Posts by schnell

20

Taking the Step

by beardfreedom in

jw
friends

first time posting after years of reading, the things i have learned here have gradually helped to open my eyes to the reality of this religion.

though i have been mentally out for some time, lately i have stopped going to meetings and service.

the elders are calling and i have been ignoring them, i am trying to get up the courage to finally break free and never go back.

I'm newly out as well. It's definitely an adjustment. And there seem to be phases to it. After I read 30 Years a Watchtower Slave, I cried to my wife that I never wanted to be an apostate and that I wanted this to be the truth. And now, I am quite proud to be an "apostate" and I have peace of mind that comes with honesty, knowing that I pursued the truth where it led me, not where I wanted it to go. Better off, in other words.

My wife, also, was at first incredibly upset at what she saw her husband doing. Today, she has relief in her eyes and tells me Thank you when I'm honest with her about these things. Sure, sometimes she says she wants to punch me, but she says it with a laugh. The John Cedars and JW Critical Thinker videos on YouTube have definitely gotten her thinking.

So I guess, as with any evolution, there is some time and transition to all of this. How has your family responded to you?

25

Entertainment: What's everybody reading or into right now?

by schnell in

i picked up bernard cornwell's the pagan lord at the library.

historical fiction set in england after the death of alfred the great.

i'm loving it, especially the between-the-lines wit and sense of timing in cornwell's writing, and the complete badassery of the protagonist.

schnell

I picked up Bernard Cornwell's The Pagan Lord at the library. Historical fiction set in England after the death of Alfred the Great. I'm loving it, especially the between-the-lines wit and sense of timing in Cornwell's writing, and the complete badassery of the protagonist.

And sort of along those lines, I picked up Final Fantasy Tactics for Playstation again. I remember dropping this game when I was a teenager listening to talks about video game magic. It's a fun game, and I love the turn based strategy style. And I found it for $7! Sweet!

What about you? What are you reading/listening to/playing? What are you into that you're so happy to have without a cult telling you what you can and can't enjoy?

29

How about prayers being used as a talk?

by NikL in

jw
friends

another thread on here made me think of it.. its a personal peeve of mine.. you bow your head in prayer and the brother says thinks like thank you for the lessons we learned today like bla bla bla and for that wonderful point about yadda yadda yadda.

jehovah we know that etc etc etc therefore we must...well you get the gist.and on and on it goes.

absolutely drives me mad..

schnell

In San Diego, when the conventions were bilingual, the joke was that as the English brother and the Spanish brother both prayed at the same time, ya know, you don't want to have the shorter prayer...

I always thought about the people up in the nosebleeds standing almost at an incline with descending seats and concrete steps in front of them.

193

Great Tribulation and Trump

by TakeOffTheCrown in

please, let's discuss this subject without attacking one another.. it appears that trump has won a victory that no one expected.

is it possible that trump may play a part in the great tribulation?.

there are some who believe trump is one of the most unqualified of men to ever be elected president of the united states.

schnell

Have fun in the cult, fisherman. I look forward to the Judgment Day tract when you get it.

193

Great Tribulation and Trump

by TakeOffTheCrown in

please, let's discuss this subject without attacking one another.. it appears that trump has won a victory that no one expected.

is it possible that trump may play a part in the great tribulation?.

there are some who believe trump is one of the most unqualified of men to ever be elected president of the united states.

schnell

you can share verifiable evidence - not arguments, not conclusions, not speculatively based - that contradicts the Bible, I would love to see it.

Are you sure it wouldn't be drivel?

Fortunately, the Bible makes claims about the world we live in which we can check. You have relics and sites from around the world that contradict the chronology of the Bible. Or how else does you explain going from 8 people in 2370 BCE to the Great Pyramid of Giza? How do you reconcile the relics from around Europe, Mexico, Argentina, China, and Australia that are tens of thousands of years old, some of which are even from the time around, before, and after the flood in places where the Bible's narrative would claim people should not yet be?

How do you reconcile our genome and its 98% commonality with chimpanzees? How do you explain the voluminous fossils of Neanderthals, Flores Dwarves and other hominids? How about the Neanderthal genome?

And frankly, how are you not aware of the evidence contradicting the Bible's narrative? How do YOU explain the science of the Bible's narrative?

21

If you read the bible w/out instruction, what would you think?

by TTWSYF in

anyone reading [or did read] the bible without someone else telling you what it meant?.

would you be leaning towards the jws or baptists or lutherans or what?.

just asking.

schnell

None of those. If I read the Bible, I'm not reading it to believe that it is always right, but rather critically. I don't ignore its issues. I think about a world where this was never written, in which a person tries to tell me the things I'm reading, and I ask myself how many times I would stop him to disagree.

35

What age were you when you were counted as a publisher?

by OrphanCrow in

the wts has always included minors and adults in the same categories - publisher and baptized.. i am interested in knowing how many minors, approximately, are included in the publisher count.

and, at what age a person started publishing.

what age was the youngest publisher reported?.

schnell

I was 12, I think. I dunno.

Oh yeah, did you guys know you were supposed to actually remember the date you were baptized? Because I didn't care to. I thought they were kidding and it didn't sound like useful information to 14 year old me. I found out what it was years later when we moved to a new hall and the overseer really really wanted to know.

I've never had that happen before or since, either, so I wonder if he was just "recovering" my cards and needed to know the right date to write in.

42

Beards

by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

i have a beard.

i spend a month on vacation with no worry from the congregation overseas of course.

i grew a full beard now and with glasses i finally have posted my picture on facebook og me... next to half life 2 cover showing i look like gordan freeman lol.

schnell

This might be the single stupidest issue in the world.

193

Great Tribulation and Trump

by TakeOffTheCrown in

please, let's discuss this subject without attacking one another.. it appears that trump has won a victory that no one expected.

is it possible that trump may play a part in the great tribulation?.

there are some who believe trump is one of the most unqualified of men to ever be elected president of the united states.

schnell

You do not what? Again, I point out to you, error in your logic.

I do not believe that what the Bible records is necessarily true, I gave my reasons why, and I don't care about the conditional logic in your statement.

You want a "sign" and you are asking the wrong person.

You affirmatively asked and therefore proposed that God could provide proof even right now. Are you backtracking such a claim?

But in summary, all that I have said is that convincing verifiable proof comes from God -that is it.

This is confirmation bias.

hopefully you will learn that believing that you know something is fact solely based upon the conclusions of others that you have read in a book, or even testimonial evidence from eyewitnesses is different from knowledge.

This is regressive, ignorant, and a wee bit hypocritical if you put faith in the Bible.

You might also be interested in the Problem of Instruction.

Even the supposed existence of God begs the question of which god it is, if ever named on Earth. (Prologos, an immanentist, and I had a lengthy debate about this recently which I really thoroughly enjoyed.) As improbable as God is, it is even more improbable that such a hypothetical God had a thing to do with the Bible and every passage in every book in Bible canon.

TL;DR - You bought a bridge that someone wanted to sell you. Aren't you the least bit interested in the due diligence on said bridge?

23

How many times jehovah is said in a prayer

by Normalfulla in

so there was this particular elder in my hall who when giving a prayer would say "jehovah" waaaay to much it was ridiculous, we ended up having a count every time he gave prayer, most of the time it was 15-18 but once he topped 20, if u say it out loud 20 times you'll see how weird it is, like when do you ever in a conversation say someone's name that many times in 2 or so minutes,!

.

schnell

As an expletive, bahahaha XD