Posts by schnell

60

Now I'm Convinced There Probably Is No God

by pale.emperor in

yesterday i made a visit to the museum in my city.

the top floor is the planetarium, which has a connecting room with a huge dome ceiling where they project lessons and lectures and you have a 360 view of the night sky etc.. this particular lecture explained about our galaxy, and how it's only one of billions in the universe.

and then we learned about each planet, some of their moons and the sun.

schnell

Carl Sagan?

I am indirectly influenced by Sagan, but I have never read or watched anything by him or predominantly featuring him.

Yeshuah, if he lived at all, was a cult leader, and this is demonstrated by what he said since that was written before his narrative came along. (I am referring to the Q source.) "Leave the dead to bury their dead" is an expression of undue influence in the hopes of gaining cult followers, and an insult to the poor man's family and responsibilities. If anyone else said it, it'd be at least a little bit rude.

But it's more than that. He was pictured as the Lamb of God... Aries? And he fed the masses with 2 fish? Okay, that's Pisces, and the fish became a signature of Christians.

The woman giving birth to a child? Well, there's Isis and Horus. Armageddon? Okay, that's a battle between Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda... 144,000? Well, if you reduce the digits, it adds up to 9, symbolic of man, the initiate... The Tree of Life? The Tetragrammaton? The Tabernacle? Those are all indicative of the macrocosm, the Grand Man of the Universe...

Before you think that what I'm saying is that Christianity has pagan roots, let me stop you.

What I'm saying is that it should be understood that Christianity has as pagan roots as any other, and I am suggesting that as a religion, it is entirely metaphorical. Not to be taken literally. Jesus is not literally coming back.

But you are in control of your life. You are the innocent infant, who becomes the wandering and reckless adolescent, who becomes the rational adult, who grows old and eventually passes away. You are the Hero, and it's your Journey. It's all on you. If you put your hopes in the predictions of any religious sect, you are bound to be disappointed, but the world will spin on.

18

Who is Gog/Magog?

by Cold Steel in

ezekiel spends two chapters (38-39) describing a war that either will never take place, or which has yet to take place.

according to the prophecy, the warlord gog, of magog, will 1) sweep down on israel, covering the land like a cloud.

this will happen in 2) the latter years when israel will 3) be a people “gathered out of many nations” and peoples.

schnell

@blondie, I read that article when it was published. Reading it again tonight, it is such poorly written nonsense.

The part where they insert brackets into scripture is damning, and smacks of Rutherford doing the same. They're just reading an interpretation into it and expecting us to buy that.

I love how they ask how birds can eat Satan the Devil when he's supposed to be a Spirit that is abyssed at that point, and the rest of the article's sophistry is concocted hence. Who cares?! They could easily have said, "Obviously, the birds can't physically eat Gog [Satan], and therefore this is symbolic of his misery in the abyss." I mean, why not? But they obviously wanted to push a new change this late in the game, something they can reference later in a subsequent update.

Given the news about Russia at the time, it was pretty obvious what was being said between the lines, particularly when it brought up the king of the north. [And that was without the magic of inserting an interpretation in brackets.]

10

The reality we must face.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

my dearest dad is 90 years old today.

we are far away, separated by geography, but never will i allow an organisation that indoctrinated false love separate me from my dear dad.

i love my dad and we had our differences but never will i allow that organisation take away my love for my dad.. happy bithday dad.

schnell

My father passed away in September, 2007. I was 22. I became pretty vigilant for a while but that didn't last. It took some time to make sense of things. I have moved on as much as I can from losing my father, and I can only imagine how things would have gone if I had learned TTATT and faded at that time. I mean, I've already been called a traitor now, almost a decade later.

The Candace Conti case came close, though.

37

The day after Armageddon

by Pronger1 in

jws are scattered across the globe.

a few million people left, pretty isolated from each other.. telephone lines and power goes down since the people who supported the infrastructure are dead.

communication across town, state, country, etc is cut off.

schnell

The day after Armageddon, someone who wasn't a JW survives because he's an engineer and they need him to run the machines and do stuff. He survives, comes out of his house, and says "HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK WAS ALL THAT?!"

He dies immediately and dooms mankind.

37

The day after Armageddon

by Pronger1 in

jws are scattered across the globe.

a few million people left, pretty isolated from each other.. telephone lines and power goes down since the people who supported the infrastructure are dead.

communication across town, state, country, etc is cut off.

schnell

Hey, sounds comparable to the terribly inbred ancestors of Noah.

But seriously, their card to play is a Deus Ex Machina where God makes everything better and answers all their questions and tells them how to do everything.

Deus Ex Machina endings always suck.

8

Can't Edit Bio

by schnell in

hi, i'd like to update my bio as it currently shows "none" but the update profile button isn't clickable.

halp?

!.

schnell

Works! Thank you Simon

30

How to reply when someone asks about your spiritual health

by RodrigoGuerreiro in

first of all, sorry if i cannot correctly express the original expression used in my native language to ask for the "spiritual condition".. a few years ago some member of the family asks my wife directly how is her "spiritual health" (for me it's one of the many strange vocabulary used by jw like "the slave says...").

she was catched by surprise with the direct question and says that everything is ok... and luckily someone call them for lunch.. my question is: do you have any good answers for that question?

you can be ironic/use some humor because the question is a little bit anecdotical .

schnell

"How is your spiritual health?"

"It's getting quite low. All these opponents leaping around, taking their little shots wherever they can. This one guy was pretty strong. But sometimes when I give a good witness, I feel like I've really gotten a 1-up on them."

46

Some apostates are coming across as crazed psychopaths

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

i'm not sure whether or not my view on this is correct so please leave your input.

in recent months i've been viewing youtube videos.

again, it might just be my view but there has been an increased amount of random people grabbing a camera and doing vlogs.

schnell

There is one YouTube apostate whose videos are reminiscent of Heath Ledger's Joker. Entertaining or not, I'm not about to show his videos to my wife or family.

I will offer legitimate criticism: As much frustration might be in your system, as much as you don't want to be judged anymore and as much as you don't care, if your goal is to get a message out to people, then do try to make it at least palatable.

No, not everyone is going to do that. I get it and it's entertaining sometimes. Even I cuss as I write because that's part of who I am and I want to show that kind of freedom. (That's not to say I cuss or behave like an idiot around all polite company. No, I try to be respectful.)

All that said, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from doing this. It's to be expected. You squeeze these people long enough, eventually they will burst. This is what you get when that happens. Some are able to offer a calm, slow-paced criticism of JW scandals, norms and beliefs. Others sound like they're rigging Gotham City up with bombs and happy gas.

49

How do you categorise the Society - Cult or High control religion

by UnshackleTheChains in

i have often seen many categorise the organisation in different ways.

some say cult, some say high control religion.

cult or high control religion?.