Rainbow_Troll

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Posts by Rainbow_Troll

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  25

  Has anyone here joined a different church after ditching the JWs?

  by NikL in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am just curious.. i have a cousin who is a baptist and his church streams their sunday services and i've been checking them out before i go to meeting with my jw wife.. i haven’t been to a church except for the occasional funeral and wedding and the only sermons i had heard were the tel-evangelist type.

  anyway, all the church bashing by jws over the years made me unsure what to expect and i was pleasantly surprised.

  they do use the bible and they don't spend the whole time begging for money.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  I was a Mormon for a while. I got baptized and everything. I know that sounds crazy, but for me it was a combination of nostalgia and a truly progressive belief system.

  Nostalgia because, superficially, Mormons are a lot like JWs (it's almost like JW lite): men wear suits, ladies wear dresses, we go door-to-door and every male gets to be an elder. Also, the idea that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit so they could become deities like him is not only awesome, but makes a lot more sense than the JW idea of an omniscient being nonetheless testing his creations so they can fail and he can gloat.

  If the archeological evidence for the BoM wasn't so conspicuously absent, I probably would have continued to give Joseph Smith the benefit of a doubt and been a sort of layed back liberal mormon who drank tea and winked at polygamy. Too bad...
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  32

  Have you ever believed something that turned out to be wrong?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  apart, of course, from the obvious example of believing the evidence-free assertion of the governing body to be god's representatives on earth.

  not to side-step that issue, but i wonder if it might be interesting to relate that huge mistake to other things i've been wrong about and how they compare and contrast with the big one.

  a couple of examples of things i was wrong about:.

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• 

  Rainbow_Troll

  Ten things I believed less than a year ago, but no longer:
  

  1. Trump couldn't become mayor of New York City, let alone president of the USA.
  2. Einstein's Theory of GENERAL Relativity (I still believe in SR).
  3. The Higg's Field (Phase transitions? Lol!).
  4. The Ether (It has to exist a priori, but due to the lorentz tranformation, it isn't detectable)
  5. I could never fake my way back into the JWs (It's so idiotically simple).
  6. The Apollo Moon landing really happened (it's so fucking obvious it didn't).
  7. NASA actually sent a go-cart to Mars which can examine rocks for remnants of life (ditto!)
  8. The hundredth monkey phenomena (didn't happen).
  9. Online dating is stupid and American women are illiterate anyway (I actually found a woman on okcupid who's well-read).
  10. I'd have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt just to get a bachlor's degree (only in America, the land of opportunity where everyone is born equal. Ha ha ha!).

  All in all, this year has been a pleasantly disillusioning journey.
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  7

  Interesting explanation of a reason why some people stick with in the JW, regardless of facts - stress

  by nonjwspouse in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this youtube is entirely interesting ( to me anyway) about the affects of stress on the body, and what causes that sress.

  the jws who feel "at the top" in the jw, actually have reduced their stress d a degree.

  when they feel empowered by "privileges" it brings a positive effect on stress levels, especially when in the outside of the jw world they have low level jobs with demanding supervisors, etc.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  Yes, I think that's very close to the truth. I have often observed that highly religious people (and I don't mean those who just go to church every Sunday) are very anxious. They seem to suffer from an existential fear of death and the unknown. They are unable to simply shrug off the big questions and attend to the minutia of life.

  This is something I can personally identify with. It drove me to study philosophy, science, and paranormal phenomena. But perhaps JWs and other highly religious types simply don't have a lot of confidence in their own ability to sort through these issues, so they turn to a higher authority for answers.

  Also, I think you have to possess some mental stability if you want reach answers to these questions, since there is no guarantee they will be the answers you would find comforting. The whole idea of universal heat death disturbed me profoundly to such a degree that I read several books on cosmology in an attempt to refute the possibility. As long as the jury is still out on the large scale curvature of space-time, I'm putting my hopes on a big crunch/big bang oscillating universe
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  10

  Why I Refused To Go To Gay Son's Wedding EXCLUSIVE

  by darkspilver in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  front page of the sunshine coast daily, friday 17 march 2017. yvonne, the mother of chris on bride and prejudice, has for the first time explained why she couldn't attend her gay son's wedding.

  https://m.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/bride-and-prejudice-mum-denies-sons-church-control/3155773/.

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5714189639221248/_post/5672317399072768.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  In his letter to the Daily, Chris questioned the level of influence the church had on his mother.
  "He (Mr Spinks) said 'the organisation has no involvement and no view on it' and 'no one from within the organisation is giving her advice'," Chris wrote.

  I'm so happy that the WT Org no longer holds a prejudicial view on gay marriage. So I can crash all the gay weddings I want and remain a JW in good standing. Maybe I can even sanctify a few myself. What progress!
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  4

  Pastor is charged with medical neglect of girl..Fundamentalist Christian sect

  by James Mixon in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  by michael rubinkam" the associated press" reading pa...interesting case, "he(pastor) was well aware of the fact that this child was in need of medical treatment and he never reported it, nor do i believe that he ever had the intention to report it," berks county district attorney john adams, whose office is prosecuting foster...foster, 72 pastor of a faith tabernacle congregation church in eastern pennsylvania, was charged with felony this month under a state law requiring clergy members,teachers and other "mandated reporters" to turn the names of suspected child abusers over to authorities.

  the law makes no exception for clergy who happen to be related to the abused child.

  with a routine course of antibiotics, 2-year-old ella foster would have almost certainly beaten the pneumonia that took her life...

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  Rainbow_Troll

  And so another toddler is dead because she didn't have enough faith in the healing power of prayer. Oh well, she's in a better place and I'm sure her parents are now diligently working to replace her.

  I hope that one day soon anyone who espouses belief in faith healing will be summarily sterilized. Believe in whatever wacko shit you want, it's your first ammendment right, but don't drag your kids into it!
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  36

  Is Stephen Lett an alien imitation?

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. humour

  i've been watching quite a bit of gb member stephen lett on youtube recently (no, i'm not thinking of going back to the jws).. i just find him compulsive viewing, like when people slow down to see a car crash.

  i find his facial expressions and intonation spell-binding.. it reminds me a bit of john carpenter's the thing, a film where an alien life-form infects a host and imitates it, spreading throughout camps of remote workers in the antarctic.

  if i were a bethelite living in close proximity to lett, i'd be thinking about giving him the blood test to see if he was normal, lol.. why does lett speak in public the way he does?

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  Rainbow_Troll

  He's definitely talking down to his audience, but this has been a long time coming. Any ex-witness who left more than a decade ago can see that the new literature has been dumbed down to keep pace with the average witless's declining IQ: sentences and in fact entire articles are shorter than they once were while precision and clarity in word choice have been sacrificed so that even readers with a very narrow vocabulary can understand.

  I don't think Lett is retarded, he's just smart enough to know that most of his audience is.
  
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  19

  A woman's Heartfelt message to the Governing Body

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just watched this lovely lady's heartfelt message to the governing body.

  i hope that the men she named and all lurkers who have some clout at bethel listen to this message and stop this cruel and divisive shunning policy that has ruined so many family's around the world.

  this is just one voice of many many people who feel this way about your (governing body) destructive policy.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  This is why women aren't allowed any authority in the WT organization.
• 
  43

  It seems that many witnesses simply dont care about facts?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i often wonder if the current crop of witnesses, especially the youth and younger ones simply don't care about facts?.

  i mean for some, even with knowledge of the past scandals, misleading teachings, mistruths, etc etc, they simply don't care.

  "it is the truth after all".. they are so intertwined in the operations and activities of the society, that they cant see anything outside of it.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  Unless a JW can perspnally verify a given fact, it all comes down to a choice of who to believe: Jehovah or Satan?
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  18

  Dutch Elections

  by Yesu Kristo Bwana Wangu in

  1. social
  2. current

  voters are going to the polls in the netherlands in the first of three crucial eurozone elections this year.

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  the voter turnout might set a new record.. what do you hope will be the result?.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  What do you hope will be the result?

  A Muslim ban. Every immigrant who wants to receive citizenship will have to trample upon a flag with the name of Allah printed on it or spit upon a holy Qur'an. But why stop with Muslims? Christians who want in will have to blaspheme the holy spirit. Jews will have to consume a shrimp buffet with a side of clam chowder.

  I know... it will never happen. But a demented psychopath can dream...
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  19

  Is ignorance an excuse?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i have always maintained that i hold nothing personally against individual witnesses, even those that have actively slandered our name and reputation based on the actions of some individuals.. i have often said that all these ones, (even the ones spreading gossip), are victims of the culture of the organization, and the directions of the gb.. but recently i have been rethinking this, and wonder if ignorance is really an acceptable excuse?.

  i mean, with so much information now readily available about the society, its origins, its scandals, issues and conduct, is it simply ok for a witness to remain wilfully ignorant about the organization that dictates every aspect of their lives?.

  is ignorance an excuse?.

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  Rainbow_Troll

  It's really more of a literacy issue. Due to the American public school system many adults in this country, including witnesses, can't read above an elementary school level; nor can they critically analyze an argument in a way that would allow them to spot its fallacies. The information is out there, yes, but without a proper education it is of no use.