Posts by mindmelda

9

Ever read 'the exorcist' or any book of that type?

by TTWSYF in

i recently read 'hostage to the devil'.

the 1st book that gave me nightmares in decades.

very spooky.

mindmelda

I don't like books or movies that are very violent. There are some violent scenes in that movie and book. That's my issue with it. I watched Silence of the Lambs and it really bothered me too.

39

Getting upset with children who cannot sit through the meetings.

by life is to short in

ok this thought came to me the other day.

i was thinking of the co who told me that he liked to see parents spank their children for not sitting still during the meetings.. i remember how hard it was to sit through two hours when i was four or five years old.

it was like forever.. i was thinking of comparing the hours that we have been alive to how long two hours is for a child.

mindmelda

It's ridiculous. In childhood development we learned kids under a certain age have an attention span of 10 minutes. It's cruel and unnatural to confine them for hours in a chair.

I never did that to my kids, I got up and took them out for feedings, walks or took them home or to the car, not for beatings and was severely criticized for it, of course. I always resisted because I KNEW it was too much to expect and just WRONG...its' fucking child abuse. I wish a CPS agent would walk into a KH sometime when a child is being beaten so loudly in back behind closed doors everyone can hear it and they do NOTHING. Arrest the whole friggin lot of em!

My kids are so much more mentally healthy than the JW kids I know. Thank god I didn't raise them to be tools of the WTS.

39

HELP Why dont we hear God/Angels

by frigginconfused in

ive heard time and time again that the gb does its best because "as we all know" god doesnt talk to us anymore.. so my question is this...is there and scriptual evidence that god has said he will be cutting off all communication to us.

all prophecy is done and the bible is the end all be all?.

unless the bible specificly states that god and the angels are silent then thats a huge game changer.. how is the food gonna be fed to us at the propper time unless we get new communication..

mindmelda

I didn't say I believe that, I was asking the question rhetorically. LOL I need to work on that style, apparently.

I don't expect personal answers from the nether realms, not in any conventional mode, like an email or even a book, or voices.

We get anything metaphysical or spiritual in the form of energy, it's the only thing that can travel between dimensions, as far as I know.

Christians call it "holy ghost" but a rose by any other name...

15

thinking of returning ? read this first

by Evidently Apostate in

jw
friends

my wife was telling me about her friends mother that had faded for seven years and was living with a man.

she married him and talked to the elders about returning to the kh.

they told her they had to disfellowshipped her.

mindmelda

Same thing happened to my brother. They made him jump through hoops almost 7 years to get reinstated. I never got over that, it was total and heartless abuse of authority.

One elder stipulated he had to make EVERY meeting for 2 years before they would reinstate him. No excuses, no missing for any reason, except severe illness. Well, he was in a motorcycle accident, 22 surgeries to restore his legs, (he almost lost one) and they held him missing those meetings against him.

You'd get more compassion from a cobra than those bastards.

54

You Can Overcome WT Phobias!

by leavingwt in

jw
friends

early in the exit process, it's very important to begin overcoming irrational fears.

fear of the devil.

fear of god.

mindmelda

Thanks for that. I struggled for years with all of these, and still have some anxiety issues occasionally.

Stuff I've learned in 7 years of being away from WT brainwashing:

1. It's normal and healthy to doubt..all people indulge in it freely and it's healthy. It's like diet soda, don't feel guilty.

2. Leaving the organization isn't as hard as leaving family still in it behind...it's just a bunch of old suits running a corporation. Imagine them in their underwear (if you have a strong stomach), if it helps. And they're the bastards for breaking up your family, not you for leaving something causing you pain and unhappiness.

3. Success feels great! The goals that I was taught were evil and unrewarding compared to peddling WT literature are the most fulfilling things I've ever done, in my case, writing what was always in my imagination. Thousands read my stories online and love them..now if I could only make money at it! But, I'm doing what I love.

4. "Worldly" people have helped me when I was down, given me money without demanding repayment, given me succor, love, encouragement, healing, advice, love, and everything I was told I would only get from Witnesses. Except I never got that from Witnesses most of the time, and none of it without strings attached. Everything I got from the Witnesses was held hostage by their requirements of complete belief and servitude.

5. I live in libraries now. I'm learning everything I was forbidden to learn as a Witness. I've been an astrologer for 7 years, for instance, have gotten quite good at it. And guess what, even if that's not your thing or you think it's crap, I love it and no lightening has struck me from heaven.

6. The devil is the biggest joke ever. If he does exist, well...I'm not scared of him at all. He can't be any worse than Jehovah, I think he's killed far fewer people and he's a lot more fun. Jehovah is the austere and scary god of a Bronze Age people trying to survive in harsh conditions...of course he's a big dickhead. He's like the Chuck Norris of gods...rough, tough and takes no shit off anyone, and if they get in his face, he kicks their ass into eternal ass kicking

7. I have more friends now than I ever did as a Witness and I don't have to constantly censor myself. What a relief!

8. I'd be proud to be an apostate if I could get them to DF me, but I'd have to go back to meetings for that, and NO WAY! LOL Seriously, apostates are the bravest people I know. The got OUT OF LIVING HELL! Give them a round of applause.

9. God schmod. If there is a God, he'd better love me the way I am...he made me this way. Too many conditions on Witness "salvation" if one can call it that. It's just emotional arm twisting and never feeling good enough. I can get that from my mother, don't need God.

10. Armageddon? I'm more afraid of the Zombie Apocalypse! I'm stocking up on shotguns, beer and chips, plenty of boards and nails and some baseball bats.

11. I love other religions now, unless they are being douchebags about it. I love being able to walk into a church or a synagogue or a mosque or a Wiccan coven and feeling completely comfortable. I'm very ecumenical, I think all people who are spiritual are great.

I have a lot of spiritual friends from all walks, atheists, agnostics, Catholics, shamens, Wiccans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Muslim, animists, astrologers, Buddhists, Ba'hai, Jewish.

I want to know it all..there's wisdom everywhere of the spiritual sort, and what I found is we're all wanting the same things, and trying to find the same things, want to know the same answers to the same questions.

I'd rather look together than waste time fighting about it.

152

Are you a TRUE Christian?!?

by brotherdan in

i've been thinking alot over the past few days on what makes a christian a christian, and i'm coming to some different conclusions than i ever have.... the watchtower likes to use the term "true believers" or "true christians".

i'm at a loss here lately.

you are either an atheist or you are not.

mindmelda

Seems to me the problem is that most Christians are exclusive with other Christian churches to at least some degree, so they all believe. The more fundamentalist, the more exclusive they seem to be, at least to me. And as for non-Christians, forget it, you're gonna burn! That makes for a "them against us" mentality from the outset. How can you genuinely love everyone with that mindset, but apparently, Christians are supposed to love everyone but hate everyone who isn't Christian at the same time.

And I've heard, "hate the sin, not the sinner" but I'm not quite sure how to do that about some things like fornication when it seems to be built into us by the same God to really really like sex a lot so doesn't that make us all want to sin like crazy all the time? Why just make it so we are more indifferent to sex and then we'd not have to learn to hate wanting it so much? Seems a better plan to me, but hey, what do I know?

They may play nice with one another in some ways, but a lot of Baptists must believe there's something inherently superior to being Catholic, or they'd not mind converting.

And some do convert to another version of Christianity, admittedly, because there's a few things that trump exclusion or wanting to be right and one is wanting to belong, and a lot people will convert for a family reasons. Even Witnesses do that...I know because I became one mainly for my parents sake.

It's not that hard to convince yourself another sect of Christianity is now "the right one" because there are no real rational reasons to believe church teachings in the first place, it's mostly about "belief". When it's convenient to change belief or one is sufficiently propagandized, a good many people will change.

45

Jack Barr, immortal? More from the Watchtower of May 15, 2011

by dgp in

first and foremost, i would like to clarify that i am in no way making fun of jack barr.

he is dead and deserves respect.. .

that said, the organization he belonged to and led doesn't deserve any respect.

mindmelda

Wow, even the carrot (ressurection) has been replaced with another stick (you don't get what you think you get) and they don't even know it. Poor rank and file. :(

36

Are You A "Dictionary Atheist"?

by cofty in

there is more to .. atheism than simple denial of one claim; it's actually based on a scientific attitude that values evidence and reason, that rejects claims resting solely on authority, and that encourages deeper exploration of the world.

atheism is not solely a negative claim about gods, but is based on a whole set of positive values ... that denial of god thing?

it's a consequence, not a cause.

mindmelda

But, after I read a scientific article on quantum physics and then one on how we perceive pain BEFORE the stimulus, which is recorded with scientific instruments, and not anticipatory because the subject was unware of when the stimulus was administered), I wonder how much that seems to be magical or metaphysical is just science or the nature of things poorly understood as YET?

How things function on the quantum level, including medicine and our bodies, is just beginning to be understood. WE affect the nature of things on the quantum level, that has been proved years ago. How that translates into so-called metaphysical experiences has yet to be understood. Or even examined much.

Thirty years ago, Western doctors thought that acupuncture was woo woo, and now it's proven to actually affect the nervous system positively in various ways, pain, healing and systemic strengthening. Studies done now show that transcendential meditation does indeed restructure the brain positively, particularly the hippocampus and amigdula, parts of the brain associated with healing, memory, and trauma in childhood. It's being taught by therapists to soldiers suffering from PTSD with positive measurable results.

Woo woo is just what you don't understand, can't prove or maybe it's woo woo, but to think that YOU are the final word on what is woo woo because you know everything is as close minded as people who think The Flintstones is a documentary!

I dislike close mindedness on either side, scientists and strict rationalists who think there is no room to expand their thinking are as bad as fundamentalists who unquestioningly believe in fairy tales.

Both kinds of thinking are alike in one way, smugness.

45

Jack Barr, immortal? More from the Watchtower of May 15, 2011

by dgp in

first and foremost, i would like to clarify that i am in no way making fun of jack barr.

he is dead and deserves respect.. .

that said, the organization he belonged to and led doesn't deserve any respect.

mindmelda

Must be good to be a king. LOL

8

How will the "new earth" be cleaned up ?

by man in black in

jw
friends

i remember reading about the after effects of armageddon throughout the years, how the birds and beasts will ,eat their fill of the dead bodies.. pictures in the books and magazines showing how people will be destroyed by fire, weather, and earthquakes.

then reading a real insightful post somewhere on this site which was titled something along the lines of "diary of an armageddon survivor".. but now that i have left this religion, i have never really understood accurately just how the wt society believes that the earth will be cleaned up right after the big a.. when the witnesses were studying with my parents back in the mid 70's the po had the idea that god would somehow use matter/antimatter to clean up all of the bodies.

animals eating them all was another point, and the one where survivors would actually have to go around and bury them all was just totally bizzare to me.. (watch the series band of brothers, episode titled "why we fight" this is where the soldiers find a concentration camp,,,, it is a very frightening thing to watch to believe that god would make rightous survivors spend time doing this in the paradise cleaning up without looking for survivors.

mindmelda

Magic. LOL

Seriously, can you imagine how horrible nearly 7 million dead bodies on earth would be? Or watching them all die? It's insane to even contemplate.