No big deal. A person's life is much more regulated and controlled when he or she is a child than an adult Witness's life. Have any happy memories of childhood? Life is a mix of good and bad.
MungoBaobab
JoinedPosts by MungoBaobab
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15
Sick Nostalgia...
by kitties_and_horses_oh_my! inlately i've been feeling overwhelming nostalgia for my time as a jw.
i know it's foolish and stupid, but it keeps happening.
today i was at starbucks and i saw a family come in after meeting.
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85
DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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MungoBaobab
Nothing is said here or implied that snakes did not already crawl on their bellies.
Genesis 3:14, King James Version: "The LORD God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. '"
Genesis 3:14, New World Translation: "And Jehovah God proceeded to say to the serpent: 'Because you have done this thing, you are the cursed one out of all the domestic animals and out of all the wild beasts of the field. Upon your belly you will go and dust is what you will eat all the days of your life.'"
So, since God says to the serpent, the dumb animal supposedly misused by the devil "because you have done this," then, "upon your belly you will go," this does indeed imply the serpent itself was being punished by crawling on its belly. But why punish a dumb animal that was being unnaturally forced to speak by a vastly superior intelligence?
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DNA - belief destuction
by donkey inthe single largest reason to decimate my belief in jw?s and all biblical faith occurred when i discovered some facts about our cells.
specifically a part of the cell called mitochondria.
mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because their primary purpose is to manufacture adenosine triphosphate (atp), which is used as a source of energy that the cell uses.. as humans one inherits one?s mitochondria only from one's mother, this finding implies that all living humans have a female line of descent from a woman whom researchers have dubbed mitochondrial eve.
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MungoBaobab
We must remember that the world of the Bible writers was a much smaller world than our world today. Their part of the earth was then for them "the whole world." We should also accept the possibility that Bible writers may, at times, have used larger than life expressions, just as we often do today. We often use figures of speech such as, "This book weighs a ton," or "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." This common form of speech is called hyperbole. It is certainly possible that it may, at times, also have been used by Bible writers. When we use such exaggerated figures of speech for dramatic impact we are being neither inaccurate nor dishonest. The same can be said for the writers of Scripture.
Or maybe they were "exaggerrating" the whole thing, and were creating an original piece of literature to explore various themes like good and evil, family, and the nature of civilization using "larger than life" plot devices, just as we often do today, as in the likes of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.
How many times can you fall back on "what the writer really meant by this expression was this," and "even though the Bible says 'everything everywhere' it means 'one thing a few places'" without realizing each time you do so another piece of the Bible's credibility crumbles away? I was like you once, trying desperately to convince myself of the Bible unerring truthfullness. But while it takes a blizzard of "maybe-the-writer-meant-thises" to defend the Bible's discrepencies against scientific fact, it takes only two words to clear scientific fact from a laundry list of Biblical exemptions:
It's fiction.
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Logical Conundrums & Contradictions
by MungoBaobab infind contradictions and loopholes in watchtower doctrines.
-accepting a blood transfusion is disowning the faith.
a man (or woman, if primary breadwinner) who fails to provide for his family is worse than one who has disowned the faith.
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MungoBaobab
Maybe, but I want others to share and share alike.
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Logical Conundrums & Contradictions
by MungoBaobab infind contradictions and loopholes in watchtower doctrines.
-accepting a blood transfusion is disowning the faith.
a man (or woman, if primary breadwinner) who fails to provide for his family is worse than one who has disowned the faith.
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MungoBaobab
Find contradictions and loopholes in Watchtower doctrines. Here are two:
-Accepting a blood transfusion is disowning the faith. A man (or woman, if primary breadwinner) who fails to provide for his family is worse than one who has disowned the faith. Therefore, since one cannot provide for his or her family dead, primary breadwinners should accept blood transfusions as the lesser of two evils in order to stay alive and keep providing for the family and to stay clean in God's eyes.
-We should go door to door even though it exposes us to ridicule and can bring reproach upon our reputation. We should not give in to "fear of man," because what lowly man thinks doesn't matter; it's what God thinks that counts. And God wants us to go door to door, primarily because Satan ridiculed God and brought reproach upon his reputation.
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Why quotes from old publications are meaningful
by seattleniceguy inmost witnesses know that if you dig too hard in their older publications, you're bound to find strange, even ridiculous, quotes.
but they are trained not to put too much thought into these older publications.
if reasonable people could legitimately disagree with the wts at that time, then what does that say about "god's channel"?
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MungoBaobab
It is said that an atom is composed of one proIt is said that an atom is composed of one proton and its many or few electrons, depending upon the substance, whether gold, silver, lead, wood, or glass; gold atoms containing many electrons, and wood only a few.ton and its many or few electrons, depending upon the substance, whether gold, silver, lead, wood, or glass; gold atoms containing many electrons, and wood only a few.
Wood atoms? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
And as far as the "popular misconceptions" go, that's so true. I love the argument in the Creation book "refuting" the big bang:
Do the bombs that fall on cities in wartime produce superbly designed buildings, streets, and signs with traffic laws? On the contrary, such explosions cause wreckage, disorder, chaos, disintegration. And when the explosive device is nuclear the disorganization is total, as experienced by the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
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What was your favorite thing about service?
by Dustin ini used to love break time.
especially if it was afternoon service, and we stopped at taco bell.
i used to be damn good at eating tacos in the car without spilling anything.
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MungoBaobab
Favorite thing about service? Are you frickin' NUTS?
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20
Fantasy
by Peppermint inanyone here read fantasy novels?
i know most of us have been away with the fairies, for real.
so i can understand if some give the genre a wide berth.
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MungoBaobab
Damn you all. When I read the title of this thread I thought it would have to do with Chinese chicks frolicking naked through waterfalls or something.
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Not part of the world
by sun_dae inwhat is actually meant by "not part of the world".
jws claim they are no part of the world.
in joining here, am i guilty of being a "part of this world"?
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MungoBaobab
The early Christians were in a cult, Jesus was just another charismatic cult leader, and all it takes is time and staying power for a cult to become a world religion. "No part of this world" means exactly what the JWs say it means, being a weirdo with a weird religion.
The Baobab has spoken.
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JW Distinctions w/o a Difference
by Amazing1914 indistinctions without a difference:
issues regarding jw beliefs and teachings bugged me going into the religion, and bugged me until i left.
they are those oh so all-important claims they make that other religions are doing such bad things ... yet they do the same thing ... but, they manage to draw some kind of technical distinction that really makes no difference.
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MungoBaobab
Definitely the life-after-death routine. How many times have you heard Witnesses brag to one another regarding dead loved ones, "At least we have the Hope to cling to," as if they think nobody else thinks anything happens when you die. Then they blast other religions for "immortality of the soul" and "life after death" which is no different.
And let's not forget the "superstitious" label placed on people who think ghosts are "spirits of the dead." Most Witnesses believe every and any ghost story they hear, but don't consider themselves superstitious, because they call them "demons."