just wondering if this is a common thing for you guys and girls?
when i left the jws it was hard to make a connection with people, much of the time i felt that whatever they wanted to talk about just didn't seem relevant/deep/meaningful.
i find myself filtering my mind to get to a level with others (small talk mostly).
I want to blurt out that life doesn't intrinsically have a meaning. Why should it? That doesn't mean it's not worthwhile enjoying all the marvellous things in the world.
Life is short, we might as well enjoy this amazing experience before we return to the oblivion we came from.
i understand that cults and religious groups will always exist.
but why do jehovah’s witnesses continue as a religion that people will join?.
You might first ask, “Why does any religion exist?” Existential comfort is probably the briefest explanation as Xanthippe explains.
People want some certainty in a changing world and people want an explanation for why things are like they are. Explanations might satisfy emotionally but they need not be true. Most people who use rational thinking e.g. in the world of academia, conclude that there is no need to invoke spirits, gods or magic to explain our universe.
So down to the specific question “What is the reason that JWs exist?” I would suggest that it is due to the efforts of entrepreneur CT Russell and the fact that his Watchtower outfit had commercial success; an understandable event considering the religious appetite of people in the US at the end of the 19th century. Secondly, that JF Rutherford, after great membership loss, was able to print 400 million pieces of brain numbing literature at a profit to make the Watchtower rich. However under NH Knorr the biggest source of wealth was the impetus given by declaring the doomsday year 1975 which accelerated membership numbers and yielded a vastly larger income platform as a consequence.
What then is the major reason they exist? It is because they have a history of successfully deluding millions into a false belief of a reward of paradise if you comply with the demands of the JW org-- and making billions of dollars from it. Who but an honest moralist would bother to kill such a productive cash cow?
lt appears this topic has not been debated.energy has to come from something it doesn't come from nothing..
Atomant what answers are you expecting from such an unfocused question?
Evolution has to do with living things, organisms which reproduce.
However electrical energy is fundamental to everything made of atoms or sub-atomic particles... and what isn't made from atoms?
greetings, fellow bibliophiles:.
i remember how sad i was, as a little child, when our beloved carnegie library was razed (unsafe, structurally).
the same tragedy occurred when we moved to a new town and that similar architectural treasure was demolished to put up a new and gleaming building of steel and glass.
The local library was my alma mater. I was about eleven and trying to stretch my knowledge horizon I took out a book on quantum mechanics. I returned it a week or two later absolutely none the wiser, in fact I felt defeated.
I love being surrounded by books. I have spent many hours in the wonderful and famous libraries including the Bodleian in Oxford and the British Library when it used to be in the British museum. I recall it only had seven million books then but now it has many more than the Bodleian's twelve million.
Oak shelves polished by use bearing sumptuous leather bound tomes row upon row... the works of Britain's finest thoughtsmiths who themselves wrote and researched there. Ahh, deep joy!
maybe some of you remember me, maybe not.
for general information i am now 19 years old, and living by myself.
for the past 1 year (more like 1.5 years) i have been quietly fading out of the hypocrisy of this organization, but since i still live in the town i grew up in it has been hard, and filled with different challenges.
Good on you Citizen of the earth for waking up to the JW insanity and having your own values of where loyalty should be placed.
As others advised, I also suggest you don't go to be humiliated by a bunch of window cleaners at a judicial committee, they are after your blood not your wisdom. In other words; don't feed the sharks.
You might phone in advance to let them know you won't be attending--worldly people are so polite! The experience of others from this site indicates no benefit will accrue since you are likely to be d/fd anyway but if you do choose to go, let us know how you got on.
As a practical measure and being independent of your family make sure you keep in employment to look after yourself and secondly keep your old comrades but make a network of new ones as well. If possible defy the ignorance of the JW org and get some college education under your belt. All the best to you and hold your head high.
as descibed by the title here is a link to reddit of a what i believe is a powerful post with heaps of information.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/7ovq5o/watchtowers_decline_what_will_the_future_hold_for/?utm_source=reddit-android.
"What will the future hold for JWs?" ............disappointment
do you think the gb live in big, posh houses??.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4diruxmqh4.
Thanks for your post Smiddy but the JWs in trying to rationalize the expense of their flashy HQ quote Solomon and his temple. Both Solomon and his temple are fiction. Does it make sense to quote novels and other people's political dreams to justify activities?
made a visit to warwick recently.
i’ll try to get some pics posted..
Modern colouring and textures but it is not a welcoming space. The columns impede progress visually and therefore in fact, and the lighting is not coherent. For all the millions of poor JWs money spent-- they did not get the best.
greetings, dreamers:.
i guess it's never going away: daytime carryovers of jw-related stuff seeping into my dreams.. the majority of these dreams take place at conventions but with really weird trappings.
last night i dreamed i arrived at the site with no books, no lunch, nothing but my car keys.
Coco, over the years I have many times had the same sort of dream, either I am giving the prayer at the meeting but I’m no longer a believer, or I am out in field service and spouting the JW party line but guiltily conscious of knowing that it’s a load of rubbish. In real life I escaped the Borg before I felt pressured to do these things.
But may I tell you about a vivid dream I had at the time I was waking up from the JW delusion:
I was walking along a country lane late one evening and came to the gap in a well trimmed hedgerow which was the entrance to a field. Instead of a proper gate there was a thin pole across the opening and two men guarding the entrance. There was a bonfire in the field surrounded by people but to my horror a man was being held by his outstretched arms and legs by four others and he was being roasted as it were over the fire. I shouted for them to stop what they were doing and the two guards immediately came together and quietly explained, in the manner of JWs justifying some other Biblical madness, that it was quite alright because the man who was being scorched was happy to have it done to him.
This was nearly thirty years ago but the dream meaning was clear to me then; that a JW colludes with the organisation to be a dumb servant and actually enjoys suffering because privately it confirms his subordinate role and gives a clear definition of his or her faith and the relationship to the organisation......or make of it what you will.
since leaving the faith i have come to accept the facts and reality of evolution.
and of course i've read much about comparative anatmony and how it helps us to see the links between our common evolutionary ancestors.
however, its another thing to see it live in 3d.
And then there are those hominins which outwardly look human, well almost human, but instead of the modern flexible thinking brain they function using the so called 'lizard' brain. I understand there are some living specimens found in upstate New York.
