Posts by Anders Andersen

56

Why Faith is Self-Defeating

by cofty in

the god of christian theism values faith.. "without faith it is impossible to please god, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists" - heb.11.

faith and evidence are inversely proportional - the more evidence there is that god exists the less faith you need in that proposition and vice-versa.. so how can a christian criticise any other faith-based belief?

for example they can protest that all the evidence is against the claims of scientology, but that just means that scientologists require more faith than christians.

Anders Andersen

@Skedaddle,

Your post reminds me of how the JW anointed know beyond doubt that they are anointed. They don't have any evidence for it. They certainly cannot prove it to anyone. But they know they are one with God...eh I mean anointed.

83

if you had the slightest of doubt about leaving leaving the watchtower org. go to to jwsurvey.org NOW!

by nowwhat? in

and we are suposed to trust these guys with our lives?

!

Anders Andersen

And even if this Phoney Fakey Award were actually the real Emmy awards: WHY would Jesus Christ ever want to pay to compete in order to show off how good you are?

Didn't he teach us anything about humility n stuff?

Everything the RF do is because of Jehovah, but the bORg gladly pays to be able to tout their own horn...

I guess fallout from this one is easy to contain:

"Some brother in video dept got carried away and signed up for the award without asking. He thought it was only a library card. Oh wait...eh..."

17

Question: refuse, or limit to collaborate with elder inquiry?

by prologos in

should a teen, a child of a believing mother, cooperate in the fact-gathering of the elders into the waywardness (not sex related, hopefully) of some local teenagers?

what scenarios can you see playing out?

all teens to clam up?

Anders Andersen

Elders should mind their own business.

Parents should mind their children.

If the teens are involved in (borderline) illegal acts, or hanging with bad people (bad as seen by worldly people, not as seen by JW), or similar potentially self destructive behaviour, probably the parents should be made aware.

If the teens are just not following all man-imposed JW rules, let them be.

Oh, did I mention elders should mind their own business?

56

Why Faith is Self-Defeating

by cofty in

the god of christian theism values faith.. "without faith it is impossible to please god, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists" - heb.11.

faith and evidence are inversely proportional - the more evidence there is that god exists the less faith you need in that proposition and vice-versa.. so how can a christian criticise any other faith-based belief?

for example they can protest that all the evidence is against the claims of scientology, but that just means that scientologists require more faith than christians.

Anders Andersen

Faith is about believing without seeing. "The evident demonstration of realities that arenot seen"; "Happy is he that believes without seeing."; "Walk by faith not by sight"
Every time JWs and others say that faith in not blind, THEY ARE LYING against their own holy book!

I always thought my (JW) faith had a solid foundation: reason, logic, evidence.

Until I found it didn't. And speaking to my JW friends to explain my exit, in the end they all said something like 'but this is faith we're talking about...there is no evidence/it's not evidence based.'

I always thought JW faith is evidence based, as opposed to false religion who believe anything without evidence. Well no difference there. They all cherish their make-believe like children and their little imaginary tea parties and super heroes.

And they think I am the crazy one...

57

our secret dating got caught...

by trueloveneverfails94 in

we both are 21 years old.

i am almost done with my study and working on to become one of an unbaptized publisher.

Anders Andersen

Think this through properly, as there are some options here:

You stay with the girl and become a JW for life. Result: the rest of your life you'll be afraid of what other JW people think of your behaviour and choices. Just like you are now after holding hands (FFS!)
You stay with the girl and become a JW, but after a while you see JW stuff is bullsh!t. Result: by that time you will have JW friends and family, and they will shun you. Your girl will hate you for leaving JW and you likely break up.
You stay with the girl but you don't become a JW. Result: the rest of your life your girl will be afraid of what other JW people think of your behaviour and choices, and she'll be made to feel guilty for being with you. Fun!
You don't become a JW and your girl dumps you for it. You'll be heartbroken for being dumped, but then you'll be OK.
You don't become a JW and you walk away from the girl. You'll be heartbroken, but then you'll be ok.
You both walk away from JW. Her friends and family will shun both of you. She will need your support, because it will be hard. But then you'll be OK.

Now, act like a man: decide which road you want to travel, and go for it. Don't say we didn't warn you....

Good luck!

34

Fade Fail: Not as Easy as I'd Like

by Hadriel in

this has been tough.

very tough actually.

because i'm so integrated into things including certain tasks which i can't say as it would be a dead giveaway i find myself constantly bombarded by things.. i'm literally a lying every day.

Anders Andersen

Kinding hoping for a severe ailment or something ha ha.

You could stop hoping and claim a burnout or something similar. Noone can say you don't really have it, and you can politely back out of your responsibilities.

You know... Every brother with responsibilities is urged to make sure his family and his own spiritual health are put before his congregation responsibilities. Find those quotes and use them to your advantage ;-)

8

Jehovah / Yahweh must be blessing the Seventh Day Adventist movement and not the Jehovah`s Witnesses.

by smiddy in

jw
friends

if you look at the facts and history of both of these religions , you do see a similarity , not only in belief , but also the timing of their origins.

end times ., paradise earth ( similar to the christadephians , baptists ,and other end times religions ) etc.. the jehovah`s witnesses s put a lot of weight on everybody doing door to door work in the ministry .and counting the time spent doing so.. the seventh day adventists do a fraction of the time doing door to door ministry by everybody in their religion , if they even require every body to go d2d and count their time.

i do not know.. what i do know is that the s.d.a.`s have more than twice the number of active believers than the j.w.`s do , over a similar time of history .. so does that not indicate conclusively that the god of the bible is blessing the s.d.a.`s over the j.w.`s ?

Anders Andersen

Thanks Smiddy for another thing to add to my arsenal of arguments :-)

34

Fade Fail: Not as Easy as I'd Like

by Hadriel in

this has been tough.

very tough actually.

because i'm so integrated into things including certain tasks which i can't say as it would be a dead giveaway i find myself constantly bombarded by things.. i'm literally a lying every day.

Anders Andersen

I couldn't fake it for more than 2 weeks even. It's very hard indeed. Not that I wanted to even.

Make sure you take care of yourself first Hadriel. While the probably best way to wake up others is when still posing as a true believer (no anti-apostate guard up) your first responsibility is your own (mental) health, and your family.

Others who can be woken up, will wake up eventually even without our help. So keep it up as long as you can, but please don't destroy yourself in the process.

Take care!

23

Faith and Lies.

by sparrowdown in

if you were hooked up to a polygraph machine when you were still an asleep, kool-aid drinking dub and asked if you agree 100% with every single wt teaching (asked as individual questions and collectively), would you have "passed" with no signs of deception?.

i know, i definitely would not have "passed" such an interegation.

i would have tripped up on questions about blood, dfing and non jws being marked for destruction just to name a few.

Anders Andersen

Pass 110%

Unless the line of questioning was designed to create doubt about scientific topics (evolution, 6000 year human history)

36

Like Father, Like Son

by cofty in

when faced with awkward questions about the morality of god many christians respond by distancing themselves from the old testament and focusing on "gentle jesus meek and mild" of the new testament.. for bible-believing christians this is intellectually dishonest.. according to christian dogma jesus was the god of abraham isaac and jacob.

the logos, the alpha and omega who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever.".

he claimed that "he that has seen me has seen the father" and that "i and the father are one".. in short, christians assert that jesus is almighty god from all eternity.. it therefore follows that jesus was the god who ordered the nation of israel to take slaves as inheritable possessions.

Anders Andersen

Again, if God exists, then He knows all things past, present and future; He knows the hearts and thoughts of all men. He is perfect. He is just. It's pointless to try to judge Him by atheistic standards, ethics or morals as those are not even binding on themselves, much less God.

That's a leap you are taking: if God exists, then he is all these other things like perfect and just.

You are running around in circles:

My God is perfect and just.
How do you know?
Look at all the stuff He has done, it shows how just and perfect He is.
Mmm....okay, but what about allowing humans to be kept as property when He could have easily forbidden it, just like he forbade a lot of useless stuff? (Or insert other objections)
That's also perfect and just, because God is perfect and just! Don't you dare judge Him!

This line of reasoning sounds like

All cars are red.
Umm, what about this blue one?
It's also red, because all cars are red. Besides you are not qualified to question colors because you don't accept all cars are red!