Posts by Hold Me-Thrill Me

146

Why I remain one of Jehovah's Witnesses

by Brother Jeramy in

allow me to begin with a clarification: when i say i am one of jehovah's witnesses, i don't mean that i am an advocate of the watchtower society or a devotee of some of its more controversial false teachings.

i mean that i am a christian, a disciple of jesus christ dedicated to jehovah god, and who remains in union with my brothers and sisters who make up the family of faith that globally refers to itself as jehovah's witnesses.

some totally understand the distinction between the family of brothers and sisters and the corporate organization known as the watchtower society (wts).

Hold Me-Thrill Me

Brother Jeramy,

Very fine opening post.

Frank

29

How Come the Watchtower does not admit "We Don't Know Anything About Bible Prophecy" and come clean?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

so many of us have been caught up in the negative effects this religion placed over our lives and those who we love very much.

i am the first one to tell my kids "i don't know s&^^ about this or that subject", if the watchtower is truly our brother or spiritual mother why don't they tell us the following questions we all have asked them?.

1. we screwed up about 1914 and "life is short, go live your life to the fullest while maintaining justice and morality, don't hurt your fellow man by making his life screwed up!.

Hold Me-Thrill Me

True.

29

How Come the Watchtower does not admit "We Don't Know Anything About Bible Prophecy" and come clean?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

so many of us have been caught up in the negative effects this religion placed over our lives and those who we love very much.

i am the first one to tell my kids "i don't know s&^^ about this or that subject", if the watchtower is truly our brother or spiritual mother why don't they tell us the following questions we all have asked them?.

1. we screwed up about 1914 and "life is short, go live your life to the fullest while maintaining justice and morality, don't hurt your fellow man by making his life screwed up!.

Hold Me-Thrill Me

The leadership is too insulated and self-adulating to openly admit to error. There are politicians who could easily be members of the Governing Body.

28

Do You Think Humanity Will Ever Be Completely Free From Religion?

by InjusticeSystem in

i realize that many here still have a form of spirituality or faith, and i mean no disrespect to those individuals.

i suppose i am posting this question to those, like myself, who have come to the conclusion that religion in general is a major hindrance to the progress of our species and needs to be put aside so that we can advance to our full potential.

so my question is, do you think this will ever actually happen, and how do you think we can get there?

Hold Me-Thrill Me

Defender of Truth,

A quote from the article you linked to:

If we are lucky—if human health and security continue to rise and spread around the globe—churches might evolve into humanist communities and social clubs, dedicated to good works, with distinctive ceremonies and disappearing doctrine, except for a scattering of reclusive sects marked by something like institutional paranoia.

Mankind will not be lucky on this one. Religion is not the only "demon" among us. Religion did not cause the latest Great Recession. Religion does not cause corporate greed. Religion is not swallowing up African and South American lands disregarding the native peoples and the environment. Religion did not cause WWll nor did it cause the U.S. war in Iraq. Neither did the U.S. enter the Vietnam civil war over religion. Religion is not the cause of all evil. Yes, it has committed great sins and has cruelly and unlawfully killed millions but it is not the only source of such evil. Thus, to think that: "If we are lucky—if human health and security continue to rise and spread around the globe..." (emphasis added) disregards history and imo common sense. Stalin was not a deeply religious man, neither was Hitler nor the Khmer Rouge. The desire for power at all costs will not die just because religion dies.

If we are unlucky and calamity strikes, our anxiety and misery will provide plenty of fuel for revivals and inventions of religions we have happily learned to live without.

I agree. This is a common recognition. I usually do not read links here and did not realize it was posted as a reply to my post otherwise I would have clicked the link.

Frank

28

Do You Think Humanity Will Ever Be Completely Free From Religion?

by InjusticeSystem in

i realize that many here still have a form of spirituality or faith, and i mean no disrespect to those individuals.

i suppose i am posting this question to those, like myself, who have come to the conclusion that religion in general is a major hindrance to the progress of our species and needs to be put aside so that we can advance to our full potential.

so my question is, do you think this will ever actually happen, and how do you think we can get there?

Hold Me-Thrill Me

I will commit to prophecy here. ;)

Let's say that all organized religion is done away with. Let us also say in the future nuclear war breaks out or world plague similar to Ebola or the Spanish Flu takes hold and scientists are not able to find a solution quickly enough to save most people: Religion comes back.

It is not religion we're actually dealing with, neither is it science. We are dealing with people and people can, like a herd of buffalo, quickly change direction. When fear grips them they turn toward whoever, or whatever, they hope will end the pain and misery and bring them relief. In the scenario above that someone would be God. It is the way it is. There is a great line in the movie Gladiator where Caesar's daughter says to her brother: "The mob is fickle brother, he will be forgotten in a month."

Hope is the anathema of godlessness. Take away the hope that this life is not all there is and godlessness is born. Godlessness must first destroy hope. It's a shell game. Godlessness uses the very thing that cries out for rebirth, the natural world, and uses it to destroy the message it is sending. Giving us string theory and mathematical answers few can understand in place of what our eyes can easily see; fantastic beauty, mathematical, genetic and physical order; an earth whose only problem is mankind not itself.

The "mob" may be fickle but it is not blind.

64

The poor and deprived life of JW children.

by Esse quam videri in

i find it hard to believe that adults on this forum make such a big deal about not celebrating birthdays, x-mas, easter, halloween, etc, etc, etc.

i grew up as a jw kid and it actually made me feel good, being different from the other kids in school.

we went to meetings.

Hold Me-Thrill Me

I have seen children in the KH with balanced parents who gave themselves to their children providing a loving and active home life and I have seen children with parents who were running a religious concentration camp...and everything in between. The experiences here do not always represent all experiences in the Witness religion but they do represent a sector.

28

Do You Think Humanity Will Ever Be Completely Free From Religion?

by InjusticeSystem in

i realize that many here still have a form of spirituality or faith, and i mean no disrespect to those individuals.

i suppose i am posting this question to those, like myself, who have come to the conclusion that religion in general is a major hindrance to the progress of our species and needs to be put aside so that we can advance to our full potential.

so my question is, do you think this will ever actually happen, and how do you think we can get there?

Hold Me-Thrill Me

All humanity may leave, or be forced to leave, organized religion but all humanity will not abandon their belief in a higher power, in God. All humanity will not abandon their hope/belief in life after death. All humanity will not buy into evolution being the sole cause of all life on earth. All humanity will not be convinced that no religion, no belief in God, will bring about a world with no war, no inequality, no prejudice, no crimes against women and children and so on.

184

Why are people burning their city to the ground in Baltimore? How doe Looting and Mob Violence Help?

by PokerPlayerPhil in

it's hard enough for businesses to enter these areas the government once had to offer up tax breaks to service them.

in watts, california it took decades for city residents to get a grocery store after the thugs burned their businesses to the ground.

you can see the insanity taking place, when you allow mobs and fools to burn building down nothing good comes from it.

Hold Me-Thrill Me

A tale of two cities, of two systems.

What is happening in Baltimore is the fault of one of the systems operating in the U.S. The system which leaves too many in the dirt while promoting materialism, the system which allows too many poorly run inner city schools to continue to ruin the young, the system where some parents teach their children that they are victims of the system and will always be victims of the system. The system which is torn between believing, on the one hand, that the best way to help the disadvantaged is to give them an easy handout and, on the other hand, that the best way to help the disadvantaged is to force them to man up. (Neither works to build up a man or woman but only to destroy their dignity.)

The system where trust in institutions once trusted has been largely eroded. The system where the common man has been encouraged to measure his self-worth in what he owns rather than in his self-respect and dignity. The system where politicians are not up to the task of leading but instead seem to put party before country. Political aims above all else. The system where the government appears to be more influenced by corporations and lobbies than by the voters who elected them. The system that reacts to injustices only when it must, after the burning not before. After the burning of blacks, after the burning of homosexuals, after the burning of the homeless, after the burning of almost everything minority related.

However, there is another system running concurrently with the one causing the problems in the U.S. That system is the one which truly holds the country together. The system of giving support to our neighbor whether he be here in the U.S. or overseas. The system which believes in miracles, the miracle that peoples from around the world can live together in peace though they come from countries where they once warred against one another. A system where hope runs deep and where hope in man's ability to get things right to make things better is the drive that makes almost all heartaches a little easier to bear.

The system that promotes American unity while at the same time respecting the important cultural self-identification that immigrants from every nation bring with them. They are able to maintain (and have respected) their personal beliefs and cultures while at the same time integrating into the American system. It is also a system that promotes self-examination both personally and nationally. A system where the freedom to ridicule all things powerful is deeply embedded in the culture encouraging us to maintain our mental independence from all things powerful. A system where love for our fellow man even when not practiced is still the goal. A system that opens doors to the poor and all minorities rather closing them. A system that calls for fairness and keeping true to the American ideals reflected in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. A system which takes pride in its young men and women who volunteer to defend their country or who join humanitarian associations here and abroad. A system which strives for doing a little more good than before.

A system which is capable of changing course quickly and rightly if the majority should chose to do so. A highly productive system one of the most productive systems in the world if not the most productive, imo. A system in which almost every nationality, religion, race, and culture is represented in almost every strata makes the U.S. the greatest and best experiment in government ever attempted. It is this inclusiveness that ensures strength and productivity. We have the strengths and capabilities of all nations working together, working in all endeavors. Diversity makes the U.S. strong.

The world knows our weaknesses and sins but we are not defined by our sins we are defined by our continued attempts to be better than we are. To not be satisfied with the present but rather to reach for a better future even if it means remaking ourselves every 30 years or so. Even if it means looking in the mirror and turning away in horror.

It is this second system working within the U.S. that supplies the energy, the hope, so necessary in a world that loves negativity, boundless negative criticisms, forgetting the good and highlighting the negative. Seeing the negative is important, very important. We cannot move forward without seeing the negative but the U.S. is much more than its problems which in truth are common to all peoples and countries around the world.

Forty years after Martin Luther King's speech where he said he has been to the mountain top and seen the promised land, a black man was elected President of the U.S. This is the potential of this country. It must hold to that potential as it strives to make right its wrongs.

11

Why the Future of Religion Is Bleak

by defender of truth in

religious institutions have survived by controlling what their adherents know, argues tufts prof. daniel c. dennett, but today that is next to impossible.

illustration: brian stauffer for the wall street journal.

by daniel c. dennett.

If COJ posted his religious beliefs here I suppose they would be debated the same as any other persons.

Yes, that's what Cofty said and I thought it balanced and fair.

What does that have to do with anything? Are you saying that because someone has faith that atheists will automatically dismiss anything they have to say.

No, I was wondering if Jonsson would be given a pass.

It's the opinion of believers that I'm actively seeking here.

Okay.