myauntfanny

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Posts by myauntfanny

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  39

  STUPID PEOPLE: can't kill em...What do you do with them?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm afraid we all run into stupid people.

  they can frustrate us; they can baffle us; they can make life miserable for us.

  what do you do when you encounter one?

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  myauntfanny

  Gumby

  EEEWWWW. I could have have easily done without that picture in my mind. (Just kidding, I like a good gross out. More!)
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  24

  Do JWs believe all wordly people die at armageddon?

  by XQsThaiPoes in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was wondering a few things.

  i am trying to avoid the complexe question fallacy so excuse me if this is worded strangely instead of just saying "do jws believe all wordly people die at armageddon?"..

  1) did the watchtower change its teaching on the great tribulation and armageddon enought for you to call it a major change?.

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  myauntfanny

  XQ, I'm glad you started this thread, because I'm really curious. But, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression you are a practicing, attending, believing JW. Is it really so vague that even insiders don't know anymore?

  I can tell you that when I was a kid it was a dead certain fact and was all going to happen in 1978 (that was in my congregation, I've noticed that others had 1976 as a date). When I asked on Beliefnet, which has a lot of JWs and their defenders, I never got a definitive yes or no answer. There was a lot of "Jehovah is the only one who can judge what's in a person's heart." But these same people would talk about their grief at the thought of losing unbelieving children in Armageddon. So it was clear that whatever the story is for outside consumption, they thought their own loved ones didn't have a chance.

  I know there's a distinction made between those who have never heard of JWs and those who have had the chance to reject it. I know that anyone who has been a JW and left is for sure going to be toast when Armageddon comes. But those in between, who have the opportunity to join and refuse it? What's the line on them? I know that my JW family still talks to me because I was never baptised. But I was raised in the religion so I had my fair shot at hearing god's final word on the matter. I've never broached the matter with them, and I do wonder if they think any day now god's going to be chasing me down the street with all the other poor sinners. I assume they do.
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  207

  Into the mystic (an experience).

  by El blanko in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the following i wrote to a friend this morning and doctored slightly for this forum.

  can any of you relate to this kind of mystical experience and if you would be kind enough, would you mind me quoting any experiences listed to my friend?

  please be aware that the letter uses language to detach me away from the watchtower (thus church, instead of congregation etc).

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  myauntfanny

  Nobody has the faintest idea how gravity works, they've been searching for a vector for years but haven't found one. Funny how they still believe in it though.

  Aunt Fanny, if I stop believing in it, will I go flying off into space?????

  Sunnygal, try it and see! There are documented cases of people levitating, after all. REM

  You know how it feels being the minority living in a superstitious world?

  So you are a skeptic and the rest of us poor deluded buggers who have, and value, our unexplainable experiences are superstitious. I'm wondering if you even have a clue that this might be a hurtful thing to say?
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  13

  The Worst Roomate (Part III -- For those who couldn't wait...)

  by Preston in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the worst roommate (final chapter).

  kevin?s husband ed was born in new mexico to a small family that did not have enough money for things.

  his family was so poor ed eventually had severe tooth decay, a factor he still continually deals with.

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  myauntfanny

  Good story. I was surprised Kevin got a (little) personality change from seeing death, instead of just dying, but that's really a better ending.
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  29

  I knew it! Star Trek is real!

  by drwtsn32 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  transparent aluminum

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  myauntfanny

  Please, nothing against William Shatner, he was my first true love as a girl. We never met, but I just know we'd have made a great couple.
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  79

  Would the world be a better place without religion?

  by micheal in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand we all need guidance and some people need hope, even if it is not real.

  but personally, i believe religion has caused so many hideous crimes against humanity that it is something we would all be better off without.. it really is too bad that religion has capitalized on humankind's need for a divine being to only abuse and control its fellow humans.. so, what do you think?

  would we be better of without religion?.

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  myauntfanny

  My feeling is that religion has a dark side and a light side. We (some of us) have a yearning for the transcendant. For a lot of people, going into a dedicated holy place and singing with a group of people and hearing about god and what he wants from us meets that need. I have no formal religion at all but I get goose bumps and want to cry when I'm in an old church with god acoustics and the light streaming through the windows and everyone singing a beautiful song together. It's very strange, but holy ritual probably has some evolutionary function in social cohesion or resolving internal group conflicts. Whatever, who knows. The problem is managing the dark side. Getting rid of it entirely would be throwing out the baby with the bath water. And remember, the Russian communists tried it, and they managed to kill 40 million people without the help of religion.
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  55

  Dating a JW when you are not

  by jwgirlfriend in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  i am dating a man who is a jw and i am not.

  i attend a nondenominational church.

  i found out from a mutual friend of ours, two months after my boyfriend and i had met, that he was a jw.

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  myauntfanny

  jwgirlfriend

  As someone who was raised in this religion, I can confirm ever single thing Leolia said. It doesn't make a happy childhood.

  I will have to learn quickly, how to approach the topic without getting angry or always trying to prove that I am right.

  I have a short temper too. When you have a short temper there are always triggers, as I know too well. And...do you want to spend your whole life with someone who is guaranteed to trigger your anger without any potential resolution of the conflict possible? It's a religion that enforces black-white thinking at every turn. It never goes away or takes a back seat. You're in or you're out. He sounds like he wants to be both, which in my view is very understandable. It's a difficult religion to stay in and still meet your basic emotional needs. But it's a difficult religion to leave because it exercises many mind control tactics, and because of the shunning policy.

  The best thing that can happen is that he repudiates it entirely. Then the two of you have to deal with a lifetime of difficulties with his JW family, because, as you know by now, they shun members who have "fallen away from the truth". Everybody on here has stories of weddings they weren't invited to, close relatives who didn't come to their weddings, childhood friends who won't speak to them in the street. I know a woman who was not allowed to attend her father's funeral. This woman's mother told the entire congregation for years that her daughter was dead (she wasn't, she was just disfellowshipped). They aren't all so intense about it, but the pressure is there. And that's the best scenario.

  It probably sounds like I'm saying you should just run, as some on here have suggested. But what I think is that perhaps it would be wise to ask him to clarify his own attitude towards the religion before you go any further. Ultimatums never work, but a time-out till things are clearer could give him some motivation to actually think about what he's doing.
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  207

  Into the mystic (an experience).

  by El blanko in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the following i wrote to a friend this morning and doctored slightly for this forum.

  can any of you relate to this kind of mystical experience and if you would be kind enough, would you mind me quoting any experiences listed to my friend?

  please be aware that the letter uses language to detach me away from the watchtower (thus church, instead of congregation etc).

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  myauntfanny

  REM

  You have an interesting concept of "proof". There really is no "proof" in science - only probabilities.

  Yes, the rule of thumb that works well is, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

  And how do you reconcile these two claims? Evidence is proof, is it not? OE: "establish by evidence, demonstrate, prove"

  Just LOOK at the concept of probability for a minute. It's not real! It's just an idea we use to explain events after the fact, and I'm saying it doesn't explain anything more than god does (which does not mean I believe in god, I am making a logical point here). You can't prove probability. You can't test it. You can't falsify it. It's an idea. It's a construct. If you say something will probably happen and it does, that doesn't mean probability made it happen. It just means you thought it would probably happen. When something, ANYTHING, happens, probability is in no way causal to that thing happening. The argument that coincidences must happen because they probably will is like arguing that the sun must come up tomorrow because it probably will.
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  207

  Into the mystic (an experience).

  by El blanko in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the following i wrote to a friend this morning and doctored slightly for this forum.

  can any of you relate to this kind of mystical experience and if you would be kind enough, would you mind me quoting any experiences listed to my friend?

  please be aware that the letter uses language to detach me away from the watchtower (thus church, instead of congregation etc).

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  myauntfanny

  REM

  Coincidence is not tautological - it is just a fact with no further explanation. Things happened at a time some humans find curious. That's a coincidence.

  Coincidence is not a "fact". It is a word, a word that is another way of saying that things happened at a time humans find curious. OE defines it as "a notable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection". That says nothing new about what happened, just that it happened. Tautology: "repeating what has been said" (OE also). That is why I said that calling unexplainable events a coincidence is tautological, and adds no meaning to the discussion.

  Probability shows that coincidences are inevitable.

  Probability "shows" nothing. It is a way of explaining things that have already happened. It is not even a way of predicting what will happen. It is merely a way of guessing, probably hardwired into the brain by evolution. It is just an idea, a human construct.

  I've never heard any skeptic accuse anyone of lying, though it is a possibility that cannot easily be discounted.

  I'm very surprised, because I've heard lots and lots of them do it.

  There are other possibilities, such as misperception, hallucination, created memory... these are all things that have been shown to truly exist by psychological science.

  I don't see how ANY of those things could be "proved" to exist. The evidence can only ever be anecdotal. A CAT scan might prove activity in a certain part of the brain at the time a person says they are experiencing something, but that is only a correlation, not a proof. And even if they were proved to exist, it would not logically mean that other causes can't also exist.

  Skeptics often say they don't know why or how things happen... your statement is ridiculous. Instead it is you who insist the cause must be supernatural. When there is not enough information, the most honest answer is "I don't know".

  I never insisted that the cause must be supernatural, because for one thing "supernatural" is just another word that means we don't know what caused it. I have no idea what causes these experiences, but that doesn't mean they don't happen or aren't worth thinking about.

  It is possible to find some middle ground between agreeing with people who were abducted by aliens and given anal probes, and dismissing all unusual experiences.

  Edited to add REM's name
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  50

  Thank those who helped you out of the Org

  by Nosferatu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here's a thread for all of you to thank those who helped you make your way out of the org.

  i'll start.. i'd like to thank my ex-fiance for the support that she had given me when i needed it the most.

  when i was faced with the elders coming to give me a shepharding call, she had given me the encouragement to stand up to them, and tell them truly how i felt.

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  myauntfanny

  I would like to thank my father. He actually became a JW in the end, strangely enough, but his years of hilarious skepticism and general bad attitude before then gave me a buffer against the humourless fanaticism of the Borg while I was growing up.