Posts by OnTheWayOut

99

Golden Rule: Pure Garbage?

by willmarite in

on another thread a poster made the comment that the golden rule was garbage.

she said it was arrogant and made assumptions.. i didn't want to derail that thread so i started another wondering if this is a common thought about this belief on this forum.

i guess i naively thought the value of doing to others as you want them to do to you was generally accepted as positive.. i understand people have different opinions of jesus as a person but i don't want to get into that here.

OnTheWayOut

Rather than assume people want the same thing you want, you could always ask them.

I think the Golden Rule doesn't omit this. I would want someone to ask me how I would like to be treated instead of just assuming. This is in line with the Golden rule.

Flag Dislike LikeI have to go with that. The Golden Rule is short and simple, but allows for "Assume you don't want what they want and ask what they want." It's not garbage, it's just not completely everything in all situations. It's a great place to start when you need a place to start.

72

Coping With Atheism (Long-ish Post...sorry!)

by humblepotato in

jw
friends

long time lurker (2009-ish), first time poster.

first of all, i want to say thank you everyone who contributes to these boards and provokes stimulating conversations and thought processes.

all the opinions and different perspectives are very enlightening.

OnTheWayOut

Oh, I will suggest one thing for your coping with atheism. Nothing helped me more than youtubes of George Carlin's thoughts on God and religion.

72

Coping With Atheism (Long-ish Post...sorry!)

by humblepotato in

jw
friends

long time lurker (2009-ish), first time poster.

first of all, i want to say thank you everyone who contributes to these boards and provokes stimulating conversations and thought processes.

all the opinions and different perspectives are very enlightening.

OnTheWayOut

Sound, Stage, and Mics were dumped on me the first week, then a month later I was assigned as a Watchtower and CBS reader, and I was put on the schedule to pray at the meetings. (Which I felt really bad about because there were brothers who had been in that congregation their whole lives and hadn't got to do any of that stuff!)

REALLY? Everywhere I went, they couldn't hand those assignments out fast enough to any baptized males, young or old. They might have taken away reading the Watchtower if the "brother" wasn't tolerable, but the rest of that is ordinary privileges. Why do you suppose your congregation is so different on that?

Anyway, I think I get what you are saying. While I don't say anything like "coping with atheism," you concerns are similar to what I went through. Jehovah supposedly saved my life (long story) and gave me a purpose. But to come to the realization that He wasn't even there threw me back into a depression over issues I avoided from before I was a JW. It took me time and serious soul-searching. I went to counseling, but it wasn't over the atheism, rather it was over those issues.

For atheism, I read many books and watched many videos. Everyone has to find their own path, so enjoy it rather than "cope" with it. My wife is not "hardcore" in many ways, but she does seem to be in the JW's for the longhaul, so I have to cope with that also. I slowly shifted to more freedom to be myself and ran into some snags with my wife. I honestly think I would have divorced her and had nothing else to do with JW's were it not for the need to try to keep contact with my JW mother, so I faded out from the congregation. Don't get me wrong- I love my wife. It's just that I might have thought both of us would be happier if we went through all the pain of divergent paths all at once. Since that did not happen, we have learned to be happy and not discuss religion and beliefs. I don't really say anything to her about being atheist, but I am sure she knows.

52

Questions for those that believe in Electricity

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

you can't see electricity or hear it or feel it.

well, there are sparks and lightning bolts and heating elements and the light and heat of filaments.

and somehow, it lights up neon in a tube.

OnTheWayOut

Hey, I started this thread on a lark. Great that it lumbers on.

Some of the explanations for electricity make it more difficult to understand.

I will back off and say this now: I know that something powers my laptop computer and my smartphone. I don't have to understand it to believe the power exists. Whether I get that electrons don't flow like water or that it's a fair analogy to describe the results to a layperson, it doesn't matter.

Some have to be told this in order to apply it to other things.

Even as I write this, knowing that leaving off the obvious conclusion will cause people to go both ways: YES, WHAT I BELIEVE IN IS OBVIOUS AND HAS PLENTY OF EVIDENCE. EVOLUTION IS TRUE, EVOLUTION IS FALSE. THE GOD OF CHRISTIANITY EXISTS, THE GOD OF CHRISTIANITY DOESN'T EXIST. ETC. ETC.

53

questions

by DanielC in

i've been dating a jw girl for about 4 years and we've recently had a lot of issues with the fact that her family doesn't like that i'm not a jw.

i've been looking into the religion and am interested in it.

but is it wrong to join just so i don't lose her?

OnTheWayOut

In the movies, they show one of the chief recruitment methods of dangerous mind-control cults is to have pretty girls out there gaining the interest of young men. Jehovah's Witnesses do not intentionally use that method, but it happens. The young girls are often seen as pure and innocent. The young man sees the only way to have her is to join her religion.

If she's slightly bad and dates outside the religion, she typically won't "go all the way" and that makes the guy want her more.

She's violating JW rules by dating you. If she allows any touching or sexual contact of any kind, she's violating more rules. Eventually, she will feel guilty about it and drop you or go to the elders about her guilt or she may leave the JW's. Either way, you are making her near future a crazy one.

If you care for the girl, find out the truth about her religion and tell her. If she chooses her family and friends in the religion over you, try to understand it's all she knows and let her go.

24

Went to a Catholic Funeral Today

by Captain Schmideo2 in

jw
friends

it was for a dear friend of the family that i have known all my life.now, bear in mind that i was born and raised jw, so my experience with catholic ceremonies can be counted on three fingers, a wedding, a "regular" mass, and this funeral mass.once they got down to the actual speaking about the deceased, i felt emotionally involved, but prior to that, i was watching and had questions about aspects of the services (these i have seen in common for all three times i have been in an rc church):why the "sing-song" voice during the prayers?

does god hear it better if you sound all spooky tenor?i observe that every time a reading from one of the gospels takes place, it is preceded by a big musical number:"alleluiah!

alleluiah"( "and nowwwwwwwwwwwwwww, heeeeeeeeeeeeeere's jesus!".

OnTheWayOut

Why the "sing-song" voice during the prayers?

I think the real reason is because white people are too uptight to really let loose in church.
At a Catholic funeral, what freaks me out is that my non-practicing relatives still know when to say "Lord, hear my prayer" whenever it's supposed to be said.

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?

OnTheWayOut

Humans have between 1.75 and 3.25 (arguable) billion years left before earth is uninhabitable. That's a long time. We'll go conservative and assume that humankind has up to a billion years before his time is up.

That's a long time. In that time, I do believe that mankind will give up on God and Jesus and Mohammad.

It wouldn't surprise me if man picks up some completely different radical practices in that time, but I think most all of religion as something organized will disappear.

It may seem impossible now, but two factors will work against religion: the wasted resources and time for religion and the education of the population. Some taxing authority will end religion's tax-free status and it will spread. Eventually, everyone will be able to google without typing a keyboard- we are almost there now. They will figure out that religion is a scandal.

37

£150,000,000 Jehovahs Witnesses HQ approved

by defender of truth in

the jehovahs witnesses have gained planning to build a vast uk headquarters complex in chelmsford.the international bible students association, which manages the christian groups literature, gained planning to redevelop a derelict farm near galleywood with a 1.2m sq ft scheme.the 150m complex will provide homes for 1,200 people spread across 16 five-storey blocks, a large printing plant, offices, auditorium, health and fitness centre, water treatment plant and on-site parking for 1,040 vehicles.. the ibsa is now set to begin groundwork at the 82-acre temple farm site and start construction by 2016.. .

www.constructionenquirer.com/2015/04/29/150m-jehovahs-witnesses-hq-approved-for-chelmsford/.

OnTheWayOut

They might have felt it was necessary to hire people for the steel construction. It greases the wheels to get local government to approve and it may have been really not possible to train members and do it right for less.

Still, their figures are probably extremely inflated to impress. It's what they do.

And I have little doubt that they will say that this new place is so ideal for the job that all other European branches can close.

19

Sorry, But Your Sad Story Doesn't Make Me Feel Better. Is it supposed to?

by Tempest in a Teacup in

jw
friends

i have very recently come out of a bout of severe depression which lasted for years.

i have ginormous underlying issues which i hardly talk about, especially to my family.. today my sister came in, wanting to force me to do something she wanted.

her strategy was to make me feel bad for feeling bad, just to show me that my problem (which she has no idea of but thinks she does) wasn't the biggest in the world.

OnTheWayOut

While it didn't help, I would try to understand that's the best she's got. It seems you get that.
Better might be just being there for you, ready to listen or just to be there.

But I make the same mistakes your sister made. We just have to try to fix it when we see something broke.

55

why did man go from living 900 years to 90?

by sowhatnow in

i cant recall the scripture, where it says than only a few men will he live to be 80 years or so, can anyone recall that?.

so then im wondering, if it is a fact that men lived long years 900 in some cases, for what reason would god limit our lifespan if our time is so short compared to his?.

how on earth does man go from living 8 and 9 hundred years down to 80 to 100 ?.

OnTheWayOut

Man has been slowly expanding his lifespan. Historically, the oldest person ever lived to 122. It is possible that some lived longer than that without being part of recorded history,but statistics don't make it likely.

Statistics are tricky on this one. Life expectancy at birth was very short in ancient times, but those that did live past infancy and childhood could have lived to grow old. So it seems that some have virtually always managed to live past 70, but now many more do so and many of them live into their 80's and 90's.

As far as the Bible goes, the same book that says people lived nearly 900 years says that man started out only a bit over 6000 years ago and that a global flood happened some 4300 years ago, give or take, and wiped out all animal and human life except for a tiny gene pool.

And don't forget that the story forgot that dinosaurs existed. That's evidence enough for me that the writings were based on what people believed at the time of writing and that no supernatural power helped them with the story.