i cannot provide any background info on my dad except to say that he is not an attender anymore, but is not apostate.. years ago, my dad showed me why he thought 1975 was wrong, and he gave me a date like 2011, 2012...back in 2004.. it actually made sense to me back then, and obve's posts reminded me of my dad's calculations..... only my dad's calculations were not based on addition or multiplying of random crazy numbers, .
but actually were logical assumptions based on the scriptures as he understood them.. here is his email to me...it might be lengthy, but it is easy to follow and understand.
(sorry for the large font, it was the font he used in the email.
the problem is that 1914 is wrong in the first place.
the year 1914 is the main problem with the JW religion for me. i dont see any sense in it plus it was also based on pyramidology... i cant believe such stuff like it is truth. and i know god wouldnt expect that from his true followers.
why are we not all getting together as a group and get back at the borg for what they have done to us?
"there is strength in numbers" and definitely enough of us.
we have all suffered in similar ways, some more than others.
of course if there would happen such a thing JWs would see it as fulfillment of prophecy and as a final proof that they're the chosen ones.
i have been wasting a couple hours here!
http://www.livescience.com/ (can anyone make that clickable??
it is full of really neat articles.
science is baaaaaad! and everything humans discover is most likely BS as long as they arent the GB! the bible says that one shouldnt rely on humans.
so this website is absolutely nonsense, better read a WT instead!
no, seriously, thanks for the link ;D i love it.
it's very spooky.
gives me the heebiest of jeebies.. .
still i have to say: if someone could prove me that such phenomena REALLY exists and cant be explained with something unsupernatural, i would go back to the jws immediately. it would be the only thing i could do.
yesterday my friends 14 year old son died after a lenghty stay in hospital.
he had cystic fibrosis and in september caught an infection resulting in him spending pretty much the rest of his time in ic during which he suffered 2 heart attacks and was on life support and for the final few weeks has not been conscious due to medication.
sadly he lost his battle yesterday.. he was a little chap who i knew and was friends with my son from first day at primary school.
in my experience this is SOOO common in JW talk. i did it. my family, friends, everyones does it. when someone dies who was apostate, sinner, no-JW almost everytime someone comes up with the "its the best that could happen to him/her". and you know why? because they think its some kind of comfort. "hey, yeah, we all know its sad that he/she died, but look, when you watch the facts he may lost some years in this horrible wicked system but probably gained eternal life!!!!"
i know it's a touchy subject, but anyone here has ever thought of suicide while they were still in the organization?
it seem to me that jehovah's witnesses have a much higher rate of suicide than the rest of the population.
i contemplated suicide myself when i was struggling to get piece of my life back together after being raised as a "perfect little jw" when i was young.
raised. still in.
i would be happy with my jw life... if it wouldnt include lying just that noone of my friends and relatives gets suspicious. i live for today actually. if i would live for tomorrow i couldnt stand it.
i dont believe it anymore at all but ppl try to plant guilt in me for going only 2h and like 3times a month to the hall.
even though i dont feel really suicidal (but i felt suicidal before when i broke out of the JW egg) now i sometimes have a down when thinking about it all. i sometimes feel like i wont broke out until i die. and this is hard.
its my friends, wife, my wifes parents, my parents, my brothers, everyone.
in that case i sometimes think "suicide would solve it all". but i also see some light at the end of the tunnel.
some (jw-)friends of mine are weak in faith, so i may get real friends soon. and i gain slowly more and more strength. im multiple times stronger as i was like 2 years ago. its advancing, ill succeed. i dont wanna sound showy, but i think im a attractive (more or less ;)), life loving guy with his best years still to come. i shouldnt give up, ill succeed. jw teaching was just very destructive in my brain. it takes time to repair.
i was an elder for 10 years.
there were some questions that i was asked by the flock which.
i could not answer.
Every now and then our cells completely change, and we are a completely different "body", than what we were just a few months or years prior. So, what are we really? When we die, our spirit goes back to God, so I guess that same spirit would go back in a new body. I think it boils down to trusting God.
yeah, but there is no soul or spirit which can go back to god.
its an almost philosophic question. "are" we the same person and consciousness we were a minute before? noone can tell that. it feels like that, but that does not prove i believe those questions raised the idea of an immortal soul. because it seems sometimes that it cant be our body only what we "are".
and for the resurrection its even different. its true that our body renews itself. but its not a short process. its looong and gradually. AND at no point all the processes stopped completely. thats what happens when you die.
its true that god need to "recreate" one to resurrect him. so what if at all originates from the original person finds its way into the new created person. it cant be an immortal soul, and everything else (gods memory, etc) seems to be a copy only.
the only "answer" i somehow accepted was that we just dont know how things really work and that god will have a solution.
what me scared was: even if god does not have a solution noone will ever find out...
i was an elder for 10 years.
there were some questions that i was asked by the flock which.
i could not answer.
these questions indicate a weak faith.
the simple answer of all of your questions is: "´since jehovah promises that everyone will be happy and jumping for joy it does not make sense to speculate about such topics in great detail as long as we dont know how god will solve this. its enough to know that it will be wonderful".
discussion-stopper. ive seen others using it and me using it too hundreds if not thousands of times in my life. it always works.
If when a person dies we know that God can resurrect that person. The person is nothing but dust
at this time. So God has to create this person. If He could create one person, could He create two
or three of the same person. Of course He can, He is God. If this is the case then which one of the
three would actually be the person that died? Is the person who is resurrected really the person who
died or just a copy of the person who died?
i asked this question myself when i was a teenager and it scared the hell out of me. it still does when i think of the possibility of god and a resurrection.
the problem is that you WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN A COPY AND THE ORIGINAL! you wouldnt even know whether yourself is only a copy or really the SAME consciousness.
the question is when you die today and close your eyes... will you ever open your eyes again or will it be the copy of you who thinks he/she IS you?
scary!!!! aahhhh!
it's starting to become harder and harder to hang out with witnesses.
all their talk about how evil the world is, etc.
i was at a gathering last night, and this older couple was their talking about how their granddaughter came back because she got a taste of how the world was, her so-called friends were freeloading off her and stealing her stuff.
Same here, pal! Im fading, hardly go to meetings, cant stand the stuff from the podium. even feel more tolerance like you.
But i cant make a clean break, because i love my family and friends.
What ive done so far is the following: becoming more friends with "weak" brothers/sisters and becoming fewer friends with "strong" brothers/sisters.
i learned from some brothers and sisters that they're doubting too. most of them doubting in a different way then me, but they're no jws who likely would shun me. i may be wrong about some of them but its a start. it gives me hope for the future.
its a weired feeling when the "strong" ones come up with their old phrases like copied from a WT. i can simulate my jw behaviour but i feel so wrong about it...
while talking with mom(active dub) this morning, i said " aren't you glad i was never baptised so you can still talk and have a mother son relationship'?
her response shocked me in that she said it wouldn't matter your still my son.
and she would be able to talk with me, just cannot discuss the jw religion.. i was always under the impression you would be shunned for the rest of your life, unless you went through the chain of command for reinstatement.
your moms attitude is apostate ;D
its not what the slave actually says. there was a wt or awake some months ago which said very clearly that even relatives outside the same household should be avoided as far as possible.
