I am an atheist. I arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to. When I first met the Witnesses at 22 I was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material. I never got to the point of being baptised - the 1975 fiasco assured that for me - but I still got to the point at which I was seriously entertaining the belief that the Watchtower was what it said it was. In the almost two years I was associated with the Society as a student, the Watchtower did a great job of proving to me that all the other religions in Christendom were false and that only the Society practiced true worship of the One God, until I witnessed and recognised otherwise. My wife's baptism a couple of years after I disassociated myself has nevertheless kept the Watchtower in my life. What the Watchtower does to create atheists, like me, is when you are already convinced that all other religions are false and you finally come to realise that the Watchtower is false, too, then there's not much left to hang onto for the rest of your lifetime. You get to the point at which you consider that all religions are false, you seek out and find mountains and mountains of evidence that support your consideration and then you see things in a much different way. And there's no going back. The Watchtower did this to me. I suppose, in a way, I should be grateful. The real truth is emancipating.
Nickolas
JoinedPosts by Nickolas
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How the WTBTS creates atheists
by Nickolas ini am an atheist.
i arrived at this juncture in my life despite not wanting to.
when i first met the witnesses at 22 i was a seeker looking for answers to the question of life - in other words, prime cult target material.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
Or, to provide an option other than EP's above, because the god of the OT was a psychopath, itscrap. If the OT is to be believed, Yahweh did a lot worse than snuff out the lives of a few kids. I prefer to think along the lines of EP, however. I prefer to believe that Yahweh is a fictitious character and I will live only until I die rather than contemplate either living forever under his capricious grace or burning forever under his vengefulness.
The loss of my father was the greatest in my life, but I see him again every time I look in the mirror. We live on only through our children.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
All things organic harbour energy, Louise, whether living or dead. Petroleum and coal is the stored energy of unfathomable quadrillions of long dead life forms accumulated over hundreds of millions of years. When burned these fuels release their stored energy in the forms of heat and light and motion and they are in the process consumed forever. Energy dissipates according to the same physical laws that dictate that it can be neither created nor destroyed, returning it to the cosmos from whence it came. But those same laws dictate that all things are finite, including the cosmos. Five billion years from now our sun will have fused its entire supply of hydrogen into helium and will begin to consume itself. It will grow into a red giant and envelop the inner planets, transforming the earth into a hot, round, lifeless rock. Some billion or so years later the sun will be a cold vestige of its former self, as will all the trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe some tens of billions of years later. Current understanding of cosmic expansion is that it is not slowing and its momentum is such that there will be no point of equilibrium and subsequent collapse. This means that at some point or another many billions of years hence all the stars will go out, and the universe will continue to expand for all time, lifeless, dark and cold. Where is there room in this scenario, outside of one made out of sheer faith for which there is no evidence and no discernable, measurable hypothesis, for life after death?
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Has anyone tried tactics from"Captives of a Concept"?
by Coffee House Girl injust read don cameron's book...which was very en-light-ening (sorry for the "new light" pun)....and i agree with many of cameron's points about how to reason with a jw but i am curious..... have any of you out there in jwn land ever tried to have a witness come to your door, pretend to have a bible study & get the jw in a "teacher" setting where they have to research for you the history of jw's in the time of 1919????.
were you successful?
did it not work out?.
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Nickolas
I finished Cameron's book recently, too, CHG, but have no intention of using what I learned in a direct attack because, as Cameron himself points out, it won't work. The tactic of feigning interest, posing as a student for an unsuspecting JW teacher, won't work for me because I have not hidden the fact that I am atheist and my JW family members know it, and as a consequence they never, never discuss religious or spiritual matters with me. When an outside event (like Harold Camping's prophesy, for example) presents a segway for me to open the subject, it is never taken up, always greeted by silence. I will, however, take any opportunity that presents itself by any JW who is sufficiently confident in the strength of his faith in the Watchtower to take me on, recognising that cognitive dissonance will most likely prevail.
I've just started reading Crisis of Conscience. It's a bit of a tome, as you know, and also a bit of a slog so far so I expect it will be awhile before I get through it.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
Why do evolutionists creationists need to push their ideas this way? Because their ideas don't add up. So they have to attack people personally to make themselves seem superior.
Nice little insult, still thinking. But you are still not thinking. If you want to be credible you need to present evidence rather than rhetoric.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
I am sometimes amazed and astonished by some of the posters on this board, what they say with such great conviction but which has no real substance. It seems all based on faith and faith alone. Scientific evidence that appears to be in support of some Biblical truth or another is hailed and publicised while the contrary is reviled. There is only one truth, some say, and if there is anything that does not confirm that truth it must by default be a lie. The paradigm disconnect for these posters vs mine, as I see it, is their minds are captured and frozen immovable by their religious perceptions. Harold Camping is an apropos example. Almost everyone outside his cult following just knew he was a nut case, but not because of what he believed was going to happen, but when. The majority of people in North America still firmly believe that Judgement Day is coming, but just not right now. To me, that's as nutty as believing it was going to happen today. Many of the people on this board have escaped an even more insidious doomsday cult, but still believe in doomsday. There's a word for that, the first sylable of which is the word "mind", the second sylable of which is a word that's not allowed.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
Read what you just posted, still thinking.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
(or stfu, your choice)
Oh, if it was only that easy, MS. Their scriptures demand that they do just the opposite, after all.
Further to EntirelyPossible's point, the most significant arrow in the creationist's quiver is the notion that life is so very complex (and it is, indeed, complex) that it cannot have come into existence "on its own". Those who really understand evolutionary theory also understand that life didn't come into existence on its own but through the long process of natural selection, which demands its own understanding. Regardless, nothing of complexity is created by anyone who is not more complex than what he creates. The watchmaker is much more complex than the watch he makes, the potter more complex than his pots, the carpenter more complex than the house he builds. If God created the universe and all that is in it then God must be a very, very complex being. But if things of great complexity cannot come into existence "on their own", then who or what created God?
Off to the theatre. I'll check in tomorrow to see how many more circles this thread goes in before people throw up their hands and give up.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
Open your eyes.
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Life after death
by truthseeker ineveryone has different views about life after death and whether or not it is a possibility.. as jehovah's witnesses, we were always taught that there is no life after death, that this is the only life we have now and that the wages of sin is death.. .
what are your views on life after death?.
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Nickolas
You can't prove evolution is true either
The evidence in support of evolution is overwhelming in its scope and volume. I suggest you read Richard Dawkins' latest book, "The Greatest Show on Earth", subtitled "The Evidence for Evolution." Somehow, however, I just know you won't, in preference to believing in magic and things for which there is no evidence.
How did God go about creating all the myriad and teeming life forms that have inhabited this planet of ours over hundreds of millions of years, anyway? Did He twitch his nose? Wave a magic wand and utter Alakazam three times? It sounds sarcastic but it's a serious question. Did God just will everything into existence? Magic. Still thinking, or not thinking at all?