Posts by Awakened07

19

WHY did the Chicken cross the road?

by Mastodon in

why did the chicken cross the road?.

dr. phil :.

the problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'this' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'other side' of the road.

Awakened07

I contend that by daring to cross the road, it proved not to be a chicken at all.

It's a tale of courage.

15

what is the official JW view on bible students?

by hamilcarr in

while visiting some bible students sites, i wondered what the official jw view on these organizations is.

are they part of babylon the great simply because of refuting the post-1916 developments and the governing body?

as far as i know, they do not adhere to any of the false teachings jw like to refer to in debunking the rcc and traditional protestantism, such as hellfire, trinity, immortal soul.

Awakened07

Well - - - - I grew up a Witness, and never heard about still existing Bible Students until last year, so...

I think most Witnesses - at least around where I live - believe it was a smooth transition; pretty much just a name change from 'Bible Students' to Jehovah's Witnesses'. That's what I always thought at least.

46

Jesus was a false prophet....

by dawg in

i posted this on another thread, but if you read matthew 24, we see that jesus was indeed a false prophet... he doesn't give the day or hour of the end times but he says that this generation will not pass away until all these things occur... and what generation was he talking about?

he was talking to his diciples and telling them you will see this and that and thus and such....especially take a gander at matt 24: 33-36...jesus thought he was living in the last days and that he would come down from a cloud from the heavens...that stars would fall from the sky, and the like... just read it and tell me what you think.

i wonder if jesus was an essene, they thought they were living in the end of time, in fact they predicted a messiah would come during their days... .

Awakened07

Jesus is whatever people need him to be. The Jesus figure can't lose. Anything negative will be explained away somehow.

If I had the benefit of two thousand years of revisionist history ahead of me, I'm sure I would turn out to have been pretty great myself eventually.

I watched an interesting documentary about some Muslim girls who had formed an 'all girls club', and they were discussing various things about Islam. Some of the girls elected to wear a hijab and otherwise cover themselves, a couple did not. They were talking about how it was important for a girl to cover everything, and one of the girls who had elected to do so said "Well - some girls choose to bare their arms and ankles etc. in the summer because of the heat - - - - but they know they're going to hell for it, so...!". One of the other girls who chose not to cover at all (well, "normal" clothes of course...) overheard this, sat down and said first of all, it was up to Allah to judge, and secondly, people couldn't follow the Q'uran perfectly anyway, no matter how hard they'd try, because it was perfect.

To which the first girl agreed, and said "Yes, only Muhammad - peace be upon him - would be able to, because he was perfect.".

I found that to be very interesting.

46

Joy Or Sorrow When You First Found Out It Was False?

by serotonin_wraith in

jw
friends

for me, it was joy.

i was raised in the religion, and i always figured i'd be dying along with 6 billion others because i hated the meetings, the preaching work and the rules, morality and threats of 'jehovah'.

i did not want it to be true.. for others here, finding out it was false was a hard time to go through.. as well as asking which feelings you had at first (joy/sorrow/or add your own) i have a follow up question for those who found it hard- what was it that made the impending deaths of 6 billion people okay for you?

Awakened07

I have been surprisingly mellow about the whole transition. Not joy and not sorrow. More like apathy. I was and am however happy that I have been able to freely research anything I want now, though, and find answers.

I have been 'mellow' about it possibly because it happened so gradually. Possibly because I always had questions I couldn't get a decent answer to, since I was little. That said, it really hit home about one year or so before I joined JWD, and after that even more so. But still I didn't have a huge reaction to it. I was afraid of dying for a while though, because suddenly, this life is all I have. So there were nights I couldn't sleep because I was listening to my pounding heart, knowing it was the only thing keeping me alive. But it got better.

Actually, some kind of rage has only very recently been creeping up on me, when I think about how having been a JW actually screwed up major parts of my life. However, I'm not sure I can blame JWs for all of it. Hard to tell what kind of person I had been and what kind of life I had had if I hadn't been brought up a JW.

As well as asking which feelings you had at first (joy/sorrow/or add your own) I have a follow up question for those who found it hard- What was it that made the impending deaths of 6 billion people okay for you? Did you really think everyone else was 'evil' and deserved death? Did you not think on it too much, left it in God's capable hands? Something else?

I was... 'comfortably numb'. I think what made the deaths of 6 billion people semi-OK (wasn't totally OK with me), was that I thought Jehovah would save all those who had 'the right heart condition'. And also - he's God, so he can do whatever he wants (surprisingly, I see this kind of argument used by believers here now...). Also, I was under the impression that JWs actually were all over the world, and that everyone did have a chance to 'repent'. I was very naive in many respects. I was told however, that entire nations had been eradicated in the (biblical) past, so it could happen again. I also thought that people who would be killed in Armageddon, didn't believe in it anyway, and so didn't think they'd live forever. So ending their life there wasn't such a biggie, since they would die eventually anyway(!). It should be said that I was never totally comfortable with all this. I was brought up in it, and was told all this by my parents, who after all are your ultimate authority figures growing up. "They wouldn't lie to me". And they didn't - they actually believe it. Cognitive dissonance didn't work well for me though - I had to ask the tough questions, and there were no answers. So I did the 'waiting on Jehovah' routine for a while. But it just didn't make sense in the end.

I know most of us say we're glad it is false now, so if it was hard facing reality at first, what was your mind making of all the things we now see as negative when you were a part of it?

As mentioned, I had questions. I did search for answers in the literature, but couldn't find any. I guess I was naive, apathetic, numb, etc. and also thought that it would all be revealed some day. Besides, Armageddon was right around the corner... just a little longer now, and it will all be OK somehow...

40

DUTCH FILM ON JWs - HEAVY & BIG

by skeeter1 in

jw
friends

from danny hazzard,

this is big.

it appears to be a professional movie (not a you tube job).

Awakened07

Wow... This is going to be a great movie. Better than what you think if you don't understand what they say.

'Based on a true story'.

-Don't ask me how I know what it says.

94

What inspired your avatar and your screen name?

by Princess Daisy Boo in

jw
friends

tell me the story behind the picture.... why is mr flipper mr flipper?

how much do you look like zappa, jk666?

and gopher - are you really a little old man?

Awakened07

I had my awakening from WBTS doctrine etc. as I came here, so it was a natural handle to choose. In addition to obviously being a pun on Awake!.

The avatar came from a simple Google image search. Looks like he's pretty 'awake'.

It will probably seem ironic to some that I as an atheist chose 'Awakened' as a handle and some spiritual looking avatar, but the main meaning was that I awakened from the WBTS. I did have a spiritual awakening as well, just not in the sense most people see it.

19

My thoughts on the Nature of God

by Doug Mason in

when we speak of the nature of god, we talk of attributes such as his infinite immutable eternal love.

what joy that should fill us with!

how that should elevate our hearts and minds!.

Awakened07

Faith is a gift
Eph 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
Doesn't that mean that grace is a gift rather than faith ?
Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

-My take is that it's salvation ("have been saved") that is the gift.

So now we have three interpretations of the same scripture in one thread. Can we come up with a few more?

8

WHAT IS JW THEORY ON ORIGIN OF AIDS,FLU AND SARS?

by badboy in

jw
friends

any ideas?.

Awakened07

I think that as a JW I would have answered that everything has genetically deteriorated since the original sin, and that these microbes originally had other, benign purposes.

This "hypothesis" of course raises several questions, like why were animals and even microbes and the universe itself affected by the sin of the first humans, and it would also be admitting that beings evol... sorry - change over time.

I guess to the first question, they could say that the original sin caused God to retract some of his upholding, sustaining power because of the sin, which then has affected all life and even inanimate material since.

In fiction, you are free to elaborate and make up any scenario as you see fit. No one can prove that what you assert isn't real, so. Not that it would be supported by what we observe in nature and the fossil record, but then again, it doesn't have to. Just take it on faith.

30

My only problem with the JWs

by dawg in

jw
friends

besides the fact that jws are pious, think only they have the truth, won't read anything with an open mind... hell won't read anything at all minus wt magazines... .

after all this, my only real problem is the shunning... almost everyone i love gets on my nerves from time to time, i get on theirs.

the fact that the jws beliefs is annoying isn't the problem, it just that after they are wrong as hell becasue of their ignorance, they won't talk to you.. i'm not trying to get my family to eradicate their beliefs, i'm just trying to get them to stop shunning those of us that don't believe like them.

Awakened07

Shunning and the 'no blood' policy.

And the ignorance of scientific discoveries when it goes against what they believe.

And the 'crackdown' on reading any material that might differ from what they believe.

And the WBTS's 'license' to distort and misquote authorities on any subject to prove their own point.

And the WBTS's view that they are God's only channel, and that the death of their members is "no big deal, because they'll be resurrected anyway", leading to things like the 'no blood' policy and the Malawi incident.

And the mentally dangerous practice of reporting everything you do, always having to do more, never to be good enough.

And that they are A OK with the thought that most people on earth will soon be wiped out.

Other than that...

I don't know. I know exactly what you mean though, and immediately when I read your post, I agreed with you. But the more I think about it...

It's just not healthy. Sure, there are a few good things about it for those deep in it, but...

38

Death is a Terrible thing...

by KW13 in

jw
friends

has it sunk in for you people that your going to die yet?

i'm still avoiding the thought but it lurks in the back of my mind, i'm aware someday i've got to address it - like many here i didnt expect to live this far in this system, so i haven't any plan for life as of yet.. death frightens me.

i cannot sometimes watch a film with death of a character in a tragic way - there one moment with family/friends and a life and then not...i read the story about challenger the rocket that exploded and how the crew onboard that shuttle may well of been aware they were going to die.

Awakened07

I don't think I'm afraid of death, but more mourning the fact that I won't be here to experience anything anymore, and see how humanity etc. change through time.

Being an atheist, this prospect should probably be infinitely more terrifying than for someone who believes they'll just wake up in some other place afterward, and in time even meet the people they love again.

On the other hand, I have no trouble knowing and accepting that I used to not exist(!). On a geological and universal time scale, my whole lifetime is very close to nothing. If you condensed the age of the universe down to 24 hours, my life wouldn't register even as a blink of an eye.

But when we are here and alive, the past (billions of years past) seems to somehow be 'part of our lives' simply because we are aware of it and know the outlines of what has happened before our birth. But the future is (more or less) totally unknown, and therefore more 'terrifying'. If there is nothing for me after death however, it will be the same as before birth. It's a rather absurd thought, but it is what it is.

If it was up to me, I would love to live on, actually. I mean - - - there's really no contest in my mind; eternal non-existence, or eternal (or at least very very long) possibilities for new discoveries and experiences? If I could choose, I would live.

But I can't choose, and I haven't found any proof or even sign that anyone will grant me that life, or that that life is a natural 'followup' to this one. But it would be nice.

In the meantime, I'll try to live as good and fulfilling a life as possible. It's easy to say, and I certainly could do better in that respect, but I think I still probably suffer slightly from the 'shell shock' of losing my eternal future. Still a little apathetic. Hopefully that will change.

Death is thankfully not something I'm preoccupied with though. It is whatever it is, and it comes whenever it comes. Out of my control. You can't live life constantly being afraid of things that are out of your control, death included.