Reopened Mind

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Posts by Reopened Mind

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  169

  Challenge to Athiests - is Religion a Pox on Mankind?

  by jgnat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've spent the last few years examining my core beliefs to test what still stands.

  i've let go of an inviolate bible, demoted jesus to a failed prophet, and god as unable to act against injustice.

  our universe made itself.

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  Reopened Mind

  jgnat,

  I have read the article by Haidt you reference above and found many of his arguments quite compelling. However I agree with Sam Harris conclusion in his comment:

  "Religion remains the only mode of discourse that encourages grown men and women to pretend to know things they manifestly do not (and cannot) know. If ever there were an attitude at odds with science, this is it. And the faithful are encouraged to keep shouldering this unwieldy burden of falsehood and self-deception by everyone they meet---by their coreligionists, of course, and by people of differing faith, and now, with startling frequency, by scientists who claim to have no faith. Even if Haidt's reading of the liteature on morality were correct, and all this manufactured bewilderment proves to be useful in getting certain people to donate time, money, and blood to their neighbors---so what? Is science now in the business of nurturing useful delusions? Surely we can grow in altruism, and refine our ethical intuitions, and even explore the furthest reaches of human happiness, without lying to ourselves about the nature of the universe. It is time that atheist scientists, above all people on this infatuated planet, acted as if this were so."

  People like to be deluded and religion gladly complies. I suggest that the surveys which show religious people as more generous than secular people also show the control that the religious group holds over its people, that perhaps people aren't donating purely for atruistic reasons but because they feel a certain amount of pressure to do so, bragging rights, if you will. Another possibility is that the surveys themselves are biased.

  Reopened Mind
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  169

  Challenge to Athiests - is Religion a Pox on Mankind?

  by jgnat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've spent the last few years examining my core beliefs to test what still stands.

  i've let go of an inviolate bible, demoted jesus to a failed prophet, and god as unable to act against injustice.

  our universe made itself.

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  Reopened Mind

  jgnat,

  I enjoy reading your insightful posts. Your observations of JWism are spot on.

  Is religion a pox on mankind? I want to share an observation from a program on the History channel on the development of humans that I watched some time ago. The earliest Neandertals did not bury their dead but left them in the open like the animals around them. There is evidence that at some point in their evolution they began burying their dead. The commentator postulated that at this point early man developed imagination. To me that makes sense that this was the beginning of religion. Now they could imagine that there was something after death; that there were gods controlling the natural phenomena they saw around them. Over time this morphed into elaborate mythologies. A cursory review of civilization shows that each one's religion is a reflection of their culture.

  Today we see thousands of religions and sects of religions. To me this shows the great imaginations of mankind. Religious groups span the spectrum from benign to destructive and everything in between. They can fulfill our need for community and belonging. But they can also foster extreme hatred, a sense of superiorty, exclusivity, us-versus-them, genocide, wars, subjugation of women, ignorance, etc. It was out of religion that came the Crusades, the Inquisition, and numerous holy wars.

  Religion is a pox (a virus disease; plague, curse) when it imposes itself on those who do not hold the same views. An excellent book on this subject is "The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Cultlure" by Darrel W. Ray.

  Reopened Mind
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  33

  Nugget's Latest work in progress (pen and ink)

  by cantleave in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  still a fair bit to do but i thought it is worth posting.

  this is all done with dots no lines at all.. .

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  Reopened Mind

  nugget Your work is AMAZING!!! Thanks for sharing it with us. Reopened Mind
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  6

  Whoa! Just noticed...

  by grumblecakes in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  last month i made one year on jwn!.

  happy anniversery to me!!!!

  .

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  Reopened Mind

  Happy Anniversary!! Reopened Mind
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  24

  HELP! JWSTRUGGLE UNDER ATTACK FROM F.A.C.A.D.E! Special Theocratic Warfare Unit of W.T.S.!!!

  by AuntConnie in

  1. social
  2. current

  jw-struggle is under attack by the elite team of hacking pioneers, code name facade!

  their mission is to rid the organization of the "undesireable class" of people!.

  facade was used during the great rebellion of 1977-1981 by eliminating any free-thinking christians.

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  Reopened Mind

  When I visited jwstruggle I got a page that read the domain has expired. Reopened Mind
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  85

  Most Awkward, Embarrassing, Comical things you Experienced as a Witness ?

  by flipper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many of us i'm sure experienced embarrassing or comical moments as a witness.

  some things we'd rather just forget , i'm sure, but some things helped us think on our feet, quickly in helping others .

  here are a few of mine.

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  Reopened Mind

  Love this thread! Just found it as a link from freeminds2. I was 20 something at the time. I had told an older German brother about my cats. Well, when I entered the KH one Sunday morning he greeted me and asked rather loudly, "How's your little pussy?" Another time I was at the door with a sister who was a little off, to put it mildly. She was presenting the Awake! that featured the subject of suicide. She told the householder she had contemplated suicide but this magazine changed her mind. At the service meeting one night the brother giving the part got no response to the questions at the end of the article. He proceeded to chastise the congregation for not studying. That is until one brother raised his hand and told him he did next week's lesson. Reopened Mind
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  20

  How did you spend your Saturdays?

  by MissConfused in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  it's been 3 weeks and every weekend is so much fun, spending quality time with real friends who dont pretend... last week was bbq, this sat was potluck, next one is long weekend away from home... all in all love my life again.... how was your saturday?

  :).

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  Reopened Mind

  Saturday morning TotallyADD and I manned a booth at the local farmers' market for Penn State Master Gardeners. Grabbed some lunch then over to a friend's apartment to help her move out.

  This morning back to her apartment to finish up and clean up. Then home to can tomato sauce, freeze some green beans, and dry some dill from our garden.

  Much more productive, not to mention enjoyable, than knocking on strangers' doors to recruit for a publishing corporation.

  Reopened Mind
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  14

  Personality Disorders Attracted to JWism

  by skeeter1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  are there personality disorders that find the watchtower an appealing fit?

  i have read it before that people with personality issues are attracted to extreme religions, and that extreme religions can make a "normal" person mentallly ill. .

  to start off with, i was reading about obsessive-compulsive disorders and this "profile" seemed like the "normal" jws i know:.

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  Reopened Mind

  Good summation Julia.

  Reopened Mind
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  23

  Incest

  by LoisLane looking for Superman in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  as a born in, one of my earliest thoughts has always been jehovah has an angel that writes down everything in a big book, all the good things that happen to me/others and everything bad that happens to me/others.

  i faithfully and honestly believed that.. in march of this year i read c of c. by 5 am the next morning i was out.

  24 hours before, a true, steadfast believer.

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  Reopened Mind

  Lois,

  As a convert in my late teens I often made the statement that I wished I had been raised a JW. Later when I would say this to my husband TotallyADD who was a born-in he would give me the strangest look. As the years went on and he would tell me what went on in his household growing up. I still thought that was just how he was raised. Surely not all were like that! We raised our 2 boys in the cult, not realizing the damage we were doing to them even though we raised them differently than my husband had been raised.

  My eyes have truly been opened since I have been reading experiences of those raised in on this board. Truly, truly, you have all been through more than I could have imagined. Now I am grateful for my nonJW upbringing. I was not molested as a child. I had birthdays, Christmas, with extended family.

  My sincere empathies go out to you Lois and all others who were forced to grow up in this destructive cult. I do not know what to say.

  Like you I woke up rather quickly after reading an article in our local newspaper on blood and Jehovah's Witnesses and visiting a referenced website. (I read CoC later.) Trouble was TotallyADD was the PO at the time. Well, he had been to Bethel doing temp work and came back with a lot of questions. We carefully danced around each other for a while. It wasn't long after that that we planned our exit.

  Reopened Mind
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  25

  So very confused and scared!

  by MissConfused in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am so nervous and waited for long to speak to someone on my faiths and beliefs!

  i am from a non-christian background, a hindu.

  i got to know 'the truth' (or myth) from my hubby while we were working.

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  Reopened Mind

  MissConfused,

  You are discovering that the "truth" taught by the Watchtower is not the truth at all but a cleverly packaged bundle of lies. Their "truth" makes you a slave of the organization, it has nothing to do with freedom. Freedom of mind comes from exploring different ways of thinking and getting a well-rounded education. There is no free will as a Jehovah's Witness, only following the will of the vacillating governing body.

  You are right. Love from the Witnesses is absolutely conditional. As soon as they get a whiff that you are having doubts they will kick you to the curb. I hope you have kept a relationship with your family and have made friends with non JWs, those who will not judge you on what you believe or don't believe. Keep posting and reading here. There are a few converts like myself who were recruited, but unlike you I was in for 38 years and raised a family in the organization before waking up.

  If you haven't already please check out jwfacts.com.

  Best wishes to you and welcome to the forum.

  Reopened Mind