Posts by SweetBabyCheezits

18

can anyone explain the saying "he was not a real jehovahs witness "

by looloo in

jw
friends

when a min servant from bethel was found out to have abused a lot of kids in the congregation it was said by a few in the congregation that he not a "real " jehovahs witness !

despite the fact that right up to his arrest many thought he was so wonderfull and spiritual !

then when my daughters abuser was convicted a young woman in the congregation whos sister was another victim used the saying to me that he was not a "real jw !

SweetBabyCheezits

It's called the "No True Scotsman" fallacy and is an argument bred by cognitive dissonance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Just another bullshiite argument used to pass off an uncomfortable truth.

97

Never Wake Up

by brotherdan in

jw
friends

just got back from an awesome time in maui.

today we got a call from my fil.

my mil has been in utah for the last week or so and found out that her family past was full of "demon activity".

Grandma, Sam, Darth... If you can download and install Firefox or Google Chrome, you should be able to see the posts. There's some issue with posting in Firefox at times where IE won't display them. It happened to me when I first started posting.

(I think it has something to do with editing the post in another HTML or rich text based editor, like Outlook or Word, and then copying/pasting into the JWN post window. Not sure about that, just a guess based on some limited observation.)

121

Broken Heart...

by brotherdan in

jw
friends

some of you have read what i wrote on this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/200211/1/never-wake-up.

here's the final email my wife just sent me 1 minute ago:.

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SweetBabyCheezits

Wow. Can't imagine what this must be like.

I agree with LWT. If she still loves you still and she knows you're a good father (difference in faith aside), some time away could make a big difference. She might realize that she needs to reevaluate this whole thing before making a rash decision.

Like others have said, don't give up. Make sure she never has any reason to wonder if your family is truly your priority. Emphasize regularly that you have the welfare of your kids in mind, which makes your crisis of conscience even stronger.

Best wishes to you and your family, Dan.

25

Those who have Judeo-Christian perspective: Is Satan a poor strategist?

by SweetBabyCheezits in

so supposedly.... the devil had access to all the prophecies written about jesus, right?

it was all "written aforetime" so he knew in advance the details that would help people identify the messiah.

he was aware that, for the sake of god's will, jesus would have to die.. why didn't satan just protect jesus?

SweetBabyCheezits

BD: But I don't think that you can call Satan "dumb". I personally think he is a genious.

Let's break that down, if you don't mind. What makes you believe he's a genius?

I'd like to hear your reasons - other than the bible - because it seems to me he's been written into the scriptures with all the intelligence of a failing 6th grader. But suppose he is real and is a genius... well, if he had been allowed by the Judeo-Christian god (in principle) to tamper with holy writ, who's to say he didn't author the whole thing himself? How could you know if a less than benevolent spirit being inspired the bible and simply had himself described as a loving god (albeit with contradictory actions & principles)? Would you know it?

*Obviously, I don't believe that. But it would make more sense to me (esp considering the atrocities of the OT) than claims that this uber important message came from the omniscient, omnipotent bible god who loves us but allows innocent children to suffer and die. Also, his fits of jealousy, rage, and self-absorbed demand for worship and adoration would make a little more sense then.

BD: It makes absolutely no sense to me that Satan can be spiritualized. That also violates the rules of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics state that unless directly stated or directly obvious to any reader, everything must be taken literally.

What about the rules of logic, such as 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?' To me, if the bible is the sole authority on Satan and there's no other physical evidence for him (please explain if you disagree), and you state "if you believe in God as a real person, you MUST believe in Satan" then, in theory, would the inverse not be true, as well? As in, if belief in Satan as a real entity is unfounded....

One last thing: are there similarities between the rules of hermeneutics for the Bible and the Koran?

25

Those who have Judeo-Christian perspective: Is Satan a poor strategist?

by SweetBabyCheezits in

so supposedly.... the devil had access to all the prophecies written about jesus, right?

it was all "written aforetime" so he knew in advance the details that would help people identify the messiah.

he was aware that, for the sake of god's will, jesus would have to die.. why didn't satan just protect jesus?

SweetBabyCheezits

Good points, James. Now that you mention it, I do vaguely remember the WT explanation that the eating of the fruit had to be continuous.

Darth, c'mon, wait for the punchline already.

Billen, I haven't had enough sleep to grasp your points. I'll try to reread them after some rest.

25

Those who have Judeo-Christian perspective: Is Satan a poor strategist?

by SweetBabyCheezits in

so supposedly.... the devil had access to all the prophecies written about jesus, right?

it was all "written aforetime" so he knew in advance the details that would help people identify the messiah.

he was aware that, for the sake of god's will, jesus would have to die.. why didn't satan just protect jesus?

SweetBabyCheezits

Here's another branch on the bad strategist tree I call Satan: JWs insist that the apostate uprising in the early christian congregation was responsible for removing the "divine name" from the NT manuscripts, and yet they accept it to be inerrant now that their translation committee has supposedly restored Jehovah to it's proper place.

For any of you ex-dubs who believe A) the bible is from a divine source, to be taken mostly literal and B) Satan is a real sentient being... Do you still believe the JW claim above?

If your answer is yes, why do you think Satan would stop there? That would be yet another indication that he's a terrible strategist:

I'm no superintelligent spirit who has existed for (depending on what you believe) thousands, if not millions of years. And yet if I was Satan and god permitted me to use my earthly minions to influence the most holy of books, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't simply stop at removing YHWH. I'd make it as confusing as hell. (I lean towards deism, agnosticism, atheism and this is the ONLY way I might accept that there's a literal god of love and a prince of darkness somewhere out there. We just wouldn't know it from holy writings because they've been so tampered with. But that hypothesis is so ridiculous because that means a god of love allowed all that to happen and billions of humans to suffer.)

If your answer is no, how are were you able to question your old beliefs enough to recognize the fallacy of that claim and yet you still believe A and B, both of which require similar illogical lines of reason.

158

Do You Really Care About the People On Here?

by snowbird in

jw
friends

how they're feeling, coping?.

well, do you?.

thanks to those who respond.. syl.

SweetBabyCheezits

This forum is made up of a pretty wide range of folks. I need to work on being sympathetic in a lot of ways but there are two specific areas in which it happens, more or less, automatically:

When something happens to a friend's kid (major illness, accident, ER visit, etc..), I have sympathy because I immediately start to think about that something happening to my own kid.
When someone recognizes they're being controlled by a group that operates like the WT Society, I want to see them get out with their families intact. And then I want to see them thrive. I hate to see couples split over religion, esp when they have kids.

Obviously, it's the latter that applies to this thread. I especially care about them.

There seem to be a few posters on here who remind me of the Society in that they clearly believe they have a special position with god. I don't care how good their intentions are.... anymore than we on this board care how good the Society's intentions are. Considering how easy it is to mislead people when it comes to something subjective like faith, and the fact that I believe that much of religion is primarily about control, I get frustrated seeing good people taking these posters' words at face value. I care that people who have already suffered much at the hands of the Society have not learned that they must develop critical thinking and demand real testable evidence for claims to divine "direction." It makes no difference that there's no apparent immediate harm. I'm sure many felt there was no harm in buying what Russell said either.

So sometimes my caring comes across as being a jerk but I do care.

25

Those who have Judeo-Christian perspective: Is Satan a poor strategist?

by SweetBabyCheezits in

so supposedly.... the devil had access to all the prophecies written about jesus, right?

it was all "written aforetime" so he knew in advance the details that would help people identify the messiah.

he was aware that, for the sake of god's will, jesus would have to die.. why didn't satan just protect jesus?

SweetBabyCheezits

Thanks for your input, Ding. So are you saying that Satan, one of god's finest creations (originally), is so short-sighted and addicted to his own pathetic ways that he will do god's will instead of opposing it?

44

I Should Have Known Better Simply From.....

by OnTheWayOut in

SweetBabyCheezits

What should've really tipped me off if I had the reasoning powers of an adult before hearing it:

.... a talking snake that tricked the first couple to eat a piece of really bad fruit

.... an omniscient god not being able to locate his pet human creations

.... the entire OT and most of the NT (a real time-saver)

25

Those who have Judeo-Christian perspective: Is Satan a poor strategist?

by SweetBabyCheezits in

so supposedly.... the devil had access to all the prophecies written about jesus, right?

it was all "written aforetime" so he knew in advance the details that would help people identify the messiah.

he was aware that, for the sake of god's will, jesus would have to die.. why didn't satan just protect jesus?

SweetBabyCheezits

Ahh, good one, Sapphy!

That reminds me, why not eat from the Tree of Life anyway? According to Gen 2, only the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden, right?

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."