Posts by Zana

22

The Bible or God? - A Message to Formerbrother

by David_Jay in

“i still can not find any other option that comes as close to all the bible as jws do.”-- from the profile of formerbrother.. this is lengthy, but it should help you, formerbrother.

the problem is not in your search for this "option" but that you are searching according the criteria set out by the jehovah’s witnesses (and likely following the reasoning set out by their claims).. before proceeding, understand clearly (as there will always be someone reading this that will skip this point that i make) that i am not writing to advance any particular religious view.

though raised and baptized as a jehovah’s witness in my late teen years, i am jewish.

Zana

Interesting read, thanks! I know a JW who might be at a similar point in life like former brother. Same reasoning, he

believes in God
believes in Jesus
believes in the Bible as God's word
believes he must find/identify God's people so he can serve God together with some likeminded folks

I have been thinking about where I can start to make him question this line of thought. If I were him, I would probably answer to you, David_Jay, somehing like this:

Okay, the New Testament obviously could not be the source or foundation of early Christianity. But they didn't need it then. They had the apostles who talked about Jesus. When they died they still had people tell them what they heard from the apostles about Jesus, maybe passed down one or two generations. But at some point, this wasn't reliable anymore. It needed to be written down. Of course the Bible is only an end product. In itself it cannot be the foundation of Christianity. But I believe it to be the most accurate description about what happened 2000 years ago. So we have to take what we can get, because today we have no God speaking to us directly, no apostles still alive, no prophets, no miracles. The bible is the next best thing, that's why I am willing to base my believes on it.

39

Is changing the "truth" / presenting "new light" really so bad?

by Zana in

jw
friends

playing devil's advocate here.... what's the difference between the gb changing bible interpretations compared to parliaments all over the world changing laws?

although the us constitution (=bible) remains untouched, congress passes i don't know how many new laws every year.

and of course people are expected to follow them.

Zana

Thanks people, for all you answers!

Is this another troll post?

No, it's not. I have two JWs in my life that probably belong in this category:

... OR it is the GB getting it wrong and Jehovah corrects them but then you simply can never ever trust that any doctrine is right.

Except they still trust the GB. So I started this thread in order to get some arguments against their position. These two people accept that the GB are just imperfect men and that they will get it wrong every now and then. But they trust them to try hard enough. And they believe that what the GB presents, is still the next best thing to God's real truth compared to any other religion.

You cannot criticise a current teaching of the WTS. You cannot lobby for change.

When talking about this, one told me, you actually can. His example was a change about the question whether miscarriages or stillborn babies have hope of a resurrection or not. First the GB said, "No, they don't." But after receiving many letters from concerned JWs they changed this to "We don't know."

You can trace most "increasing light" and "clarifications" down to one of the following:
- saving the org money
- making the org money
- minimising legal exposure
- controlling the membership
- covering up prophetic failures

This is very good! I will have to figure out how I can use this in a discussion with JWs without appearing overly aggressive.

39

Is changing the "truth" / presenting "new light" really so bad?

by Zana in

jw
friends

playing devil's advocate here.... what's the difference between the gb changing bible interpretations compared to parliaments all over the world changing laws?

although the us constitution (=bible) remains untouched, congress passes i don't know how many new laws every year.

and of course people are expected to follow them.

Zana

Playing devil's advocate here...

What's the difference between the GB changing bible interpretations compared to parliaments all over the world changing laws? Although the US constitution (=bible) remains untouched, Congress passes I don't know how many new laws every year. And of course people are expected to follow them. You can't tell a jury that this or that wasn't a crime ten years ago, so you can't be judged for it today. Yes, you can!

82

meeting with elders about WT involvement in UN

by LevelThePlayingField in

i still go to the meetings because of my in wife and it came about that the elders knew of my pissed off attitude about the society getting involved in the un.

so the elders said they could help me get over that and wanted to meet with me.

now just to let you know, i have only told my wife and her mom so far about it, that's it.

Zana

Still, I know of no way to have the information about the UN except from "apostate" sources. So how do you plan to explain it?? Where did you get that letter?? Were you reading apostate websites?? Why would you even think that such apostate lies might be true??..............DOC

Maybe wikipedia is acceptable? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_the_United_Nations

28

For My Kids

by myjourney in

i haven't been on here much, but every so often i try and keep up with the discussions.

i'm sure this topic has been talked about before, so my apologies in advance if i'm repeating.. a little about me.... i'm a non baptized jw married to a devout jw.

both my husband and i were raised in the organization.

Zana

Not letting the kiddies get baptized as minors is key.

Exactly. So what does he say to that? What did he answer to your marriage-comparison? Will he agree to wait with the baptism decision until the children are adults?

19

Need Suggestions/examples: Guide to helping family & friends break free

by LisaRose in

jw
friends

i was going through my copy of steve hassan's combating cult mind control and it occurred to me that it would be great to have something like this specifically for us ex jehovah's witnesses.

while this is a great book, the examples he uses are mostly from people that were moonies, as steve is a former moonie and many people that have contacted him for help were relatives of moonies.

while cults all work basically the same, it would be nice to be have some ideas on things that are specific to jehovah's witnesses.

Zana

Adding to #2:

Figure out the main reasons why they stay in the cult. This is probably easier with people who converted, because you can ask them why they joined in the first place.

Do they focus on the scripture? Is it the social aspect? Is it the paradise earth promise? ...

Another thing:

The GB is very clever in brainwashing JWs towards thinking that GB = Jehovah. Try to break that thought. If you leave the JWs, that doesn't mean that you leave Jehovah, too (although many eventually will). The GB just offers their interpretation of the scripture. But they are imperfect men. They can be wrong and obviously they were wrong many times in the past.

28

For My Kids

by myjourney in

i haven't been on here much, but every so often i try and keep up with the discussions.

i'm sure this topic has been talked about before, so my apologies in advance if i'm repeating.. a little about me.... i'm a non baptized jw married to a devout jw.

both my husband and i were raised in the organization.

Zana

There isn't any balance in my children's lives. It's a repeat of my childhood all over again.

It's not. You know TTATT. Your parents didn't. You can give them balance in their lives. And you can demand the right to do so from your husband without separating from him.

28

For My Kids

by myjourney in

i haven't been on here much, but every so often i try and keep up with the discussions.

i'm sure this topic has been talked about before, so my apologies in advance if i'm repeating.. a little about me.... i'm a non baptized jw married to a devout jw.

both my husband and i were raised in the organization.

Zana

Am I crazy to be considering this drastic step?

No, you want what is best for your children. But don't forget about the negative consequences a seperation can have for your kids, too.

I am with freddo. Why don't you first start living a non-JW life more openly? Limit your meeting attendance. Spend time with your kids with non-JW activities. You love your husband, give him a chance to wake up (have you read one of Steve Hassan's books?), or at least - as a family - try to find a way to arrange your lives in a home where people have different beliefs. But first you need to show your disbelief more openly, I think. And voice your opinion, that too much JW exposure is bad for children (violence in bible books, talking about sex / armageddon in meetings, ...). To me it looks like that talking about separation would come very much out of the blue for your husband.

Myself I am lucky that my wife is not a very devout JW. Family comes first in her order of priorities in life (although she wouldn't admit that Jehovah is not her number one priority). What about your husband?

11

Evolution is a Fact - Index for Numbers 1 - 30

by cofty in

#1 protein functional redundancycomparing the sequences of amino acids in ubiquitous proteins confirms the relationship between all living things.. #2 dna functional redundancycomparison of the dna that codes for the amino acids of ubiquitous proteins predicts the tree of life with an astonishing degree of accuracy.. #3 ervsendogenous retroviruses that infected our ancestors are found in the same place of the genome of our closest primate cousins.. #4 smelly geneshundreds of broken genes that used to code for olfactory receptors in our ancestors are still found in our genome.. #5 vitamin cwhy humans can no longer make their own vitamin c and what that tells us about our species' history.. #6 human chromosome 2our second biggest chromosome is made up of two of our ancestors' chromosomes stuck end-to-end.. #7 human egg yolk genehumans and our primate cousins have the genes for making vitellogenin and they are all broken in the same way.. #8 jumping genesbits of parasitic code called alu elements prove our common ancestry with primates.. #9 less chewing more thinkinga broken gene for a type of muscle fibre we no longer have tells a story about our evolutionary past.. #10 non-coding dnain common with many other species huge amounts of our genome originated as copying errors.. #11 tiktaalikan amazing fossil discovery illustrates the transition of life from sea to land.. #12 lenski's e.coli experimentan experiment with e.coli, now in it's third decade, demonstrates the power of natural selection.. #13 morris minor bonnetsevolution has to make do with building on existing designs as illustrated by the recurrent laryngeal nerve.. #14 joey goes to ozfossil evidence for the origins of marsupials found in antarctica exactly as predicted.. #15 robinson crusoethe biogeography of oceanic islands presents an impossible dilemma for creationism.. #16 aquatic mammalsan excellent sequence of fossils illustrates the evolutionary journey of whales from land to sea.. #17 belyaev's silver foxesa 50 year breeding programme demonstrates the amazing power of selection and the interconnected nature of genes.. #18 fish fingersthe evolution of limbs is mapped out in an amazing sequence of ancient fish fossils.. #19 goosebumpsa vestigial reflex bequeathed by our hairier ancestors.. #20 lucy in the sky...an exceptional fossil of a 3 million year old hominid.. #21 footprints in the sand...footprints at laetoli show our australopithecus afarensis ancestors were bipedal 3.6 million years ago.. #22 the hillocks of hiss...a vestigial feature if the human ear shared by 10% of the population demonstrates our evolutionary history.. #23 faunal succession...the consistent sequence of fossils found in the rocks can only be explained by evolution.. #24 the origin of your inner ear...how the bones that reptiles eat with became the bones that we hear with.. #25 deep time...scottish geologist andrew hutton discovered the proof of earth's great antiquity.. #26 colour vision...how gene duplication - new "information" -and mutation equipped us with trichromatic vision.. #27 monkeys, typewriters, shakespeare, 747s etc...evolution is a combination of random mutations and non-random selection.. #28 something darwin didn't say...a long term study of pigeons demonstrates how natural selection acts on a local population.. #29 use it or lose it...fossil genes reveal the history of modern species.. #30 your third eyelid...the remnants of a nictitating membrane reveals our evolutionary history..

Zana

cofty, I haven't even read a third of your list, but I already do appreciate your compilation very much. Not that I needed convincing about evolution, this is just really interesting stuff.

The title story of last weeks "Economist" http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21699116-how-combat-dangerous-rise-antibiotic-resistance-when-drugs-dont-work is about the rise of antibiotic resistance. Maybe a worthy addition to your list? This is how the article starts:

SOME people describe Darwinian evolution as “only a theory”. Try explaining that to the friends and relatives of the 700,000 people killed each year by drug-resistant infections. Resistance to antimicrobial medicines, such as antibiotics and antimalarials, is caused by the survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, fit microbes mean unfit human beings. Drug-resistance is not only one of the clearest examples of evolution in action, it is also the one with the biggest immediate human cost.

25

Raising kids in a split faith household

by rathernotsay in

jw
friends

hi guys, don't know if this is the right place to ask but id like to hear other peoples experiences with raising kids in a household with split faiths.

just for a bit of a back story, my wife and i have been married for comming up 6 years.

we have 3 kids, 2 boys aged 5 and 3 and a 8 week old girl.

Zana

Similar situation here: Two kids, aged 5 and 3, wife a JW. Kids go to meetings maybe once every three weeks. No graces but usually a bedtime prayer for the kids.

The last time my wife and I had a discussion about religious education, it was because she didn't like me telling our son about reincarnation that some people believe in. He likes the JW idea of paradise earth very much and I was trying to tell him (rather awkwardly and unsuccessfully) that this is not a fact but just some belief and other people believe other things.

I like your indirect approach: show them the stars and the dinosaurs. Also try to offer them as many possibilities to do non-JW activities and make non-JW friends as possible. When I tell my son that some believe this and others believe that, and you will figure out what to believe yourself one day, he doesn't quite understand. But he gets it, when I tell him Grandma thinks she will go to (catholic) heaven when she dies. Or that his kindergarden-friend doesn't eat pork because an old book (and his parents) say so. People are different, people can believe and do different things. That doesn't mean they are bad people.

In general I am not too concerned. I mean normal 5-year-olds believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, too. And nobody is afraid that as adults they will still wait for Santa to bring the presents. I did put up some rules about JW-topics in the house though. For example no talking about Armageddon or that Daddy won't be in paradise with us. And no door-to-door with the kids. So far we as a family are doing ok. But I am always suspicious and ready to jump into action when I get the impression that someone is trying to influence others through fear and guilt (my wife on our kids, or other JWs on my wife).

Fortunately JW life isn't very attractive to children (except for Caleb and Sofia). Boring meetings, no sunday school, no birthdays, too many stupid rules. That makes it easy for the non-JW parent to offer different activities (if you have the time of course).

btw here is a link to my thread from 2 years ago about the same topic: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/279456/raising-kids-jw-mother-agnostic-father