jgnat, no particular agenda. I don't like JW apologists. I don't like JW apologists who aren't JWs any longer. Known too many of them, I guess. They do things like quote the dictionary and it really pisses me off.
Posts by Sulla
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26The 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?
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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
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.
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28
Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones
by King Solomon inof 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.
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Sulla
Jookbeard, to be fair, a very JW-like resurrection does seem to be the general idea during the Second Temple period.
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28
Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones
by King Solomon inof 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.
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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.
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28
Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones
by King Solomon inof 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.
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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.
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28
Perhaps the cruelest lie of all: resurrection of your loved ones
by King Solomon inof 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.
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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...
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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
very true, what. very true.
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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
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.