i never felt guilty about spending time/money for hobbies. always played in a band and spent my money on instruments/gear, went to concerts even when they were on a meeting day and with few exceptions never turned in more than 8 hours a month.
that's the only thing i sometimes felt guilty about, not writing a big number on the time-slip.
Superfine Apostate
JoinedPosts by Superfine Apostate
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10
Hobbies post Witness-still feel guilty about the time and expense involved?
by Thechickennest inmy dear wife says she has a hard time investing time and money towards hobbies.
my wife was born in to the organization.
she says she still has a difficult time not feeling guilty about activities that would take one away from the preaching work, even though she has made her exit from the organization a long time ago.
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Superfine Apostate
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67
Atheist in U.S. poll 4% ------ Atheist on JWD 90 % ?
by caliber in( one recent post indicated this 90% figure) .
i don't wish to debate the pro's and con's of atheism, just help me understand your personal.
reasonings for this huge difference in figures.
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Superfine Apostate
who said the bible "alone". but it always depended heavily on "the bible". or, better said, authoritative scripture, no matter if it was called bible back then and no matter if many of the scriptures they used back then are not even available anymore or where not included into any canon.
and you bet they took stories like the flood and talking donkeys literally. -
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What do you know you know?
by zensim ini have been inspired to ask this question by narkissos' thread: "is 'consciousness' overrated?
" (et al).. whilst my question is primarily directed to you nark, i want to open this up to everyone else also.. nark - from your opening ramblings (and i mean that in the most endearing way) on "is 'consciousness' overrated?
", and from other recent posts, i get the feeling that you are asking these questions because you know something and you are trying to grasp onto what you know.
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Superfine Apostate
i know many things, but i also know that i have no basis to be sure that what i know is actually true.
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Atheist in U.S. poll 4% ------ Atheist on JWD 90 % ?
by caliber in( one recent post indicated this 90% figure) .
i don't wish to debate the pro's and con's of atheism, just help me understand your personal.
reasonings for this huge difference in figures.
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Superfine Apostate
burn, i've read your comments (and we've debated earlier), but it's clear that "mainstream" christianity only until "recently" - which surprisingly pretty much coincides with it's loss of power - narrowed it's dependency on "the bible". which makes it hard to believe, that this is an "authentic" view of things.
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Atheist in U.S. poll 4% ------ Atheist on JWD 90 % ?
by caliber in( one recent post indicated this 90% figure) .
i don't wish to debate the pro's and con's of atheism, just help me understand your personal.
reasonings for this huge difference in figures.
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Superfine Apostate
> There's a third option you didn't mention.
you are right, there are still other options, that have nothing to do with the bible at all.
> Some of the largest denominations today, recognize that the Bible is not all inspired. They recogize that men wrote it and that not all of it is what God said. The violent things attributed to God? Some guy said so. That doesn't make it so.
that's exactly what i mean. a self-service buffet for many tastes. this way the bible becomes irrelevant and random. so the bible says god is violent? so what. so the bible says jesus lived? so what...
> An agnostic is not an atheist.
most atheists are agnostic and most agnostics are atheist. it's pretty much the same thing, different angle. of course an agnostic can also be a theist or deist, but that's rather the exception. -
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Found this today - My Book of Bible Stories
by kurtbethel ini was looking in a thrift store and found this gem from 1978. .
quick!
hide it from your children!.
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Superfine Apostate
i prefer this book: http://www.ferkelbuch.de/ (click the "read the book" link on the left, then open both text and illustrations)
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watchtowers at my threrapist's office
by loosie inwhen i go to my threrapist's office, while waiting in the waiting room, i look for wts and awakes.
when i find them i write on them a website either this one or silent lambs or i just write "this group is a cult" across the front of it.. one visit i found like 12 wts.
i didn't have time to scribble a note on all of them before my therapist called me in.. well this week.
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Superfine Apostate
a few weeks ago i stayed in an apartment and found an awake magazine with the front cover removed... nice spiritual guerilla warware strategy, but i still recognized it right away.
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Finding Faith
by Ima Apostate inhow many of you ex-jw kids were able to believe in mainstream christianity after leaving the borg?
within the last year, i have opened up to getting to know god again.
what's funny is that when i prayed for truth and to know god, i knew and had a real feeling in my heart that i was getting closer to something real, but there was still a voice going, "hey, it's me jehovah, and you have rejected me!".
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Superfine Apostate
i did believe in custom-buildt christianity after stopping believing in the watchtower - for a while. i even said some prayers to jesus. strangely he (just like his father) never responded. so i tried satan, still no luck. which is one of the reasons why i chose to spend my time with more useful things than talking to invisible wizards - and pretty much anything is more useful, even doing nothing at all.
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I got my discharge from the Army National Guard today
by Bring_the_Light inwow, getting mail from the department of the army is a scary moment nowadays.
it wasn't certified mail, but i still had to stop and breathe before i could open it.
turns out its just my honorable discharge papers and certificate.
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Superfine Apostate
as if military fights for freedom. military fights for whatever it's told to fight for.
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Atheist in U.S. poll 4% ------ Atheist on JWD 90 % ?
by caliber in( one recent post indicated this 90% figure) .
i don't wish to debate the pro's and con's of atheism, just help me understand your personal.
reasonings for this huge difference in figures.
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Superfine Apostate
fundamentalism is faith in it's purest form. fundies build their lives upon their faith. every single move is faith-oriented. a bible-under-the-arm-christian who goes by the letter might be viewed as fundamentalist by liberal jesus-loves-you-christians but in the end the former is more honest, more true to his belief.
now if someone, who knows religion in it's purest form - which usually coincides with it's most horrible form - finds out that it's all full of rubbish - and this is far from being a rapid process, it may take years and decades full of doubt, anger, depression and sleepless nights to come to this conclusion - you can't just sell that someone your next best religious flavour.
if you think, the bible is true to the letter, you can't love god. the bible's paints a monster of a god. you can't possible like, less worship such a god - a mass-murdering, anger-laden, nationalist, unjust, completely insane maniac.
if you think, the bible should not be taken literally, well... what's left for your christian faith? what's the base? if you just pick some verses about love, you might as well take some humanist literature and drop the bible and it's sick superhero.
if you read the bible, you can't believe in it anymore. if you drop the bible, you can invent your own god, but you know it's just invented. which makes you pretty much anything between a deist and an agnostic. once you turned agnostic you might as well call yourself an atheist. because if you can't know anything about a god, why would you believe in one?
the USA have a high religious tendency as of lately. i heard it's not allways good to declare yourself an atheist publicly (and why would one do that anyway). and stats always lie.