Posts by Sulla

26

The Fear of Regret & Apostasy

by Emery in

first off a big thanks to everyone here, you have received me with much love and support.

i appreciate all that have contributed their time and hardwork over the years here at jwn.. this post here is directed to those who are on the fence like i was.

i hope this helps you in some way to understand both the doubts and indoctrination.. i am also currently an active jehovahs witness and have been for almost 20 years (26 years old).

I wouldn't go as far as saying that everything taught by the organization is a "pernicious lie". I will say that they do advance pernicious interpretations of scripture, however I still agree with some of their stances like; the trinity, holidays, hellfire, political neutrality, and state of the dead. My problem with the Watchtower is in their history, double standards, and claims to authority (FDS). The only thing I regret is not allowing myself to think objectively when I was alot younger.

So, they are totally making up their ecclesiology, but everything else is right on.

I guess my complaint is that you are confusing unstated biases with being objective. You haven't suddenly become objective and done any kind of real study at all, you have merely changed you set of biases in a way counter to a very small subset of JW claims. I can still smell the JW on you.

28

Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones

by King Solomon in

of all the lies espoused by the wtbts, perhaps the most seductive, most cruel and downright evil, is to tell grieving people that their loved ones will be resurrected, and will rejoin them in a paradise earth, forever and ever.

of course, the easiest lie to be accepted is one that people want to believe.. but taking someone when they are at their weakest, their most vulnerable, and offering such a false hope is far more cruel than anything contained even in account of the first sin, with the serpent tempting eve with the forbidden fruit.

that was simply the serpent mucking up the divine plan by appealing to her ego: no harm, no foul.

Sulla

Jookbeard, to be fair, a very JW-like resurrection does seem to be the general idea during the Second Temple period.

28

Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones

by King Solomon in

of all the lies espoused by the wtbts, perhaps the most seductive, most cruel and downright evil, is to tell grieving people that their loved ones will be resurrected, and will rejoin them in a paradise earth, forever and ever.

of course, the easiest lie to be accepted is one that people want to believe.. but taking someone when they are at their weakest, their most vulnerable, and offering such a false hope is far more cruel than anything contained even in account of the first sin, with the serpent tempting eve with the forbidden fruit.

that was simply the serpent mucking up the divine plan by appealing to her ego: no harm, no foul.

Sulla

ANY claim of a resurrection hope is JACKED up, since the idea of a soul is another figment of the imagination, with no basis on which to base such a belief. It's right up there alongside leprechauns, Space Ghosts, terrestrial ghosts, demons, angels, spirits (Holy or otherwise).

Well, that settles it, then. Plato was clearly an idiot. Good to see you know better.

28

Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones

by King Solomon in

of all the lies espoused by the wtbts, perhaps the most seductive, most cruel and downright evil, is to tell grieving people that their loved ones will be resurrected, and will rejoin them in a paradise earth, forever and ever.

of course, the easiest lie to be accepted is one that people want to believe.. but taking someone when they are at their weakest, their most vulnerable, and offering such a false hope is far more cruel than anything contained even in account of the first sin, with the serpent tempting eve with the forbidden fruit.

that was simply the serpent mucking up the divine plan by appealing to her ego: no harm, no foul.

Sulla

King, let's table the somewhat nuanced discussion of precisely how jacked up the JW teaching of a paradise Earth really is. That said, the central Christian teaching has always, always, been the physical resurrection of Christ and, by extension, the physical resurrection of everybody. Lots of XJWs miss this for understandable reasons, but them's the facts. That is the whole point, after all, of the story of Thomas not believing Jesus was resurrected until he actually felt the physical wounds in his physical body.

moshe, the JWs are, indeed, very confused about what a resurrection would actually mean. That said, I don't think the identity of specific atoms is a big problem.

28

Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones

by King Solomon in

of all the lies espoused by the wtbts, perhaps the most seductive, most cruel and downright evil, is to tell grieving people that their loved ones will be resurrected, and will rejoin them in a paradise earth, forever and ever.

of course, the easiest lie to be accepted is one that people want to believe.. but taking someone when they are at their weakest, their most vulnerable, and offering such a false hope is far more cruel than anything contained even in account of the first sin, with the serpent tempting eve with the forbidden fruit.

that was simply the serpent mucking up the divine plan by appealing to her ego: no harm, no foul.

Sulla

The resurrection of the body is the foundational Christian message. JWs make a hash of it for a number of reasons, of course, but this is the thing they get the least wrong. Anger seems misplaced somehow...

26

The Fear of Regret & Apostasy

by Emery in

first off a big thanks to everyone here, you have received me with much love and support.

i appreciate all that have contributed their time and hardwork over the years here at jwn.. this post here is directed to those who are on the fence like i was.

i hope this helps you in some way to understand both the doubts and indoctrination.. i am also currently an active jehovahs witness and have been for almost 20 years (26 years old).

Sulla

very true, what. very true.

26

The Fear of Regret & Apostasy

by Emery in

first off a big thanks to everyone here, you have received me with much love and support.

i appreciate all that have contributed their time and hardwork over the years here at jwn.. this post here is directed to those who are on the fence like i was.

i hope this helps you in some way to understand both the doubts and indoctrination.. i am also currently an active jehovahs witness and have been for almost 20 years (26 years old).

Sulla

First let me say that I think you are very out of line with this synopsis of yours regarding my faith and belief system.

Don't see where I offered a synopsis about your belief system, but ok.

I don’t think I screwed up badly at all when I reflect on my involvement with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t regret my time in the organization as it has taught me many great things.

Really? So the JW are not a pernicious lie, then. Or do you mean that believing a pernicious lie is not something to regret?

Yet, I didn’t lose my faith throughout my studies, in fact, I VALIDATED my foundation of faith.

My reasons for believing what I do now fall outside the traditions of Christianity. I believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and try to walk according to his ways because I find it refreshing. I do not lose anything in believing this way. I see myself as a non-fundamentalist Christian with agnostic leanings.

I'm afraid you are going to have to help me out here, Emery. Did you just say that the foundation of your faith is that you find the teachings of Christ to be refreshing? Do you suppose that if I find the teaching of Epictetus to be refreshing, it should serve as the basis of some sort of faith? As for moving through a period where you lean agnostic, discovering XJWs who lean agnostic are not exactly like finding hen's teeth.

I find JWs to be very full of themselves, a trait that is not usually bleached out by becoming and XJW.

26

The Fear of Regret & Apostasy

by Emery in

first off a big thanks to everyone here, you have received me with much love and support.

i appreciate all that have contributed their time and hardwork over the years here at jwn.. this post here is directed to those who are on the fence like i was.

i hope this helps you in some way to understand both the doubts and indoctrination.. i am also currently an active jehovahs witness and have been for almost 20 years (26 years old).

Sulla

Hmmm.

Your individual investigation has been objective and unbiased? I wonder why you'd think that.

But I really am curious as to how the Ray Franz book can validate or invalidate the basis of JW faith. Seems to me, what Franz shows is the level to which the JW leadership is messed up. That should actually cause more problems for a JW who takes the book seriously.

First, it suggests that the basis of your faith was a group of men and not God. If you are the kind of person who until very recently had no problem with that, what makes you suppose you have the ability to objectively investigate your beliefs now? Shouldn't you have less confidence in your own analytical ability, given that you think you screwed up so badly?

Second, why does it seem that xJWs do this weird thing where, having accepted the bullshit ecclesiology of the JWs, they reject that and adopt the bullshit ecclesiology of Evangelicals? Is it merely residual anti-Catholicism? Very odd.

49

DO YOU WANT A FUNERAL?

by clarity in

jw
friends

i do not want a funeral.

i especially do not want anyone standing before my family.

telling them who i supposedly ... am!.

Sulla

I admit I don't get all this anti-funeral sentiment. I have already directed the vestments and casket style to be used (Trappists have a specialty in this). I'm leaning toward a simple, shaped casket made from pine -- though I am sensitive to the critique that over-simplicity is its own form of posturing: oh, look how humble I am. Anyway, that's up for discussion and I go back and forth.

I have no question that the vestments must NOT be white. Black is the appropriate color for funerals and the recent trend toward white is really unfortunate. NO CELEBRATION OF LIFE! You share the funny stories during the wake, but the funeral is all Dies Irae and weeping. You point out that the deceased was aiming for Purgatory and everyone hopes that he made it.

I have also instructed that my family follow my horse-drawn casket to the burial site, wearing black and barefoot. I admit this last instruction is somewhat controversial in the Sulla household and is most likely to be disregarded.

63

Why reincarnation doesn,t make sense.

by jam in

this accomplish?

the situation which surround the soul.

change with each life, therefore how does this allow.

Sulla

Huh.... Can you give just ONE example of a thing we're born 'knowing'?

Socrates' argument that the soul pre-exists the body was given by a conversation where he seemed to show that a slave boy remembered geometry, a topic about which he could not have been educated. The idea being that the soul already knew this information but had obviously forgotten it when it filled the body. Learning, in this view, is simply getting the soul to remember what it already knows.