i lost my bag with the bible my parents gave me at my baptism (you know, the one with the golden cut and leather cover), loads of love letters and a few tracts in the vienna subway(en-US)/underground(en-UK)/metro(whatever). i also had my elberfelder translation in there, which was kind of sad, as it helped me to find out about 607 and stuff...
J. Hofer
JoinedPosts by J. Hofer
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24
Did you keep any of your old JW paraphernalia?
by i_drank_the_wine infor those of us who have made the clean break, did you keep any of your old jw stuff?
books, "service" bag, etc?.
i didn't keep a shred myself.
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Wikipedia profile: Everybody should have one!
by J. Hofer inrecently i started editing a few articles, mostly about jehovah's witnesses, excommunication, raymond franz etc.
on the german wikipedia.
after a while i noticed i could add a little description about myself.
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J. Hofer
recently i started editing a few articles, mostly about jehovah's witnesses, excommunication, raymond franz etc. on the german wikipedia. after a while i noticed i could add a little description about myself. i wrote something along the lines of "i'm a baptized jehovah's witness and atheist".
today someone responded on my discussion page, asking if this is not misleading and if it's not like calling yourself a "vegetarian carnivore" or a "shiny dark night". the anonymous poster also mentioned that i appear to be very critical towards JWs. i responded about how difficult it is to leave the religion in a normal way without losing family. i also mentioned that i indeed try to apply critical thinking on everything, as it's the best way to come to a more or less neutral conclusion. i also said that i don't want to paint JWs - or any other religious group for that matter - in a wrong light, but i also want to bring up topics that they'd prefer to cover up.
felt pretty good after posting this on my very own wikipedia user page. I can only recommend it.
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How old were you when...
by agent zero in..when you got baptised, and when you discovered the truth about the truth?.
me: 20 and 27.
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J. Hofer
baptized: 18
waking up was gradually from maybe 23 onwards. full blown atheist by 26.
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God exists? God doesn't? God is a different concept? Convince me!
by punkofnice ini am in a spiritual void at the moment after a year out of the borg and 50 years in.. i'd like to hear 'brief' evidence for the existance or non existance of god/s without an argument between members here.. i'd like to get fresh view points as mine is now so critical it's telling me to be an agnostic or atheist.
why?
i am in want of evidence, not just words from a copy/paste troll & no links.. i just want to open up to new possibilities but with evidence to support it not just 'faith'..
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J. Hofer
creating a baby isn't all that difficult. it's actually quite fun. it's until later when it really becomes tough.
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Why I Shouldn't Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
by XJW4EVR inwhen i was a jw, the key issue that caused me to doubt the wt was the trinity.
the wtb&ts's blatent misquotations and misrepresentations of religious scholarship to fit their anti-trinitarian presuppositions are horrid and inexcusable.
that issue, however, was not the issue that caused me to become a christian.
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J. Hofer
so is there any "evidence" apart from *something* happened that caused someone to talk about a resurrected jesus?
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Why I Shouldn't Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
by XJW4EVR inwhen i was a jw, the key issue that caused me to doubt the wt was the trinity.
the wtb&ts's blatent misquotations and misrepresentations of religious scholarship to fit their anti-trinitarian presuppositions are horrid and inexcusable.
that issue, however, was not the issue that caused me to become a christian.
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J. Hofer
ok, i'll weigh this as some kind of evidence for the while. is there anything else, or was that it? do personal revelations like paul's sudden blindness on the way to damascus count too?
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127
Why I Shouldn't Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
by XJW4EVR inwhen i was a jw, the key issue that caused me to doubt the wt was the trinity.
the wtb&ts's blatent misquotations and misrepresentations of religious scholarship to fit their anti-trinitarian presuppositions are horrid and inexcusable.
that issue, however, was not the issue that caused me to become a christian.
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J. Hofer
the point is, we don't KNOW whether he appeared or not... we just know that someone (paul) said he knows someone (nobody knows who) who said he saw someone noone recognized as jesus (not even his closest followers who spent years hanging out with him) and said he was the resurrected jesus.
we also don't KNOW whether jesus returned invisibly in 1875 or 1914. but both claims do sound pretty ridiculous. too ridiculous to take a question like "is there any reason not to believe in the resurrection of the nazarene" seriously...
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127
Why I Shouldn't Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
by XJW4EVR inwhen i was a jw, the key issue that caused me to doubt the wt was the trinity.
the wtb&ts's blatent misquotations and misrepresentations of religious scholarship to fit their anti-trinitarian presuppositions are horrid and inexcusable.
that issue, however, was not the issue that caused me to become a christian.
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J. Hofer
lol. i didn't know you and shamus were so close.
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What Changed? I Did. You Did. (or, there is a reason Apostates are angry)
by AllTimeJeff in(for the purposes of this post, i want to say that being angry, though a real emotion, is not healthy if it continues to fester inside you.
i think anger is reasonable if it helps you to move on from point a to point b. in addition, because of the real issues anger can bring, if you feel that after many years you are still angry over your jw experience, i strongly encourage therapy.
long term anger is destructive to the individual).
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J. Hofer
being angry is ok with me. what really turned me off when i first visited this website (around 1999-2001 too) were those nutcases seeing subliminal images everywere, thinking they are the gay messiah or calculating how christ came back invisibly in 1985 or so.
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Why I Shouldn't Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
by XJW4EVR inwhen i was a jw, the key issue that caused me to doubt the wt was the trinity.
the wtb&ts's blatent misquotations and misrepresentations of religious scholarship to fit their anti-trinitarian presuppositions are horrid and inexcusable.
that issue, however, was not the issue that caused me to become a christian.
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J. Hofer
actually i think the comparison fits quite right:
the jesus wasn't resurrected, the first christians were all wrong but instead of dismissing their belief - due to cognitive dissonance - they moved it into another realm.
jesus also didn't appear 1874, the first bible students were all wrong but instead of dismissing their belief - due to cognitive dissonance - they moved his parousia into another realm.
pretty much harold camping stuff.