Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  19

  New introduction

  by formerministerial in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello to all of you,.

  here goes an introduction of a new member.

  i'm 45 years old now and we wake up my wife and i from borg a few years ago.. i'm living between spain and france, due to my work.. it has been always refreshing to listen and read many of you here.. i hope it will continue the same..

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  Half banana

  Welcome to the real world formerministerial. Glad you made it out of the cult!

  Do tell us something about yourself and how you and your wife escaped.
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  34

  What would make an Ex-Jw go back to been a full in Baptized JW

  by LOLS in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i was just wondering , why would my jw husband return to been a full blown baptized jw after 20 years of fading?.

  he has spent 20 years of his life been a worldly person , with a worldly wife & kids & worldly friends .... to joining the borg full time , to getting baptized , to getting new brothers & sisters .... and to writing off most of his worldly friends (some his known his whole life ) , to trying to convince me & our children how wonderful this org is ......and anyone else who will listen :(.

  has anyone ever experienced this ...... oh and he seems to be in it 110% and no-one can say anything about this crazy org or show him proof that it all bs...... his such a clever independent , successful guy , why on earth would he go back to this , after been out for so many years & change into this domineering , opinionated fool ..... oh and his entire family also went back ... father , mother , brother & sister .

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  Half banana

  So sorry for you LOLS it must be dreadfully disappointing to say the least.

  Some people, even those who as we say, appear to have it all in life, have a weak spot. For some it is not being able to cope with the finality of death, for them it is like having a gaping hole in their psyche. There exists a credible and very traditional remedy for this, it is the delusion and comfort which total belief in religion seems to plug.

  Might this be the case for your your husband?

  As ex-JWs we have a better opportunity to see the whole picture having once been tricked by the lure of paradise offered by a dishonest and frankly useless organisation which has nothing better to offer other than the opportunity for unquestioning obedience to them--" whether it makes sense or not".

  This offer is only attractive to people who deliberately suppress their thinking abilities or who are so troubled internally that they are prepared to give up everything including logical thought for the sake of a pie in the sky hope of reward and who crave the approval from those in their chosen community.
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  6

  The gullibility has no bounds with these people

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  talking to a couple old friends and like many are not too pleased with the k.h.

  selloffs and being squeezed into another hall.

  " oh well the organization needs the funds to build all the k.h's in africa where all the growth is".

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  Half banana

  They're lured by the stupid promise of perpetual panda petting. Once you have been infected by the paradise bug, it's hard to ever think straight again.
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  8

  One day convention and..

  by zeb in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my wife went off to.. and returned without being cranky this is unusual..and gave me a strange look or two.. most unusual.. i can only hope she has heard something that has caused her to realize that i may be onto something..one can only hope..

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  Half banana

  Here's hoping for you Zeb. It may take time but it may be the first stirrings of the waking up process.
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  20

  How did the bible fables get started?

  by Tameria2001 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  today while out running errands, i was flipping through the radio trying to find something to listen to.

  i ended up on some christian type of station, and the guy was talking about the ark, and the flood during noah's time.

  personally i no longer believe this fable, because the facts just don't line up.

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  Half banana

  Tameria, you have asked one enormous question! But the answer has to do with "How do any fables get started?"

  At different periods in human history we have asked "Why this, why that?" We always crave answers. In the absence of a scientific evaluation, people in the past had to believe the accepted wisdom which was based on traditions handed down from earlier generations. Where though did any authority arise to answer questions?

  In the earliest days of human societies we lived as hunter gatherers. We needed an explanation for life and death, day and night, why the sun shines so brightly after winter, and how to remember the names of the stars we saw in the night sky, for each bright star had a meaning and was associated with events on Earth. If the stars influence could be connected to an event or experience it would be a satisfying explanation. Looking up to the succession of constellations charging across the heavens, they were telling our forebears not only the activities of the gods but also confirming the time of year by the starry calendar. Everything then was imbued with a spiritual cast, to the early farmers and hunter gatherers there was no doubt that invisible agencies directed both the boons and the catastrophes.Humankind knew only too well the physical realities of birth, death, suffering and calamity and the unpredictable nature of existence. These were credited to the whimsical gods and later to YHVH, Micah 1;12 Micah 2:3. From this situation it is not hard to see how ritual and taboo began to appease the gods and avoid offending them.

  As farming and pottery and settled life replaced the nomadic hunter life style, the old gods or spirit 'animal-masters' were dropped in favour of gods and goddesses who were also seen in the stars, but prominent were those which conferred fertility on the livestock and crops. The earliest writings ever are from people who were from this period (Late Neolithic /Early Bronze age). The earliest texts in the Bible reflect these new agricultural myths which were needed to reconcile the tyranny of fate as they saw it.

  To counter the fragility of human experience the physical heavens were looked to to give comfort and certainty, for unlike Earthly things, the heavens were beautiful, enduring and predictable.
  

  The most obvious things were the turning of day into night followed by sunrise in the morning, the setting and rising of the moon, the seasons and the accounts which were told from the pattern of stars of heaven. These gave rise to sagas which were originally told by travelling story tellers before the invention of writing. We can imagine one looking up at his prompt; the constellations of the night sky, to tell engrossing tales to a captivated audience. Later many were then written down and became the basis of many fables and sacred literature including the Bible.
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  20

  How did the bible fables get started?

  by Tameria2001 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  today while out running errands, i was flipping through the radio trying to find something to listen to.

  i ended up on some christian type of station, and the guy was talking about the ark, and the flood during noah's time.

  personally i no longer believe this fable, because the facts just don't line up.

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  Half banana

  Why did the Lone Ranger shoot Tonto? He found out what Kemosabi meant...
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  29

  Canada, Quebec: a lawsuit will soon begin against the Watchtower

  by yalbmert99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  yesterday, there was a court sitiing before the pedophilia lawsuit really starts in quebec(canada) on december 17-18, when it will be presented to the court for acceptance.

  see article in french:.

  https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/actualites-judiciaires/201811/28/01-5205878-les-temoins-de-jehovah-defendent-leur-traitement-des-cas-dagressions-sexuelles.php.

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  Half banana

  The New Great Tribulation Doctrine is that only Jehovah's Witnesses will have to experience it.

  It includes ugly court cases leading to bad publicity, financial loss and rapid membership decline-- the rest of the world will sail on just as before!
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  22

  What do the Angels do?

  by LovingLifeNow in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so what exactly have they been doing now , with the exception of intervening thousands of years ago, what exactly do they do in heaven?

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  Half banana

  Last Sunday I was visiting the town of Devizes in Wiltshire to see the museum. The local church there probably dates back to 1130 AD and it contains an interesting relic embedded in the foundation of its altar. The more fancy the relic the greater the attendance and the greater the attendance the better the cash flow. St Johns claims to have an actual feather from the wing of the Angel Gabriel.

  So there we have it, angels flap around all day on on their feathery wings-- and occasionally moult.
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  4

  Interview with an Apostate: Syme

  by Syme in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i was born in a south european country 35 years ago; stopped being a jw a few years ago, and now pursuit an academic career.

  my parents are still in.

  i was never married, but am now in a loving relationship.

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  Half banana

  Great stuff Syme! and well done for sticking to education, it really is the ticket to get out of the Watchtower swamp.

  Thanks for taking the time to tell us your story.
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  34

  Yesterday's WT slip up

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when the israelites left egypt in 1513 b.c.e., they may have numbered more than three million.

  spanning three or even four generations.

  🤭.

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  Half banana

  The absolute folly is to take literally what the Bible says as being true.

  To recapitulate the argument:

  "Moses" complete with an Egyptian name was a fiction -- based on Akhenaten the reforming monotheist Egyptian ruler (actually henotheist) -- but re-written for a Semitic audience.

  So Moses never existed as the Bible portrays him, he is an elaborated cut and paste job from a real person.

  According to modern Israeli archaeologists, the Israelites were never in Egypt en masse.
  

  And because there are no Egyptian records to substantiate the captivity of Israel en masse in Egypt so there could never be an exodus.

  There is no evidence from other texts or archaeology to defend or prove an exodus from Egypt.

  Three million Israelites at 1513 BCE is laughable, when they never existed at all then (as I mentioned before on this thread, the first mention of Israel is 1200 BCE)

  -----------

  The real gods of the world are writers -- I think that's the subtext of Jostien Gaarder's book Sophie's World.

  The writer has the power to expose the reader to ideas which might eloquently express the human condition and which some may want to take further and believe they are fundamental truths. The fools are those who take the written word literally or imagine it is sacred and then try endlessly to argue the details attempting to build a coherent picture from a fiction which does not exist in reality.