i have noticed a lot of newbies lately.
(i also noticed that after being absent for a year happy1975 is making a return visit.).
so, if you are a brand spanking newbie, post here and tell us a little about your interests, your state, your new direction in life, your favorite things, whatever you want to say---this is your thread.. .
"Word." (Imagine the second-nerdiest-looking white guy you know saying that, and you'll have an approximate mental image of me)
I'm relatively new here, and didn't lurk much before I started posting. I left the JWs in '97, "born-in", never baptised, but still some family in the cult.
Atheist, Leo/Snake/A+, Pink Floyd, long walks on the beach, cats, hazel, ~5'7", brunettes, liars, just the one time but didnt' really care for it.
first off, i just wanna say that i don't know how i feel about god, the bible, etc.
i'm in a major state of confusion, as i'm just newly out of the organization and coming to realize all the lies.
this has led to me questioning everything.. so the other day i was talking with a friend and had this interesting thought (i'll try to explain it as clear as possible without rambling or talking in circles and muddying up the concept lol).
OK, I read the OP and skipped most everything else as I'm not that interested in the theological debate, but the OP got me to thinking somewhat and here's what came out:
(This is all from the JW-type view of things, BTW--I know most non-JW Christians on here don't agree with the WTS interpretation of, well, most anything.)
So, Adam and Steve (Eve is a mistranslation, yes, it IS Adam and Steve!) were in the garden for like, what, a full week before they F'ed it up for the entire human race? They were perfect, and yet made a horrible mistake like right off the bat.
Given the above, and the fact that there will be millions (?) of people around the instant paradise-earth is reestablished, what's to make one believe that some other "perfect" human wouldn't F it up big-time, yet again, within say--five minutes?
If your answer is "Well, Satan won't be there, so it'll be all good," then you're admitting that it wasn't really Adam or Steve's fault in the first place, it was Satan's--I mean, they didn't know God from Adam (well, you know what I mean), they never saw God, but here's this talking snake they can see telling them the fruit's all good--if this was the first lie ever, and they didn't have the knowledge of good and bad, they didn't know what a lie was, and free will is a cop-out.
It'd be like taking a 5-year old, having their mom tell them not to each the chocolate ice cream that is sitting in a bowl in front of them because it's poison, then having their father come in and tell them to go ahead and eat it because it tastes good and it won't hurt them--and then condemning all of mankind from that point forward when the kid goes for the chocolate.
there is a certain brain-eating parasitic worm that produces an odd symptom: it affects your dreams.. .
the following are typical dreams this parasite will cause:.
dreams about not fitting in your car comfortably dreams about driving from the back seatdreams about veering all over the road .
Been there--give it to me straight, doc: am I gonna live?
i liked the way he thought.
what author would you have liked to know?.
Nietzsche and Robert Anton Wilson.
i know there are a lot.. one belief i never understood is that blood fractions might be ok for a christian but not "whole blood".
to me the "blood doctrine" is ridiculous from a scriptural point of view..
Not sure this one counts, seeing as how most JW's don't actually know this, but the fact that a 2/3 majority vote of the GB (meaning up to a full third of the GB members can completely disagree) is enough to 180 any given doctrine or establish completely new doctrines which are still considered to be Jehovah's will and command.
See the third paragraph here.
hey... how's everyone?.
i'm a new guy here... so a bit about me.. i was raised as a jw.
my parents started studying when i was a baby, so it's all i knew growing up.
Welcome, joeblow. I'm not going to actively attempt to convert you, but if you have any questions about hating God, being atheist, worshipping Satan, becoming an antichrist, torturing animals, raping children, etc, just ask one of us atheists here, we'd be glad to help.
If, though, you wish to know "the Almighty's perspective", I guess you'll have to check with his chosen prophet on this board--luckily, that person has made him/her-self known to us all! ;-)
i recently watched the movie along with the second part thanks to several people mentioning it on this forum.
i have seen both people against and pro.
what are your thoughts?
I know to truly have peace on this planet though, we have to get rid of things like money, borders, religion and government.
Some of those things are really useful, and seem almost impossible to remove from human existence if you want to retain some modicum of human culture and avoid outright barbarism.
Money: Without it, trade would crumble and most people would starve to death. And remember, it's the *love* of money that's the root of all evil. ;-)
borders: I don't want you in my house poking around while I'm away, no offence and nothing personal, so I'd like to maintain my property borders.
religion: ...good call.
government: It's really just "legitimized" organized crime--in its absence, you have a more brutally honest organized crime, heavy on the brutal. How about a government that was actually conceptually very straight-forward and limited, so much so that even your garden-variety moron couldn't look at its constitutional document and declare that its founders meant something 180-degrees from what they obviously meant. Limited to, oh, I don't know, protect its citizens and their property from the initiation of force or fraud, period. That might be nice. :-)
ok, here's my current list:.
i just finished the greatest show on earth by richard dawkins, and am almost finished crisis of conscience by...some guy.. currently in hand, i have:.
the power of myth, joseph campbell and bill moyers.
Philosophy for Teens?! Sweet! I was going to ask how you get a teen to actually read that, but seeing as how it's (c) 2007 and there's not a single review on Amazon, I'm guessing you don't.
i'm trying to compare some statistics and figures on this to share later in the thread to see if more long-time witnesses are exiting- or are newer witnesses exiting after a shorter period of time.
and - are more people exiting in the last 10 to 15 years than before.
so your answers would be helpful in looking into this .
Born in, left in '97 @ age 19.
ok, here's my current list:.
i just finished the greatest show on earth by richard dawkins, and am almost finished crisis of conscience by...some guy.. currently in hand, i have:.
the power of myth, joseph campbell and bill moyers.
The Hite Report by Shere Hite
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
@zoiks: Please let me know what you think of Ishmael once you've read it--it was an important book to me many years ago.
