Posts by Nickolas

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

I don't think JW's create atheists as much as breaking free from the cult mindset makes one hypervigilant against other cult-like programs that religions in general practice. (Anony Mous)

Atheists are not created by anybody. (Trevor)

the Watchtower Society actually isn't responsible for "making" me an atheist... (Ziddina)

I can't really argue against any of your sentiments. If we are truly free to make up our own minds, only we are responsible for becoming what we become. But creation of self does not occur in a vacuum. Many Jehovah's Witnesses believe what they believe because their parents believe what they believe. It is fair to say that they are not entirely responsible for what they are and that the Society has played a hand in creating their mindsets. In a broader sense, most people who profess to be Christian happen to have been born into environments that embrace Christianity. Had they been born in Afghanistan they would almost certainly profess to be Muslim. Yes, someone who becomes atheist or agnostic after having abandoned a previous faith in god is a little different, but more likely than not his transformation is a consequence of many inputs, some of them direct and purposeful, some entirely accidental. My association with the WTBTS caused me to examine faith at a much deeper level than I would have otherwise. This I cannot deny. Without that particular influence I might reasonably expect to have settled into some sort of pragmatic agnosticism - believing in things for which there is strong scientific evidence, like the evolution of species, but leaving the door open for there having been some kind of divine influence. The Watchtower played a hand in closing the door.

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

Oh, and as to Antony Flew, I looked him up. Turns out he was another philosopher. He used philosophy to convince himself that there is no god and then used philosophy to convince himself that there is a god. As a consequence he was the second recipient of the Phillip E. Johnson award from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, not exactly a rousing endorsement from the scientific community. The first recipient of the Philip E. Johnson award was Philip E. Johnson, on the basis of his founding of the wedge strategy for Intelligent Design, which has been as soundly debunked as Flew's arguments have been. Regardless, Flew did not become a theist, he became a deist who perceived that god is unknown to any established religion. If you believe in Yahweh, he would have told you that you are mistaken.

See Victor Stenger, 'Flew's flawed science', Free Inquiry 25: 2, 2005, 17-18; www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=stenger_25_2

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

Like Jeff, I too would embrace god if he manifested himself in some unmistakable way - and by that I mean a way that is unmistakable to me personally. It's not that I think I'm special, because I realise how terribly insignificant I am. And perceiving god in a daffodil doesn't count, because I look at a daffodil and I see a product of natural selection. I might cite the resurrection of my parents as a good example of something unmistakable to me personally. Do that, god, and I will prostrate myself before you, but I will still wonder why it was necessary for them to die so horribly.

While I acknowledge that there is a small minority of scientists who are also theists, I have yet to see any of them put forward a solid scientific argument for the existence of god. While their arguments have at time masqueraded as scientific - I cite for example the multiple failed attempts to demonstrate ID - in the end they are all without exception philosophical, and philosophy does not constitute observable, measurable evidence, as convincing as it can be. A good example of the phenomenon is Bertrand Russell's revelation as a young man that the ontological argument for the existence of god was sound. Himself a Nobel prize winning philosopher and agnostic, he would come to realise that he had been merely caught up in a philosophical paradox. In 1946 he would write:

"The real question is: Is there anything we can think of which, by the mere fact that we can think of it, is shown to exist outside our thought? Every philosopher would like to say yes, because a philosopher's job is to find out things about the world by thinking rather than observing. If yes is the right answer, there is a bridge from pure thought to things. If not, not."

A philosopher, as has been defined by others far more intelligent than I am (including philosophers themselves), is someone who won't take common sense for an answer. It is in some ways a compliment. In others an acknowlegement that what they have to say exists only in thought and what exists only in thought cannot be observed and measured and, therefore, does not constitute evidence.

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

Hang in there, NRFG.

We all perceive doors opening in different ways, OTWO. You saw the light about the Society and then you kept going. Are we not saying the same thing? Regardless, I am not excusing myself. I have no regrets being where I am. I am merely acknowledging what helped get me here.

Anyone else besides Antony Flew? Never heard of him. Odd that he labels himself the world's most notorious atheist.

good night, all.

136

Life after death

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

everyone 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?.

.

Nickolas

There is no question that people find comfort in hope. Others find it in demonstrable truth. The two are not necessarily the same. The only sure happiness is happiness achieved in this life. If your happiness depends on you looking forward to happiness after you die, then it could be that all you have is hope and it might just be better for you not to expose yourself to evidence that has the potential to dash it. Your path through life is yours alone and no-one, me included, has a right either to push you off or to bind you immobile. It is up to you to find your way.

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

So what happens when you find out evolution is false? Do you give up on life alltogether?

I have never heard of anyone after having done the requisite research who has, as you put it, found out that evolution is false. I have, however, heard of many who have come to a conclusion that belief in the god of the bible is false and the only possible explanation for the existence of the various forms of life on the planet is evolution through natural selection. You must otherwise believe in magic, and belief in magic belongs to the braying infancy of our species.

Just because religion is false, this is not proof that God is false.

But there is also no proof that he isn't false. There is, in fact, no proof at all that he even exists. All there is is faith, and faith is not proof of anything at all. Faith can move mountains, or move people to fly passenger jets into skyscrapers or to blow themselves up in a crowded bus terminal, but it can never prove the existence of god, only the existence of faith. Still not thinking.

136

Life after death

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

everyone 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?.

.

Nickolas

You should consider TV evangelism, godrulz. Lots of money in it.

103

How the WTBTS creates atheists

by Nickolas in

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.

Nickolas

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.

136

Life after death

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

everyone 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?.

.

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.

136

Life after death

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

everyone 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?.

.

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?