Posts by VoidEater

58

Evolutions billion dollar question!

by Blackboo in

how did emotions evolved???

*grinning* are emotions, thinking, and morals biological?

please answer this sincere question..i am actually being nice this time.

VoidEater

"The Molecules of Emotion" by Candace Pert

107

Remember when assemblies were fun?

by Aphrodite in

jw
friends

i just remembered when i was a kid and we would go to the assembly, it was fun because we got to buy new clothes and put extra effort into looking good.

when we would get there you could save your seats and even save some for your friends, then go off looking for them.. i used to love our circuit assembly because of the food.

it was at the assembly hall and there was a big kitchen, some of my favourite brothers worked in that kitchen, sometimes i was allowed to go in and help.

One of my first DAs was in San Francisco at Candlestick. It was hideous. The seats we saved were taken over by a militant group that piled our things on the steps below them. Elderly brothers and sisters were falling down from heat exhaustion right and left. I watched a heat stroke victim taken off on a stretcher to an ambulance. The only people that seemed to care about what was going on were a couple nurses volunteering at a First Aid station. Everyone else was trapped in this "aren't we so lucky to be God's people" trance.

It was one of the most single depressing, unpleasant experiences of my childhood, and I've had a few of those.

58

Evolutions billion dollar question!

by Blackboo in

how did emotions evolved???

*grinning* are emotions, thinking, and morals biological?

please answer this sincere question..i am actually being nice this time.

VoidEater

I don't where I would begin, there's just too much work to do here...

I'm so glad I can go back to believing the Earth is flat and that God is telling my shoes to stay tied at the moment...

57

If "You Think Darwin Sounds Like A Nazi, There Is A Connection"

by BurnTheShips in

jw
friends

i was somewhat aware of the lineage of nazi racialist ideology, but i always thought it was a misapplication of darwin's ideas.

it turns out i was wrong.. .

VoidEater

It's quite a leap to lay Nazism at the Darwin's feet. It would seem the same as banishing Wagner because of the way his work was embraced and employed by Nazi Germany, or boycotting VW or Porsche for the same reasons.

We'd then have to tar the Olympics with the same brush, since the games were an important political tool in the hands of the Nazis.

Next we would have to reject rocketry science and technology based on the work of Von Braun - a German, no less, whose work was influential and employed by Nazi Germany following his move to the West.

Obviously, we would have to reject everything in the Bible, seeing as how information in that book has been embraced and used by a variety of religions to pernicious ends.

To accept this line of reasoning, we would have to first accept on the face of it that what Driscoll said is true (but we're not supposed to expect citations or support?); then we'd have to ignore all conflicting evidence (amply given). What we're left with is a straw man at best.

Let's not blame Queen for Vanilla Ice, ok? You can take anything (Under Pressure) and pervert it (Ice Ice Baby).

5

Calling all Ex witnesses Again!

by FiveShadows in

jw
friends

back in 2007 i had posted that i was hoping that people would be willing to share their experience going through and coming out of the organization because i had a term paper due on it.

i got one interview in long beach...which was awesome, and a bunch of other replies through email...however!

i paniced!

VoidEater

Due to the isolation policies and the high expectations of belief and behavior, ex-Witnesses have little to no resources to call upon when leaving the organization and deeply seated core beliefs about their unworthy, sinful natures. This makes it difficult to orient oneself in a wider social context, to form new relationships, find support, and replace negative self images with life affirming ones.

Ex-Witnesses must first contend with great guilt over not being able to subscribe to their former belief systems, which translates into a certaintly that they have "missed the mark" and fallen from God's grace because they cannot put wholesale belief into their former religion. This is exascerbated by at least a degree of acceptance of the religion's assertion that anyone leaving is defective, has been stumbled by Satan and destined for certain death.

Since no faithful Witnesses are allowed to communicate or otherwise associate with the ex-Witness, and because as a Witness the ex-Witness was discourage or disallowed from establishing relationships outside of the religion, there is often quite literally no one they can turn to. A common these among Witness doctrine is that there is nowhere else to go once leaving the religion; a common avoidance beahvior on recently leaving ex-Witnesses is that no one else can understand what it's like to have been "in", nor can they understand the "coded language" that is part of the belief system they are trying to grapple with.

Possible therapeutic interventions would include desensitization (showing that "the world" is not as evil nor as dangerous as they have been taught) and building new beliefs through positive, non-judgmental relationships. These are particularly difficult, however, as the ex-Witness will have significant trust issues to work through.

Anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications as an adjunct to therapy can be helpful. Again, the ex-Witness will not necessarily be open to these as they have been taught to view drugs, and by extension perhaps psychotropic medications, as the instruments by which Satan and other demonic forces infiltrate the mind.

Some ex-Witnesses will be searching for a religious-based belief system to replace their former system. For these, ecumenical groups that do not aggressively present startlingly different concepts can be an avenue for decompression and reassessment. For others, who may find solace in a highly non- or anti-religious viewpoint, it can be helpful to present ethical structures such as secular humanism as alternatives: Witnesses have been taught that morality or ethics can only come from a "Theocracy" (a government system with God at its head), and it can be a relief to learn that codes of ethics do exist completely separate from religious doctrine.

At it's heart, Witnesses have been taught that there is no life, possibility of happiness, or really anything good or worthy, outside of their religion. providing an atmosphere of gentleness, respect and possibility can go a long way toward rehabilitation and reintegration into society,

17

German Government Trying to Ban Agnostic Children's book

by GermanXJW in

jw
friends

in october 2007, author michael-schmidt salomon and illustrator helge nyncke published the first german agnostic children's book "can you tell me the way to god?

asks the piglet".. a piglet and a hedgehog live together in a house, enjoying life, one night, someone puts a poster to their house which states "those who do not know god are missing something".

the piglet and the hedgehog decide to find out what that means, .

VoidEater

Warm and stinging by turns, I like it quite a lot.

I think here in the US the book-burners would mostly be freaked out by the naked people illustrated at the end. Scandalous!

15

Will the Bible be discarded after Armagedon?

by annalice in

jw
friends

so lets say the "end " has come and gone .

cut to the "new system" what will we have to read?

what use is the bible anymore?

VoidEater

How will we know what fruits are verboten?

Gopher: That is one Happy Gopher!

47

Please Share Your Experiences of Jehovah's Witnesses Shunning You

by flipper in

jw
friends

VoidEater

I have not spoken with my paternal grandmother since 1979, we have exchanged one set of letters since then in 1983. When my father was judged to have disassociated himself, I also became anathema.

But no one else has shunned my family, choosing instead to assert the Jehovah alone can judge the heart, and that they see no reason to shun.

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