here is an email i received from one of my friends who is still a jw.
she would like to know my feelings on the matter of organisation now that im disfellowshipped.
i have written my thoughts below the email.
You don't need to explain yourself. As long as you understand what you believe with authenticity and clarity you'll be well. This cult member doesn't want to hear your thoughts and is immune to your logic, at least for the time being. If, on the other hand, you find it cathartic or otherwise personally beneficial to put it down in writing, knock yourself out.
Just my two cents based on lots of hours lost to just such exercises.
i'm usually a cognac drinker.
i love armagnac too.
and i enjoy a martini i invented---mandarin vodka with a slight bit, usually about a capful of chambord served in an ice cold martini glass.. this saturday i'm mixing with my gf's friends and family in conn. with some affluent people and i might want to try something different.
A perfect Manhattan with a twist. With Woodford Reserve or Maker's Mark.
i have a girl friend that i like very much.
we have been together about a month now.
we talk about religion some times and i tell her i am christian and leave it at that.
Yes. Many eerie similarities between LDS and JW. An important question to ask yourself is what's she looking for in the LDS church? That will tell you a lot about where she's coming from. Good luck.
have anyone here went from being a very strict believer in god to a non-believer?.
actually i think many are.. but outside of the usual answers of "god doesn't exist" (which you must have had some very valid reasons for), were there many things that caused you to come to this conclusion?
i was watching a southpark video about joseph smith and the mormons and i thought it very funny that anyone could actually believe any of that stuff.
Maybe it's pride, maybe it's just that it is too painful to admit this life is all you get.
Honest observation. And yet it's that realization that makes life so much more rich and wondrous. The world of the non-believer is pregnant with possibility and opportunity. The high of the joy of experience rewards us for the mundane lows. In contrast, the believer often finds herself passively killing time in this life, longing for another that's never to arrive.
"For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life."
- Albert Camus
"You can't create experience, you undergo it." - Albert Camus
here is one i am listening to:.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsfl6atx1i4&feature=related.
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next sunday is the discussion of the 7/15/2011 wt article about shunning.
i am planning to stand outside of a kh on a major street with a big banner that says that the jws do indeed destroy families with their shunning policy.
i will have many copies of the article that will be discussed that day.. anyone else have any plans?.
The best protest you can stage is doing something that makes you feel more at peace and more positive about your life. Reading a book with a nice brunch. A walk in nature. Volunteering to help those more in need. Making improvements to your dwelling. Planning a trip to a place you've never been to. Etc. Etc. Whatever works for you. This in turn will make you a more positive influence in all the lives you touch. You gave enough time and emotional energy to the cult. Don't give them a second more.
i regularly encounter jw's i knew while studying and it kills me that they would likely not listen long enough for me to tell them the truth about the truth.
my mother says "don't even bother.
it's like finding out you were adopted.
I always comment on how tired and exhausted they look. This prompts them to vent about the rigorous JW schedule. Then I ask if they're happy. Invariably they say yes. Then I say that's great and that's all that matters. Then I say just so you're not expecting the end to come in your lifetime and you're planning for a good long life you're on the right track. Then I wish them well and remind them that I'm available to them.
armageddon is a military exercise where the nations will be judged in the "valley of decision" for how they treated israel in regard to dividing that land.
it is not to destroy the wicked as the wt teaches.
the wicked are destroyed from the effects of adam in that all die.. i will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
Thanks for clearing that up.
as jehovah's witnesses, we are programmed to believe that what we do is out of love.
love for god, our family and neighbors.
this sounds good and it feels good.
The Watchtower manipulates minds by manipulating language. Only after leaving have I begun to understand the real meaning of words like "love" and "spirituality".
this is a personal observation and certainly not representative of all atheists.
i enjoy discussions with folks of this persuasion; in general they appear well read and somewhat more educated than many believers.
as a group most atheists cringe and become insensed when discussing the existence of a deity with believers especially fundamentalists.
Atheism counts on the non existence of deity and feeds on the existence of religion.
With this statement you reveal a lack of understanding of the term. The label atheist was originally applied to the Christians living under the Romans- they were "without the gods" in that they refused to recognize the pantheon of gods revered by the pagans. More modern atheists follow the example of the early Christians but add one more(or two or three depending on what brand of Christianity) deity to those they they do not acknowledge- the Christian god(s). Atheism doesn't count on anything. Nor does it feed on anything. It's the simple lack of belief in a given deity.
Religion feeds on the belief in deity and exploits the existence of atheism.
A more thorough familiarity with religion and its origins would be helpful in clearing up this assertion. Religions are constantly morphing and feed on the very human need for community and a yearning for answers to the unanswered- accuracy be damned. I haven't seen any evidence to support the notion that religion has benefited from the fact that there are non-believers.
Deism depends, counts and feeds on the existence of deity, debates with atheism while painfully aware of the existence of religion.
How does a deist differ from an atheist in their worldview? Neither acknowledges a deity that would have any effect whatsoever in human existence.
The Deity is aware of the existence of deism, atheism and religion but depends on none of them to exist.
Which deity are you referring to? How are you personally familiar with what said deity is aware of or dependent upon?
