Posts by done4good

59

Books that changed your life-

by new hope and happiness in

i am not much of a reader as i have two many distractions, but i fancy a challenging read, so please list any book that has changed your entire world view on everything.

i remember as a teenager buying at a yard sale, norman vincent peales " the power of positive thinking" and at the time that had a big impact on me.

but i am a little bit more in to " realistic positive thinking" now..

done4good

CoC - Raymond Franz - No need to explain why.

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins - I at least began to understand atheism from reading this back in 2006.

God and the Folly of Faith - Victor J. Stenger - Put any question of belief in the unprovable behind me.

Fabric of the Cosmos - Brian Greene - Best overall description of relativity and quantum mechanics I have read. (The string theory parts can be safely ignored since the discovery of the Higgs boson).

Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kaheman - Still reading this, but the overall best insights into human psychology I have read.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Helped me to understand how counterintuitive probability plays a significant role in outcomes in the universe and our lives.

Einstien, (Bio) - Walter Issacson - Lost my balance, (literally), when I understood general relativity for the first time while reading.

d4g

56

How important do you believe education and knowledge is?

by new hope and happiness in

how educated are you?

and how great is your vocabularly ect ....?.

do you think ir right to judge people by how intelligent/ educated they are and how much vocabulary they use???.

done4good

The argument positioning "educated" vs. "just being a good person", (with good humor or whatever), is a false dilemma. There are good and not so good people with and without a good education.

Having said that, almost everything I learned that improved my life, (including as a human being towards others), had to do with education of some sort. Most educated people actually do develop a proper sense of ethics and morality. They are generally deeper thinkers, and at least try to make conscientious decisions. Education teaches a person critical thinking and rational thought. Nothing really of any lasting good comes from irrationality.

Given a choice, I would take an educated world anyday.

d4g

54

IS Science Absolute Truth

by seekchristonly in

if we have faith in science and scientific claims about the universe, origins of life etc.

is that absolute truth.

if so then if they declare that god exists with evidence then do all those who believe in science then believe in god or a creator.

done4good

I haven't read through this thread, but likely I am repeating was has already been said...

This question is based on a false premise. Therefore, it is invalid. Scientists do not claim "absolute truth". The very word "truth" is taboo in scientific circles, and likely to prevent any scientist from remaining in his/her career very long if they use it. Science is about formalized and rigorous inquiry. It is about creating a hypothesis, (a proposed explanation). A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable, (able to be tested). Even when tested and proven, it does not constitute "truth", much less "absolute truth", whatever that means.

Understand what science is first, then rephrase your question.

d4g

194

Atheism is a Belief System

by seekchristonly in

is atheism a belief system.

after all the atheist believes there is no god .so if that's the case then an atheist if a person of faith.

they have faith in the fact there is no god.

done4good

Who told me that? I learned that in elementary school science, a thing called, "The law of conservation of energy", which states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Or are you saying this scientific fact had new light like the WT and no longer applies?

Yes, the first law of thermodynamics. You forgot one important point, however. Scientific laws are only absolute within a given context. The context in this case, (as most laws pf physics are applied), applies within the confines of our universe. That means it does not include what existed before or outside of our universe.

Energy, (as we know it within our physical universe), had a beginning. We do not know what state of physical properties existed before our universe came into existence, or what energy, (if in fact it existed), could have been like.

d4g

19

New Here and happy to have found you

by flowerfreaks2 in

have been out officially for 5 1/2 years.

i was the only one out of all my 4 other siblings that stayed with it.

baptized at 16 and felt the need to carry on the heritage that my mom gave me to do.

done4good

Ho-leee sh@t!!!

Good for you!

the x

36

Were you 100% in?

by pontoon in

i was baptized in 1968. last meeting 2010. i have to say i was never 100% in.

there were times i absolutely believed, but i never really gave it my all.

never liked service, assemblies, meetings.

done4good

100% until July 12, 2005. Very quickly dropped to about 50% that day, and 0% by March 2006, (read CoC by then). Sure I had doubts before that, (everyone does), but they had no meaningful effect. The cognitive dissonance was too strong.

12

What is your status???

by lrkr in

my family and i are planning a trip to a nice vacation area close to where my (active jw) parents and sister and brother in law live.

my family and i are not df'd, da'd or anything else- we just executed a successful fade and havent looked back.

sooo- i've expressed my interest in spending some time with them on vacation (why not- right??).

done4good

lrkr-

It is hard to accept, but this is the price to pay for fading. Eventually, it becomes inevitable that you either have to come clean with who/what you are and doing with your life, or fake it, to keep the relationships going. It is not fair, but it is their game, their rules.

For the most part, I moved on years ago, DA'd, and did not care what anyone thought. In the end, that is still the case, but...it does not mean I would not want to have a relationship with some good JWs I know. I tried to do this recently, and failed, and yes, it still hurt.

My point is, even if I did not DA, the same eventuality would have taken place in time. I actually was very honest with this one friend right from the outset of our recent conversations, and especially so because I care about her. I know she sensed that there was more to the story that I was not mentioning, (I was not trying to keep anything hidden, the DA letter did just not occur to me anymore), but because she was suspicious, she kept digging, and found the letter on this site. That was the end of our short lived "new" relationship. In any case, even without the letter, enough would have been spoken about that would have likely made her avoid me anyway. The only way that could have been avoided, would have been to lie. I could not, and would not do that.

And yes, I did get the "what is your status?" question, (or some variation of it), also. This is a typical trigger phrase question that would have no meaning outside of the JW world, but has a very specific meanining within it. If you try to answer honestly, (in the non-JW literal sense), you may as well be saying you are "no longer one of JWs".

I will send you a PM. We did meet up in NY a few years ago.

d4g

31

My Successful Fade

by Darth Rutherford in

it's been a while since i've posted anything about myself.

i've been on jwn for a couple of years.

my leaving the organization was not because i lost my faith, but i left because of my faith.

done4good

Darth-

Wonderful story! Made my day reading it this AM!

I see many parallels to my own story.

d4g

52

It is so obviously a lie......now

by snare&racket in

once the spell is broken, one you take a deep fresh breath outisde of the watchtower camp, the amazingly obvious realisation becomes clear.... of course this is a lie, of course this is ridiculous!

you find you have memories of really believing the claims and promises, but it seems like another life, another experience.

it seems so incredibly false once you leave and it is very difficult to belive you even once accepted it!

done4good

Great post, Snare.

The gambling addition analogy is appropriate. Actually, the concept of addiction itself is fitting. You made a point that I do not see made often on this board, but I observed in JWs as well. Born-ins and converts are not much different, once the "addiction" sets in. Think of a baby born to a drug addicted mother, vs. an adult addict. There is no real difference in terms of the signifcance of addiction in either. Either is equally powerful, and damaging.

Addicted to what though? The addiction in this case, is of an existential nature. Existential anxiety is "fear of the unknowable". Concepts that religous belief cater to include,"why do we exist", "what do we feel when we die", and so on. These are things that fall into the unknowable category, when an absolute answer is sought. Generalizations can be made, (some obviously more accurate than others, i.e. those that lean toward a scientific explanation), but these things do remain unknowable in the absolute sense. Religions that have very black and white, very "absolute", answers about such things tend to dull the natural effect of this anxiety, (much like heroin does physical or emotional pain), and just as heroin, are very addictive. A born-in just inherits this addiction from their parents. An adult convert makes this choice once exposed to the "relief" it offers, of the existentialism. In the end, this is why there is little difference, and either type of JW really has just as good of chance of breaking free under the right conditions.

What are the "right" conditions? Basically, in my observation, the pain of something else either directly or indirectly caused by the belief system needs to be more prevalent, than the pain caused by the existentialism, to the point where even the "withdrawal" symptoms are less painful.This is why many leave after experiencing a divorce, a judicial committee, being forced to "step down", etc. All of these things expose the sickness caused by the addiction.

Add to this, the enormous amount of cognitive dissonance one experiences when reality challenges their belief system, and it becomes easy to see why it is so hard to break free. The cognitive dissonance is experienced because a person cannot imagine life without their "drug". It changes how they understand everything around them. The "unknowable" answers to things the religion once provided are suddenly not valid anymore. This is unaccaptable to almost anyone under the spell of belief, and therefore the response is rationalization, denial, etc.

d4g

25

If only there were another GB member like Ray Franz

by tornapart in

i'm just rereading crisis of conscience and was thinking if only there were others on the gb like him.

maybe things could change for the better.

for instance when he felt troubled that a woman couldn't get a divorce when her husband cheated on her with another man.. his response was this:-"the emotional upset i felt moved me to make a study of the original language terms (in greek) used in matthew, chapter nineteen, verse 9.".

done4good

All they need to believe is this is "Gods" organization, and that their reason for existence is to protect and perpetuate it. With that mindset, they do not need to believe anything they teach at all. What is taught, is so, because it is thought of to have the best probability of protecting the organisation. Pure pragmatism with a good level of cynicism to keep it that way.

Ray spoke of this cynicism in CoC and ISoCF. This could only have increased in the last 35 years. IMO, no chance of another Ray Franz "incident".

d4g