Sulla

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Posts by Sulla

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  120

  Are EXJW's predominantly atheist?

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was just making a comment on a christian's youtube and someone said this:.

  i just realized?

  ur an ex jw and dont believe in god no point in making a reply to u... .

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  Sulla

  I've heard it several times from other friends that I have that have left. Almost all of them at one point or another have said, "I always felt that if the Watchtower didn't have the truth, no one did". It makes sense. The WT instills a hatred for all other beliefs. That doesn't go away just because you leave the Watchtower.

  I always look for a chance to resurrect this particular horse. Do you suppose that much of this attitude is driven by the fact that JWs really aren't religious or spiritual? By that I simply mean the thing the believe in is that they have figured out the key to the end of the world and that they are better than everyone else.

  Most anti-conversion stories with the JWs center on some discovery that, golly, the JWs really aren't morally superior to everyone else. I think that lends some support to my claim.

  As for the spirituality thing -- my personal experience growing up JW was that really religious people were mocked by us. Born-again, evangelical, or other charismatic Christian types were really thought to be strange by us JWs. I think that attitude isn't supported by people who are religious themselves.
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  120

  Are EXJW's predominantly atheist?

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was just making a comment on a christian's youtube and someone said this:.

  i just realized?

  ur an ex jw and dont believe in god no point in making a reply to u... .

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  Sulla

  We only tolerate the deadly serious around here, CA. Lesson learned, I hope.
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  120

  Are EXJW's predominantly atheist?

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was just making a comment on a christian's youtube and someone said this:.

  i just realized?

  ur an ex jw and dont believe in god no point in making a reply to u... .

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  Sulla

  However, I have known about fifty people who left the JWs back in the Ray Franz/1980 era - and only a very small minority became athiest.

  Interesting observation, JamesWoods. But wasn't the Ray Franz schism / whatever really a religious argument? Wasn't he making essentially a Evangelical argument against the governing structure of the JWs? It seems to me that complaint is a complaint about religion. Most XJWs don't leave over religious differences these days, I don't think, the Governing Body having put an end to independent religious inquiry.

  I would love to have some panel data on JWs.
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  98

  I am signing off....

  by Cagefighter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  might be back, might not.

  i really appreciate the historical information on the jw's this board allowed me to find out about.

  it really put things into perspective.

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  Sulla

  Well, I don't ridicule faders. I do judge the fading decision to be not the right one, since it requires one to live falsely. I understand that sometimes the cost is extraordinarily high for some, but I don't think there is a valid ethical case for living within the totalizing JW religion. It is one thing to make some compromises for peace in a family, it is another thing to live as a JW.

  So, I think it is the wrong thing to do. I understand why people do it, of course, but there it is. Of course, I do things that I think are wrong, too, so there's that.
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  16

  Would Paul have debated theistic evolution, ID, etc... had he been alive today?

  by Christ Alone in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i submit that paul was arguing in the context of what people believe in those days.

  i think that he would have debated, much like we do, atheism, evolution, scientific process, etc... just as we do today.. in paul's day, evolution was not even dreamed about.

  i'm not using this as an argument against evolution or atheism.

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  Sulla

  More than a little simplistic on the women's rights thing -- his very unfashionable talk about husbands loving their wives so far as to die for them seems a little hard to square with the standard Paul-is-a-mysogynist stuff. But, whatever floats your boat, I guess.

  But I think I disagree with ChiristAlone on this question. Paul was always, well almost, responding to specific problems within churches. Whenever we see theology, except at the very end, it seems like almost an accident. As if, when trying to reason through the problems that people were having, Paul was reflecting on what being a Christian might have to do with those problems. I don't read Paul as making many attempts to engage questions that were sideshows to living the Christian life. Evolution, it seems to me, is just such a sideshow.
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  18

  JW ORG duplicity? : Baptismal question.

  by Splash in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  on jw.org there's a section which asks the rhetorical question "are you christians?"..

  ( http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/are-jehovahs-witnesses-christians/ ).

  it has a number of points to explain why jw's are christians, and the third point reads:.

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  Sulla

  Yeah that's part of the JWs-are-liars thing. They are, of course, but the interesting thing is the deeply-felt way in which they think they are not liars. JWs confronted with this observation of yours will respond with two arguments. 1) Of course JWs baptise in the name of Jesus, implicitly, through the fact that JWs are the church of Jesus and any baptism that they perform is necessarily in his name whether or not it is in his name. 2) It doesn't matter whether JWs baptise in the name of Jesus because there are no magic words and this focus on some sort of precise baptismal formula is pagan/Catholic. It is easy to find the same JW making both arguments, though they are clearly at odds the one with the other.
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  8

  I might be dumb, but I'm not....oh wait. Yep I'm stupid

  by wha happened? in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  seriously, even if romney wins, this will seriously look stupid in a few years:.

  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/man-gets-romney-r-tattooed-on-his-face-for-15000/.

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  Sulla

  Yeah, but it was 15 large, dude. Fifteen. Thousand. Dollars. So, I think that changes things a little.
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  46

  Jehovah's Witnesses DO NOT break up families

  by irondork in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  jehovah's witnesses do not break up families.

  members who refuse to become or remain jehovah's witnesses... break up families.. really, you apostates have such a distorted perception of reality.. .

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  Sulla

  Best rule for guys like Irondork is to simply assume everyone here is a model. So speak the way you would speak to Zoolander, ok? Would you use sarcasm with Zoolander? Do you think he would understand it? What about a literary reference? No? No, you wouldn't. JWN is a sarcasm-free, subtlety-free zone. Let's all try to keep that in mind, mkay?
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  10

  What's true and what isn't?

  by chapstick in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  although i was born into the wts i haven't been involved in it for decades, i do have a personal prediction based on about 6.56% of the societies doctrines, decades of meditation, crazy women, drug abuse and bible stories that i memorized in my childhood.

  here goes: the great tribulation and armageddon (which started with the first shots fired from syria into turkey last month), a physical ascention for a few, the shocking appearance of great signs and wonders in the sky and the disclosure that aliens were/are our ancestors who colonized the planet will take place in the next weeks to such a degree that will be undeniable to everyone.

  the economic and political collapse of the western democracies and the opening of literal, newly found scrolls (one set under the right paw of the sphinx) will be on everyones mind and they will reveal the truth about religion and the dirty laundry of nearly every political and religious figure on the planet both now and in the past; it will be the most shocking disclosure of criminality, genocide and debauchery that has ever taken place on this planet.

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  Sulla

  the British monarchy's involvement in the Lincoln, Garfield, Mckinley and John Kennedy murders

  Excellent! I have long suspected this involvement. Actually, even since that conversation by English Bob in "Unforgiven." Remember that? Richard Harris is talking about the Garfield assassination(!) and how nobody could actually raise his hand to shoot a monarch. "If you raised you hand against a king, you would find your hand trembling as if palsied and you would simply stand in awe of the majesty. But a president, I mean, why not shoot a president."

  And now we have come full circle. Thanks for that.
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  41

  What's in your current meeting bag?

  by nochoice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thanks again for the comments on the ipad in kh rules.

  on a similar vein, i've been thinking of all the books i can leave behind once our kh blesses the ipad phenomenon.

  in the meantime, this is what i have to lug in and why:.

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  Sulla

  What about, like, a nice leather messenger bag? The sort of thing my wife insists on calling a man-purse, which is totally incorrect and wrong because it's really very manly like the pony express riders would use? Are those ok?