out of interest, and to formulate a cordial chat, would you give your top one reason for your belief or non belief?.
my foremost 'one reason' for non belief is:.
the historical evidence that provides an explination and timeline for how the modern religious doctrine's and dogma developed over time.. .
The very personal - and egoistic - reason of my 16-year-old self not to believe (please don't laugh at me):
Why does a loving creator punish half of the population of the earth between 16 and 60 with a monthly illness and tells us moreover to be grateful for it?
(Now I have other reasons of course)
when you and i were born we started absorbing the beliefs and culture surrounding us.
(the word for this is: ethos.).
as we grew older we absorbed the beliefs and cultures we experienced among our friends.
I find this quite interesting, and have never thought about it this way.
Humans tend to be very rigid in their world view, where they "come from" matters how they view other cltures, people, etc. It seems to be the easiest way to make sense of the unkown. This was so 2000 years ago and it is so today - wether we meet people from other countries and cultures today, or read about societies and cultures from history.
It seems to be quite puzzling, that a person that supposedly lived 2000 years ago and some ancient scriptures have so much influence even today. Each of the different christian groups and religions claim that they are in the tradition of the "first christians". We seem to project our experiences on the society and culture 2000 years ago, but fail to see that arriving at where we are today was a process, where so many different influences played a role.
We just label things and concepts new, and make them fit into our world view.
It is a scary thought, that this influences people's lifes so much, even up to live and dead decisions.
my little sister is 14 years younger than me.
she was always special to me, i took care of her, when my mother was working, i carried her around, i comforted her.
we are very similar in our interests for music and literature.. she is in secondary school, an unbaptised publisher.. since i study in the us, we only see each other about once a year.
Thank you for all the answers, suggestions and understanding.
Brija-del-sol, I am sorry, I know it hurts.
She is 16 now, they just had two weeks of holidays over there, which she spent mostly with jw friends.
I don't think she knows herself exactly, what she means by talk to me like before. Generally we don't talk (or write) about jw related stuff. About many other things. sometimes I think her links about things that I find interesting, I don't want to scare her, so it's nothing related to jw, just things that I hope help her to see how varied the world is.
In many things I think she is wiser than me, but she is also young and vulnerable. She is very intelligent, but also very emotional. She is the most caring person I know, from a very age on. I could imagine that she is scared that her safe little world gets shaken. She writes, she has to limit her contact with me, because I don't share anymore, what is most important in her life, because I turned my back to her friend, god.
She is very eloquent and writes beautifully, but I can see in which passages she uses exactly the words that we heard over and over again at the meetings, and in which parts she writes for herself.
I am reading one of Steve Hassan's book right now. Thank you everyone for the excellent answers!
my little sister is 14 years younger than me.
she was always special to me, i took care of her, when my mother was working, i carried her around, i comforted her.
we are very similar in our interests for music and literature.. she is in secondary school, an unbaptised publisher.. since i study in the us, we only see each other about once a year.
cantleave: no, not yet, but I suspect that she is "working towards it"
happy@last: when she was about 6 years old, she wrote me a very cute letter saying: "you showed me what real love between sisters is"
my little sister is 14 years younger than me.
she was always special to me, i took care of her, when my mother was working, i carried her around, i comforted her.
we are very similar in our interests for music and literature.. she is in secondary school, an unbaptised publisher.. since i study in the us, we only see each other about once a year.
My little sister is 14 years younger than me. She was always special to me, I took care of her, when my mother was working, I carried her around, I comforted her. We are very similar in our interests for music and literature.
She is in secondary school, an unbaptised publisher.
Since I study in the US, we only see each other about once a year. She knows my feelings about the organisation, although we never really talked about it. We always had something more important to talk about. Or so I thought.
Today I received an email from her, saying that she can't talk to me as before. It was a long email, and she seemed confused, about what she means. I don't know, what triggered this, but from reading it, it seems as if her cult presona and real self in her are battling.
It makes me so sad and angry.
I don't know if and what I should answer. I rpobably should sleep about it first.
I know it's not a unique story, and there are many of you who will understand how it is.
Thanks for reading.
my friend was slagging off one of my other friends saying they have been known to say apotate things.
she does apostate things herself without realising it.
she meant well because she fears the word apostate as i once did, but she openly says to me my jc was lacking in holy spirit.. she doesn't have a clue what apostacy really is she just wants me not to mix with ones who have been known said "apostate things".
When I was little, the word "apostates" - " Abtrünnige" sounded scary, dark and dangerous. I didn't understand the meaning, but what I imagined were dark creatures, without faces.
i have published more than 200 'daily text' comments in german, and will now start translating those into english.
they will be published here:.
http://dailytext2.wordpress.com/.
I probably missed this, but may I ask, where you published the German version?
i have a technical/bureaucratical question for anyone in germany who has experience with this.. the background is, i got baptised as a jw as a teenager in germany, then moved to the us, where i daed.. from my research on the internet, i seem to understand, that when you get baptised in germany, they inform the appropriate authority depending on the state you live in, in bavaria this would be the "standesamt".
is that correct?
or does one have to do this by oneself?
But you are probably right, that it doesn't appear anywhere. I guess I am just a little bit paranoid...
i have a technical/bureaucratical question for anyone in germany who has experience with this.. the background is, i got baptised as a jw as a teenager in germany, then moved to the us, where i daed.. from my research on the internet, i seem to understand, that when you get baptised in germany, they inform the appropriate authority depending on the state you live in, in bavaria this would be the "standesamt".
is that correct?
or does one have to do this by oneself?
Well, I am registered in Germany, I have a German passport and address and am just in the US on a student visa, that is about to expire.
i have a technical/bureaucratical question for anyone in germany who has experience with this.. the background is, i got baptised as a jw as a teenager in germany, then moved to the us, where i daed.. from my research on the internet, i seem to understand, that when you get baptised in germany, they inform the appropriate authority depending on the state you live in, in bavaria this would be the "standesamt".
is that correct?
or does one have to do this by oneself?
Thank you everyone! This helps a lot.
I will write to the Standesamt just in case. My mother is a JW. When I got baptised during secondary school, I went to the school office to declare it, but not to the Standesamt. I am not sure if my mother did.
