I'd like to read it, if anyone can scan a PDF or something.
apfergus
JoinedPosts by apfergus
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34
September AWAKE
by stillajwexelder ingot the september awake tonight.
marked on the front cover special issue in orange letters.
the title is " is there a creator".
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How open are you to new ideas.
by poodlehead inwhen i was a jw, i believed what i was told to believe.
after all it was the truth.
but now i no longer believe that what they were telling me was the truth.
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apfergus
I aproximate my openess to new ideas to Carl Sagan's "baloney detection kit" rules from The Demon Haunted World. I'll consider any idea placed before me, but if it doesn't stand up to some kind of basic logical criteria I see no reason to take it seriously.
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Favorite Band as a teenager........
by whyamihere inas a teenager, what was your favorite band?
this band can be a local, main stream etc..... my favorite local band was little blue crunchy things, they were from milwaukee, wi.
(even hung out with them)!
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apfergus
I really liked The Moody Blues (and still do, in fact), but the greatest band ever is still Dream Theater.
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apfergus
There were a couple younger elders in my congregation who I really looked up to as a child. They would always bring pop-culture references and humor into their talks and I would always try to immitate that when I got to give talks an the ministry school. The only specific humorous moment I remember was a talk one brother gave that featured a few original short plays--one of which involved me pretending to be a mainline protestant. It really wasn't all that funny. It was just a clever presentation of a strawman argument, but it got a good laugh out of everyone.
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Has being a Jehova's witness totally shattered your faith?
by Silvia Plath injust because the watchtower society is wrong doesn't mean that there is no god, nor does it mean there is a god.
it would interesting to now how former members have adjusted thier cosmology, or whether they are now atheists and why.
i personally see religion as a more personal matter, rather than belonging to an organization.
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apfergus
My faith was shattered, but I don't think it was by the Watchtower. I still clung to a lot of the crap I learned from my years in the ranks for a very long time after I left. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was a stack of Stephen J. Gould books and a university course in evolutionary biology. Science and the scientific method has brought me more than anything any religion ever has.
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apfergus
I support all forms of stem cell research. Frankly I don't understand the ethical objections to embryonic stem cell research--which seems to be a byproduct of the opposition to abortion, another objection I don't understand. It's very common for a zygote to fail to attatch to the walls of the uterus and simply be flushed out with the next cycle. How is taking a 4-5 day embryo that would otherwise fail to develop or--in the case of elective abortion--be discarded (or develop into a miserable, neglected, unwanted child) wrong? It seems to be advantageous for multiple reasons.
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We need help
by _Atlas ini dont post too often but im always lurking from my workplace.
but now i feel the need to ask for any advise from you guys.
a while back, when i decided i had enough of the wt internal politics and the wait on jah attitude, i faded away from the hall and basically disappeared into the night.
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apfergus
I'm going to echo what some others have said that this is not your fault. You aren't responsible for the facts being what they are. So don't beat yourself up over a thing like that.
I'll add, though, that I think the best way to move beyond something like the Watchtower is by exploring everything on your own and considering everything calmly and rationally. Even doing that you'll never find all the answers, but you will grow comfortable with uncertainty. It's not something that's easy for most people to do, I don't think, but taking the time to do my research and digest it with as little bias as I could was the best thing I've ever done. -
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My Story..... Need advice on reinstatement Letter.
by jrjr4189 ini've been a member of the site for a month, but have been reading the posts for a lot longer, however this is my first post.
i was raised a j-dub by my mother (my father wasn't religious) with my sister and brother.
i was pretty much convinced by my dub friends, bible study conductor, and mother that i should get baptized when i was 15 and decided to go for it.
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apfergus
One thing to keep in mind is that if you make the pretense of returning to the organization, JW family might also make it their business to keep you going to the meetings, out in service, etc. Even if you can manage to fade, it also might bring a lot of emotional troubles to your family as it did with mine. I'm not exactly in the bad graces of the organization, but it's pretty obvious that a lot of friends and family are very upset with me.
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last time in field service
by darth frosty inanother poster had the topic about your last meeting, but what really stands out for me is my last time in service.
it was a nice day and i was trying to keep up appearances.
i offered the rags a one door and the householder took them (i didn't bother with the donation spiel.
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apfergus
The last time I remember being in field service I was with my "pioneer buddy" or whatever they were called. I don't know if it was a widespread phenomenon, but in my congregation they would assign younger publishers to a regular pioneer who they would go out in FS with.
I remember it because I had a conversation with him about me getting baptized. I really don't remember what I thought about that idea then, but it wasn't long after that when I stopped going to the meetings for some reason or another. I'm sure it took everyone by surprise, too, because everyone always used to tell me how I'd make such a good PO/CO and my talks at the ministry school were so good, etc.
I remember some other random details about that Saturday afternoon, like talking about the band Jamiroquai. Actually, now that I think about it, I really don't know why I left when I did. I stopped going to the meetings when I was 17 or 18, but I still believed a lot of it up until only a year ago or so and I really wished I could have stuck with it to keep my mother happy with me. -
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Are you grateful you're out?
by bluesapphire inthe reason i ask is because i am in a dilemma with my husband.
long story short:
i joined and we met.
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apfergus
You're in a pretty tough place. Just try to communicate with him, and don't hold back (don't be cruel, either) because you're afraid of exacerbating the situation. I'm frequently guilty of not being a very strong communicator and what it usually takes is someone just being blunt with me and then giving me enough time and space to think about what they've said and communicating my feelings.
It sounds like he's just looking for an easy way out of a situation that's way more complicated than that. It's a phase I'm sure a lot of people here have been through.