Posts by Xanthippe

66

Since leaving the JW Organization, who is believing?

by Issa in

jw
friends

i left the jw organization last year during summer.

maybe some of you can relate.

who of you are agnostic or an atheist?

Xanthippe

Hi Issa, I was a Christian for a year or two after leaving but not a church-goer. My husband and I started reading books on evolution, because we could now read whatever we liked, and realised we'd been lied to by the JWs about the lack of evidence for it.

I also could not see that anyone is in charge of the world and realised all the religious explanations for why God permits suffering are all extremely convoluted explanations for why we don't see him doing anything. One day the penny dropped with me that we don't see God doing anything not because of Adam and Eve, sin or arguments with the Devil but because he's not there.

We were humanists for a while but we found that we couldn't catagorically say there was no life after death as humanists believe. Browsing in a second hand bookshop we found a book on near death and out of body experiences which was very surprising and have read many books about them since.

I have no religious beliefs and am now an atheist by I think it may be possible for consciousness to evolve to exist in non-physical states. I don't believe in anything supernatural, everything in the universe has by definition got to be within the laws of physics but I allow for the possibility that we don't understand all of physics yet.

My husband attained a physics degree after leaving the JWs having always wanted to go to university because he loved the subject. He said you have to throw out what we call common sense when you study particularly quantum physics because that expression no longer applies. So I think the universe is full of possibilities and I never stop looking for answers. Good luck with your quest Issa.

13

Would you sacrifice yourself?

by Half banana in

under roman rule, which covered a large part of the civilized world around the mediterranean, to be a trouble maker or a magician or an insurrectionist was a capital offence.. to live back then in a civilised society was a boon.

naturally for the sake of law and order certain compliances had to be met to as part of the social bargain to be a roman citizen.

among them were included the requirement to respect the “genius” or spirit of the emperor, not to be an atheist and to respect the roman gods.

Xanthippe

But is there some perverse node in our psyche or even in the cerebrum which gets turned on by certain types of religious thinking? I reason that the idea of belief in a certainty of religious hope is made 'real' to believers by others demonstrating it by laying their down lives --and taking pleasure in doing so.

Yes I think it's all about the belief in life after death and as you say it's made real to believers by watching others gladly lay down their lives.

It has always been believed that life after death is a reward a person has to strive for either in a life of self-sacrifice, adherence to religious rules or through a martyrs death.

13

Would you sacrifice yourself?

by Half banana in

under roman rule, which covered a large part of the civilized world around the mediterranean, to be a trouble maker or a magician or an insurrectionist was a capital offence.. to live back then in a civilised society was a boon.

naturally for the sake of law and order certain compliances had to be met to as part of the social bargain to be a roman citizen.

among them were included the requirement to respect the “genius” or spirit of the emperor, not to be an atheist and to respect the roman gods.

Xanthippe

Christianity was all about Jesus dying painfully and the religion promoted the notion that followers would do well to imitate him literally.

Yes Christianity is a religion that promotes martyrdom and self-sacrifice. We had this a lot in the memorial talk. If Jesus had those six-inch nails hammered into his hands and died an agonising death for you, the least you can do is pioneer, go to bethel, sell your house for the kingdom and so on.

The way I feel now is, self-sacrifice is all very well but what's in it for me?

29

Anxiety, OCD, Hoarding, and the JWs

by Spiral in

i'm noticing what seems to be a higher incidence of the above among the local jws than in the "general" (read: worldly) population.

i don't say this lightly, my wanderings around the fringes of jw society locally is revealing an alarming trend here.

the poverty doesn't help (there are good jobs, but you need a degree or qualifications to get one).. anyone else see this?

Xanthippe

OCD to compulsively clean house I've seen a lot of, probably because of the cult's constant nagging women to keep the house spotless so as not to 'bring reproach on J'.

I had a boyfriend whose mother had ruined so many sofas and other furniture because she kept chucking water on it. She even made me lift my feet so she could wash the bottom of my shoes when I went there. A women in my congregation cleaned her house from top to bottom every single day of the year. Very sad.

41

Avoiding Service Tips?

by Kohanic in

back again!.

so as i'm still pimo and living under my parent's roof, how can i get out of service?

cause i really don't want to go and i feel dirty just knowing i could be influencing someone into this garbage..

Xanthippe

Kohanic is it possible for your mother to attend one visit with your psychiatrist with you to find out just how ill you are? In your first post you said she thinks you are using your mental health as an excuse but from your description you are very unwell.

Cold calling on people is one of the most stressful things a person can do do. Cold calling to talk about religion increases the stress by a factor of 10! Your mother needs to know from your doctor you're not well enough to do this, I feel.

13

Would you sacrifice yourself?

by Half banana in

under roman rule, which covered a large part of the civilized world around the mediterranean, to be a trouble maker or a magician or an insurrectionist was a capital offence.. to live back then in a civilised society was a boon.

naturally for the sake of law and order certain compliances had to be met to as part of the social bargain to be a roman citizen.

among them were included the requirement to respect the “genius” or spirit of the emperor, not to be an atheist and to respect the roman gods.

Xanthippe

In a modern day example I always thought while I was still in that it was ridiculous for JWs to go to concentration camps instead of lying to the Nazis. Why would you have to tell the truth to monsters? Just sign the paper, say you no longer believe and go home. God was supposed to read your heart so what was the problem?

To my mind the problem with Christianity is it starts with a crucifixion and has nowhere to go but down.

45

COLD today

by wasone in

jw
friends

it's a cold 13 degrees fahrenheit in tennessee this morning where i live.

glad i'm retired and don't have to work outside today.

what about where you live.

Xanthippe

Yeah I know the A47 Punky. I got off a train from Manchester during the snow a couple of weeks ago. We'd had three inches of snow and the roads were at a standstill. Even though it had started snowing three hours before not a gritter in sight.

Luckily I'd booked a taxi from the station because all the taxis had gone home and people were trying to get in mine. It took him an hour to drive eight miles and I finally got home at midnight. Nightmare.

45

COLD today

by wasone in

jw
friends

it's a cold 13 degrees fahrenheit in tennessee this morning where i live.

glad i'm retired and don't have to work outside today.

what about where you live.

Xanthippe

It's 8 degrees centigrade and wet, wet, wet here in Leicestershire, UK. Not complaining though because at least there's no snow. When it snows in the UK the roads and trains come to a standstill.

There is never enough grit to clear the roads in this country and you take your life in your hands driving on ungritted icy roads. I've done it enough times, trying to get to work, hitting the brakes when skidding across the road and nothing happens, no brakes. Terrifying, so it can rain for me, I'm okay with rain in winter.

58

Don't you think that some people are just better off within the org?

by paradiseseeker in

jw
friends

this is my first post, i will introduce myself later.

first of all, i must say that english is not my mother tongue (i'm spanish), so excuse me if i make any mistake.. do you think that some people simply can't cope with being outside the jws?

some of them are too worldlyphobic to be around non-jws, too dependent on a fixed set of rules in order to carry on with their lives, too dependent on the hope of paradise and resurrection, too unable to leave their personal comfort zone within the organization.

Xanthippe

I have wondered this myself. My brother seemed very happy at bethel but the times that I stayed there all the bloody bells ringing to tell you what to do and when to do it would have driven me mad.

When I had to meet up with my siblings to dispose of our parents' house and sort financial matters it occurred to me that they are just not very bright, sad to say. Yet we come from the same gene pool.

There is a lot of truth in the theory that the basis for intelligence may be genetic but it's what you do with it after you're born that counts. They were also very paranoid about everyone we had to deal with from the parish council to house-clearing companies. They seemed to expect to be cheated and treated badly. I'm not sure they could cope with knowing the TTATT and living in the real world.

8

Friends

by Jrjw in

jw
friends

hi does anyone have any ideas of good places for me to make non jw friends when i move coz need to replace all my jw friends for my kids and i ready for becoming inactive.

Xanthippe

I've made some good friends at meetup.com.