Posts by losthobbit

22

I AM THINKING OF BECOMING A CULT LEADER- ANY SUGGESTION?

by Mr Facts in

i am quite impressed at the power the gb wields globally and it prompted in me the strong desire to start my own religious cult.

i wouldnt any hurt anyone though, my goal is just to experience the privilege that power and authority gives and in the process grow financial empire.. i am presently putting down some strategies down in paper and i have been watching many videos on youtube and accessing cult-related materials, learning from cult leaders arround the world and observing their modus operandi.

please if you do have any suggestion, freely offer it, i will appreciate it so much.. .

losthobbit

Start by predicting the date of next apocalyptic event... when it doesn't occur, make an excuse. Repeat thirteen times. After a hundred years you will have seven million followers.

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

NewChapter, I agree.

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

MrBunyRabit, James Brown and MindsEye,

Thank you for your comments. I want to share some advice and a comment with you:

You don't have to have a label... You don't need to be a Christian, or an Agnostic or an Athiest. A label restricts you, and forces you to be something. Personally, I call myself a truth seeker. That is a label that I think I will always want to be identified as... not as someone who knows that he is right and doesn't listen to anyone else, but someone who always wants to learn, find a better way and do what is right.

"A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers."

- Lao-tzu

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

BlindNoMore, you asked "Can you share more about Church of Christ?"

The thing about the COC is that there are three different ones that I know of... There's the International Church of Christ, the Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and the Church of Christ that I belonged to.

The International COC, is also known as the Boston movement and is considered to be a cult. I don't know much about them, but I think they have some kind of structure where people have to report to someone else. I once met two of them in a lonely part of a shopping mall... dodgy looking people that wanted to preach to me.

The COC of the Latter Day Saints are the Mormons. They're the ones that pop around to your house, just like the JW's, but are all called Elders, no matter how young they are.

Then there's the COC. They're the least cultish of the lot, but still believe they're the one and only true church of Christ, hence the name, which they consider to be more of a description than a name. They believe that the bible is 100% accurate. They differ from traditional Christianity in that they disagree with infant baptism, and insist that people only be baptised out of their own free will... something which makes a lot of sense. They believe that baptism is a requirement for salvation, which they get from Acts 2:38 and Mark 16:16. They also believe that musical instruments should not be used in worship (Well, there are some churches of Christ that allow musical instruments, but I think most don't). They don't have any kind of headquarters, because, as far as they believe that Jesus is their head. They avoid traditional things... so for example, Christmas and Easter are not part of the religion, but they don't frown upon anyone that celebrates them; in fact most members do celebrate them.

Writing about them now, I kind of realize that compared to other Christian churches, the church of Christ is pretty good at sticking to what the bible teaches. Of course Mark 16:16 was probably never in the original manuscripts, and if you believe it then you also believe that Christians will survive if they drink poison and can handle snakes (also in Mark 16)... not that they would ever admit to believing that. ... And then there's Acts 2:38, which does say that one should be baptised in order to be saved, but this disagrees with other verses in the bible that say you just have to believe in order to be saved... so the right answer that no Christian admits to is simply that the bible contradicts itself.

Anyway, this is not really what this thread's about, but I thought I'd just answer the question.

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

garyneal, to answer your question about what the preacher said I must first explain what I believed...

My past irrationality is quite embarrassing now, but here goes... I could not believe in hell, simply because it contradicts God being loving and almighty. Due to cognitive dissonance I made up the excuse that perhaps God was just trying to get people to be good, by giving us something to fear, when in reality, he would probably forgive everyone on judgement day.

The preacher then asked me, "If you don't believe in hell, what is Jesus saving you from?"

My answer was "Nothing"

He explained that since I don't believe that Jesus is my saviour, I am not a Christian.

40

How can I convince my mother the JW's are wrong?

by schnare in

this is probably going to be a long post, since i am going to be added some parts of our conversations on facebook.

my mother has been involved sort of with the jw's, since she was younger.

so she's always kind of believed in their stuff.

losthobbit

One more thought... you might be able to use peer pressure to your advantage, by including other people in your conversations, like if you have a brother or sister or father who cares.

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

Thanks for the comment, Phizzy. By the way, fairies do exist... unfortunately not everyone can see them... only those who partake in absinthe. Might want to cosider hiding that from your wife :)

25

Do you now have a customized religion?

by losthobbit in

i was never a jw.

i was a member of the church of christ.

i didn't jump from christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and i'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.. when i first realized that there were logic problems in the bible i started to find excuses for those problems.

losthobbit

I was never a JW. I was a member of the church of Christ. I didn't jump from Christian to non-believer, but rather went through a transition period, and I'd guess that all of you did the same,... changing beliefs bit by bit until you believe what you do now.

When I first realized that there were logic problems in the bible I started to find excuses for those problems. After a while I had to admit to myself that there were certain things in the bible that couldn't possibly be true, and so I had my own customized religion. I believed some of the things that my church taught, but there were areas in which I couldn't possibly agree. This continued for about ten years until I spoke to a preacher about it, and he explained that if I didn't believe a certain thing then I wasn't actually a Christian. He was right, and it took a while until I eventually realized it.

I've noticed that some of you on this forum have customized your own religions. Having transitioned from JW to another religion / denomination / belief, you might still hold onto some JW beliefs, or you might simply disagree with the other members of your church. You might consider yourself not orthodox, but independent.

If you are such a person, I'm interested to hear, what is it you now believe?

40

How can I convince my mother the JW's are wrong?

by schnare in

this is probably going to be a long post, since i am going to be added some parts of our conversations on facebook.

my mother has been involved sort of with the jw's, since she was younger.

so she's always kind of believed in their stuff.

losthobbit

If she tries to argue that JW's are not a cult you could try using this as a checklist:

http://freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php

40

How can I convince my mother the JW's are wrong?

by schnare in

this is probably going to be a long post, since i am going to be added some parts of our conversations on facebook.

my mother has been involved sort of with the jw's, since she was younger.

so she's always kind of believed in their stuff.

losthobbit

Just going to summarize what I consider to be the best points discussed so far:

Talk together about another group that the person would agree is a problematic group. Then ask “How is your group not like this?” or “Help me to explain to others how your group is not like this group?” Leave a long silence.

JW's hate contradictions.

You can't make conclusions for her. She has to arrive at them herself. Show her something, then ask her to do the explaining. You shut up and make her talk.
Only talk about ONE subject at a time.

I also have a mother in a cult. Unfortunately nothing I've ever tried has ever worked. I do have an idea for you, which might help. I have no idea if it will, but it makes sense in my mind. I've learned from this forum that a couple of people here have left the JW's after reading up on the history of the JW cult.

Perhaps you could try something like this: "Okay mom, you win... you obviously know a lot more about the cult than I do, and I want to learn more about it. I want to learn about its history. How about we learn about its history together?"

What you do then is to research it's history and find a bunch of useful sites. Then, together you sit in front of a computer and look up stuff. Get her to summarize as you find information and write it down. Keep repeating things like "Thank you for teaching my about the history of the cult"... to try and make her feel good about it, and as if it was her idea.

Don't disagree with her, but instead keep asking her questions, like "Don't you think that's strange?"

By the way, I have no idea if using the word "cult" will help at all, but perhaps if she says "It's not a cult", get her to explain EXACTLY why it is not a cult... and keeps saying "I don't understand... please explain."

Good luck :)