i am at a point where i tend to think all religions are rubbish.
the bible is not a book to lead one's life by and not deserving of much respect.
if jesus existed then the gospels are not an accurate picture of his life and even if the non-supernatural elements resembled a real person there is much to repudiate as there is to admire.. so what about comparing jehovah's witnesses to other faiths?
you are probably right dozy. I don't think I can be objective and I don't see the need to be so.
I also think Pauls writings (that slim references) can be interpreted as something benign like identity formation all the way to extreme social control - to me Jehovahs witnesses interpret Paul in the worst possible way.
i am at a point where i tend to think all religions are rubbish.
the bible is not a book to lead one's life by and not deserving of much respect.
if jesus existed then the gospels are not an accurate picture of his life and even if the non-supernatural elements resembled a real person there is much to repudiate as there is to admire.. so what about comparing jehovah's witnesses to other faiths?
I think that if one has accurate info and still believes then there is a certain amount of lying to oneself. If one is a witness out of ignorance then one does not have to lie to oneself. This is the corrupting mechanism I was referring to in my post above. The governing body is requiring elders etc to lie to themselves because of secretly contradiciting their own official instructions to elders. Elders are then put in a strange postion where they have to choose to allow themselves to be corrupted. this mechanism also operates on a publisher.
i am at a point where i tend to think all religions are rubbish.
the bible is not a book to lead one's life by and not deserving of much respect.
if jesus existed then the gospels are not an accurate picture of his life and even if the non-supernatural elements resembled a real person there is much to repudiate as there is to admire.. so what about comparing jehovah's witnesses to other faiths?
I wish that those who write the articles would lighten up on the constant need to legitimate themselves. This is done at every meeting and gets in the way of heartfelt religious expression.
Plus the governing body of Jehovahs witnesses is very arrogant and corrupt. CO's DO's branch members and elders are also being corrupted. Surely this must interfere with religious expression. I don't think there is as much interaction between local leaders and the central governing body in other religions as there is amongst Jehovahs witnesses.
have you noticed that the recent trolls are now claiming that if anybody drew conclusions or made decisions based on what the society was printing, it was their own fault?.
kind of "we didn't force you to believe what we said or adjust your life because of it.
you chose to think we were teaching the end would come in <insert time range>".
I so agree with many points in this thread particulary the degree of social control Jehovahs witnessess exercise. Can social control and culture be seen as the same thing?
If so then perhaps Nietzsche can aid us to contextualize our situation. He said that culture has a training effect and this effect is important for development. But the person responding to cultural training also needs to be able to step back from it and say yes to any paths that he/she himself/herself wishes to explore. Stepping back and cultivating the ability to agree and disagree is very important but this is not allowed by Jehovahs witnessess. So I would say that we did not fully choose to follow their crap advice as Jehovahs witnesses do not allow members to consider other options. Everything other than Jehovahs witnesses is presented in a negative light and one is expected to live life in this negative negating way. I guess this aspect could be seen as mind control and social control.
On the other hand by becoming a witness and remaining a witness we are exercising choice to some extent in that we are saying no to the culture around us and yes to JW culture. Or perhaps the reason we became witnesses is that we were aware of a lack of a strong sense of culture outside of witnessess. This is something to think about as many (non JW) people object to the path modernity has taken. Were we objecting to something like modernity when we became Jehovahs witnesses?
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
nice one psac
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
brotherdan is doing his very best for the sake of his children and if he is moving away from soft qualites towards stronger qualities, all still christ like - kudos to him.
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
sab I think notverylikely can speak for himself
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
agreed notverlikely and thats what you were doing
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
I concur with sab at sweetbaby
just wanted to let anyone interested know that i've posted a couple new blogs.
http://jwcritic.blogspot.com/.
.
ad hominem fallacy notverylikely
