Obviously, there is great variation within the X-JWs. But one problem is that simply being an X doesn't do much to change the (un)thinking habits that got people involved in that religion in the first place. You still see a significant level of JW ways of thinking: too often the same set of poorly-identified assumptions and childish reasoning is simply re-directed against the JWs. Remember: most XJWs thought JW-ism was really a good idea at one time. Takes real effort to get past that. Not everybody has made good progress.
Posts by Sulla
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13What's Bad About Us (ExJws)???
by minimus inis there anything bad about us?----- we know how to disect jw's quite well.
(i'm a surgeon).. i'm just thinking out loud.------are we that much better or do we still think like them at times?.
sometimes, i still think i'm in the kingdom hall and i'm at my computer..
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Sulla
I believe only God knows if this is murder or not.
I say the same thing about the prostitutes I kill, sometimes. Maybe it's "murder," maybe it's not. I certainly don't want it outlawed; every time I kill one, it is certainly is a tragedy of sorts, the elimination of potential life, but if you inderstood my compulsion, you wouldn't judge.
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Latest Study Article: Was Jephthah surprised at his daughter coming out?
by garbonzo inparagraph 15: "he vowed that if god gave ammon into jephthah's hand, the first one to come out of the door when he returned home would be jehovah's.
as jephthah returned home from subduing ammon, his daughter came running to meet him.
(judg.
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Sulla
QB, the Jews were quite upset at the idea of human sacrifice; it is, after all, one of the key complaints in the OT against the people who lived in Caanan. That said, the text pretty plainly says that is what happened. And we know that human sacrifice in the region was common to some degree. 2Kings has an interesting event where, even 300 years after the Jeptha incident, the Jews were pushing some king really hard in batle and, in desperation, the king slaughtered his son on the wall of the city. This freaked the Jews out, who thought that such an act just might work.
Anyway, the story is that Jeptha sacrificed his daughter. Can't really read it any other way.
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Which Beliefs and Doctrines Helped Push You Out?
by ilikecheese inokay, so this is my first post, but i've been lurking here for months and months.
i have to say this is a very informative and hilarious site.
you guys are great to read!
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Sulla
When my daghter was born, I immediately knew I would never deny blood to her if she needed it. Then, I stumbled across an ancient history class in college that casually listed the wrong date for Jerusalem's fall. I spent the next dozen hours searching for anyone who would even consider 607 as the right date.
That's is: 1) I can't be a JW, 2) JW-ism is a lie.
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More anti-apostate rhetoric from the Watchtower - are they running scared?
by cedars inyes, the may 15th watchtower is now available for download from jw.org.. the final study article, on page 26, directs another salvo at apostates - and warns witnesses not to try arguing with them on the internet:.
indeed, we ought to move as far away from wrongdoing as possible and not see how close we can get to it without being overcome by sin.
for instance, we need to guard against succumbing to apostasy, a sin that would make us unfit to glorify god.
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Sulla
JWs are open to an examination of their religion from the perspective of Christendom, deism and secularism (atheism). JWs are also open to the examination of eastern religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) although they are bizarre in contrast with the physical laws of nature.
Whaa? The article specifically said not to investigate the claims of anybdy who used to be a JW. How's that being open to examination?
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Question about the memorial :)
by TimothyT ini have no doubt that in a few weeks when the campaign to spread memorials invites is underway that my good friend, the jw, will give me an invitation.
she has already told me that she would support me when walking in, telling me that i could sit next to her and she wouldnt give a damn what others would think that she was encouraging a disfellowshipped person.
she is very sweet, and i appreciate her thoughts.. however, i would rather not go because i believe the whole thing is done wrong anyway.
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Sulla
GromitSK, no. The practice has been, until recently, that the priest or deacon would consume the "wine," rather than distribute it. I think the Orthodox do this, as well. But this is because Jesus is equally present in either bread or wine. So, not really similar.
As for the JW practice: it seems quite unlikely that anybody ever intended the second class Christians were supposed to observe the first class Christians take communion. The entire concept is pretty much the opposite of the Christian message and it is not particularly easy to create a practice that so perfectly captures the negation of Christianity and then pass it off as orthodox.
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Leviticus 17:10-12 "the soul of the flesh is in the blood"
by jonathan8 inthis verse struck me with some questions and i was wondering if i could get help to try to understand it a little better.
now to get started this text is where is jehovah speaking to moses regarding some of the laws and regulations to be put before the israelites.
in verse 10 and 12 jehovah refers to indiviual humans and souls but in verse 11 he says that the soul of the flesh is in the blood.
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Sulla
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Sheol-Death-Afterlife-Testament/dp/0830826874
Shades of Sheol is an extraordinarily good guide to the development of the thinking of death and the afterlife in the OT. To drastically over-simplify: the ancient Jews (and Greeks, for that matter) considered the fact that animals all breathe and used the word for "wind" to capture the idea of a living being through their breath.
You might also find it instructive to read Book 11 of the Odyssey: Odysseus needs to have conversations with the shades of the dead and, in order to summon them, he pours blood in a trench. The spirits are attracted to the blood and drink it us -- as they do, they have conversations with Odysseus. The point being that very old cultures see life and blood as related, even to the point of thinking that the spirits of the dead are drawn to the blood of the living because it contains that which they lack.
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The bible Cannon great article I found
by nugget inhttp://www.thebroadroad.com/m/articles/view/bible-canon-and-the-new-world-translation.
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not sure how to make this clickable but it is well worth a read and is nice and short..
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Sulla
The rationale, such as it is, is similar to that offered my other fundamentalist Protestant groups. To over-simplify: The councils that established the works of the NT did not actually DO anything at all. They merely accepted what the church (defined as the loose group of people calling themselves Christians) always understood to be the inspired word of God. Basically, everybody already knew the four gospels were inspired and the Cathoics simply accepted what everybody already knew about which works were inspired or not.
Of course, this is simply wrong. There almost certainly was a core set of writings that most churches read as part of the liturgy. However, there was some regional variation: lots of places read from the Shepard of Hermas on a regular basis, for example. There were considerable disagreements about the book of Revelation that have not been completely satisfied even today. In some places, gnostic or otherwise exotic texts were used: Protoevangelium of James or Acts of Peter or various gnostic works.
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Latest Study Article: Was Jephthah surprised at his daughter coming out?
by garbonzo inparagraph 15: "he vowed that if god gave ammon into jephthah's hand, the first one to come out of the door when he returned home would be jehovah's.
as jephthah returned home from subduing ammon, his daughter came running to meet him.
(judg.
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Sulla
It is clasic JW reasoning. It is important to them that this story NOT be about human sacrifice, even though this story is about human sacrifice.
So, the typical reading is that Jeptha made the vow, thinking that, in a household as large as his, the probability that he would have to pay up with one of his own was pretty small. Bad luck ensues, thus the, "Oh shit!"
The JW thinking is that everybody knows that he would have expected -- or held out the strong possibility -- that it would not be a servant who came out first. Therefore, he wouldn't have made a vow so dangerous to his personal family.
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The bible Cannon great article I found
by nugget inhttp://www.thebroadroad.com/m/articles/view/bible-canon-and-the-new-world-translation.
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not sure how to make this clickable but it is well worth a read and is nice and short..
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Sulla
I don't know your opinion, can'tleave. Why do you say so?