the june 1, 2002 wt has an interesting discussion of whether genetics and our biology have any influence on "alcoholism, homosexuality, promiscuity, violence, other aberrant behavior and..." .
their conclusion?
essentially, they say no.
Maybe the old bastards up there in Brooklyn should spend a little more time trying to figure out how to predict a new prophecy so they can up their membership and watch it fail of course instead of trying to become experts in scientific matters when they obviously have no clue of anything other then deception.
-Rick
a while back there were some postings asking if miracles still happen today, so i thought this latest story from my life would be appropriate.. my husband's friend from work lost his father to cancer, shortly after that he lost his wife, also to cancer.
a few months ago his teenage son was diagnosed with bone cancer and not given a very good chance of survival.. i don't know this man, only met him once, and i never met his son.
but something inside me just made me so angry, and my heart so heavy -this could not happen.
Nobody here I don't think has the proper credentials to discredit you here Dawn. I think that even though there are lots of questions of why this and why that and there always will be it does not mean god doesn't listen to us in our prayers and comfort us in some ways. You know what you felt and that's what matters. Thank goodness he turned out to be okay.
-Rick
the recent gathering of cardinals with the pope regarding the pedophile priests issue is a good sign that they are taking this most seriously.
the pope spoke out against pedophile priests and his intention to have a zero tolerance policy.
he spoke out on behalf of the victims and their affected families.
when did you leave?.
what prompted you to doubt/leave the organization?.
for those who are still active, do you plan on leaving soon?
we call the wt the "borg" & their followers "dubs" etc., these are describtive words that (we) have given them.. my question is this: why do we refer to ourselves as "apostates"?
this is their (derogatory) name for us.. what can we call ourselves, how bout "liberators"?
, this is difficult.
I don't consider myself an apostate at all. If I am then I'm an apostate from the JW's, but certainly not in the biblical sense of apostacy. I think I was more of an apostate as a witness then I am now. So in a sense we could turn the tables on them as nobody has more false "apostate" teachings then the JW's do.
-Rick
todays newspapers are full of the le pen story.
much concern is being voiced that right-wing organisations will ride on this story to make their own agendas more widely known, ie, send all the immigrants back home, britain for the british, sod off everyone else!.
now i personally love different cultures.
No way does that make you a racist. One thing I loved about being in the U.S. Navy was going all over the world and seeing different countries and enjoying their customs and everything.
Far as coming into a country and not putting anything back into it I understand where you are coming from wholeheartedly as the U.S. sees plenty of that crapp. I don't like it however don't view myself as a racist either..
-Rick
it is very difficult for normal, well-adjusted people to understand why some take hard drugs.
it is painful to watch healthy men and women eaten away by the chemicals that infest them.
eventually, they become empty shells of their former selves, dying both metaphorically and literally.. it is even harder to understand why some who have managed to become clean of drugs, who have seen the degradation that it causes and know that it is a blind alley, who then return to that seedy underworld and begin once again to pollute themselves.. there must be a reason.
I think the only people who return to it are those who never really understood that it wasn't the truth. These ones left the Org for other reasons but they were always troubled by their consciences.
I certainly fell under that category for a long, long time. Though I never did end up going back had things or circumstances been a bit different or had I not found out the truth behind the truth it would have probably been a matter of time before I did it.
-Rick
before i came into this chat room , lol , i was a full fledge jw for lifer.
i met a few nice folks in the "real" jw chat room and met a few in person( horrors).
but let me tell you the intellectual conversations left alot to be desired.
did you ever stop feeling constantly guilty while you were in the org?
i never did, no matter how much i was doing as far as field service & meeting attendance it never felt like enough.
i never felt like i was doing enough, ever; even though we were at all of the meetings faithfully, with three young children, which was no easy task.. .
Guilt was something I always felt. I was young (14) when I got baptised and got out when I was 18. Thing is the reason I got out had nothing to do with not believing it was the truth, it was simply that I thought I did the honorable thing because I wasn't "Living my life in a way Jehovah approved". While in though I was always trying to do more and more all the time because it was obviously expected of you. I had numerous elders and M. servants always tell me I was well on my way to becoming one of the younger M. servants which at the time I think the age requirment for that was 19. Every summer I would Aux Pioneer and then feel like I should be putting in more and more hours then even required.
Needless to say even though I was still brainwashed at the time I da'd myself the relief of not having to live up to impossible expectations was tremendous!