Posts by Nickolas

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

Thank you, cyberjesus. Shall I expect you to provide British English spellings as a courtesy, too?

We need to give people some space sometimes. Brotherdan's just making his escape from the Watchtower and it still pulls hard on his psyche. He would be a freak if it was otherwise. The transition is difficult enough without losing opportunities to maintain a rational discourse and having a few more lights come on. Understanding goes a long way toward believing. Back in the day I thought I understood the Watchtower message so clearly that I believed it all to be true and I was considering baptism. It was only after I started not being able to figure stuff out, and being told I must stop trying to figure stuff out, that I began to doubt and broke away. It took decades more before I understood the really serious problems with theism. But if you're a theist who thinks maybe he's got a chance to live forever, it would scare hell out of you to be an atheist, and therefore the prospect of actually starting to understand atheism is frightening to you. It's liberating, actually, to base what you believe on what is demonstrable with evidence, however imperfect, instead of assertions completely without evidence. But I understand how it is for some people a frightening realisation.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

My experience has been that rational conversations break down at the moment one of the participants gets emotional. At that point the part of the brain that processes emotion takes over and the part that processes rational thought is pushed aside. The emotions reinforce the intellectual perspective of the individual and he feels threatened, gets aggressive and defensive. The conversation stops. Nobody makes any progress.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

I didn't think the thread lacked for humour. (Or humor, as you American folks like to type.). I think sab asked a question about an experience he perceived through his current paradigm and he's getting answers from other people as they perceive it through theirs. Looks like some feathers got ruffled in the process.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

Mockery never contributes much to a conversation, in my experience.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

brotherdan, here we haven't spoken in months and you're picking a fight. I am mocking no-one, you included, and there is no heat in my words. My questions to sab were serious, and he has responded seriously. What's with the pent up anger, son?

Yes, I know all about Jehovah's witnesses. I've been married to one for 34 years, and studied with them myself for a few years more than that. which probably makes my Jehovah's Witness experience more involved than your own. However, as an atheist I would never presume to believe that I am somehow superior to another human being because I have been somehow chosen and they were not. Remember, no heat in these words. You perceive me as inferior and you betray your animosity toward those you perceive as inferior. That's the image I'm getting, anyway.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

Hey brotherdan. Seems everyone changed his avatar while I was away. Anyway, please correct me if I am wrong. What you are saying is that you are special. You are saying you are different from those of us who don't believe as you do. You are saying that God's Holy Spirit used you to do things. Are you saying that you are somehow superior to the rest of us, because God has chosen you, and not us? Curious.

It reminds me of a group I used to be a part of. Atheists are basically Jehovah's Witnesses minus God.

Pardon me, but that statement is really screwed up. You don't understand atheism, it is clear.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

Question, sab. Deep down, do you really want to believe in mystical experiences to help you make sense of the world? One thing I learned when I first joined this board is that many who contribute here either believe deeply in God or would prefer believing in God than be agnostic. Where's your head at? The Dawkins scale might be helpful:

1 Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C. G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'

2 Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.

3 Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. 'I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.'

4 Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'

5 Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. 'I don't know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.'

6 Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'

7 Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung "knows" there is one.'

Which are you? It might help you understand why you perceived your experience as so unusual. I generally count myself as a 6. I am not absolutely convinced that there is no god, although I believe the probability to be exceedingly small, but I am absolutely convinced he isn't that puny and psychotic Yahweh god depicted in the OT. It makes sense to believe that man created god in his own image, and not the other way around. Anything I or anyone else experiences that can simply be explained to be mathematically possible is not spooky under any circumstances. You can relax.

363

So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious in

jw
friends

i was sitting in my garage, as i often do, to chill out and i actually ended up becoming angry.. so here i am, in my garage, kicking it on the stool for the drum set that is in there (i am a pianist/composer, not a drummer).

i start to think about all the crazy stuff that transpires on this planet.

we have all seen shows and heard stories or maybe even witnessed events that don't add up.

Nickolas

Seems to me you must have a lot of sentimental hands, especially after having played the game so intensely for so long. In your place I would be amused, not dumbfounded. Human beings have a tendency to perceive probability dynamics in terms of relatively small numbers - that is why there are those who believe in Creation simply because the probability of conditions that would allow the spontaneous generation of life is very, very, very small, to the extent they believe it to be impossible. But the anthropic principle allows us to think otherwise, particularly within the context of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars and planets, which constitutes a far, far greater range of probability than 9 cards drawn at random from a deck of 4 suits each with 13 cards.

What you experienced was highly unlikely, but not impossible, sab. I am holding out for something far more remarkable.

179

Were you 'alive in '75' and how was that year for you?

by punkofnice in

i was a junior borgite in 1975. i remeber looking at the calendar at work in october and thinking: 'armageddon isn't here yet.....and it doesn't feel like it will be here anytime soon either!'.

i was surprised that jehovah hadn't obeyed the superior command to bring the big 'a' as instructed to him by fred franz.

how dare god disobey the jw leader!!!!!.

Nickolas

Born in 1952 in Canada. Raised strict Roman Catholic. Devout first generation Irish mother and atheist second generation Italian father. Abused in separate school not in the sexual sense but all the others from the nuns and priests. All the changes in the early sixtees when I was just coming of age smelled funny. Eating meat on Friday was no longer a mortal sin, etc. Routinely equated "religion" with "superstition" to everyone and anyone by the time I was 14. Met a nice Anglican girl when I was 19. She was 17. We got married two years later. A year later, 1974, her big brother sees the light and becomes a Jehovah's Witness and starts to talk to the two of us about it. I'm interested, she's not. I start to study under the Witnesses, attend the odd meeting and a couple of assemblies. My wife is more cautious, but is starting to show an interest. 1975 comes along and everyone in the congregation is abuzz with expectation. The summer assembly that year was electric. And then it didn't happen. I figure the WTBTS had more than a hundred thousand students in the queu for baptism in 1975, because the numbers published for that year in the 1976 yearbook were something like 85,000 higher than 1975, but then the 1977 and 1978 yearbooks showed a huge decline in numbers. I started asking questions in my book study and was awarded with anger. In my mind I saw the nuns and priests again and recognised the WTBTS for what it was and I broke it off. 1975 did it for me. My wife was studying by then and she never saw the same thing I did. We're still working that one out.

41

Belief in the Afterlife - where do you sit on the scale?

by jgnat in

i am three-quarters through the book, the time paradox: the new psychology of time that will change your lifeby philip zimbardo and john boyd.

it is taking longer than usual because i am earnestly applying the exercises as they appear in the book.

which means i have to be ready to change my habits...but enough about me.. zimbardo's argument throughout the book is that a person's time perspective deeply impacts their choices and their ability to be happy.

Nickolas

Thanks, lwt, good to "see" you, too. Wow, SBC, you've changed your avatar. It used to be so certain and brave. This one is intense. I like this one better.

Karl Marx and Doris Kearns suggested that belief in a hereafter helped people cope. (Marx considered it a tool of the oppressors).

I'm impressed. Someone who actually understands and doesn't misrepresent Marx's infamous opium of the people statement. Good thread. I'm looking forward to rejoining the conversation.