in another thread, someone wrote, about another religion,.
actually i don t care about this religion.
i just don t want it my country.
We should be intolerant of anyone or anything that spouts hate and division! Religion is bloody brilliant at doing just that, the fundamentalist moslems and christians who spout hatred should NOT be tolerated.
Dead right, cantleave, you've got it. Just add after christians the words"or anyone else" and we've got a pretty good principle.
i do, so i was just curious.. i know the org tends to attract/cause/contribute to people having low self-esteem, so i figure a lot of people must have it as bad or worse than me..
My self esteem was fine until the JW's started an all-out attack on it.
why is it jws believe the old testament and yet ignore the other religious commentary and sprititual aspects available from the jewish culture.
take jesus for example, no where is he mentioned by name in the ot or in the writings of jews who lived in the first century, and still believe.. kaballah is another weird, astrotheological part of jewsish religion, magic numbers, inner soul, magic powers, astrology and so on.
how do they explain the same jewish leaders who run the jrwish religion also came up with this stuff ?.
Very interesting question, bookmarking
the insidious bind the watchtower religion places on their members is unconscionable.. holding family and friends "hostage" as an extortion strategy may be their most potent weapon of enforced conformity.. .
in effect, like an armed criminal who points a gun at you and threatens "your money or your life", the watchtower leadership.
holds the power to separate dissenting members from those whom they most cherish.
This made me think of Paul Simon's 50 ways to leave your lover. Just substitute WT for lover
"The problem is all inside your head she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically,
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be 50 ways to leave your ...WT?....
......Just slip out the back, Jack,
Make a new plan, Stan,
You don't need to be coy, Roy,
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus Gus,
You don't need to dicuss much,
Drop off the key, Lee,
And get yourself free.
As with everything, it seems really difficult, so just do it!
(I tried to embed a Youtube video here but failed)
in another thread, someone wrote, about another religion,.
actually i don t care about this religion.
i just don t want it my country.
Hi Retrovirus!
I think you're being too kind to the wt by omission.
Mea culpa. Believe me, I don't want to be kind to them at all. Not in any way whatsoever. I came so very close to being taken in by them. They came very near to succeeding, in full Borg fashion, in absorbing my individuality to their own....but then they worked out that I was far too individual and much too well educated and decided to come round here and tell me just how awful I was. All out of love, of course. Lovingly.
Ugh!
a relative of mine was at the assembly yesterday and was appalled at the message givien before lunch:.
she heard them blast higher education...then warn to not miss meetings for work...then they gave the stupidest illustration i ever heard- they said that it is true that supporting your family is important...but not to give it too much importance and said it is like trying to cross a busy street.
they said if you see a car a long distance off it is ok to cross, if you are too careful you will never cross the street.
One of the things that has made me sad is the sight of a 17-year-old, bright, just at the start of his life, being continually dissuaded from any kind of higher education so that he can pioneer and eventually go to Bethel "where they get a far better education than anything the world has to offer" said my pioneer study conductor.
Tragic. His father's an elder and he's a pet of all the pioneer sisters.
...just unbelievable.
even the lefties are having trouble to find nice words for them...hahaha!.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nhzwdjhw-ae#!.
Varian and others, I'm among those who have had trouble getting back into this thread to reply.
Varian, I meant no offence. I was just very shocked at the tone of the video. Because I couldn't get in here to post I've put my thoughts in a new thread here. (I don't know how to make links on here clickable. )
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/222345/1/Tolerance
in another thread, someone wrote, about another religion,.
actually i don t care about this religion.
i just don t want it my country.
Hi Leavingwt,
Well, I've just watched the video. He's very vehement. To be honest, I hadn't heard of Pat Condell before, so I Googled him to try to find out where he's coming from. The content of his talk didn't make clear why he felt that Christianity and Islam treated him with...did he say contempt? I don't think I'm much clearer, but Wikipedia says he's an articulate, militant atheist, so maybe he's talking about things from an atheist point of view.
I'm still not sure that either religion treats atheists exactly with contempt, so I feel a bit at a loss.
What do I think? I think, on the whole, that my first posting on this says it all. I dislike prejdice. I dislike discourtesy. I think that people should be free to worship or not as they think fit.
Reflecting, this evening, I've decided that Jehovah's Witnesses live in a prison. The gaolers do their best to make the imates not only happy to be there but to try very hard to get others to give up their freedoms willingly.
Crazy.
..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
.
..because he's a sick bastard?
The WT's God definitely is. See my posts elsewhere. Not my God, though.
I'm a theist, and I have an answer. It is, well, er....I don't think I know.
Anyone?
in another thread, someone wrote, about another religion,.
actually i don t care about this religion.
i just don t want it my country.
Fernando, thank you very much indeed for posting those links. They've opened for me a fascinating door into a world of knowledge almost completely new to me.
I'd always felt that poor Ishmael was badly treated, and Hagar too.
If we continue to recognise the illegitimate walls of sectarian division (religion) that compartmentalise humans into hostile and incompatible factions we are simply playing by Watchtower rules derived from the "god of religion" (Satan the Devil).
This is interesting too. I completely agree with the sentiment, and I'm very interested that you call Satan the "god of religion". Where does that concept come from, please?
It became clear to me on Thursday evening, after I'd failed to suppress the growing inner feeling that what the Watchtower teaches is definitely not of God, that this same WT is in fact doing the work of the very Devil it professes to oppose. It divides. It's arrogant. While admitting that all people are imperfect, they use that fact as an excuse to cover up any observed failings, and at the same time go on about "Jehovah's righteous standards" to which everyone must strive. (I'm sick of hearing that phrase, by the way.)
How very different from Jesus' insistence that it was not the Pharisee who prayed ostentatiously that God loved but the poor sinner at the back who was shamed of what he'd done and said "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner".
Thanks very much for your input. And thanks, Tammy, too. You're right. Fearmongering is rampant today, and it's absolutely not because the world belongs to Satan and Jehovah is going to come and wreak retribution any moment now. Truly, who would want to believe in or follow a deity who acted in that way? The WT's Jehovah is scarecely portrayed as a God lof Love!
