Posts by schnell

19

"It's a cult, mom."

by schnell in

my mom has been extensively texting me, trying to argue that the un ngo scandal is not a big deal and that the child abuse scandal is to instigate the great tribulation.

even worse, she kept saying how great it is that the gb is imperfect and fallible and that teaching changes all the time.

maybe it was aggravation or impatience, but i finally just snapped and told her, "it's a cult, mom.".

schnell

@nicolau, thanks. I hope so. I know it's as tactful as a shovel to the face to swat a fly, but this is one damned annoying fly.

24

I guess the latest WT killed any hope of US jws growing beards.

by Crazyguy in

in my area i'd guess 30% of the men maybe more have some kind of beard.

this craps gotta wake up somebody still in!.

Right there with ya, smiddy! And I grew my beard when I read 30 Years a Watchtower Slave and got to the chapter about Rutherford telling the Bethel coordinator in Germany to "cut that thing off." I'm quite proud and surprised at myself for it. I didn't think it would come in this thick.

19

"It's a cult, mom."

by schnell in

my mom has been extensively texting me, trying to argue that the un ngo scandal is not a big deal and that the child abuse scandal is to instigate the great tribulation.

even worse, she kept saying how great it is that the gb is imperfect and fallible and that teaching changes all the time.

maybe it was aggravation or impatience, but i finally just snapped and told her, "it's a cult, mom.".

schnell

My mom has been extensively texting me, trying to argue that the UN NGO scandal is not a big deal and that the child abuse scandal is to instigate the Great Tribulation. Even worse, she kept saying how great it is that the GB is imperfect and fallible and that teaching changes all the time.

Maybe it was aggravation or impatience, but I finally just snapped and told her, "It's a cult, mom."

So that went well. She said that millions of people subscribe to this cult, that I knew better than to listen to apostates (or think critically), then she compared me to Judas Iscariot, and that may be the closest she will come to telling me I should go kill myself.

How are things on your end, everybody?

24

I guess the latest WT killed any hope of US jws growing beards.

by Crazyguy in

in my area i'd guess 30% of the men maybe more have some kind of beard.

this craps gotta wake up somebody still in!.

schnell

I went to an assembly with one. It defied the social identity pressure, so people thought it was weird. One girl with tattoos on her neck looked at me like I was the only normal person there. Likewise, tattoo girl. Likewise.

6

Do You Think Trump And His Whole Team Of Advisers Should Drop Acid?

by Brokeback Watchtower in

jw
friends

i mean back in the 60's when lsd was legal they did experiments with the drug to find out it's problem solving ability and the results were amazing.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/psychedelics_in_problem-solving_experiment.

psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving experiment was a study designed to evaluate whether the use of a psychedelic substance with supportive setting can lead to improvement of performance in solving professional problems.

the altered performance was measured by subjective reports, questionnaires, the obtained solutions for the professional problems and psychometric data using the purdue creativity, the miller object visualization, and the witkins embedded figures tests.

schnell

Sure.

4

The Academy of Ideas - "Brainwashing"

by schnell in

https://youtu.be/8ish2un-b-s. the academy of ideas has got to be one of my favorite youtube channels, and due to his subject matter, he doesn't get a whole lot of views.

but do give his playlists a watch.

above, his video on brainwashing is clearly relevant to this forum about jehovah's witnesses.

schnell

Absolutely man! Glad it helped.

31

New Religion where to look?

by Alostpuppydog in

has anyone found any religion that makes more sense than the watchtower organization?

obviously catholics make even less sense than them so don't say that.... the reason i ask is because i still believe the bible is the word of god, but just that the jw's have twisted it for their own benefit, as most religions seem to do....

schnell

I would like to say that Jesus gave only one commandment to love, but he also exerted undue influence on his followers by saying things like, "Leave the dead to bury the dead." Jesus was a cult leader, and we're free to take brotherly love and the golden rule, but let's not look at what he said through a pinhole.

6

RANT: Isn't Cognitive Dissonance Amazing?

by Sorry in

this is piggybacking off my previous post (about my 'personal study').

while i haven't been a long time member, i'm sure if you have my posts you'll know that i'm disenchanted with the wt and am just grunting and bearing until i have a stable enough support system to break away.

however, lately i'm just getting extremely angry at nearly everything that's going on.

schnell

Mental gymnastics should be an Olympic event.

I hear you, Sorry. I've felt the same way. To see friends you've known for years say the dumbest things after you've woken up. . . Yeah at first, you cry because you don't want to lose them. Been there. Then you talk to them and you don't care anymore. Talking to a JW becomes an exhausting chore and you'd rather do pretty much anything else. Thus, you really don't mind shunning them before they shun you.

How soon can you realistically move on and be on your own?

31

New Religion where to look?

by Alostpuppydog in

has anyone found any religion that makes more sense than the watchtower organization?

obviously catholics make even less sense than them so don't say that.... the reason i ask is because i still believe the bible is the word of god, but just that the jw's have twisted it for their own benefit, as most religions seem to do....

schnell

@prologos, excellent suggestion, and I attest to it. At some point, I realized that God was pretty loose with Adam in the garden, and religion was the result of descent. God didn't even seem to quite notice at first when Adam sinned, as it says was walking through the garden in the breezy part of the day and calling out to him.

Couple of things. This gives God a limited and physical location in our world at that moment. God is also reactive to what is immediately before him, rather than reading hearts or minds. One might argue that this is an angel standing in God's place, perhaps Michael, but it doesn't say that does it? For the purposes of this story in Genesis, this is God.

This led me to the character of God. And that's where I'll leave you with this example. If you read the Bible from here, and come to the scripture where it says he doesn't change, you'll laugh and put it away.

There is such a thing, also, as a personal creedo. When you are an atheist, humanist, and methodological naturalist, you are free to choose beliefs and myths to live by if you have good reason for doing so. I personally take a few cues from Zen Buddhism (which Alan Watts called "the religion of no religion") as well as Stoicism. I don't have to believe everything under the umbrella of Buddhism, particularly in the more conservative branches where it seems to be just as dogmatic as Christianity. I love the Tao te Ching, but the I Ching as a pocket fortune teller is unnecessary to me. So, I don't consider myself an "-ist" in any of these "-isms" as much as I am a nosy neighbor who likes to borrow things.

3

"Satan Did It!" -- Comparative Religion and Religion

by schnell in

it's been said that as early christians went to preach about christ and his virgin birth, his tests, miracles, death, resurrection, and divine pedigree, the people they were preaching to would essentially say, "oh yeah, we have that too!

it's almost a cliche to point out that mary and jesus resemble isis and horus, that gautama faced his tests as well, that heracles is the son of zeus and a mortal woman named alcmene.

but when this is pointed out, suddenly an intelligent design argument appears to explain it.

schnell

Heaven, you're right on. I love Bart Ehrman, as well as Finkelstein and Silberman, and Joseph Campbell.

Satanic inspiration of mythology is just another exercise in mental gymnastics Christians use to rationalize their beliefs with the observable world, despite the obvious.