And dont be afraid to consider the idea that even the Bible may not be everything you thought it was. Consider the billions of people who believe in the Qu'ran and the Gita's and ask if you can truly limit yourself to just one supposedly divinely inspired book. And if you're feeling steely, read something of Richard Dawkins. Then make up your mind.
Posts by 10p
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17anyone else feel inadequate
by 46&2 inover the past 10 years ive tried coming back to the truth only to find myself back in the world doing silly things again and again.
i am onnce again determined to come back to the truth but feel that i am beyond redemption.
i feel ashamed going to talk to the elders cause they have dealt with me on two other occasions once being disfellowshipped 10 years ago and reproved two years ago.
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39
How have you benefited by leaving the WT Organization?
by Quirky1 inthis is just a curious study.
i would love to get everyone's input on how each individual or couple has benefited from leaving the jw/wtbs as well as how their life is currently vs. being part of the organization.. eyes wide open .
quirky1 .
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10p
I now love my fellow man (instead of thinking they are all worldly and about to die) . and like others commented, the freedom to think for myself. Hey, evolution may be wrong, but right now, it makes more sense to me than any other idea. If it is wrong, something better will replace it, not one of the old creation myths tho'. We keep getting closer to the truth, even if its on a logarithmic scale. Ahh to think is wonderful.
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39
How have you benefited by leaving the WT Organization?
by Quirky1 inthis is just a curious study.
i would love to get everyone's input on how each individual or couple has benefited from leaving the jw/wtbs as well as how their life is currently vs. being part of the organization.. eyes wide open .
quirky1 .
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39
How have you benefited by leaving the WT Organization?
by Quirky1 inthis is just a curious study.
i would love to get everyone's input on how each individual or couple has benefited from leaving the jw/wtbs as well as how their life is currently vs. being part of the organization.. eyes wide open .
quirky1 .
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17
just been to memorial
by 10p init was pretty ho hum.
probably the first time i've actually paid much attention to the talk (i used to be one of the puppets passing around the emblems) - it amazed me how little he talked about jesus, and how much revolved around the technicalties of the 144000. and is the number of anointed getting larger?
i thought it was down to 8-thousand something - he said it was 9 thousand and something last year??
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10p
I figured, if I don't go, the elders will think I'm definately an apostate, and will make an effort to snoop into my personal beliefs to try and hang me. at the moment, since my wife is still in, and we spend a lot of time with her family who are dubs, I dont want to get DF'ed. This way, they might think I'm still just 'confused by doubts'. I expect they will come round now and invite me to the next meeting, which I will thank them for and then carry on as normal.
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10
Patriotism?
by HB ini added a couple of questions i would like to know the answers to in a topic that has now become buried on the back-list, so as they haven't been picked up i am trying again by starting a new topic.
(if the forum administrator is reading this, would it not be better to use the common system that if new posts are added to old topics, they jump to the head of the list?
sorry if i am going over old ground but i am new here.).
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10p
Of course, you are right that Jehovah's Witnesses take what they like out of society and contribute little back. For instance, a JW can happily received aid from the Red Cross or another aid organisation ... but they are discouraged from contributing to these agencies and to rather contribute to the society. The society will of course use a small portion of contributions to aid JWs and maybe some of their neighbors in a high profile disaster. Also, JW's can make use of the blood donated by worldlies, through fractions only, of course - but do not donate blood to make up for their parasitism. They live in countries defended by worldy soldiers, but will not take up arms themselves. I don't agree with war either ... but until god's kindgom ACTUALLY comes, and ends all these seperate human governments, war is a reality, and the only reason the western world isn't speaking german, the only reason jews and JW's continue to EXIST (ie, the only reason Hitler was stopped) was because brave soldiers fought his armies . If everyone in America and England was a JW in 1930 ... well ... they would have all been gassed, and germans would have emigrated to these empty lands and repopulated them. JW's will make use of doctors, surgeons, lawyers, accountants and other university educated professionals, but will discourage (seriously discourage) their members from studying so as to have an equal contribution in these areas of life. Once again, the world would be a sick and sorry place if everyone was a JW - everyone's lawn would be mowed, carpets and windows cleaned, cars groomed and PC's reformatted yet again ... but no one would have a doctor to go to! (a world without lawyers might actually be a better place?) so in summary, yes, JWs are parasites. Why are my posts stripped of their formatting?
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5
Eden's trees
by dogisgod ini don't understand why god would put those two "special" trees in the garden with his/her brand spankin new unexperienced creation?
why didn't satan tempt them with the "tree of life"?
what a dope.
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10p
To me, the genesis account encapsulates so many of the emotions you would expect from a species that has newly gained self awareness. self consciousness would be an early result ... which would lead to shame, as well as boasting. Trees were such an important everyday thing for a species that had only just come down out of them, and who still relied heavily on their fruits for food. and the sudden knowledge of good and bad ... especially the bad, coupled with the self-consciousness and shame, would require an explanation that involved evil. Why god didn't give man the knowledge of good an bad is because knowing about badness made man feel shameful. its like I read somewhere once: "in the beginning, man created god in his image"
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64
Those who do not believe in intellient design and creation is brain dead!!
by Blackboo ini am gonna keep it as simple as this...please answer this simple one question to you who do not believe in intelligent design.. but wait...you notice how evolution leaves out all the obvious details about the human body..which leads to my question how did man and woman evolved???
well my bible says god put man to sleep and took one of his ribs..and made woman.
whats your non god explanation...lol..i,ll wait..i need a good laugh tonight..
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10p
An ape isn't able to reason like a human. A child cannot reason like an adult. The adult looks at the child and the ape, and knows she/he has a better understanding of things, and cannot explain this to the ape, and can only give a glimpse of their view to the child. Some adult humans are in a position of greater understanding than other adult humans too ... but the ones with a poorer understanding cannot grasp the concepts of the greater ... and will possibly never understand the arguments of the greater. An intelligent person arguing about creation with an idiot is like an human trying to argue with an ape. They will never see eye to eye. My theory is that humans have already split off into another species, maybe more. The newer species is not only defined by its DNA, but by the memes passed through education ... the accumulated learning of thousands of years of human history, wrapped up in literary 'DNA'. Whether this educational distinction is the only 'gene' that makes them different is debatable ... I think it is both in the genes and the memes that this newer species has become distinct. a titbit for those who believe in creation and don't understand evolution : if man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? yeah ... I used to think that was a real stumper for evolutionists back when I was a creationist. I wont answer directly ... I will just point out that evolutionists must be real stupid not to have noticed this one ... or all the other amoeba, fish, reptiles, mammals, birds, insects and so on that cover the planet. evolution may be survival of the fittest, but it is obvious that species branch off all the time ... millions of time if you take a count of species today. if the theory of evolution really asserted that monkeys could not still exist after humans evolved from them, then it would mean no other plant or animal could exist ... every stage of evolution should have formed a new species which left all others for dead ... either this is a whopping flaw in evolution that thousands of scientists haven't noticed yet ... or creationists who use this argument just don't understand evolution. and finally, I think the reason there is still so much debate on this subject is that mankind hasn't found the real answer yet ... so both sides are probably wrong. although one interesting thing I DO note - the ID camp are actually backpedalling, as religion as often done in the face of accumulating scientific evidence. IDers are not arguing for a personal God named Jesus or Jehovah (though most of them personally believe in such). They have now resorted to only arguing for a sort of deism. A few decades from now, they might be arguing only for agnosticism in the face of widespread atheism.
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How did you save your marriage while leaving?
by AlyMC inthe other thread (opposite in nature) is really touching and i enjoyed reading everyone's experiences.
i saw a few people who were still in share how scared they were of that outcome, so i thought positive stories of how you managed to save your marriage while leaving the organization might be nice.
so, what is your story?
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10p
Well, I haven't left left. I stopped going to meetings a year and a half ago, and stopped witnessing a few months before that. My marriage has gotten much stronger since then, but holy crap, it was a close scrape. There were 3 or 4 times we looked at each other and basically said "there is no reason to stay together anymore, except for the kids." I think the one line of reasoning that helped in our case, was I got my wife to accept that there is a chance, however small, that JW's aren't the right religion. For her, it is a matter of loyalty to remain one, because she doesn't see the bad that I see (of course, because she hasn't read any 'apostate' info), and I admire her for that loyalty. She isn't the kind of person to reason on anything. She takes life as it comes, and is more a social and caring person than a thinker. She's not stupid, but she just finds no joy in studying or learning or anything like that. I'm the complete opposite. But I think other than having a logical doorway to each other, the main thing that kept us together was my commitment to her. As a JW, she wasn't going to leave me (not unless I pressured her into leaving the org ... then she would seperate from me on scriptural grounds) - and I constantly made my commitment to our marriage plain as ever - in fact I made it clear that I was more committed than ever - because now my commitment was based on my word and honour, not on fear of god. (some might think this a weaker commitment, but I dont believe fear is the basis of any good commitment) But its still early days - I haven't officially left, so we can still assosiate with her family - which is the main reason I haven't dissasosiated myself. Its been about 2 years since I first clearly parted ways with the org in my heart - and our marriage is definately stronger than ever. I changed a lot in the last 5 years or so ... and those changes I think were what gave me the courage and strength to look objectively at my own religion ... and at myself - to improve as a husband in reality, rather than thinking I was a great husband because I was a good MS and therefore, by default, a good father and husband. So I think becoming a better communicator, a more committed partner, a more involved father, a more objective and reasonable person overall all helped too. I knew when I left that I would have to be the better person - and prove by my conduct that I could NOT be a JW, and be a BETTER person. Because that is an equation that JW's don't understand. For them, when someone leaves, they become a smoker, a fornicator or adulterer, drug taker, murderer, rapist, pedophile etc. To actually become a more humanitarian person is like 'heaping firey coals'. Of course, that takes constant effort, and I remind myself by typing this, that I need to get off my ass and make more effort again, because I've been a little lazy lately. You know ... I never read long posts, so if you read all this garbage - thank you!
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17
just been to memorial
by 10p init was pretty ho hum.
probably the first time i've actually paid much attention to the talk (i used to be one of the puppets passing around the emblems) - it amazed me how little he talked about jesus, and how much revolved around the technicalties of the 144000. and is the number of anointed getting larger?
i thought it was down to 8-thousand something - he said it was 9 thousand and something last year??
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10p
It was pretty ho hum. Probably the first time I've actually paid much attention to the talk (I used to be one of the puppets passing around the emblems) - it amazed me how little he talked about Jesus, and how much revolved around the technicalties of the 144000. And is the number of anointed getting larger? I thought it was down to 8-thousand something - he said it was 9 thousand and something last year???