i am so sick of witnesses reserving catchphrases for themselves.. talking to my wifes mother today she kept referring to "the friends".
"the friends came over today, we went to lunch with the friends".
well if they are "the friends", then what the hell are everyone else?
I had never heard the term "the friends" used to describe the dubs before visiting this board, and I was in the dubs for 20 years in Canada. Maybe its an American thing?
In Toronto, it was just "the brothers" or "the sisters", at least where I was located.
i have finally started to read captive hearts, captive minds.. they say something that got me to thinking.. i used to feel embarassed to tell non-jws that i was a jw.
it was one thing to tell people at the doors.
it was totally another thing to tell other people.
I was raised in it, never baptized and faded out by the age of 20 but I was always embarassed about my past and hid my "secret" from my worldly friends for years. Still to this day, I would never tell anyone I was raised as a dub. It does affect how people think about you and they will likely assume you still have some "lingering" cult weirdness about you. Kids and adults can be cruel!
the first article links the expression of the dopamine d4 neurotransmitter receptor with ones likelihood of accepting religious beliefs.
the d4 receptor is higly expressed in human prefrontal cortex, a region that is damaged in hyper-religious individuals......the pieces are all falling together to support the notion that there is a biological basis for "religious" or "magical" thinking.
as a militant atheist, i guess i have low levels of d4 !!!
For me it is faith in what Christ has done and has nothing to do with how I feel.
DD: If this is true, then you are a very unique person. I have never met a religious person who completely divorces their "emotional" experience from their religious experience. Emotions drive every action we take and every decision we make, even though we may not be consciously aware of this. Do you not experience "joy" when you are in church? Do you not experience some emotional satisfaction when you pray? It seems unlikely that the motivation to be religious could exist solely on the cognitive plane, void of emotional drives.
here's something that happens that i find strange with women, no offence.
i was out with a female friend.
we're just friends and nothing more but to anyone else who saw us we would have looked like a couple.
I am familiar with this phenomenon from my old bachelor days! It is odd, I mean, as a guy, if I saw a girl was with some dude, I completely lost interest and looked the other way.
I think most guys (except the drunken louts!) have an instinctual respect for territorial boundaries in this sort of situation. Women seem to enjoy competing with each other more than guys.
i was curious if anyone has any thoughts on why the two new members of the gb haven't beeen announced on the society's web site?
they were appointed on august 25 according to what i have read here, but no one in my congregation has said anyhting about it.
i know it is still a little early for it to be in the watchtower, but don't they usually post this kind of news at jw media?.
I know at least two of them are close to kicking the bucket. In a couple years they will have a GB composed entirely of people born in the 40s and 50s which will seriously question the whole "annointed" nonsense. But they are slippery enough to get this past the R+F. "New Light" will show that GB members no longer have to be of the annointed class, blah blah blah....
the first article links the expression of the dopamine d4 neurotransmitter receptor with ones likelihood of accepting religious beliefs.
the d4 receptor is higly expressed in human prefrontal cortex, a region that is damaged in hyper-religious individuals......the pieces are all falling together to support the notion that there is a biological basis for "religious" or "magical" thinking.
as a militant atheist, i guess i have low levels of d4 !!!
The reason I asked the question, was to suggest that there may be a difference between true faith and "religion".
And what is this difference?
could the watchtower and the jehovah's witnesses survive the discarding of their 1914 doctrine?
the doctrine that in 1914 the end of the gentile times took place, jesus took up rule in heaven.
for some reason the jws think the outbreak of world war i in 1914 is proof their prophetic calculations were correct.
12 pages of mind-numbingly BORING drivel about fictional bible events and dates?
PLEASE STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS!!!!!
i've been asked that question, and since i've been out of it for years (and away from this forum for some time) i have no idea.
can someone give me the latest figures?
stan
South American countries have bucked this trend though.
Indeed, there are now more active JWs in Colombia than Canada!! LOL
the jws always try to frighten their members by telling them that disobedience can open them up to demonic attack and we know this is nothing but a mind game to keep them in subjection.
however it is claimed that certain occultists are paid by resentful people to cast spells against those that they hate eg to ruin their families, businesses or make them ill or depressed.
these occultists are people co operating with demons channelling their destructive energies through black magic against fellow humans.
Do you know of people who believe that they were victimised in this way?
Yes, and most of them are in Mental Hospitals on antipsychotic meds getting the help they need.
i tried it, could not swallow all the lies and misinformation they had.
i am sorry, but even if you deny the whole witness faith, there is still parts to christianity that they pointed out that you can not just ignore and act like it is okay to join another faith that is christian.
are you going to become catholic when your know their history?
there's a god, I'm just not sure what to do about it.
If there is a god, it would appear HE/SHE/IT doesnt know what to do about it either !! LOL
