I beleive that death is the natural conclusion to life, and as it such, isnt something to be worried about how you die. Death gives life meaning. The constant threat of it gives you motivation to do something with your life RIGHT NOW. And at the end, unless you are in some weird suicide cult or possibly supernatural situations, everyone dies alone. Death is an end, and thinking about it should make you think about your life, and if you really lived up to your own expectations of what your wanted to do. So no, i dont fear dying alone, any more then i fear getting sick alone, or sleeping alone. They are all things that i would prefer to avoid if possible, atleast the actions, but i realized its beyond my control. Once you accept that you will die one day, really really accept it and understand it, you dont fear it in any form. Alone, surrounded by family and friends, or suffering as the french say "Grand Death," dead is dead. The circumstances dont matter, its the results that do.
AlphaQup2nite
JoinedPosts by AlphaQup2nite
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39
Are You Afraid To Die Alone?
by minimus ini know of someone that is concerned that she will be all alone when she dies.. are you afraid to die alone??
?.
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Blood Transfusion?
by Friend inconsidering the latest questions from readers article on blood transfusion, i was wondering what the feelings are among this forums participants about blood transfusion.
over the years the society has been receiving a growing amount of letters on the subject of blood and blood transfusion.
any interesting biblical perspectives here about whether "abstain from blood" means abstain from blood transfusion?
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AlphaQup2nite
I work in the medical supply feild (surgical instruments) and ive actually talked to directors of various surgical departments about this matter. They say that generally the best is taking one's own blood out a month before surgery generally has the least complications, after of course recyling spilled blood during surgery. There are alternatives, but in an emergency situation, i would not be adverse to taking blood. The limiting factors are cost and preparedness. For many medications, blood is the cheapest and most effective base, and while there are methods to stimulate blood production (as well as portions, such as platlets) they do not work in an emergency situtation where time is often critical. The general consensus, atleast from my own personal research with doctors here in china is, blood transfusions save lives in a pinch, but it should be best used as a fall back. Granted, here cost is a very server limitation, so blood transfusions are commonplace; its the easy way that generally works. Plus with the growing technology, such as advances in the MIS (Minimally Invasive Surgical) feilds, more and more surgeries can be preformed without blood. Also, in sever truma cases, the no blood method is general a saline solution to raise volume, but that still starves tissue of oxygen due to the lack of red blood cells, and inhibits healing due to lack of platlets. Its a much riskier proposition. Then again JWs are taught to leave practically everything in God's hands, so to me, they seem like gamblers.
There are many pros and cons to the situation, but you need to ask yourself a simple hypothetical situation:
You are in a truamatic car accident and are in the OR, in danger of bleeding out on the table. You have the option to take whole blood with roughty a 75% change of recovery, or refusing blood, accepting the next option, saline solution to boost blood volume of what you already have, with a much lower, say 30 percent of survial, and only a 20% change of avoiding possibly perminate complications. What would you do?
In the case of non emergency treatment, blood transfusions become less appealing, esp for planned surgeries. There are just so many options now on what to look into, if you can afford it.
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Do you hate God
by Star tiger ini beginning to think that this would be a good way of thinking, a totally righteous being would not let all the shit that is happenning to people prevail, this being cannot have the best interests of man as his first priority, it's all about ego and no matter how the human familty suffers, he hates pretty much everyone, as the tv show says, your fired, let's get a better god, one who at least gives everyone a chance!!.
i welcome comments from god apologists, to at least have an argument as to why they put they're faith in someone that does'nt give a shit about them!.
star tiger.
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AlphaQup2nite
I honestly stopped caring when i left. I have too much anger and betraying to have any respect for a godlike figure. Its prbly my coping mechanism that got me through the worst of it when i left. There is just too much biblical doctrine, or in fact any montheistic relgion that i find repuslive, or atleast impossible to beleive. Faith prevents reason, and when you break it down, there is too much you are supposed to take on faith with nothing to back it up. That and ive taken a pretty cynical view of orginized relgions either. A quote from a book i read a long time ago, "Every religion is willing to offer you a seat at God's table as long as you are willing to hand over the contents of your purse now. Im sure the tables of God are amazing, but you have to die to get there, so i think ill pass." Right now my faith is placed in myself. Call me idealistic, but if feel that making myself better and reaching towards my dreams and desires is the only rational choice. So no, i dont hate God, even if he exists. We just go our own seperate ways, and i stay out of his and i hope he does the same for me. I do hate orginized relgion in general tho.
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JWs Depression and Suicide
by 00DAD insince jehovah's witnesses supposedly have "the truth" and are part of god's visible organization living in a "spiritual paradise" you would naturally expect that they should be the happiest people on earth!
this clearly is not the case.
wha happened?
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AlphaQup2nite
My mom didnt start on prozac until after she joined the JWs, and i personally had a battle with depression from about 13 until about two years after i left the org. Mine was brought on by being forced to be different from everyone, not being able to have fun with friends from school, no one my own age at the cong in TW, as well as having to live a double life, as well as conflicts with my own ideas and what i have been told was right.
I feel that part of the issue is that when good things happen to JWs they are told to praise god, but when bad things happen its the fault of the JW (they are spiriatually weak, they dont set aside enough time for kingdom intersts, etc) Atleast that was the feeling i had when i was in. This leads to many negative emotions focused internally for things that are totally not one's fault, as well as a self loathing for not being good enough.
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Hello From a Newbie
by AlphaQup2nite ini found this site randomly the other day on an unrelated search, and its nice to find a place where people can discuss a relgion that in house cannot be discussed without either being quoted mantras or a very skewed view of the world.. ok about me.. im a 24 year old taiwanese-american, and i have been raised as a jw from the age of about three to the age of 17, when i unoffically left.
i started to have doubts around age 12, but did what i was supposed to to keep mommy and daddy happy.
my parents are jws, as well as my older 1/2 sister, and my younger sister.
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AlphaQup2nite
Hello,
I found this site randomly the other day on an unrelated search, and its nice to find a place where people can discuss a relgion that in house cannot be discussed without either being quoted mantras or a very skewed view of the world.
Ok about me.
Im a 24 year old Taiwanese-American, and I have been raised as a JW from the age of about three to the age of 17, when i unoffically left. I started to have doubts around age 12, but did what i was supposed to to keep mommy and daddy happy. My parents are JWs, as well as my older 1/2 sister, and my younger sister. Ever since then, ive been trying to function in the outside world, but it has been tough. Ive finally been able to overcome many of the instilled fears and morality codes that ive been raised with, but building one's own moral code from practially nothing is difficult to say the least. My experience with JWs have rendered me pretty agnositic, and i am still having trouble building lasting relationships with everyone. I currently reside in Mainland China, with one of the major reasons i decided to move here was that there would be no JW harassment. Jws have left me cynical and maladjusted to the real world.
Other then that, im pretty much an ass to people who diserve it, spontanious, and very passion driven. I also have problems with authority, which i think stems from the BELIEVE OR DIE stand that most of the people in JWs i have known took, esp when i had serious questions they couldnt answer. My belief struture that i am working with is simply improving one's self. Be all that you can be and all that stuff.
So far what ive read on this sight has been pretty intersting. I was hoping to find a way to talk to my parents and "save" them, but i beleive now that Dogma said it best where (paraphrased) Ideas are great, Beleifs are terrible. Ideas can be discussed, and changed, but Beleifs, well people kill each other over them.
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Persuasion Techniques used by JW's
by waiting ina study of the persuasion techniques used by jehovahs witnesses and the watchtower.. .
a research report submitted to tabor college, adelaide, by nathan charles beel as the directed study project component for the degree of bachelor of arts in christian counselling--- november, 1997.. -introduction.
-liftons criteria for thought reform.
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AlphaQup2nite
What it boils down to is simple:
The harder you need to work for a goal, any goal, the more the mind rationalizes that you want it. Its true from fratenity hazing rituals to personal relationships.
The JWs have it down to a science, pushing people far outside their own confort zones, that their psyches rationalize their desire to be one of the group. Anyone who is or has been a JW has been pressured to join the TSM, and public speaking is one of the top fears in the world. Knocking on people's doors and getting rejected 100s of times over and over again, combined with positive reinforcement telling they are doing the right thing. At least that is the way i started looking at it when i was 13 or so. Combined with the whole TMS arrangement which is designed to turn people in to better salesmen, and blind faith in the establishment keeps the people from realizing what they are actually learning. Reason denies faith after all.
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I don't like the drugs, but the drugs like me?
by Pathofthorns inis it just me, or is there an unusually high number of young ones in the truth smoking and doing drugs like ecstasy and dope?.
is it that these people are doing this out of rebellion or simply that they like to live in a fantasy world?.
i've talked to a number who seem to think that they will live a double life for a while, then come back in five years "because they know its the truth".
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AlphaQup2nite
I got big into the drug scene for a few years ago, and got out. For me, it was mainly experimentation, different ways of looking through the looking glass so to speak, and i actually resolved several problems that were causing me to become depressed while on X one night. I was 19 at the time and had recently had the time and disposible income to spend time with the "worldly" people in the first time in my life post JWs. I personally dont think of drugs as addictive, having tried almost all of them except for the stronger opiates. I look at it more as people not willing to deal with life, and instead take short cuts, easy way out instead of dealing with the issues. Its just another facet of the "blame game" everyone seems to love to play these days. I have also quit smoking 2 times, for atleast a year each.
I can see the appeal to the younger kids tho. Being a JW brings a lot of extra stress into your life. Not fitting into the social construct of normal life, extra time spend on meetings and meeting prep and studies and feild service. No drive to suceed b/c university is discouraged in most cases. Living a double life. Doubts that you can never bring up or question without being marked as a bad kid. The list goes on and on. If i was in an area with easy access to drugs when i was a teenager, i would have prbly used while i was still being raised in the "truth."
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New System Conundrum
by RedhorseWoman indoes everyone remember the wt stating that in the new system, after everyone has been resurrected, there will be at least one acre per person?.
didn't that seem like a lot of space to you?
i know it did to me, growing up in a typical suburban neighborhood.
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AlphaQup2nite
The biggest issue i have with a paradise on earth is twofold.
Firstly, is based off the infinite timeline = no matter how unlikely something will happen, it will happen, so everyone will sin, so no one will survive indefinelty. Unless of course, free will is removed.
Secondly, the limitations of the human brain, and the passage of time as we get older. I dont want a life 5 millenium down the line where everything is going through the motions, and it is literally impossible to make lasting relationships, and life becomes tedious. I believe that the knowledge of a finite end brings focus and structure to life, and makes it worth living; its adds some sense of urgency to everything.
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Reasons for becoming a JW?
by Dubby ini'm curious about the reasons for becoming a jw.
if you were raised a jw, were you pressured into baptism?
if you weren't raised a jw, what were the deciding factors?
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AlphaQup2nite
I was rasied in the "truth" since i was 3, so i literally have no memories from before that time, and i was on the fast track to a PO or higher position, as the elders were always brining it up during my childhood, prbly b/c i was amazing at the TSM assignments. My mother, a Taiwanese girl totally uprooted and moved with my father to the states with only a bare minimium of english skills orginally agreed to a bible study as an english lession. She converted with my father (a nonpracticing catholic, but strong family pressures not to convert) when i was roughly 3 or so. Thanks to that, i have no relationship with my family on either side, my taiwanese family due to distance issues, and my american family due to the tension due to relgion.
I often wonder what my life would have been like if my mom was a little bit more careful about who she listened to, but i can understand why she was targeted. Alone, in an unknown culture, with only a base grasp of the language, she was ripe for the picking by the salesmen of jehovah. I left the orginization unoffically at about 17, and as far as i know no one has tried to contact me. Im just glad that the asian side of my mother and my older sister has held fast over the years, and i can discuss things with them occasionally, and they have given up preaching to me. My younger sister is a lost cause, i wasnt even invited to her wedding this summer, and i have not spoken a word to her in over 5 years. Part of the reason that no one prbly tries to contact me is i have moved to Mainland china, and a portion of that desicion is not having to deal with the theocratic harassment.
Granted, its been hard for me to unbrainwash myself, and figure things out for myself. Ive delved into drugs, alcohol, etc trying to get a meaning for it all, and its been very hard for me to adjust to making my own rules for life, and it isnt easy to build your own moral code out of scratch, or erase a childhood of programming. Im 24 years old now, insanely cynical, and still trying to figure out exactly how i want to live my own life. Its a struggle, but im still happier then every before, considering i no longer have to deal with faith induced nervous breakdowns, and i can freely question things and alter my code of ethics as i grow and mature as a person. I still find it hard to build lasting relationships on something more then a drinking buddy level, simply because being shunned by childhood friends is very detrimental to a developing person. The lack of real world experience is something i still feel, and im ill equiped to deal with a lot of stresses of life. Slowly, i am trying to build the family relationships i was lacking, but that is slow going and hard for me. But in the end, i feel that that i made the right choice.