For someone like me who has never been in a Kingdom Hall and never wants to but is curious to know what actually goes on in there, this list tells me more than a page of serious description could. Maybe that was not your purpose, but thanks for the education!
Posts by HB
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1810 Things that Aggravated an Ex-Witness
by nbernat inyou guys probably have seen these but try to add on more!
10 things that can aggravate a witness.
1. cell phones ringing during the meeting: you're at a congregation meeting and everyone important to you is at that meeting too.
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My Diagnosis and long term Prognosis ..............
by nomoreguilt inyes, i have what is called c.r.s.
it has been coming on rather slowly but still it is quite rapidly moving on.
it started a few years ago, i am 58 , and up until a few months ago hadn't seemed too serious.
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HB
Being seroius for a moment.......
NMG....from what you said to Ninja, do I take it that "piss off" is not in regular current usage in the US?
Just curious.
You're right that British humour is quite different to American style fun, we like irony, but it doesn't seem to go down so easily in the US of A,
There's only on thing Brits love better than having a laugh at the Yanks which is poking fun at the Frogs (French).... no offence intended!
I am sure the feeling is mutual,
Do some Americans really believe in the charicature of the eccentric stiff upper lipped englishman in his tweed jacket speaking in a clipped accent and using phrases such as "Jolly good show!" (This gent obviously lives in an oak-beamed mansion or a black and white tudor cottage).
Some people* over here genuinely do think all Americans are loud, brash, impatient and ignorant, carry guns, drive ridiculously large cars, don't understand queuing and eat too much!
*(not me I hasten to add before you send the heavy mob round!)
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Jesus never existed!
by Layla33 indisclaimer: i am writing this topic to give another side to the debate on jesus christ.
i think it would interesting to hear the claims that suggest that he never truly existed.
not an attack, just thought it would be an interesting topic to read the research that challenges it.. was jesus of nazareth a real historical person?
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HB
This is a very interesting thread. Presumably the reason it is not being bombarded by true and faithful Christians is simply that they do not have a rational answer. Well done to FlyingHighNow even though I don't agree with you, for braving it out alone and making this more interesting.
I agree with Gopher on the point he made that 'Belief in Jesus is an item of faith and not history'.
Truth is different things to different people............................
- to those who base their beliefs on science and logic, Truth is "ascertainable fact",
- to those who base their beliefs on such things as emotional feelings, superstition, supernatural experiences, unquestioning acceptance of what they are taught and what they read (or see on TV), and all the millions of other 'proofs', Truth is in their hearts, ie Faith, and can't be proved.
There is not really much common middle ground, which is why the philosophy of religion is so interesting.
Within the set of believers in Jesus there are a multitude of sub-sets, such as those who don't want to think about history but mystically believe in Jesus as the son of God, mediator for and saviour of mankind, or those who accept the bible's description of Jesus and his life as a man as true and accurate, but don't necessarily believe completely in his mystical power or relationship with God. There are also many who are happy to believe in the nativity 'just at Christmas' and the crucifiction 'just at Easter', but the rest of the year they vaguely say they are agnostics or just 'not religious'.
None of these groups can comfortably join in a thread where reason and logic are the basis of the discussion. I'm half hoping this is going to bring believers out and onto this topic, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't.
I would like to add one other thing which is at a slight tangent to the main topic, on the subject of the heretical gospels. It was stated that only four gospels were chosen to be included in the Canonical New Testament, the significance of the number four being that it represented "the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John".
If what I have read elsewhere is true, (sorry forgotten where), then that reason was just political spin from those who chose what to include and what to leave out. Apparently the real reason was that the contents of the rejected gospels didn't fit with the brand image desired by the early Church with regard to the status of women, and in particular the notion of Jesus being married and of women performing sacrements.
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What is Prayer ?????
by TooBad TooSad ini believe that jehovah's witnesses are a cult and that many of the doctrines of the watchtower.
society are laughable.
when i was an active zealous elder i prayed alot every day.
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HB
I was never a Jehovah's Witness but when I extricated myself from a belief in God, prayer was the hardest habit to break, particularly in times of stress or emergency.
I admit it had previously been comforting to believe that I had personal access to speak to god. Whenever you have a problem, you have a listening ear right there like a personal therapist, friend, lifestyle consultant and decision-maker all to your self. But take away belief in a supreme being and that support system becomes a myth and feels ridiculous.
Even if you continue to believe in a God, it's hard to get your head round the idea of God hearing you when you ask him to keep you safe on a forthcoming journey, but that if you forget to ask him, you will not be kept safe.
It was like a test for me when I first stopped praying - would lots of bad things start happening? But no, of course they didn't and then I finally felt free of the guilt I previously suffered if I had fallen asleep while praying at night.
Most aspects of religion can be replaced by something else, dogma by philosophy, religious ritual by secular ceremony, spiritual leadership from elders/clergy by personal reading and debate with others of a like mind, etc. Prayer can be replaced by various forms of meditation which work for some but not for me. I'd rather read a book, or go for a long walk or chat things over with a friend.
The modern equivalent of prayer is the mobile phone, it gives people instant connection to friends and family to discuss anything and everything they are thinking about, and when ihn trouble they can call for help.
Even now if a family member is late home and I am worried they may have been in a car crash, I hear myself say "Please God let them be all right" and then I laugh at myself. If an accident has already happened, me praying is not going to undo it!
A few years ago on UK TV there was a fascinating programme where the idea was to get thousands of religious people of different denominations all round the world to pray for the same thing at the same time to see if prayer actually worked (I forget what it was they prayed for but it was something worthy,simple and testable) . Naturally, the experiment failed but the programme concluded that prayer did nevertheless have a measurable positive benefit on individual's lives, reducing stress and so on. Religious people made the excuse that you shouldn't test God but didn't give a logical reason why not.
Prayer to me is like astrology, sometimes by coincidence you get the right answer and that reinforces belief. When it doesn't work it is explained away by various expedient means.
Little children often say prayers like "Thankyou God for my Mummy and Daddy and my home and please help all the poor children in the world who haven't got a home" If that kind of prayer worked then by now all child poverty in the world should be wiped out. In fact if prayer worked at all wars and famine and many ills should be wiped out.
And what about the situation where you have asked God for something that is the opposite of what someone else has prayed for, who will He answer? ("God please make it rain, my crops are will die if it doesn't rain now and I will not be able to feed my family" ...at the same time and place as "God please make the sun shine, I fell in the river and have a day's walk home and am shivering to death")
If God does not answer prayer and intervene then what is he for?
Believers will no doubt read this and be able to tell of wonderful miracles that happened when they prayed, which PROVED to them beyond doubt that God existed, but for each of those there are a million occasions where a prayer from someone of true and deep faith was not answered in spite of desperate need.
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
See above... hooray it worked at long last! But sorry about no paragraphs, they were there in the original!
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
(I have been trying to post this for a few days now but every time I tried there was an error message, which I was told the system administrator was aware of. Am now trying without any formatting. If you are reading this, I have obviously now been successful!) Thanks to everyone who replied, very interesting. WTWizard - I understood when you advised me to avoid reading WT mysticism except for entertainment purposes. I would find this whole cult extremely amusing and high comedy if it wasn't so tragic and people's lives weren't being devastated. I guess there must also be some people who find happiness in being a JW, but judging by the number of people using this forum and the comments I've read, there are too many other people getting badly hurt. I picked up two books from a second hand bookstall....""You can live forever in Paradise Earth" and "Mankind's search for God". Reading these I do find myself laughing out loud but with a note of despair in there somewhere that apparently educated people are deluded enough to write such nonsense. The more I read, the more I wonder if the people at the top are actually not deluded but are cynically manipulative and don't believe a word of what they write. Maybe they're just playing a game to see how long they can stay in power and how many people they can convince that 'airy nothing' is fact. WTWizard was concerned that in being curious about JW beliefs if I did not have a solid grounding in science, I could easily become sucked in. Thanks for your concern but fortunately there's no danger as I am very solid, confident and comfortable in my humanist philosophy. I believe in trying to make the world a better place in any way I can, putting family, friends and those in my community first, and as I go, aiming to fulfil my own potential for happiness and good in a positive way. I don't need a god for this. Formerly as a teenager I was involved in a fundamentalist Brethren church which was not altogether a negative experience as it now enables me to understand what is meant by a religious experience and I also learnt some bible history which is useful in pub quizzes.... I was the only one who could spell Nebuchadnezzar recently!!! I think religion also helped me avoid some of the worst excesses of teen behaviour, although I still had a good time, but apart from that I am really glad to be out of it. I now don't believe in anything that can't be proved by science, am not superstitious, have no interest in new age mumbo-jumbo I find it frustrating how many highly intelligent people believe in feng shui, numerology and astrology etc. So I am in no danger of getting hooked into the JW beliefs myself while investigating and being curious . However I can sadly see how my vulnerable 18 yr old friend is being seduced by it. Good news though that she is questioning. My way of thinking is that Truth corresponds to ascertainable fact and falsehood doesn't. Based on the methods of getting to the truth in a court of law, I try to weigh up both sides of an issue and form opinions based on 'ascertainable facts' where possible, and go by the 'balance of probability' where facts are not black and white. Nothing I've read about Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs so far has passed my Truth test. I am aimimg to get my friend to use her head rather than be led by her emotions. I feel however that I should not laugh at anyone who is taken in by the Watchtower fantasy. BluesBrother, you said " My only excuse for swallowing it is that I learned it as a child and what you learn then stays with you. Please don't feel guilty, you don't need to look for excuses for why you believed. American Indians had a saying....no-one should judge another until they've walked a week in his moccasins. I am reading a great book called "Religion Explained" by Pascal Boyer which examines the origins of religion and overtakes all the previously held notions like "Religion began because people couldn't understand natural phenomena so they invented god to make sense of things". The author explains that there are good scientific and evolutionary reasons why human brains have developed to believe weird things. It is definitely not a symptom of lack of intelligence. Thank you for your explanations of points I wanted to know BluesBrother, and Eyes Open your insights into how you felt about Paradise when you were a believer helped me understand a lot. I was very interested in Alex's statement that evolution and the history of life on earth is the bottom tier card in the Dubs' house of cards of doctrines and beliefs. That was my instinct too and is an area I want to discuss with my friend. I just wanted to ask, how do I find the article you recommended? I would be interested to read it, and found a website called Freeminds.com but after that I was lost. Incidentally at the risk of showing my ignorance, where does the term "dub" come from? Is it an American word for 'gullible person', an abbreviation for something or is it specific JW jargon? I vaguely thought it was a kind of reggae.... By the way WTWizard, talking of words, I loved your word "longage" in the context of the opposite of "shortage" - if we all start using it maybe one day it'll be in the English dictionary. There's definitely a longage of interesting people on this forum! Heather
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
The post I want to make failed again, anyone any ideas what I can do?
(Just thought, is it anything to do with the fact that I wrote the reply in a word doc and then copied and pasted it into the reply box? I'm not very technical!)
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
OK that went through so I wonder why there is a problem with my other email?
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
I have been trying to post a reply to this page for 3 days now but every time I get an error messagbe which says the administator is aware. I can't find a "contact us" option to enquire what the problem is.
I am just writing this to see if it will get through so I know if it's my specific email that is getting rejected or just any email that causes the problem.
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Will the logic and science of this world apply on Paradise Earth?
by HB ini feel a little stupid asking this question as i don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future paradise on earth, but i'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be.
i suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but i'm trying to understand their thinking.
(being a complete newcomer to all things jw, i am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website.
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HB
I feel a little stupid asking this question as I don't for one millisecond believe there is any possibility of a future Paradise on Earth, but I'm trying to work out how the people who do believe it visualise it and expect it to be. I suppose it's pointless to expect believers to have rational answers about such an irrational concept, but I'm trying to understand their thinking.
(Being a complete newcomer to all things JW, I am learning a lot of fascinating stuff from this website. I came to this forum a short while ago for the answer to one question; my question was answered and has helped me with a friend who was getting involved with Jehovah's Witnesses and that should have been that, but I found the forum so interesting that I find I keep coming back! I have struggled with some of the JW jargon and abbreviations that regular posters use but am slowly getting there with it. (But I still don't know what is meant by a boasting session.) But the whole subject of this cult now has me hooked, just in an academic sense..... no chance of me being converted!)
I have just read 'You can live forever in Paradise Earth'. It has the style of illustrations used in children's fairytale books, the real issues are not mentioned and I was left with more questions than answers. I would be interested to hear from someone how the following points are dealt with by the faithful, if indeed they are even thought about.
As I understand it no one will die in paradise. I also gather that people will still live in families and have children, so it means couples will still have sex, (or will all children be virgin births?). But either way, after a certain length of time if no-one dies and sex continues, paradise will inevitably get over-crowded. How is that explained?
Will animals die? If not how will the world not be quickly overrun with rabbits or rats etc, in view of the fact that apparently all predators and carnivores will be eating straw and dust?
Lions will lie down with lambs so will the canine teeth of meat eaters disappear and their digestive processes change magically in a flash, or (dare I say it?), will their bodies gradually evolve to deal with their new diet?
I read that on Paradise Earth "A man's flesh will become fresher than in his youth" Job 33:25. There is a picture of two elderly people who have been transformed into attractive young people aged about 20. I f everyone is young in body they will presumably also have the hormones of young people, which would mean all adults would have reproductive capacity, and babies could be being born to people aged 5000+ years old! Your Great Grandparents or whatever could look the same age as you and you could babysit their child who would technically be your Great Grand Uncle. Genealogists would never cope with drawing up a family tree.
Also it would be so confusing for going on dates as a real 20 year old boy seeing a pretty girl he fancied could not be sure if she was actually hundreds of years older than him. Sex will presumably only happen within a marriage but it does stretch the imagination from the perspective of this world trying to picture people being on earth for say 10,000+ years but staying faithful to one person for all that time and for infinity beyond that!
(No more soap operas on TV then, as they revolve around infidelity and vices of every kind!)
Thinking of childbirth, presumably there will either have to be changes in a woman's physiology (oh no, not bigger hips!?) or a change in the size of the fetus at full term, as there will apparently be no more pain (Revelation 21:3 4). If childbirth was easy and painless, the birthrate would soar.
It goes beyond my imagination to picture a world where there is no sorrow or hurt, If life is even remotely like it is now, how are people not going to have accidents? Are they saying that noone will ever trip over or cut their finger or fall off a ladder or worse? Or are they saying you could lose a leg in an accident but it won't hurt?
Chapter 10 of the Paradise Earth book states that people will all live in comfortable homes and shows a picture of a big house with a large garden and perfect lawn. It also says "all will have pleasant work to do".
The pictures only show smiling happy people wandering through fields of flowers by beautiful lakes or rivers with waterfalls and unspoilt countryside in the background, but presumably lots of people will have to be mining for raw resources and working in factories to manufacture the building materials to make the houses, etc.
No one in the pictures is shown working at a sewage farm dealing with the waste from the houses. The people are all wearing nice clothes which must have been manufactured, their hair is neatly cut so someone must be working in a steel factory to produce the scissors to cut the hair.
None of the pictures in JW literature show cars, aeroplanes or trains; no one is shown sitting in an office or using a computer. How is society going to function? I assume it won't revert back to the level of technology known in bible days, as otherwise nice modern houses as shown in the book couldn't be built, but if people will still have the luxuries of modern life like fridges, electric lights, gas heating, cookers and clean tap water, then there will have to be universities set up to produce clever people who can design these things. So policy on education will have to change.
It seems there would still inevitably be a working class, a middle class and a ruling class. If people learn to completely eliminate their jealousy of others who have nicer jobs, or are content to live in a communist style system where all classes have the same priveleges and lifestyle, they will not be human in the sense that we understand the term today.
Jehovah is supposed to be going to provide the perfect climate for food to be grown, which means it will have to rain quite a lot, so I can't quite see how everything will be perfect. It will have to rain on someone's picnic.
I'm sure there are a million and one other illogicalities with the idea of a perfectly happy world and I have to say the idea of living forever in a world where everyone is obedient doesn't really tempt me even if it was possible!