mavie

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Posts by mavie

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  36

  I decided not to go back to the KH

  by Bucholz in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  well, as i mentioned before in one of my few other posts, i've been lurking here for some time now and finally decided it was time to face the facts and take action.. i was raised a jw (4th generation) and my parents were quite zealous when they got married.

  mom was a regular pioneer and dad was a ms. i was the little jw 'rockstar' in my congregation, got baptized at 10, was giving talks and serving as an attendant at the hall and at conventions at such an early age.

  auxiliary pioneered whenever i could.

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  mavie

  Welcome to the real world. Enjoy.

  One piece of advice if I may. If you can, take some time for yourself, a week or two, and read. Just read anything you want.

  It's posts like yours that fill me with joy.
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  36

  I decided not to go back to the KH

  by Bucholz in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  well, as i mentioned before in one of my few other posts, i've been lurking here for some time now and finally decided it was time to face the facts and take action.. i was raised a jw (4th generation) and my parents were quite zealous when they got married.

  mom was a regular pioneer and dad was a ms. i was the little jw 'rockstar' in my congregation, got baptized at 10, was giving talks and serving as an attendant at the hall and at conventions at such an early age.

  auxiliary pioneered whenever i could.

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  mavie

  Welcome to the real world. Enjoy.

  One piece of advice if I may. If you can, take some time for yourself, a week or two, and read. Just read anything you want.

  It's posts like yours that fill me with joy.
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  13

  Will Religion Become Extinct?

  by satinka in

  1. social
  2. current

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197.

  religion may become extinct in nine nations, study saysby jason palmer, science and technology reporter, bbc news, dallas.

  a study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.. the study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.. the team's mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.. the result, reported at the american physical society meeting in dallas, us, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.. the team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: australia, austria, canada, the czech republic, finland, ireland, the netherlands, new zealand and switzerland.. nonlinear dynamics is invoked to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.. one of the team, daniel abrams of northwestern university, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.. at its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the "utility" of speaking one instead of another.. "the idea is pretty simple," said richard wiener of the research corporation for science advancement, and the university of arizona.. "it posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility.. "for example in languages, there can be greater utility or status in speaking spanish instead of [the dying language] quechuan in peru, and similarly there's some kind of status or utility in being a member of a religion or not.".

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  mavie

  Won't happen. We will always have religion in some form.

  Look at the resurgence of Islam, especially in the United States. I believe it is the fastest growing religion in the world. There are about 1 billion Hindus, mainly in India. Folk religion, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucian ideas are shared by 1 billion Chinese.

  I would love it if religion went away, but it is so attractive to those who fear death, want to find community, etc. I'm afraid we are stuck with it.
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  70

  "Who else are we to go away to?"

  by simon17 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  to the intellectually honest witness, it seems like it often comes down to this principle.

  "fine, if the witnesses aren't the truth, then show me the better answer and i'll consider it.

  " and how do you deal with that?

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  mavie

  In response to your comment concerning the non-theist outlook on life, namely that this is our only chance and life isn't fair, I would have you consider the last chapter of Richard Dawkin's latest book "The Evidence for Evolution". This chapter is entitled "There Is Grandeur In This View Of Life". It deconstructs the last paragraph of "On The Origin Of Species". You can read it here:

  http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins09/dawkins09_index.html

  Following are the last three paragraphs of the book:

  The fact of our own existence is almost too surprising to bear. So is the fact that we are surrounded by a rich ecosystem of animals that more or less closely resemble us, by plants that resemble us a little less and on which we ultimately depend for our nourishment, and by bacteria that resemble our remoter ancestors and to which we shall all return in decay when our time is past. Darwin was way ahead of his time in understanding the magnitude of the problem of our existence, as well as in tumbling to its solution. He was ahead of his time, too, in appreciating the mutual dependencies of animals and plants and all other creatures, in relationships whose intricacy staggers the imagination. How is it that we find ourselves not merely existing but surrounded by such complexity, such elegance, such endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful?
  
  The answer is this. It could not have been otherwise, given that we are capable of noticing our existence at all, and of asking questions about it. It is no accident, as cosmologists point out to us, that we see stars in our sky. There may be universes without stars in them, universes whose physical laws and constants leave the primordial hydrogen evenly spread and not concentrated into stars. But nobody is observing those universes, because entities capable of observing anything cannot evolve without stars. Not only does life need at least one star to provide energy. Stars are also the furnaces in which the majority of the chemical elements are forged, and you can’t have life without a rich chemistry. We could go through the laws of physics, one by one, and say the same thing of all of them: it is no accident that we see . . .
  
  The same is true of biology. It is no accident that we see green almost wherever we look. It is no accident that we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life; no accident that we are surrounded by millions of other species, eating, growing, rotting, swimming, walking, flying, burrowing, stalking, chasing, fleeing, outpacing, outwitting. Without green plants to outnumber us at least ten to one there would be no energy to power us. Without the ever-escalating arms races between predators and prey, parasites and hosts, without Darwin’s ‘war of nature’, without his ‘famine and death’ there would be no nervous systems capable of seeing anything at all, let alone of appreciating and understanding it. We are surrounded by endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random natural selection – the only game in town, the greatest show on Earth.
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  77

  What books, songs, artists, movies, etc were banned in your JW home?

  by serenitynow! in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my mother was very strict about entertainment.

  in school i was doing a project about teen suicide and had checked out some books on suicide and abortion.

  i had alot of explaining to do for that.

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  mavie

  Many of the items already mentioned in this thread were also banned in my home. What I find ironic is was they *didn't* ban.

  I read 1984 by Orwell in plain sight when I was 13.

  I read The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan when I was 19.

  I read Dune and the Dune Series by Frank Herbert when I was 14. This one may not be subversive for the average person, but for a Dub it was eye-opening to read about the Bene Gesserit use of religion to control people.

  Mav
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  57

  To all lurking JW elders

  by Mickey mouse in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  come on in, the water's fine.

  you may even realise you have close friends and family here.

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  mavie

  I was an MS for a few years when I left in my late 20's. The first site I actively researched was this one. At first I thought that all the ad hominem attacks and baseless accusations I saw confirmed the WT appraisal of 'apostate' websites. Yet I knew something was wrong with the Org. So I stayed and read. I did lots of reading, here and on my own. My story is somewhat documented with my old post here. I eventually discovered that this place is like every other. There are some people who will believe anything, some who are skeptical, some who are leave for emotional reasons, some for doctrinal, some who run on about baseless things, some who have real meaty research.

  My point is that you are feeling the way you are for a reason. You seem to indicate that you know something is wrong with the Org, deep inside you. For me the final tipping point was Noah's flood and some doctrinal reasons. For you it will probably be something else.

  I would recommend you visit Jehovah's Witness Recovery forum. That place has less traffic but has more meat and less fluff. When you want fluff, come back here.

  Best wishes.
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  4

  Bertrand Russell Quote

  by mavie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  right on bert.as a philosopher, if i were speaking to a purely philosophic audience i should say that i ought to describe myself as an agnostic, because i do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a god.

  on the other hand, if i am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street i think that i ought to say that i am an atheist, because, when i say that i cannot prove that there is not a god, i ought to add equally that i cannot prove that there are not the homeric gods.bertrand russell, collected papers, vol.

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  mavie

  Right on Bert.

  As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. —Bertrand Russell, Collected Papers, vol. 11, p. 91
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  Inspiring - The Rising @ We Are One Inaugural Concert

  by mavie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  bruce springsteen's performance of "the rising" on the steps of the lincoln memorial earlier today was one for the ages.

  backed with a choir, the song became one of hope and new beginnings instead of only a commentary about 9-11. .

  thanks bruce..

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  mavie

  Bruce Springsteen's performance of "The Rising" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial earlier today was one for the ages. Backed with a choir, the song became one of hope and new beginnings instead of only a commentary about 9-11.

  Thanks Bruce.
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  29

  What was the most profound spiritual moment of your life?

  by cluless in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine was simply the realisation that if a person had faith they wouldnt need a religon.. infact not associating with any religouse association is a bit like being on the oceon in a rowing boat.

  but the thing is i dont care if the oceon gets rough.

  it doesnt matter not having the answers.

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  mavie

  I have 'em almost every day now that I'm not trying. Don't try, just be.

  As Lennon would say, "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I really love to watch them roll".

  Read Stephen Batchelor "Buddhism Without Beliefs" Then don't think about it too much.

  Find some Alan Watts lectures on iTunes to listen to occasionally. Don't try to understand it.

  I was a golden boy Ministerial Servant with big things ahead of me. Now my spiritual treasure is found in the present moment.

  O yeah. I'm an atheist finding spiritual contentment all around me.

  A profound spiritual moment for me recently was discovering the wonders of single point mutation and its role in speciation.
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  35

  Interesting phenomena regarding Witnesses

  by JamesThomas in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  first, and most important: thanks to all those who read my introduction-post last saturday, and especial thanks to those who replied.

  like many who have been disfellowshipped (and especially those raised in the org) i've been dragged through icy waves of agonizing hurt and anger; often followed by times of peace and letting go; only to be hit by another turbulent and bitter bout of animosity and grief.

  the tides do run deep, don't they.

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  mavie

  I miss JamesThomas.