Posts by simon17

36

Bad day in Athiest/Jehovah's-Witnessville

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

bear with me for a day or two, ok?

if i don't vent a bit i'll leave gray matter spontaneously spattered all over my office walls..

simon17

Agree with some that this is a pretty flimsy reason for breaking up. I would say this relationship wasn't meant to be if having to sleep in sepearate rooms for a weekend unravelled everything. Honestly, JW's are not the only one that would not want their child and unmarried companion sleeping together in their house when they visit. So I don't think this is even a JW issue. If saying "while we're with our parents we're going to respect their wishes" is a major problem, its best they broke up now.

Sorry your son is down about it though. Moving on always hurts.

28

The magazines didn't used to be so dumb and boring

by Lore in

jw
friends

here's an excerpt from this weeks watchtower study in 1950: .

*** w50 6/15 p. 180 a victory dedicated to jehovahs honor ***.

the strategy, and the attack.

simon17

How many years has it been since a WT article used a (real) word that you would have had to look up? Probably decades.

"reconnoitering"??? Never heard that one before. yes the old articles were lightyears ahead of the new articles in both style AND substance.

37

Logical Questions to Make Them Think?

by sweet pea in

this has no doubt been covered before and if anyone has any favourite threads on this subject perhaps they could post them here .

what are your best one liners/questions to make jw's think?.

i had a heated conversation with my mum this weekend and apart from mainly going round in circles (as is often the case with brainwashed cult members) one thing made her stop and i could see that she was having major trouble processing the logic.

simon17

"If Jehovah has had one organization on earth since the days of the apostles, why didn't Brother Russell find it and join it?"

"Does this mean Jehovah now has two organizations?"

Yes, but they are overlapping

(Duh ... )

16

Running into a brick wall- conversations without logic

by Joey Jo-Jo in

i had this experience with a family member, lets say you say something against the witnesses doctronic and they dont say anything back, you ask them why are you not replying and they say "well you dont believe in us anymore".. what should i say back, something that wont offend them but goes straight to the point, you see they dont want to use their brains, they just want to listen at their halls about the end and apostates and how special they are and how false the rest of the world is and how they are the only true religion that follow the commandment to preach.

but it does not matter what i say, doesn't matter how big it is it seems to have the reverse effect, it was alot easier before but now a conversation comes which they dont like they shun my conversation, yet they show me love, they dont touch whats the big issue, the big problem which is communication, and they maybe expected me to wake up, go back to the hall like nothing ever happen, like preaching is only for people who like what they hear.

im babling on but you get the idea.. .

simon17

yet they show me love, they dont touch whats the big issue

What is the big issue? That you insist that they convert to your beliefs? They don't want to.

The big issue is that they show you love and you do the same. The most important thing in your relationship is fine. Leave it at that and try not to bother them so long as they extend you the same courtesy.

81

Belief in God: What were the difficult aspects and questions you had.

by designs in

two main one's for me were god being capricious and serendipitous..

simon17

The Bike not a good example. A stove is a better one I think.

We have to touch the stove. My 15 month old hasen't touched anything scalding yet, but I am waiting for it to happen. It's not like I am going to watch him touch the stove and then ask him what he learned I will make attempts to save him from himself, but that seems like the wrong thing to do.

So if your 15 month is about to stick a fork into an electrical socket, same logic applies? How about if he is about to run in front of a bus? How about if he is about to drink down some ammonia? How about put his hand in a wood chipper? Sit back and let him learn from the pain?

Does the kid need to have those things happen so he learns not to get electrocuted or poisoned or crushed or chopped up? No. You can teach him about the dangers and, in most cases, you will successfully get him to avoid them. You can do the same thing with the stove. Like you said, you absolutely will not just let him scald himself. You'll try to stop him. Because preventing pain is the name of the game. And most likely he will learn without ever scalding himself. I never had to learn to not touch the stove by touching it. It would be cruel to sit there and watch your kid get burned to "teach him a lesson" and as much as you want to invoke the analogy to provide some mental justification to God allowing suffering on some very trivial example of pain (like a skinned knee or a minor stove burn), you KNOW that even that is something you won't do as a parent. Its not right. And when you scale it out to more significant examples like in my first paragraph, the illustration because as morally apalling as the WT's "God is like the teacher letting the student give a chance to explain to the class his insistence on the wrong way to solve the math problem"

81

Belief in God: What were the difficult aspects and questions you had.

by designs in

two main one's for me were god being capricious and serendipitous..

simon17

How do we take photos if we can't see them?

Take photos of what? Other planets? How many planets pictures can you show me from beyond this solar system? The only thing you'll be able to see is their nearly microscopic sillhouette as they make an eclipse like passing in front of their sun. It will look like a black dot, several pixels in width. There is absolutely nothing in science that can even remotely tell you if there is any sort of life existing there.

81

Belief in God: What were the difficult aspects and questions you had.

by designs in

two main one's for me were god being capricious and serendipitous..

simon17

The same reason why we let our children "skin their knees." If they don't break their skin they won't know why not to. That's a concept we can wrap our heads around so I just think of God as that on a much larger scale. I think all worthy sentient life will eventually be brought back after our species grows up enough to handle the population and all that comes from that.

Thats wrong IMO on several levels:

#1: If the parent was all-powerful, he or she would probably find a way in which their kid could learn to ride a bike, say, WITHOUT having to fall and risk breaking their arms. If I COULD prevent their pain as a parent, I WOULD. Its simply that my lack of power means they have to take some risks in order to progress.

#2: Your logic MAY be able to be twisted into something like: god allows us to get broken hearted during dating for us to find out for ourselves what love is. Or god allows us scientifically to search for answers to help our ability to learn and expand our capacities. There seems to be NO way to positively twist the reasons god allows hurricans tornadoes which rip people apart, volcanos to see them burn or suffocate to death, floods to make them drown, horrific, specifically designed viruses (say ebola) that cause people's bodies to erupt and liquify in a grotesque and brutally painful way. Or plague. Or leprosy. Etc. Equate that with "lets a kid skin their knee in the process of riding a bike"? Come on now.

81

Belief in God: What were the difficult aspects and questions you had.

by designs in

two main one's for me were god being capricious and serendipitous..

simon17

And everytime we press the magnify button and see more no life, even remotely comparable to our own, is found.

This is not correct. The magnify button is essentially able to detect stars. We can infer the existence of planets but not actually "see" them. If civilization as advanced as human being circa 1800 existed on the closest planets of the nearest stars, there would be no way to tell. Detecting a civilaziation capable of sending radio wave messages would increase this radius of possible detection (although quite a bit of luck would still be needed) but even then it would still be a tiny fraction of our galazy that we could hope to "confirm" in this way.

So really the only evidence of absence we have is that there is no major life in our solar system currently living on planet surfaces and that we have not been visited by any alien civilization.

37

Trying to Fade, Now they want to interview me on the SAD!!!

by burnedout in

i resigned as an elder some time ago, have been working on fading, the wife is getting used to the new 'me' (not stressed, better husband and father, etc.

), been missing a lot of meetings... even received a few statements such as: 'hi burnedout, it's good to see you!!!

last sunday, i took my one of my sons to the local dragstrip to show him the races, oops missed the meeting.

simon17

On the "go out with a bang" method, You could get a bunch of people from the forum to attend and vivaciously cheer at the end lol

31

Why doesn't God just take a vote?

by Terry in

wouldn't a loud voice from heaven asking for a show of hands pretty much do away with the need for the preaching/evangelizing work?.

why is this a stupid question?.

no, seriously!.

simon17

maybe we can vote oh who should rule: god man or satan... that would eliminate many needless delays