Posts by ihadnoidea

13

WTS Quotes on Evolution

by sizemik in

the official wts website has a short article entitled .

is evolution compatible with the bible?.

http://www.watchtower.org/e/20080101a/article_01.htm.

I actually almost yesterday started a thread on that exact article. It unbelievable on many levels. I find it also ironic that they use the tactic of labeling evolution a religion. Hello, you guys are a religion too. So what are you saying religion is not based on evidence? If so, what about you guys?

I also find it unbelievable how they paint the evolution scientists motives.

Teachers of evolution are often motivated, not by the facts, but by their own desires—perhaps a desire to be accepted by a scientific community in which evolution is orthodox doctrine.

First, would not a scientist want to prove evolution wrong and appear even more wise then the other scientists? Is that not the whole point for a scientist. To continue discoverying new things, even if it proves earlier thought wrong. And as a added benefit be rewarded with even more prestige if you do.

Second, from my own personal experience I know that if you ask a random JW to explain evolution, 99% will get it wrong. So who is motivated to fit in to a community really? The scientist who examines both sides? Or the JW that only examines one side because they want to continue as part of the community and not be shunned by there family if they dare question the thoughts on evolution. I use to be in the 99% myself, its not there fault. Its all this ill informed anti-evolution propaganda you are bombarded with that you never would dare learn about the subject.

29

Why can't you ask questions?

by ihadnoidea in

i know that some will disagree on this, and say you can ask questions.

yet, i ask you to honestly think what would happen if you openly started asking questions on jw doctrine or evolution.

likely you would be made to feel like i did below if you started asking these questions to other jws.. .

ihadnoidea

I know that some will disagree on this, and say you can ask questions. Yet, I ask you to honestly think what would happen if you openly started asking questions on JW doctrine or evolution. Likely you would be made to feel like I did below if you started asking these questions to other JWs.

I grew up in a family that were JWs for a few generations. I was raised in the JW ideaology from birth, and had only a view into the world around me in small fragments. I really think this is the reason that I never had any questions my entire life on JW doctrine, evolution, or the Bible. Everything seemed to make total sense in my limited view. Yet, when I became witness to certain things both in the congregation and in my personal life I started to have some questions. In addition, a householder sparked some additional questions for me. Unfortunately, I found out right away that there is no open forum for asking questions available to JWs inside the org. I found that having questions is conflated with being spiritually weak or being an apostate. Because of this I felt guilty for even asking questions. They caused me to stop asking questions, but not forever. I started having questions again, but this time I decided to research my questions in the publications. I will admit that sometimes my question had reasonable answers in the JW publications, but alot of my question were not answered in the publications. Since I still have questions after reading diligently the publications it raises the question, why can't I ask questions openly? Why do I hit a road block, possibly even being called an apostate if I do?

Note: To avoid distracting from the main question, I will not post any of my questions in this thread.

61

JWs and the Family Unit - Calling Maze to defend assertions

by Retrovirus in

in the thread about the wt in russia, maze made the assertions below.. .

jehovah's witnesses as an organization acts as a protection to the family unit.

andthe lie that jehovah's witnesses ruin families is apostate poison.. to aviod derailing that thread, i ask maze to defend them here.. my experience is that the jw religion destroyed my brothers' marriage.

ihadnoidea

I am not looking to totally take a side in this debates, but I am of the opinion that religion in general can be used as another way to divides people including families. If its not race, culture, or the part of the world you live its belief or religion people often use to create "us" and "them" divides. When everyone is part of the same religion, lets say in this case being a Jehovah Witness everything maybe great. In fact, the time shared together doing something probably will bring people closer. Having some moral guide too may not hurt either. The problem is when it becomes a dividing line. I think some Jehovah Witnesses will use it as a dividing line, and create a hostile environment. In these cases the WT will do more harm then good. I am thinking this guy has a good situation, so he is defending what he is experiencing. My question would be does the Jehovah Witness faith actually better at keeping people married then other faiths? I do not think you can support this assertion with any marriage statistics. So if your situation is good, maybe it has less to do with your faith and more to do with other factors.

7

Went to the special day assembly

by ihadnoidea in

jw
friends

it was mostly same old information.

the theme was seeking refuge in jehovah.

the part that really only stood out to me is the one knock they took toward education.

ihadnoidea

Yep, you are preaching to the choir. I think the world is changing too. I think education will becoming more of a requirement as time goes on. People need to be more specialized compared to times past.

@PG There was about the same amount of people as last year. There was a mix in age groups hard to tell a trend, but I would say it skewed older in general.

7

Went to the special day assembly

by ihadnoidea in

jw
friends

it was mostly same old information.

the theme was seeking refuge in jehovah.

the part that really only stood out to me is the one knock they took toward education.

ihadnoidea

It was mostly same old information. The theme was seeking refuge in Jehovah. The part that really only stood out to me is the one knock they took toward education. I do not remember the exact word usage but it went something like this. The brother started by saying that satan has 6 lies he uses in the system of things. And guess what? One of these lies Satan makes is that education will help you achieve financial success. He mentions college graduates are not getting jobs and now they have school loans to pay. The first thing I thought was where does he say this? Do we have record of him saying this anywhere in the bible? If not, then how can we claim he lies about this? Who now is going beyond the scriptures?

11

One of my doubts I mentioned to my wife was posed as a question by a householder

by ihadnoidea in

jw
friends

one of my doubts i mentioned to my wife was actually posed as a question by a householder to her a few days ago.

i have every once in a while mentioned some doubts i have had on the bible.

i usually get the same response, "wait on jehovah".

ihadnoidea

One of my doubts I mentioned to my wife was actually posed as a question by a householder to her a few days ago. I have every once in a while mentioned some doubts I have had on the bible. I usually get the same response, "wait on Jehovah". I do not try to press the issues though because I want to fade quietly. Anyway, the question was why did God authorize genocide in the Bible (Ex. Deuteronomy 7:1-2, Deuteronomy 20:16-18, Numbers 31:16-18). The man was a college student, and he had my wife and the sister with her stumped. In fact the other sister actually tried to deny that the Bible speaks of any genocide, but the college student had them read Deuteronomy chapter 7. My wife already knew what he was talking about because of our discussions. It is amazing how little the WT discusses these kind of harder topics.

She actually came home and we had an actual discussion on the topic. It was like she actually was a little open minded from the experience. I was amazed, it was like she needed to have the question posed at the door and be stumped by it before her mind would open to a discussion. I guess this is the fragile nature of the WT org. They position themselves as having an answer for everything bible related, but when a question cannot be answered this "image" begins to fall apart.

I gave her the societies official WT position for example on destruction of Cananites (See it-1 p. 738). I then basically showed that is not really a position, they are just sitting on the fence on this one saying there is not enough information either way. I then left her with some questions that it raises, like is it moral to kill innocent children and babies? Or is it hypocritical to kill virgin men but preserve virgin women? Is it neccessary to kill everyone? I did not want to press too hard and i want to appear neutral letting her make her own mind up on the matter.

89

Higher Education June 15th Watchtower 2011

by jwfacts in

"higher education: jesus warned against seeking your own glory.

(john 7:18) whatever you decide as to how much secular education you will obtain, have you made sure of the more important things?phil.

1:9,10.. grzegorz, the computer programmer, made some changes in his life.

ihadnoidea

I recently was talking about this very topic with a family member. Its one of the few topics you can talk openly about with most witnesses (just do not discuss it often). So far most try to water down what the counsel is actually saying.

This is just an observation from my local area. If you look at adults between the ages of 20s to mid 30s, I would say about a 3rd are unemployed. I have also noticed a trend in our area where many couples marry and live with there parents due to financial issues. In some cases this last many years. So the topic of supporting a family not only affects the marriage financially but also in other ways too.

My question is where is the line drawn between the scriptural requirement to support your family and when you are considered to be "not trusting JH". I know what the JW response will be, you need to put in the effort but JH will make sure you are successful. Yet wouldn't that include getting a job that actually will let you meet this requirement.

1 Tim 5:8:

8 Certainly if anyone does not provide for those who are his own, and especially for those who are members of his household, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a person without faith.

43

How is it f'n possible JW's biggest religious increase 4.4%

by troubled mind in

just saw that on the evening news .

are they all having babies now or what ?

is there any stats on how many have left ?.

ihadnoidea

I don't know if some one already said this, but I think its also possible that:

The # is artificially high because people are afraid to leave (I am in this box)

They count only active members too. I think this has the affect of keeping the total # of JWs lower, and larger percentage increases only then require a smaller bump in JWs total count vs other churches. It would be interesting to see the unreligious #s for comparison. My gut says they are truly the fastest growing religion if you call that a religion.

22

it seems like this time period 2009-now a lot are coming out of wbts

by jeckle in

jw
friends

its a generalization from my perspective maybe because i've left ?

oh should i define the words time period like the fds.

lets see i hope its not like generation ?

ihadnoidea

I feel the same way. Granted I am basing this on my small view of the org. I wonder if some one can mine the data to determine if this is actually true. Like OTWO said, some things have lead up to this. I think the recent generation overlapping change and now the policy that you could be removed as a elder/ms for attending college has even some hardcore JWs thinking. I have been conscious for a few years now, and I have noticed recently even my father at least privately with his family questioning the college change. That would have never happened a few years ago. Maybe with the economy the way its is, and the fact that college graduates have a lower unemployment rate then everyone else has got him thinking. That change had interesting timing. I think the Watchtower mags will reflect the attitudes going on behind the scenes in the org. Lately we have been warned alot to follow the fds, if you read between the lines, maybe alot of people are not doing that.

23

Mammoths, Mastadons, Siber Tooth Tigers

by NewChapter in

jw
friends

so, i've been thinking a lot lately about the chinks in my "spiritual armor" and my journey from jw to atheist.

i realize now it all started with a mastadon.

i visited one of my favorite places, the natural history museum, where i stared contemplatively at lucy.

ihadnoidea

When I first became awake 3 years ago now, the flood was one of the more interesting topics to study. Most of the information I researched centered around the arguments presented in the TalkOrigins site. See here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

I would start by researching each argument against the WT CD-ROM and see how it stands. Usually the JW arguments did not.

Like everyone has mentioned, the WT has been silent on alot of these issues in recent times.