Posts by cappytan

75

What was your eye opening moment?

by WasOnceBlind in

if you had to pinpoint the time or experience that finally made you open your eyes, what would it be?.

i think for me it was the time i saw my dad shun his brother who he had not seen in decades just because he was a da'ed jw.

i thought to my self "no way jesus would do that.

cappytan

Legitimately researching 607 BCE got the ball rolling for me.

35

My Story of Waking Up - in retrospect

by cappytan in

so, many of y'all know bits and pieces of my story of waking up, but i thought it might be nice to have it all in one place.. i was baptized at 11, auxiliary pioneered every summer, regular pioneer at 17, ministerial servant by 19, then went to bethel for a year.. i always had minor doubts from time to time, but nothing serious.

always dismissed doubts and decided to "just have faith.".

after leaving bethel, i was never really firing on all cylinders "spiritually speaking.

cappytan

Tornintwo: Where are you now? Are you fading/faded, do you still attend? How have your parents been? Sorry perhaps everyone else knows this. Any helpful tips about leaving quietly?

First off, thanks for the kind words!

I'm currently fading pretty quickly, but still attending sporadically to keep elders and the in-laws that happen to attend our congregation off the scent.

Thankfully, I have been able to wake my wife up. I had a much easier time of waking her up than other people have experienced. I am a very fortunate and lucky man. I actually moved too fast with her. Most faders that move as fast as I did with my wife end up having a lot of conflict with their wife or divorced and disfellowshipped within weeks.

From the time I shared my first doubts with my wife to the time she told me she didn't want to be a Jehovah's Witness anymore, it was about 6 weeks.

My parents have no idea we're fading. Although they live close by, they're in a completely different town and circuit. I'm finding it hard, though, to stay close to them. I'm recognizing narcissistic selfish behavior in my mother, and it's leading me to resent her. My dad, who was my best friend for most of my adult life, I just can't be genuine with anymore. There's this big elephant in the room, and I can't talk about it because I don't want to be shunned.

I'm taking it day by day, though. Trying not to let the negatives get me down and just be thankful I'm gaining true freedom!

141

Schoolyard bully mentality

by FusionTheism in

i'm not naming names, but i just want to encourage people on here or on reddit or twitter, and tell you that you do not have to tolerate people who act like schoolyard bullies in the way they speak to you online.

i think anonymity is a big part of it.

they feel like there is zero accountability so they can be a bully all they want.. i recommend just ignoring or blocking anyone who is verbally abusive or treats you like schoolyard bullies treated you.. life is way too short to spend any time dealing with those kinds of people..

cappytan

I'm going to interject to ask some honest questions of FusionTheism.

FT, do you value evidence and rationality when forming an opinion on a matter?

The answer to that question is important. It's important to your freedom, for Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

How can one "know" the truth? How does one "know" anything is true? Is it just a feeling one gets? Is something "true" because that's just how you were raised? Or is something actually "true" because the evidence shows it to be so?

How would you answer these questions?

60

Why don’t we have a better story?

by iconoclastic in

1. some say we are all gods, and god is omnipresent..

2. some say: god created his children who later challenged his sovereignty, who in turn asked his eldest son: go down to the world, do not resist the wicked, but be murdered by them, the value of which will be used to atone the sins of the world..

3. universe arose out of a big bang.

cappytan

Cool story, bro!

182

The Case for Theism

by FusionTheism in

"theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

" ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

cappytan

If Richard Dawkins says that we evolved from apes, why do we still have Richard Dawkins?

CHECKMATE ATHEISTS!j

182

The Case for Theism

by FusionTheism in

"theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

" ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

cappytan

Someone who is deeply entrenched in the Idea of the Existance of God..
Is`nt going to jump straight to abandoning a belief in God..
Those people need time to think,they have`nt done that in a very long time..
They literally need to rehabilitate their ability to think on their own again..

This I completely agree with.

35

My Story of Waking Up - in retrospect

by cappytan in

so, many of y'all know bits and pieces of my story of waking up, but i thought it might be nice to have it all in one place.. i was baptized at 11, auxiliary pioneered every summer, regular pioneer at 17, ministerial servant by 19, then went to bethel for a year.. i always had minor doubts from time to time, but nothing serious.

always dismissed doubts and decided to "just have faith.".

after leaving bethel, i was never really firing on all cylinders "spiritually speaking.

cappytan

So, many of y'all know bits and pieces of my story of waking up, but I thought it might be nice to have it all in one place.

I was baptized at 11, auxiliary pioneered every summer, regular pioneer at 17, ministerial servant by 19, then went to Bethel for a year.

I always had minor doubts from time to time, but nothing serious. Always dismissed doubts and decided to "just have faith."

After leaving Bethel, I was never really firing on all cylinders "spiritually speaking." I would go through spurts of activity from time to time, only to lose energy and get spiritually burned out and give in to "temptation" to skip meetings, service, etc.

Fast forward to Summer 2014. I'm attending one of the Regional Conventions. I cried every day, knowing that I could be doing more for Jehovah. I resolved that weekend to go back home to my congregation with a renewed vigor.

Went to every single meeting again. Service every weekend. Aux Pioneered during the CO visit. Helped with KH cleaning on Saturday afternoons when it was needed. Started getting privileges again. Prayer at meetings for service, then mid week meetings. More talks were assigned to me. The so-called "shepherds" of the congregation gave me many pats on the back. Encouraged me to "keep up the good work."

Around October, right after the annual meeting and premiere of the first broadcast (which made me cry again), I prayed for a bible study. That weekend after I prayed, wouldn't you know it, Jehovah blessed me with a study!

This was the first bible study I started since I was a teenager - 15 years or so.

I was freaking out. I realized I had never really studied the Bible Teach book on my own. What was I going to do when my student asked me questions? Just tell him these things were true because it said so in this book? No! That wasn't good teaching!

I decided to study the book with a passion, confirming everything from independent sources so I could inculcate the teachings with conviction to my student. If the society used Encyclopedias to backup their claims, I should do that too, right? I am specifically avoiding apostate sites. Looking for academic sources in everything I can find.

So, I get to the 1914 doctrine in my studies. I thoroughly am able to explain the doctrine backwards and forwards using the Society's reasonings. So, to confirm my explanation, of course, I start with the destruction of Jerusalem. 607 B.C.E. I pull up the Wikipedia article on the Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and realize that there's nothing about 607 BCE. I'm confused. 587 BCE is all over the place.

What to do? Off to the Watchtower Online Library! I type in 587 BCE, read these articles:

When was Ancient Jerusalem destroyed? - Part 1

When was Ancient Jerusalem destroyed? - Part 2

I was floored at the flimsy evidence. There is no evidence to support their theory beyond conjecture. Compared with the amount of evidence in support of 587 BCE, I realized the Society was mistaken about 607. Dominos started falling. If 607 is false, then 1914 is false. If 1914 is false then 1919 "cleansing" is false. If 1919 is false, then GB wasn't chosen as the FDS.

My head was swimming.

I talked to my Dad about what I had found. He said, "Son, we have to ask ourselves, do we have faith that what the Bible says is true? If archeology conflicts with the Bible, we have to side with the scriptures."

At the time, I took this to heart and decided, yet again, to just have faith..."wait on Jehovah."

It was at this point that I decided to stop researching everything for the moment.

Fast forward to November 2014. Everyone was excited! We were having a special meeting! The Branch visit! This was going to be so encouraging!

Two words: Tight Pants.

I was pissed. Where did Morris get off saying what he did in front of more than a million people? Doesn't he know interested ones might be in attendance?

At that point, I was so pissed, but couldn't say anything about it. So I decided to google Anthony Morris III to see if any media had picked up on it.

Yep. They sure had. That google search also led me to this site where I started lurking.

I'll admit - even though I was waking up, at first this site seemed at face value full of a bunch of bitter, hateful people with a "sour-grapes" attitude. But I did like reading the threads about Tight Pants Tony.

The more I lurked, the more I read the horrible stories of how people were treated by the organization. It became an obsession. I kept looking for peoples disfellowshipping stories...

I decided to start researching again. This time, I checked out JW Facts. Every point on JW Facts, I cross referenced to make sure it wasn't a false claim.

I was freaking out. I WAS IN A FALSE RELIGION. These people did NOT have God's blessing, much less his spirit.

I couldn't concentrate on anything. Late December, I got sick and decided to download Crisis of Conscience and read it.

I couldn't put it down. I speed-read it in a few days.

The next week, at work, I joined the forum and made this post, and the rest is history.

***Disclaimer: In the month or two I first started posting here, I would change details or make up certain details about my life because I was extremely paranoid of some imagined elder spy network that monitored this site. So, some of my early posts may conflict with what some of you may now know about me. Sorry about that! I feel bad for lying to a group of people that have helped me so much.***

182

The Case for Theism

by FusionTheism in

"theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

" ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

cappytan

None of y'all can prove that the Chupacabra isn't real, so therefore, my belief in the Chupacabra has merit and should not be dismissed.

23

Bible Chronology, Egyptology and the Great Flood

by cappytan in

fact: bible chronology says the flood occurred between 2348 and 2370 bce, depending on which scholar you listen to.

fact: the great pyramid of giza was constructed 200 years before, in c. 2560 bce..

so, if you believe in a literal interpretation of noah's flood, you believe that the egyptians built a great civilization, were destroyed by the flood in 2370 bce, and then somehow, they reappeared immediately after the flood, picked right back up where they left off without skipping a cultural beat.. oh, and isn't it ironic that legitimately studying the great pyramid of giza debunks jw mythology now?

cappytan

JW response would be "obviously the method used to date the great pyramid is flawed"

Here's the thing: Biblical chronology requires the Great Pyramid to be built after the flood as Egypt figures into Biblical events. The only problem JW's and other proponents of a literal interpretation of the Biblical flood account have with radiocarbon dating techniques is when it is on dates BEFORE the flood.

Insight Book: With the Deluge great changes came, for example, the life span of humans dropped very rapidly. Some have suggested that prior to the Flood the waters above the expanse shielded out some of the harmful radiation and that, with the waters gone, cosmic radiation genetically harmful to man increased. However, the Bible is silent on the matter. Incidentally, any change in radiation would have altered the rate of formation of radioactive carbon-14 to such an extent as to invalidate all radiocarbon dates prior to the Flood.

So, if the Pyramids supposedly came after the flood, the radiocarbon dates wouldn't be inaccurate based on the pseudoscience bullsh!t above. However, they date prior to the flood.

If you want to turn your brain to mush, get a load of this crap about problems with Egyptian chronology: (I would appreciate anyone's input on debunking the assertions put forth below.)

Problems of Egyptian chronology. Uncertainties are multiple. The works of Manetho, used to give order to the fragmentary lists and other inscriptions, are preserved only in the writings of later historians, such as Josephus (first century C.E.), Sextus Julius Africanus (third century C.E., hence over 500 years from Manetho’s time), Eusebius (fourth century C.E.), and Syncellus (late eighth or early ninth century C.E.). As stated by W. G. Waddell, their quotations of Manetho’s writings are fragmentary and often distorted and hence “it is extremely difficult to reach certainty in regard to what is authentic Manetho and what is spurious or corrupt.” After showing that Manetho’s source material included some unhistorical traditions and legends that “introduced kings as their heroes, without regard to chronological order,” he says: “There were many errors in Manetho’s work from the very beginning: all are not due to the perversions of scribes and revisers. Many of the lengths of reigns have been found impossible: in some cases the names and the sequence of kings as given by Manetho have proved untenable in the light of monumental evidence.”—Manetho, introduction, pp. vii, xvii, xx, xxi, xxv.
The probability that concurrent reigns rather than successive reigns are responsible for many of Manetho’s excessively long periods is shown in the book Studies in Egyptian Chronology, by T. Nicklin (Blackburn, Eng., 1928, p. 39): “The Manethonian Dynasties . . . are not lists of rulers over all Egypt, but lists partly of more or less independent princes, partly . . . of princely lines from which later sprang rulers over all Egypt.” Professor Waddell (pp. 1-9) observes that “perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time; . . . thus it was not a succession of kings occupying the throne one after the other, but several kings reigning at the same time in different regions. Hence arose the great total number of years.”
Since the Bible points to the year 2370 B.C.E. as the date of the global Flood, Egyptian history must have begun after that date. The problems in Egyptian chronology shown above are doubtless responsible for the figures advanced by modern historians who would run Egyptian history all the way back to the year 3000 B.C.E.
Greater confidence is placed by Egyptologists in the ancient inscriptions themselves. Yet, the carefulness, truthfulness, and moral integrity of the Egyptian scribes are by no means above suspicion. As Professor J. A. Wilson states: “A warning should be issued about the precise historical value of Egyptian inscriptions. That was a world of . . . divine myths and miracles.” Then after suggesting that the scribes were not above juggling the chronology of events to add praise to the particular monarch in power, he says: “The historian will accept his data at face value, unless there is a clear reason for distrust; but he must be ready to modify his acceptance as soon as new materials put the previous interpretation in a new light.”—The World History of the Jewish People, 1964, Vol. 1, pp. 280, 281.
Absence of information concerning Israel. This is not surprising, since the Egyptians not only refused to record matters uncomplimentary to themselves but also were not above effacing records of a previous monarch if the information in such records proved distasteful to the then reigning pharaoh. Thus, after the death of Queen Hatshepsut, Thutmose III had her name and representations chiseled out of the monumental reliefs. This practice doubtless explains why there is no known Egyptian record of the 215 years of Israelite residence in Egypt or of their Exodus.
The pharaoh ruling at the time of the Exodus is not named in the Bible; hence, efforts to identify him are based on conjecture. This partly explains why modern historians’ calculations of the date of the Exodus vary from 1441 to 1225 B.C.E., a difference of over 200 years.

15

Who Is Your Favorite Late Show Talk Host Of All Time?

by minimus in

jw
friends

johnny carson is still the king.

i thought jay leno was very funny.

letterman did nothing for me.

cappytan

I always liked Carson and Letterman. Never NEVER liked Leno. Leno was funny back in the day, but The Tonight Show with Jay Leno was never really that funny.

Letterman was the King after Carson retired, in my opinion.

Just take a look at the following clip - Leno or Fallon would NEVER do that...but Dave did, and I died laughing when it happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaRxWbvXR7c