Posts by Half banana

40

Some Good News About Me (Although Anthony Morris Will Be Furious)

by pale.emperor in

just wanted to share with you some good news i'm really excited about.

i have been accepted for university to study psychology and counseling.

my goal is to become a counselor and, in time, to specialize on treating those who have left high control relationships/groups like we all did.. it'll take a few years before im qualified but studying in university has been a dream of mine since i was 12, which was systematically dashed to pieces by watchtower.. .

Half banana

Well done PE! ver is nuffink lyk edjacashun.

2

Truth versus Holiness

by Half banana in

truth, that is verifiable facts as opposed to belief, is a vital part of the cultural narrative and operation of modern humanity.

truth does not require a lot of defending because it can stand happily on its own two feet.

it takes little effort or money to be spent in affirming it.

Half banana

Truth, that is verifiable facts as opposed to belief, is a vital part of the cultural narrative and operation of modern humanity. Truth does not require a lot of defending because it can stand happily on its own two feet. It takes little effort or money to be spent in affirming it. Truth is not sustained by propaganda but evidence. There are physical absolutes determined by science, absolute zero temperature springs to mind. You can build on a truth such as this one.

Religious belief however does not enjoy this simple status. Being of a nebulous and elusive nature it requires a vast apparatus of propaganda and good will to keep its flimsy body from fading into oblivion. Faith and religious belief do not have the academic respectability that evidence based observations have, instead their existence depends completely on the cultivation of a primitive superstition called “holiness”.

What then is holy? Can you walk through a field and stumble on something that you can tell is obviously holy? If a thing is holy to you, why not for everyone? How can you determine if a thing is holy? If something is made holy only by someone else’s opinion; does that make it holy? Is anything holy?

Through centuries of unchallenged assumption, there is a collective reverence and plenty of good will for religious faith and also for the moral stance of believers. Most people have acknowledged that faith and holiness have contributed something positive to the welfare of most societies across the world. This common focus of venerating holy things has proved to be useful in persuading the masses to conform within a community. It is on this same ticket by assumptions of holiness and of unquestioned reverence for the Bible that the Watchtower religion has gained converts. However you cannot build progressive ideas from holiness, all you can do with it is enjoy a fuzzy feeling inside and find new believers to share your emotional experience.

Whenever I hear the Watchtower propaganda, which by the way is mainly from this site, I am revolted by the endless repetition of cult 'trigger language’ such as “God’s people”, expressions which tie true-believers into their exclusive community. These are patronizing words which soothe troubled minds and hearts and give readers a warm glow from a sense of belonging to a ‘divinely ordained’ organisation.

Yet there is nothing objective about the language of the Watchtower, it constantly talks about “truth” but never dares to analyse the basis for any statement it ever makes other than the superficial given; that it originates in the Bible, it is "Bible based" and you need a "Bible based conscience" etc, etc. It is like a constant barrage of mental rivets endeavouring to hold a monstrous alien creation in one piece.

The JW organisation never questions the validity of the Bible’s viewpoint because its income and existence is based squarely on the false belief that the Bible is a book of prophecy and is incapable of error. Conversely the Bible has no useful prophecy and is riven through with contradictions and errors. On this fundamental misconception the whole output of JW rhetoric falls down.

Humans are suckers for holiness and the Watchtower knows it. Relentless propaganda is directed at the faithful in an attempt to support its holy lies and false promises.Truth is easy, it is only falsehoods which continually require propaganda to make them credible.

After leaving the JW world, is it this which now makes reading the Watchtower so nauseating?

10

More than 75% of the human genome may be 'junk' DNA.

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

making little or no difference to our daily lives, comes the claim that most of our human genome is not functional.. dan graur an (evolutionary) biologist at the university of houston and other academics made the claim in a paper published in an online journal, genome biology and evolution.. the group's calculations suggest that not more than 25% of the human genome is functional - the rest is seen as 'junk' dna,.

see science dailys coverage of the report at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170714140234.htm .

coverage of similar research at the uk's oxford university (reported in the guardian aust.

Half banana

Perry, I looked at one of your recommended references, it was highly misleading since the information was placed firmly in the context of creationism, not with the objective analysis of demonstrable fact and provable pre-history in mind.

If you were to attempt to see clearly, being scientific means making an honest and disinterested evaluation, not coming at it with a religious dogma all guns blazing to prove your point at any cost.

Get real man

19

Starting To Wake Up

by Searching in

i suppose after lurking around for a few weeks i thought i might share my own personal story, as i think it would probably be a very freeing experience for me right now.

to start off, at 23 years old i'm actually a third-generation jw, my grandparents were baptized (my grandfather is actually an elder) when my mother was only a toddler, she was raised as a witness, then of course, married a witness and thus myself and my two brothers were born-in's.

growing up my mother was always very careful about what she taught me, all the good things for sure, about how we would live in a paradise earth and i could pet all the animals that i wanted and not worry about growing old, and she'd ask me who in the bible i'd love to see and talk with - my grandparents however, were a different story and the cause of i think, most of my childhood trauma.. they really drilled home the fact that we were the only people who were going to be saved, we were the only people that were going to survive and that everyone else was going to die horribly - that i shouldn't try to make that many friends in school because they would never be "real" friends unless they were fellow jw's and they would die anyway.

Half banana

Hi Searching, great to have you here. Searching and lurking are good words for JWs, they are exactly the opposite of what a cult demands. Cults want closed minds and absolutist beliefs so they can control their flock without resistance.

How can any human fulfill their potential under such a regime as the JW org dictates? Everyone who dies as a JW is either disappointed or deluded. . . it is so cruel to give false hopes of a paradise and obnoxious to stifle the minds innocent people and steal their very lives, because that is what the JW org does.

Although as a long time ex-JW I have no fondness left for spiritual uplift from the Bible but I do like your reference quote in John to test the "inspired expression". If every JW was encouraged to understand the full meaning of this, after a while there would be very few of them left!

Thanks for writing and do keep posting and searching..........

41

Watchtower Doctrines JWs most commonly don't believe

by Diogenesister in

there was a recent thread on another site where posters maintained that many of the *most* long-standing jw's don't believe at least one official watchtower doctrine.

i've even read reports from bethelites saying they've heard bethel overseers say they don't believe some watchtower theology.

this made me think - i believe there are a few official doctrines that are common for many jw's to be either in denial about or simply not really believe ( often one and the same thing).. i'd say these are pretty high in the ranking:.

Half banana

Yes it's true that the real motivation for being a JW is saving your neck at the mythical Big A. And indeed even the GB are also victims of human frailties but being rewarded for their ignorant rule over the peasants makes them responsible for their actions because they know what they are doing.

Ever the rebel as a beard wearing corduroy suited JW, I always tended towards scepticism and never believed in the devil nor in 1914. So surely most JWs have reservations about the truthfulness of some of the doctrines? Funny but I often mentioned my sincerely held belief that I thought that the devil was not literal and no one ever complained, perhaps they would today?

At its heart this cult is fascist by nature and only rewards JWs who totally conform because it sends a message to the world that they are unified, which they want others to read as "divinely inspired".

But heck, half of the JWs these days don't believe all the doctrines, it's not important; it's just the family religion.

20

I'm giving up in 2017! (More steps in my fading)

by Skepsis in

jw
friends

when i joined this site at the beginning of this year, i was serving as an uber-zealous regular pioneer and ms in a foreign congregation where the need is greater.

i was giving public talks and having parts at regional conventions.

had started to have doubts but i hadn't time to focus on them, i simply was overcharged with so many activities and things to do.. i started by quitting pioneering but couldn't think i would give further steps for a long time.

Half banana

Good on you Skepsis! It's troubling at the moment as you straddle the two worlds but it gets better as the influence of the org dwindles and you can enjoy your own authentic life.

I found that making new friends is a great compensation for the loss of old JW friends. Perhaps your actions might give them the confidence to join you?

119

Do I have to believe in Jesus to be saved?

by unsure in

do i have to believe in jesus to be saved?.

i was raised as a jehovah's witness.

i was born in.

Half banana

Unsure, I understand your request for ideas, you are asking for reality after having suffered from the JW fantasy world. You are searching for the guidelines for correct beliefs and that is where the problem lies because having "a religious belief" is a cultural thing, it is not a truthful or factual thing.

I agree with Anders above; what ifs only beg more what ifs. What you do need to do is to distinguish between "belief" and "knowledge".

Instead I suggest you try only "believing" things which have factual or testable evidence for their existence. If a belief is not testable (like "God is love") then don't waste your time on it.

By this criterion "salvation" becomes only a slogan of a religious doctrine, it cannot be tested, it's propaganda, it's a distraction from the world of reality.

Perhaps you are afraid to be yourself? Try it and learn what it is to be a mature human with free choices-- you are not a pawn in a religious lottery, you have every right to navigate your own course through life. You need not be beholden to invisible spirits which are unknowable-- try shaking off those superstitions my friend and get a grip on the real world-- learn critical thinking!.

119

Do I have to believe in Jesus to be saved?

by unsure in

do i have to believe in jesus to be saved?.

i was raised as a jehovah's witness.

i was born in.

Half banana

Unsure, a few hours ago you said,

"That's the problem, without these fairy tales, I believe life is meaningless."

Who said life should have meaning? It is up to you, to give your life meaning. Trying to live someone else's dreams is madness.

Of course we all go through this questioning when we have been hoodwinked by religion but we have a right to determine our own path; have a family, build a house, help mankind, end the attitudes which lead to war, create a better world free of oppressive belief systems or whatever you choose to do. . . but life only has meaning to us if we are the makers of our own life.

119

Do I have to believe in Jesus to be saved?

by unsure in

do i have to believe in jesus to be saved?.

i was raised as a jehovah's witness.

i was born in.

Half banana

There is an irony in old Charlie Russell's choice of the name Watchtower. The metaphor of a literal watchtower was used from the start to illustrate the idea that the look-out at the top gets a panoramic view of the land to foresee events before they arrived, Russell and later "The org" being the only ones to have divine insight.

It never worked for them, they never got anything right, it was all complete rubbish; a fantasy.

A parable of being a JW is like someone born in a cave who never leaves it. An even better illustration for JWs is Plato's allegory of the cave. There are chained prisoners (JWs) who never see the daylight except dimly but are forced to look all the time at the wall at the end of the cave. Some distance behind them is a fire and between the fire and the backs of the prisoners, puppeteers come with shapes casting a shadow play on the end wall of what is purported to be the real world.

The prisoners had no reference to know or to deny reality because the shadows were their only experience of the world.

So my point Unsure, is that the fuzzy images given you from Bible stories are not the basis for making any real life decisions.

Who requires salvation? Only those who have had the concept of sin and the serpent drilled into their brain!

Why does the "Bible based" JW religion act like a cult? Because early Christianity was also a dumb cult, feeding off the gullible in the same way.

You ask "Is it enough to believe in a God" as if to get some hope. If you wish you can believe in anything and everything and if hope is all you want then that's the way forward for you. However if you want to be honest and live without false expectations then it's better to recognise that we all die and therefore we should live knowing that our life is very precious and should not to be wasted on supernatural fairy tales.

7

Neutered New World

by Labate in

if, as jesus said, there is no marriage in the afterlife, will our sex drive be removed?.

sex without marriage is fornication, which is a no-no.. if i were young and healthy, being surrounded by young, healthy women, having the normal male libido would hardly be paradise..

Half banana

Wake, that is a stonking piece of WT drivel you have unearthed.

Can you imagine the allure of joining an organisation which holds out for the new member the prospect of losing your gender identity?

It is beyond the pale. It is insane.