I feel that most JW's accept armeggedon but they just never take the time to really think about armeggedon. They don't think that, "man any second the co-worker that I have had so much fun with might die a horrible death any second." But they do think about, "Oh the kingdom will come any second now". This is classic double think in action and it's a good example of it. If you catch a JW and bring out their true emotions about the armeggedon then lean them over to say the second quote I just put down, they might realise how messed up their view is. But other than that, most people just don't make the connection.
Posts by Daunt
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36praying for mass destruction and death
by Cognitive_Dissident inso i was writing a paper the other day, specifically about the skewed world view that i had had as a witness, and i typed the following - .
pain, misery, strife, these were all things that used to prove to me that jehovah's witnesses were correct in their assessment of a dying world which was soon to be liberated/obliterated by the hand of god.
this "liberation" was something that i desperately longed for.
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WHY DO YOU FEAR..........NUCLEAR ENERGY?
by Terry inthe united states is energy dependant.
like a substance abuse addict, the u.s. will sacrifice anything for the thrill of driving huge sporty vehicles at high speeds, it seems.
well, lets be more precise.
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Daunt
Ah yes, fear is used by every side. That is why subscribing to labels is so dangerous, you might actually become that label through the pressures that come from that label. When you have the sanity of a nation at stake, people will fall for almost anything. I highly doubt that a populace of people will actually study the issues for themselves though. There's a lot of out of touch people around this country, let alone around the world.
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WHY DO YOU FEAR..........NUCLEAR ENERGY?
by Terry inthe united states is energy dependant.
like a substance abuse addict, the u.s. will sacrifice anything for the thrill of driving huge sporty vehicles at high speeds, it seems.
well, lets be more precise.
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Daunt
Ah finally somebody commenting about the energy source with so much controversy. I do not know the exact numbers of profit coming from nuclear energy vs. fossil fuels, but just over all besides nuclear waste and the rare nuclear meltdown of a plant, I do not see much that is keeping us away from nuclear fuel besides politics. I'm not the most knowledgable person in this area so if anybody has anything else to contribute would be greatly apreciative. But over all I do not see why we aren't using it for most of our fuel needs.
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A New Book
by scholar inroutledge books have released a new sociological study of the movement, namely 'jehovah's witnesses portrait of a contemporary religious movement' by andrew holden ph.d. publication date 10 jan 2002 and its isbn: 0415266106. .
scholar ba ma (studies in religion)
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Daunt
This book seems very interesting, I'll have to look inato it when I get the chance. And just to add, not only do JW's consequently get most of their members when there is a trauma going on in their lives, from many kingdom ministries it has been encouraged to look for and actively press the issue that's depressing the person. Just further shows the control of the group eh.
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Battle Royal.
by Daunt inwhen i told my mom and dad that i did not believe in the truth, i was jumping into unknown territory.
it has just never happened before.
now my parents are trying harder than ever to bring me back into the ranks.
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Daunt
Thanks everybody for all of your suggestions. You won’t believe the help that all of this information has been.
When we spoke about abortion, the mood was just a dead silent chill. When I spoke of the cost that abortions take on the women of this country they quickly went on to say, “But you do know it’s taking a life right?”. Forget about discussing and analyzing the question they immediately just went on with their dribble. They continued to talk about how if they believed in abortion I wouldn’t be here. They never really gave information or reason, but they kept harping on how it’s destroying a life and that I wouldn’t be here if they believed it, never really attacking abortion itself.
So, I do not have much hope in changing their opinion, I’m mostly just doing this to make sure that I’m right. No better way to know you’re right unless you challenge absolute truth (ends sarcasm).
I would like to know if there are a few techniques that you guys have found to be helpful hen talking to people who use cognitive dissonance and double think regularly in their reasoning. I feel that I am somewhat good at spotting it out and attacking it but it still gets tough when they use emotions that are just plain hard to refute. -
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Battle Royal.
by Daunt inwhen i told my mom and dad that i did not believe in the truth, i was jumping into unknown territory.
it has just never happened before.
now my parents are trying harder than ever to bring me back into the ranks.
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Daunt
I'll try to look into that book, however, books are somewhat scarce since it's a great chance that my parents will see the book, (they're snoopers).
Oh man, I've been on talkorigins for the last 2 hours, excellent site. However, my parents do not understand the foundations of credibility. They want the freakin bones in their hands while they're smelling it and testing it to be really bone. They'll still probably deny it's existence after that. I just want to stump them mostly, and acknowledge when and how a person uses cognitive dissonance and plain old lieing to themselves. -
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Battle Royal.
by Daunt inwhen i told my mom and dad that i did not believe in the truth, i was jumping into unknown territory.
it has just never happened before.
now my parents are trying harder than ever to bring me back into the ranks.
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Daunt
Ah sorry about that tetra. I just copied and pasted a few notes that I jotted down real quick right after I talked with my parents of what they were asking me, and I didn't think to re-read them. When I say, "proof of evolution’s jumps and any facts of it" I mean more along the lines of complete transitions from ape to man, and differnet transitions like that. When I speak of, "“evidence in the bible” for things" i was considering all of the times my parents talked about how archeological evidence has proven the bible to be true. I was just going to try to get a jump start as to what the most popular archeological finds are that support the bible and refute them before they can speak of their mumbo jumbo. I would love those books but, any book that isn't JW will be hard to get past this house. My parents check all of the mail so I don't know if those books will get to me safely.
I also just wanted to say that you have been my biggest inspiration for looking towards science and reason to help me out in life Tetra. Thanks a ton. -
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Battle Royal.
by Daunt inwhen i told my mom and dad that i did not believe in the truth, i was jumping into unknown territory.
it has just never happened before.
now my parents are trying harder than ever to bring me back into the ranks.
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Daunt
When I told my mom and dad that I did not believe in the truth, I was jumping into unknown territory. It has just never happened before. Now my parents are trying harder than ever to bring me back into the ranks. Their first distinguished attempt happened about 30 minutes ago. We were reading the first chapter of the Creator book.
Now I was already annoyed by the whole thing so from the beginning I just nodded and said intermittently, "ya", and "ok," to just get them to move on mostly. However, throughout the whole conversations, there were just too many illogical talk going on to stay quiet. They never really gave facts but they just explained how things have gotten worse; mostly about how when they were children they could leave the doors unlocked and it wasn’t all that bad as it is now. However, they talked about how in the modern world, kids are killing their parents and overall pestilence and starvation and overall badness is increasing. I remember a line from my dad at the Bible Study on Saturday vividly when he said, “The world is crumbling around them [when talking about humans in general].”
After discussing these things for about an hour my dad and I came to an ultimatum. We decided that I was going to get my evidence, and he was going to get his and we will discuss it in a week. The tone was nervous, somewhat hostile, yet very loving and I appreciated the talk with them. But their willingness for me to bring forth anything that might prove them wrong so I am ready to tear them a new one.
The main topics I am researching are as listed,
Crime Rate
Row Vs. Wade trial
Abortion in general
Intelligent Design in general
“earth hangs on nothing”
proof of evolution’s jumps and any facts of it
“evidence in the bible” for things
The dead sea scrolls
The earth is a circle
Historical evidences of the bible being true.
These were all arguments that my parents and me discussed. My parents mentioned a lot about evidence and reason because I myself enjoy hailing evidence and reason as the final say so in most things. A statement that my dad enjoys saying is, “In the end, you’ll have to believe in something.” My main focus in most of these arguments with my parents is that I do not have to “believe” in much. I want to get across to them that what I don’t know and can’t know, I don’t care about it because that is in the realm of supernaturalism and mysticism. It’s going to be a tough road, I would love anybody’s input into this, an just suggestions over all on how to do this with them. Thinking about it makes all of these arguments seem pretty pointless. They will never change their mind and their simplified creationist arguments that rely more on emotion than evidence will never change my mind unless they start bring empirical facts forward. I’m mostly doing it just to prove to myself that I can do it, that I can do something and that I’m not just some apostate or some person turned astray with doubts that can be turned back over by words. Just can’t allow that to happen. Thanks everybody for all of your help. -
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You know, Witnesses haven't cornered the market on being wrong.
by free2beme ini have been out of the witness religion since the 1990's and i see from reading former witness sites that it is common for people to do something i used to do.
which was that i made a big deal out of all the wrong things the witnesses did and do.
i thought it was some how my responsiblity to tell others when i had the chance, and even when i made the chance, about all the things i knew.
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Daunt
Things are never as bad or as good as people think they are. There will always be variables that you do not know in something that can influence your opinion about that something. I'm really starting to realise this now, but, finding every little thing wrong and putting that as the only thing the witnesses do is just plain wrong. Yes they have much crap in their teachings but hey, they do help ignorant people that were destroying their lives and the lives of others and helped them to stop abusing others. May not be the best way to do it but they do do things that aren't terribly evil. If the religion isn't for you, then that's it, it isn't for you. But if you spend much of your life trying to reinforce it you're forcing an idea into your head much the same way as JW's. Just take the information as it is and deal with the problems as it is. If you start to notice that you get most of your solice from the WTS being wrong, then you might have to rethink your position on things.
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Texas Hold em'
by Daunt inhttp://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html#4524 .
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not trying to get into deep politics, but i do not know if many people know about this.
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Daunt
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html#4524
Not trying to get into deep politics, but I do not know if many people know about this.