Shazard: If you think the "scientific doubters of evolution" have important ideas that I should consider, please feel free to post some links, I will surely check them out.
osmosis
JoinedPosts by osmosis
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16
Update on the JW aunt melodrama
by osmosis innot sure if she has actually sent that letter to the wts yet, but so far there has not been a response.
i wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone.
time will tell.
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Update on the JW aunt melodrama
by osmosis innot sure if she has actually sent that letter to the wts yet, but so far there has not been a response.
i wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone.
time will tell.
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osmosis
Shazard: I never said I "believe" what science "says" about evolution. You are looking at science from what is essentially a religious POV. Science is not a body of knowledge, it is a process, a method, a way of knowing. Science does not "say" things, it is the (best) tool by which we may come to understand the natural universe.
Science does not "say" that evolution occurred, the physical evidence does.
No I have not gone to see what the "scientific doubters of evolution" have to say. I still get the feeling you view science like you view religion, where if one piece of the puzzle doesn't fit you have to throw the whole thing out. Science simply doesn't work that way.
sass_my_frass: I've been thinking more about what you said about how I'm putting too much thought into this. I disagree, I think I have as much reason to despise the WTS and it's doctrine as anyone else. My aunt and her husband still carry their "no blood" cards, so if anything should happen to them they could become the next to die for this bogus cause. Also, I have recently learned that around the time I was born, they had been brainwashing my own mother into the religion, and she tried to kill herself. I think it would be negligent and uncaring of me on a fundamental level not to try to get them out of the bOrg.
jgnat: you're my kind of christian. a level-headed one!
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Update on the JW aunt melodrama
by osmosis innot sure if she has actually sent that letter to the wts yet, but so far there has not been a response.
i wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone.
time will tell.
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osmosis
Sass: If I appear to obsess, it's probably because I have little else to do in my spare time, not because I can't get my mind off it.
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61
An "apostate" walks into a bar......................
by ButtLight in.
and recognizes an elder there.
so he goes up to him and says................(keep the story going)
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osmosis
Hey buddy, got a light?
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16
Update on the JW aunt melodrama
by osmosis innot sure if she has actually sent that letter to the wts yet, but so far there has not been a response.
i wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone.
time will tell.
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osmosis
Double Edge: that's totally cool with me. I've never claimed that there wasn't *wisdom* in the bible. I never said there were no evocative stories or what I call "human truth", I just get very nervous when I find out someone thinks that every part of it is literally true. That's insanity, pure and simple.
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Why shouldn't I be a JW?
by AirDuster inhi, i am brand new to these forums.
i have been reading some stuff for a while from here and other websites.
i feels totally crazy being a member now.
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osmosis
I'm atheist, and I don't believe ANY religion, to me they're all equally bogus as far as "truth" is concerned.
However, as one who has close contact with JWs, I know they are among the worst, socially and religiously speaking. They are a group of people who get "certainty" from their faith, not "happiness". To achieve "certainty", you have to have a bunch of rules and things you must not do, to convince yourself that you are doing "what is right". A true JW leads a very servile and pitiful existence, going door-to-door and preaching to people, trying to unload the watchtowers, actively blocking out ideas from non-believers, turning their back on the world.
And there's the whole literalism thing. A JW believes the strangest and most unbelievable parts of the bible to be LITERALLY true. To reconcile this literalism with the odd, fantastical and self-contradictory nature of the bible, they have an amazingly rhobust system of excuses that supposedly ties it all together and makes it "make sense", but it still doesn't make any sense. and then there are certain realities that creep in over time, which is why their doctrine changes so often. They have a bullshit euphemism for this rapidly changing doctrine, they call it "new light" as if god has thrown them a bone of wisdom.
And then there's the fact that you, your children and/or other loved ones will likely suffer negative consequences. They might insist that you stop associating with non-JW family and friends. Your kids could be SEVERELY screwed up from this particularly malignant kind of brainwashing. You might die from refusing a blood transfusion. This could happen the very day before they get some "new light" and decide it's no longer wrong to receive one.
And, quite frankly, by the best definitions of the word, it is, in fact, a cult. There IS cult mind control in both their social behavior and their doctrine, which you MUST swallow completely to become one of them.
If you must join a religion, I highly recommend you look elsewhere.
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Update on the JW aunt melodrama
by osmosis innot sure if she has actually sent that letter to the wts yet, but so far there has not been a response.
i wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone.
time will tell.
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osmosis
Not sure if she has actually sent that letter to the WTS yet, but so far there has not been a response. I wonder if they will respond at all, after all it's easy to say it got lost in the mail or something, much harder to make such excuses over the phone. Time will tell. I will have to "wait on that answer" haha
I got sick of hearing them say "well you've never read the bible so you don't know" so I finally relented and told my aunt she could buy me a bible and I'd read "some" of it. I insisted it not be the NWT and she agreed, but then she went and got me the NWT. LMFAO! I should have seen that one coming! She said the other ones were very expensive, and I have to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it still leaves an odd aftertaste, like she "placed" some WTS propoganda on me.
It has crossed my mind that now I have her bible I could REALLY fuck with her head, but I'm trying to resist that particular temptation. I doubt the result would be particularly funny anyhow. At least it gives me some credibility in her eyes, and new places to argue from.
True to my word, I have started reading it, and at about chapter 6 of genesis it hit me like a ton of bricks: O M F G they ACTUALLY BELIEVE this is LITERALLY TRUE.
Maybe it never occurred to me before, or maybe it's just because I'd never read it, but when I read it and realised that they really believe it, I was, to put it mildly, disturbed.
No wonder they have such a problem with science. These days, science routinely makes discoveries that refute their world view, especially when it comes to the theory of evolution. Not only are things much older than they reckon, we could have evolved from simpler forms, shich throws out everything they think they know about human origins.
I finally get it.
Anyway, the discussions have gotten more intense as of late, and I'm hoping beyond hope that it's because I'm getting somewhere. I try to balance the need to be kind with the need to make progress.
*sigh* this is very tiring. oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
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Questions You'd Like To Ask DOZY & Does Dozy have enough faith to answer?
by whyizit indozy seems to be okay with the un deal.
i've got some relatively simple questions that i would like answered from the bible, by dozy!
if dozy has enough faith to do it.. i would like to see one verse from the bible that actually says jesus & michael the archangel are one and the same.
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osmosis
Dozy, as you can see there are some very intelligent and articulate people on here, and there are also some lost souls and destroyed lives.
I don't think anyone should discourage you from being here, other points of view should always be considered by everyone. Some will call you an apologist or hypocrite for being here, I'm sure you will ignore them.
As long as you're here to listen, as well as talk. I hope you're not here for the sole purpose of steering people back to "the truth", and will absorb some of the stuff you can learn here.
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Sout Park Scientology-episode online
by Hellrider inhere it is, the whole episode: .
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ssj9gc36bw8&search=scientology.
...it`s one of the funniest sout-park-episodes ever, i laughed till i dropped.
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osmosis
Is a fantastic story about space aliens really less plausible than a fantastic story about an all-powerful, all-knowing being who created everything and, in most significant ways, completely resembles humans? From a perspective that believes neither, one doesn't seem so much crazier than the other.
One time, for a laugh, I dropped by my nearest scientology "book outlet" and took a copy of their "personality test" home with me. It appeared to me to contain mainly questions that a) anyone will answer yes to (eg. "do you ever feel alone in a crowd?" or "do you ever feel that you are superior to others?") and b) questions that clinically depressed people will answer yes to.
So if you are anyone and/or are clinically depressed, you are the PERFECT CANDIDATE for scientology!
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What do you have now?
by osmosis ini was talking to my aunt the other day.
she knows i talk to you apostate folks and i don't think she's very comfortable with it, but that's her problem.. she did, however, ask a question that seems particularly important, not only in and of itself, but even more so when you apply it more generally.. the question was: what do you people have now that you're out?
what has leaving given you?.
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osmosis
SickOfLies: You are right, it's about fear. It's all about fear, the whole trip.
Knowing that does nothing to change that. I have considered the likelihood that she will not be able to quit her religion habit cold turkey, and that I will have to help her find a substitute religion as a crutch, although hopefully one much less destructive than the JWs.
Having carefully dissected the system of mind control in place, including, but not limited to, the emotional needs of the individual that are being satisfied by the cult, I am all too aware of the problems presented by exiting.