WTWizard really, really hates something he knows absolutely nothing about.
Posts by Sulla
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306
I Believe Catholicism And Its Trappings Are Silly, Strange & Weird!!!
by minimus inmy italian friend loves going to the "feasts" that occur in italy, boston or nyc.
these feasts feature a "saint" with dollar bills pinned around her and they parade the saint in a long procession and chant "viva (whomever)".
they are quite serious about this and are proud to talk about the past generations of observers who appreciated the events.
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306
I Believe Catholicism And Its Trappings Are Silly, Strange & Weird!!!
by minimus inmy italian friend loves going to the "feasts" that occur in italy, boston or nyc.
these feasts feature a "saint" with dollar bills pinned around her and they parade the saint in a long procession and chant "viva (whomever)".
they are quite serious about this and are proud to talk about the past generations of observers who appreciated the events.
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Sulla
Stop the press, lots of guys steeped in anti-Catholicism as JWs remain anti-Catholic! Who'da guessed?
As for the rituals, I don't suppose I'd expect most xJWs to grasp them; even for me it takes getting used to, but we have all been subjected to the anti-religion / anti-philosophy that is the JW mindset. And Catholicism is a whole different mode of experiencing the world than most JWs are ever used to. I might experience the same thing if I were put back in time and witnessed a Roman or Jewish sacrifice. But, were I to see one and complain that I didn't experience a "religious feeling," I would know that's because my understanding of the people was deficient.
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43
Latest "Questions From Readers" - who wrote in with this question?!
by cedars ini kid you not.
the latest watchtower study edition has the following question under consideration in the "questions from readers" article on page 20:.
do jesus words found at matthew 19:10-12 suggest that those who choose to remain single have received the gift of singleness in a mysterious way?.
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Sulla
Sounds like a Catholic-inspired question, cedars. Catholics talk like this all the time: the mystery of divine love, the mystery of the cross, mystery of suffering. When we use it, we generally are talking about the idea of the mystery / sacredness of the thing being discussed, the connection being in the roots of the words, as I recall. So, Catholics might talk about religious celibacy as being a gift in a mysterious way the same way love within a marriage operates in a mysterious way.
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NAME THE LEAD ARTICLE IN THE LAST AWAKE! EVER TO BE PRINTED
by steve2 insugested lead article title:.
f*@k we were wrong!
now is the hour to go to sleep.
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64
What do you replace it with?
by konceptual99 inso... i am coming to the conclusion that pretty much all of the doctrinal stuff that i have believed for 25/30 years is built on a house of cards and it's about to come crashing down.
question is what do i replace it with?.
my intellectual head says that that whole thing is junk and there is almost certainly no god at all.
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Sulla
I would suggest, konceptual99, that you want to avoid a common mistake. That is, you need to make sure that you burn the house all the way down: don't reject the JW conclusions while you accept the JW assumptions.
I say that because of this last post of yours where you basically say that, if the JWs are wrong, then the entire concept of God might be mistaken. My brother-in-law suffers from the same error: because the JWs are nonsense, religion is nonsense. He has, as I helpfully point out to him, continued to accept the JW conceit that all non-JW religions are "false," even as he rejects the JW idea that JWs are right.
You gotta pull out JW thinking all the way, roots and all. Dont implicitly accept the bullshit Jw argument, where else is there to go? Rip it out and then (much) later, reflect on the philosophical and religious attempts to find answers to the central questions of human existence.
My thoughts, for what they are worth.
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29
The Resurrection - Gender-less Humans or Spirit Beings?
by Badfish in"in the resurrection neither do men marry nor are women given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven.
" (mathew 22:30).
also, what about their offspring?
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Sulla
I hope you take the question seriously enough to keep pushing beyond the easy observation the the JWs have no frickin' idea what they are talking about. It is also worthwhile to begin with the orthodox Christian teaching; that way, if you decide to reject it, you will at least know that you are rejecting the ancient teaching of the Church and not merely the results of some recent fan fiction.
There are two places to start. First, begin with the actual Christian teaching, which has always been a very direct insistance that Jesus was raised bodily. This claim was strongly criticized by most of the Greek world, who rejected the concept (both Christian and Jewish, as it happens) since they figured that escaping the body was more likely the goal of living a good life. Indeed, that's why there are all those stories of the raised Jesus having a body that still was wounded and why he did stuff like eat breakfast. If you buy those stories, it is perverse to suppose he was missing some parts.
We do have recorded his claim that in the new world, we wouldn't have marriage. Nobody said anything about getting laid, so you shold feel free to speculate until your heart is content. I would hold off on St. Paul's writing about the question for a while: it is notoriously difficult and lends itself to being painted with anachronistic and personal biases.
Anyway, in the Resurrection, you keep your junk.
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26
The Fear of Regret & Apostasy
by Emery infirst 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).
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26
The Fear of Regret & Apostasy
by Emery infirst 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).
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Sulla
No misunderstanding, Emery; I don't think you want to stay a JW and that's not what I've said. What I've said is that you aren't objective or unbiased at all, you have simply exchanged one set of biases for another set of biases. You seem to think that refusing to acknowledge your biases is the same thing as overcoming them. It is not.
One problem with JW-ism is that people tend to think the teachings and attitude are somehow exogenously imposed on otherwise really groovy people. Instead, JW-ism is a religion designed to appeal to people who are very over-confident and very under-qualified; JW apologists are the worst of the lot. To give an example, observe that you suggested we check the dictionary definition of "objective," so that we could "fully comprehend" what it means. I mean, that's asshattery on an epic scale, right?
I guess what I'm saying is: why not just stay a JW? It's not like you are being harmed by it and the practice of knocking on doors might actually do you some good if you are less convinced that you are so right about everything. Jw apologists who turn around and leave the JWs are just guys for whom even the gigantic reservoir of JW's unearned arrogance isn't enough. Dude, you got bigger problems than the JWs. My advice is to fix those first.
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26
The Fear of Regret & Apostasy
by Emery infirst 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).
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Sulla
Maybe, jgnat. But I've had dealings with more than my share of JW apologists and know enough to say that they all have the same diseases: they think they have reason and they think they know how to study. They don't, of course, but that doesn't stop them from acting like they invented the iPhone. For example, they love to get into discussions about Greek grammar despite having no education in the subject at all. It is really sort of irritating.
Anyhow, your average JW apologist is an undereducated and overconfident asshole. A small number of these have egos inflated to the point where, not only do they completely accept the JW bullshit idea that everybody who came before themselves was an idiot and should be completely ignored, they feel like they've outgrown the organization that enabled that feeling in the first place! See, for example, Greg Stafford: a JW super-apologist who finally understood himself enough to know what he was really all about. So he started his own religion.
So, for a guy like that, leaving the JWs isn't really an accomplishment. Truthfully, it's more of a personal setback. I mean, if that's who you are, why not be a Jehovah's Witness?