Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  28

  But it's not about the Money

  by LevelThePlayingField in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  money was the motivator.. .

  money.

  again, money was the motivator.. .

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  Half banana

  Quite so Smiddy but how will the GB take the hint that their work is done?

  Perhaps some kind brother would send them all to live out their days on a remote tropical island...please!
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  14

  Do you still want to be identified as a Christian?

  by eyeuse2badub in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  most americans want some form of religious identity - even atheists are creating churches.

  by j. warner wallace | fox news.

  the number of self-proclaimed christians is shrinking in america.. i’ve been collecting data on this trend for over 10 years, and the surveys reveal an important truth: fewer people claim a christian affiliation than ever before, and those who claim no religious affiliation are the fastest growing group in america.. but while fewer people may belong to christian churches or communities, americans will likely retain some form of religious identity – especially if what’s happening in europe is an indicator of things to come.. a new pew forum survey conducted in western europe reveals that christianity is waning there even faster than it is in the united states.

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  Half banana

  “In the United Kingdom, for example, there are roughly three times as many non-practicing Christians (55%) as there are church-attending Christians (18%).”

  When I last looked at the statistics, UK church attendance was around 4.8% of the population and dropping. 18% would have been back in the glory days. Religion is not big over here.
  
  
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  21

  This Week CLM Meeting

  by zophar in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so, this week on the clm there was an interesting comment at our kh.. under the "apply yourself to the field ministry" portion this week, there was the bible study assignment based on the publication: who are doing jehovah’s will today?

  published in 2016. the material was from lesson 28 "what can be found on our website?

  there is a footnote at the bottom that reads: .

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  Half banana

  The gb want only company men-- but I like the sound of your thoughtful chairman Zophar!

  The unspoken JW rule is: whatever you do, do not bring logic or reasoning into the congregation because its foundations will dissolve if you do that.

  The only way the JW org can survive is by UNTHINKING obedience. . .
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  19

  On leaving JW's and hating religion...

  by Jehalapeno in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's been nearly 4 years now since i completely woke up to the watchtower lies.. thinking back on my jw life, during the time i believed, the organization truly did teach us to hate all beliefs that were contrary to the watchtower's.. i hated "false" religion.. so, when i finally woke up and applied critical thinking to my beliefs, i just went on hating religion in general...only this time i added jw's to that list.. a few months of waking up, i decided to base my beliefs on evidence.

  i didn't want to have a set of beliefs unless there was some logic or evidence behind it.

  so, now i consider myself an atheist.. and i kept on hating religion.. within the last six months or so, something has changed.

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  Half banana

  Jehalopeno, I understand your experience after leaving the JWorg, going from a polarized position to a more moderate appraisal of religion and religious people. I imagine that your experience, which was like mine, is the norm. I still loathe the JW religion and rue the wasted time spent with it.

  I like too that you brought in the historical matter of John Lock whose informed and modest aims were to clear the philosophical ground so that others could cultivate it. Along with David Hume, Diderot and The Encyclopaedists and the agency of the White House under Jefferson who cribbed much of Lock’s work, much philosophical progress was made and the Enlightenment began to have an impact. Just as the Renaissance and the Reformation had revised the world views of the West, the Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century began to end abject servility to the principle of monarchy as well as constraining aristocratic and religious privilege. It is Humanists today who are still pressing on under the Enlightenment banner.

  Therefore ideas; accurate and evidence based mental concepts of the tangible world, matter very much as do understanding the zeitgeist in which ideas are shaped.

  My point is that to make progress, humanity must keep changing for the better. By dragging forward the old irrational belief of unknowable, invisible gods into the modern world, it diminishes the effectiveness of societies’ aims for advancement into areas such as rational education, peace-making and realization of human potential. So there are grave errors in perpetuating long sanctioned religious myths about being answerable to gods when no such things can have any logical validity.

  Religion is retrograde, religion is a faulty life raft; it should not be banned but exposed to reason and left to die a quiet death.
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  22

  Everything Happens For A Reason

  by Charles Gillette in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does everything happen for a reason?

  i hear this from so many people without any explanation as how this is so.

  what do you think about this belief?

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  Half banana

  "Everything happens for a reason" is a superstition.

  It is an expression lingering from the pre-scientific days of belief in despotic gods. It is a linguistic and cultural relic encapsulating a spirit of total dependency on mythical Fates and Fortune. (look up the Roman Goddess Fortuna and for that matter the earliest written books of the Bible depict God as bringing both good and evil, Mic 2;3 etc).

  It would be absurd to be so inclusive as to say "everything" has a reason when clearly this could never be the case.

  Celebrate the surreal beauty of the world!
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  7

  Supreme Court of Canada Rules in Favor of Jehovah’s Witnesses

  by pale.emperor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  interesting how watchtower have twisted whats actually happened and how they've presented it to their members:.

  from https://www.jw.org/en/news/jw/region/canada/supreme-court-rules-20180531/.

  in a unanimous decision released on may 31, 2018, the supreme court of canada recognized that the disfellowshipping arrangement should remain free from court intervention.

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  Half banana

  If you don't want the possible pain of being disfellowshipped--don't join this stupid JW club in the first place.
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  114

  The biggest news of the year for Mr. and Mrs. Totally ADD

  by Still Totally ADD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is bigger than christmas and birthdays wrap into one.

  thanks to the australian royal commission our youngest son has woke up.

  we received a e-mail from him tonight where he apologized to us for shunning us all these years, how bad he felt for doing this.

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  Half banana

  Joyful news STA, keep us informed on the progress please.
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  16

  A great article! Highly recommended!

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  im not sure if anyone has posted this before?

  (sorry if so).

  http://exitwatchtower.weebly.com/.

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  Half banana

  A good find stucky! Vincent is inspirational-- who of us here cannot find sympathy with him in the smug delusions we all held when we were under the JW spell?

  Vincent's awakening must be a great help for others who have been lost in the Watchtower swamp and are now facing up to the challenges of real life.
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  14

  When Invited To Attend A Judicial Meeting Ask If Your Lawyer Could Accompany You

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  they will come back to you and deny your request, ask them to ask the service department to get organizational procedures.

  if still denied refuse to attend with out your lawyer present.

  and then ask them who has fairer judicial practices satan's world or jehovah's earthly organization.. no recordings allowed, and definitely no lawyers!

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  Half banana

  Any formalized society is a club for socializing, for companionship or camaraderie. It may be a tennis club or Hells Angel or church group because humans essentially enjoy keeping company with those who share a similar world view, those of like mind. These social pools are where we find friends and partners.

  Jehovah’s Witnesses join their paranoid club knowing well the rules-- and breaking the rules of any society has penalties.

  To attempt to bring a lawyer to a judicial hearing would only enhance legitimacy of the of the tribunal. It has no legal basis in the first place hence a lawyer would rarely if ever be appropriate.

  JW ‘judicial’ committees are there to enforce cult thinking and keep external influences from seeping into the religion which would otherwise weaken and dilute its power. Strict boundary marking makes for a strict cult identity and JWs are taught to be comfortable with clear boundaries, this is one of the appeals of any cult, you don’t have to think hard because the contrived rules are simple and strict. Real life is quite different!

  If you deliberately break JW rules you are in effect saying you disagree with the cult. Would not the best policy then be to leave without attending the humiliating mock trial and thereby make the statement, so to speak, that you do not recognize the authority of the religion.

  The JW religion functions by infantilizing all of its members, disagreement is not permitted and ritual adulation of the governing body and its role is encouraged. To strike out against this perceived authority is often the first step in personal responsibility by taking matters into your own hands and using your human birthright to choose your own path in life.

  Remember this; to leave the JW organization is one of the most liberating experiences in life!
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  43

  talked to jw woman on corner then later family fight with jw dad

  by JunkYardDog in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had to go into a office close to a supermarket on a very high traffic expressway with next to no persons on the street anyway ever near.

  i see this jw lady about 65 yrs old standing there alone with 2 bags of groceries staring at the catholic church one side across the interstate road and the kh across the other side of the highway.

  cross bronx expressway.

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  Half banana

  JYD, well done!--you did some unwitnessing and tried to get a JW to think.