Hmm. Pondering Stalin, Kim, Pol Pot, Mao... Thinking maybe not much better after all. Wondering if maybe it isn't religion that makes us bad, but our nature. Thought: maybe the moral component of our actions, missing in other animals, allows us to see ourselves as fundamentally flawed in some way. There has to be some name for that...
Posts by Sulla
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8Would the world be a better place without any religion?
by ThomasCovenant ini like to think so.. although much good can come from religious belief, i feel that the bad out weighs the good.
and therefore i would rather see it all gone.. if tomorrow, all people with any belief in any religion were removed from earth to meet their maker in the afterlife they so much want, it may be for the best.. how much better atheists would get on would be interesting to see.
shirley atheists couldn't make a worse job than religionists have..
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54
Trying to Salvage a Friendship
by Quendi inmy friends,.
i need your counsel on a personal matter, and i hope you will give it in love.
as some of you know, i was disfellowshipped six years ago, but it wasn't until june 2010 that i made up my mind never to return to the wts.
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Sulla
Good luck, Quendi. You will need it. There is no such thing as a friend who is a JW, and I fear you will discover that soon. I hope I am wrong.
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46
what religion are you now?
by deservingone26 inits been a while since ive been on how is everyone doing?
but just curious after you left jehovahs witnesses did you look into other religions?
or are any of you currently involved in any other religions now?.
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Sulla
After flirtations with agnosticism and evangelicalism, I became Catholic. There is so much here, it is so full of life...
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vaguelyinteresting - catholic youth festival -spain
by wantarevolution invisiting madrid this week, heard an intersiting bit of "theocratic warfare" that'll be going on this summer during the popes visit for the youth festival.. .
witnesses from various halls, both english and spanish are being trained to infultrate the youth conventions to ask "what's going on" and then offer watchtowers/awakes about jesus.. .
there are training sessions at the bethel in torrejon - i have heard this first hand.
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Sulla
Yeah, 'cause the young folk who go to World Youth Day to see the Pope are really receptive to the JW's Catholic-bashing magazines. And with Spaniards, frankly, they'll be lucky to escape with all their limbs attached.
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Showdown with my family
by fade_away inso i was at my parents house yesterday and an apostate vs j-dub showdown commenced.
i was merely just asking questions since they always told me that if i had any questions to feel free to ask.
so i did.....but they seemed angry at the fact i was asking such questions to begin with.
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Sulla
I'm sure he feels great: he got his talking points out against no opposition. With respect to the relief services, you could do worse than steal the Catholic Charities line: we help everyone not because they are Catholic, but because we are Catholic.
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What is the most offensive/idiotic piece of WT literature you've read from the past 20 years (approximately)?
by Chemical Emotions ini think that some of the dumbest were ones that pertained to science- not all of them, but a few, particularly the ones about evolution.
the most offensive (and also dumbest) were the ones about women, and the ones about rape.
those were horrible.
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Sulla
Yeah, great suggestions, all of these. And there is a real embarrassment of riches when it comes to bizarre JW comments in the literature. Still, I have to go with "overlapping generations." It tastes like bullshit even for those who rather like the taste of bullshit. I recall having a discussion with a JW a couple years back. He was important enough to have advance information on this new light. I honestly couldn't believe what I was hearing when he laid it out. This one is just naked nonsense, and I think even the real JWs know it.
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122
This convention blows
by Anony Mous inseriously, half day in (already had an argument with the wife this morning about individuality in the organization in which she conceded that a lot of it is based on looks) and this is already getting on my nerves.
i'll post a rebuttal based on my annotations later in the week but one thing i got to get off my mind: saying the feminist movement (women going to work instead of staying home) and the diversity laws (allowing for homosexuality - but also religious freedom, racial discrimination etc.
) caused a lot of the problems in our world right from the stage.. there are less people here than last year - about 500 less..
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Sulla
They actually had the nerve to say that Jesus appointed his apostles as the governing body of JW in the first century and the governing body is the successor to those apostles.
JW apostolic succession! Wonderful! Who was immediately before Russell? Keep asking JWs this question but so far, nothing. I don't suppose the heavy from Bethel got in to that...
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reading a life time of WT literatrash = College education
by Free!! inor at least that's what my super jw ex-roommate told me when i try to have an adult discussion w her about the importance of a higher education... according to her (a girl that never finished hs because it was not necessary) she has a better education than any college graduate because the jehovah has used the borg literatrash to teach her many many important things.... she says her knowledge of the "truth" is the equivalent of my 4 years of college education..... .
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is there a cure for stupid???!!
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Sulla
I would suggest that the problem is not that such foolishness makes them (or is symptomatic of) stupidity. I think the real problem with it is that it makes them (or is symptomatic of) prideful. The original sin of JWs is not dumbness, it is their blistering pride: they genuinely believe they are smarter, better human beings that all others.
NewChapter is right to note that this sort of talk makes them think they are qualified to discuss complex topics. I routinely run into JW knuckleheads who imagine themselves to be qualified to discuss biblical Greek translations based on the fact that they own a lexicon and a book on grammar. To my great humiliation, I recall explaining to many people (in various contexts) the proper meaning of John 1:1 based on my extensive understanding of the use of definite articles in the languages of the period.
At the time, I had a HS education and not a lick more. Yet I did not consider this a hurdle to sharing my opinion that all those scholars were stupid/mistaken/biased/whatever. For some unfathomable reason, nobody ever asked me who in hell I thought I was, talking such nonsense without any conceivable qualification in the field. It wouldn't have mattered, of course, JWs are also un-embarrassable.
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"In this system of things"
by Sour Grapes init just drives me freakin crazy when my wife and.
her friends say things like "well, in this system of things.
we will never be caught up in our work at home.
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Sulla
My dad likes to use the word "inculcate" when talking JW talk.
Interesting. JWs use it all the time. Check out the definition and etymology: to teach by frequent repetition, with the roots of the word from the Latin "to trample." I think most people (me included) sort of associate the word with something like "cultivate," with the idea of making grow. But the word is quite closely associated with the metaphor of pounding the idea into somebody's head.
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"In this system of things"
by Sour Grapes init just drives me freakin crazy when my wife and.
her friends say things like "well, in this system of things.
we will never be caught up in our work at home.
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Sulla
The idiosyncratic JW use of "system of things" substitutes for what we typically hear: "age" world," etc. As in, "The end of the age," or in the prayer glorifying God in the "world without end."
Use of the term "system" seems to suggest (and support) their idea that all the bad things we experience are the product of an external set of facts: Chicago corruption, say, or crony capitalism is a system that people live under rather than part of who we are. In this way, JWs manage to neatly miss a central point of the entire Judaeo-Christian insight: we are all fallen. Talking, instead, of the "system" enables JWs to project sin on to others and suggests JWs are victims of those sins instead of perpetrators themselves.
It is part of one thousand ways JWs use speech to elevate themselves above everyone else (in their own thinking) and justify whatever means are used to enforce their separateness.