea what they think about shunning / blood?

6

MOTO-GP the Rossi vs Marquez controversy

by wozza in

if you've watched the race what do you think about the stoush on the track.. i've always been a rossi fan but after what happened in the race i'm really disappointed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2div26-jqs.

maksutov

Just seen the race. Rossi looked very dirty - what a disappointment. I'm now rooting for Lorenzo to win the championship.

31

The fade did not work

by BeautifulMind in

not long after learning ttatt, my hubby and i decided it would be best for us to fade.

his entire family is in, but not in the same cong.

we made it to the region convention and one sunday meeting after that.

Same thing happened to me - I thought I could fake it for a while for the sake of a relative, but I only lasted one meeting. One excruciating meeting. It is amazing what a difference it makes when you attend a meeting without the blinkers on.

26

Why doesn't God need a creator, while the Universe does?

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

i asked this question of a jw that called on me yesterday: "if the universe requires a creator, why doesn't god?

if the universe must have a beginning, why doesn't god?

he claims to have an answer, but it must wait for next time he calls.. i'm hoping you guys can give me a heads-up as to what he will say.

maksutov

When I was a JW I would have used special pleading to argue that whatever the first cause was, it had to be eternal, since if everything needs to be created, and someone created God, then that someone was the first cause, not God. We could regress with that argument indefinitely, but as the Bible tells us that God was the first cause and has existed eternally, and the Bible proves its veractiy with unerring prophecy (barf), we can be confident that it is true. As God is supernatural, and invented the laws of physics, he is not himself subject to the laws of physics, and can exist outside of the universe, thus not needing to have a beginning (whereas there is evidence that the universe itself did have a beginning). Ugh, I can't believe I just typed that BS.

westiebillie11: ...I have a circular thought re universe expansion....if it is expanding..what is it expanding in?..ie.what is outside it for it to expand into?....after a while I get a headache!

As for what the universe is expanding into - I think people often misunderstand what 'the universe is expanding' means (not saying you do, but it is easy to get the wrong idea). It does not refer to matter spreading out in space, it refers to space itself getting bigger. Imagine a two dimensional universe by drawing little pictures of stars and galaxies on the surface of a balloon. Then inflate the balloon - the dots and galaxies move away from each other because the balloon (space) is expanding, not because the dots are moving along the surface (that's not to say stars and galaxies don't move through space, they do, but that's not what expansion is about).

39

Hubby has been doing research on the internet!!!!

by atacrossroads in

jw
friends

my husband was recently subjected to an intervention by his parents.

i am apparently a danger to his spirituality.

after i stopped attending meetings and went apostate hubby decided to resign as a ms to spend more time with me.

maksutov

Awesome. It still could go either way, but it sounds very positive (the hardest part is entertaining the notion that it might not be true, which he has already done). All the best.

6

MOTO-GP the Rossi vs Marquez controversy

by wozza in

if you've watched the race what do you think about the stoush on the track.. i've always been a rossi fan but after what happened in the race i'm really disappointed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2div26-jqs.

maksutov

I haven't seen it yet - I can only get the highlights which will be on tomorrow. But I thought last week at Philip Island was the best race of the season (unless you happened to be that seagull). I was a Rossi fan until I read his autobiography, and now I'm a bit ambivalent about him. I'd still like to see him win the championship this year though, and we do need characters like him to keep things interesting.

32

How many of you left the Org since 2015?

by Paul Bonanno in

jw
friends

i have noticed that many lately have left the org or are in the process of leaving.

how many of you have left since 2015?.

this month will be my 21 years out of the org into the road of freedom.

maksutov

Officially forcibly disassociated in April 2015, but have been mentally out and inactive since 2010.

83

As a Matter of Conscience, I Am Resigning from the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses

by Sail Away in

after listening to the hearings of the australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, i am no longer content to have simply walked away from the organization.

as a matter of conscience, i do not want my name linked with the organization in any way.

i know this letter has been posted previously, and i thank the author.

maksutov

Nice. I hope they respect your wishes SailAway, although I would not be at all surprised if they still make an announcement that you are no longer a member. That's great that the solicitor didn't charge you! I got a solicitor to write a similar letter when I was being harrassed by elders 5 years ago, and it cost me £250 for just the one letter (which had no effect, other than to mean that they made an announcement that I was no longer a JW without telling me - they would've told me if I hadn't sent the letter apparently).

112

Did an EX-JW wake you up to TTATT or did you put the effort to wake up yourself?

by John Aquila in

how many of us were woken up by some apostate yelling false prophets at a convention?.

how many of us were woken up by someone holding a sign and yelling, what happened to 1975.

how many of us were coerced to investigate the wt because some ex-jw pulled up a bunch of old watchtowers magazines and told us to read the false predictions?.

maksutov

I woke up on my own too, and I agree that is the case for most. However, apostates helped me tremendously once I had woken up, and if it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't have come to understand how dangerous the org is.

27

This is for all JW's out there...

by Divergent in

jw
friends

.

sorry to be so blunt, but you only have yourself to blame if you realize something is wrong but allow your cognitive dissonance to kick in.

if you are confronted with facts which are reported by reliable sources which are hard to dispute and deny, and you choose to dismiss these as "apostate lies" rather than looking at these from an objective point of view, it's your fault and you deserve the consequences of willful ignorance!.

maksutov

I'm not sure it is quite as black-and-white as that. I would agree that it is intellectually dishonest to dismiss evidence just because you don't like what it leads to, but human psychology is such that unless we have some very specific education and strategies in place, we are all susceptible to logical fallacies and manipulation. In order to break free from that, we need to be educated in critical thinking skills, how to spot logical fallacies, and the mechanisms used by manipulators. Sadly, once the manipulation has started, it becomes increasingly difficult for the victim to think rationally - and religious manipulation often starts in childhood. IMHO, critical thinking skills should be a core subject in schools - from primary school level up.

Even when we know about cognitive dissonance though, we are still susceptible to it, and we have to implement strategies to negate the effects of bias. I'd recommend Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" for more insights on that (the author acknowledges that psychologists find themselves falling for the same fallacies that everyone else falls for, even though they are aware of them).