Sirona

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Posts by Sirona

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  29

  How the JWs helped me

  by larc in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  all of us have had negative experiences as a result of leaving the witnesses, some much worse than others.

  many here, have expressed a bitterness and an anger over loosing so many "wasted" years.

  while these are natural feelings, i think there are several positives we can dwell on as well.

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  Sirona

  Having been a JW and then having left, I think that I have developed a loving acceptance of people, a non-prejudiced view. The JWs taught me prejudice...but when I left I looked at them from outside and realised how very easy it is for them to hold that view and how wrong it is, but also how I cant blame them all because they really believe it (just like I used to). Thats sort of a benefit of leaving though, not something they taught me while inside.

  Inside, I suppose I learned public speaking skills and how to be disciplined. Somehow I think I would have learned that anyway.

  My ex-hubbie was a teenage delinquent when he joined, and they did teach him how to straighten out his life. However, they stopped him doing professional rugby and then going in the army and to be honest I really believe that going in the army would have likely sorted him out anyway. After all, he was just having a silly teenage phase. Now, he is 30 years old and has no qualifications after working part-time and pioneering. He is not JW now, and wishes he had pursued his rugby career and also joined the army.

  Sirona
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  27

  Logic of God escapes me

  by Amazing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in past posts i have placed god on trial by questioning two issues: 1) the issues in the graden of eden, and the severe punishment of the entire human race for a very minor act of eating fruit.

  2) god ordering the extermination of entire cities, including every last man, woman, child, baby, and even livestock.. results: the result on this forum have be mixed as expected, but showed a range from suport to tryuionmg top explain these events with reasoning, logic, or plausibilities.

  some felt that i might be losing my faith.

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  Sirona

  SS,

  I am not 100% certain either, but I tend to agree with you on this. I read somewhere that we choose our lives and we choose our weaknesses before our incarnation so as to develop our spirit.

  When we die, we return to the spirit realm to review the incarnation and develop further. There, we are open to the true essence of God & Goddess. That is why I think that all world religions have good and bad points, and we should just find the one that we feel brings us closer to the divine and helps us in our path.

  Sirona
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  4

  Faith

  by Adam in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  he can do what ever he wants and what he wants is to give you a million dollars, but he can't until you kiss his ass.

  john: well no, you don't actually get the money until you leave town.

  mary: it's what hank wants; and hank is always right.

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  Sirona

  That absolutely excellent!!

  I'd really like to know the website addy...

  Thankyou Adam!
  Sirona
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  27

  lucid dream, wicked spirits, demons questions!!

  by gotcha in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  having a chinese background, it has been incorporated in our culture to believe in wicked spirits and that sort of stuff..i was wondering if any here could enlighten me with some of their knowledge with regard this subject..my mom's core reason of believing that the jws are the true religion is because of the fact that she found peace and she said that 'wicked spirits' stopped attacking her when she became a jw..(she said that sometimes she felt that wicked spirits want to rape her or something while she was sleeping/dreaming?

  )i sometimes think that this is pure imagination but who am i to judge it is her experience anyways..some say that this may be a medical problem but do any of you believe that this might be true?

  do wicked spirits/demons really want to 'disturb' us humans?

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  Sirona

  Hi

  Theres no doubt that this medical condition exists. However, I do believe in the existance of spirits.

  As a JW, I felt the presence of spirits just as much as I do now. As a Jw, it used to terrify me because I'd been taught that they are ALL demons. I used to lie in bed and pray because I could feel the entity in the room. Nowadays I think that there are some negative entities, but they are not all negative.

  Often, it is all in the mind. If you are fearful you can attract such an experience. If you truly *believe* that saying Jehovah will work, it will! There are many christians who say that using Jesus name works too. Muslims use Allah. Faith is powerful...what we believe in our hearts often affects our reality.

  I suppose I sound like Im contradicting myself here...that its in the mind, but they do exist. What I really mean is that I think most so called demon attacks are just imagination (or the medical condition we talked about), but some experiences are verified to be a spirit of some kind. If more than one person experiences it, this adds to the validity, but we cant rule out group hallucination or group hypnosis. People can hypnotise themselves without realising it.

  About your mum, gotcha, I think that if she was a born again christian and truly believed Jesus would protect her, she would be similarly protected. Jws imagine they are the only ones who are protected, and have a "we are being attacked" mentality. They tell unfounded stories of their divine protection.

  Sirona
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  15

  Halloween!! What do I dooooooooo!!!!!!

  by expatbrit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok this will be my first year participating in halloween.

  i grew up a jw, so have never enjoyed it as a kid or as an adult.. so, i need some guidance!.

  what do i do when the little bastards come to the door?.

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  Sirona

  Mommy Dark:
  

  A truly cold and foreboding moon, perfectly suited to communion through the veil between the worlds.

  exactly!

  Sirona
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  15

  Halloween!! What do I dooooooooo!!!!!!

  by expatbrit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok this will be my first year participating in halloween.

  i grew up a jw, so have never enjoyed it as a kid or as an adult.. so, i need some guidance!.

  what do i do when the little bastards come to the door?.

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  Sirona

  I will be dancing in the moonlight (its Halloween and a full moon too!) ... nakedness if the fire is hot enough

  ;-)
  Sirona Celtic Nymph
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  8

  What does it mean to be Spiritual?

  by VM44 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what does it mean to be spiritual?

  does it mean a person's thinking is mostly about spiritual things?.

  what if the spiritual concepts that a person has are incorrect,.

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  Sirona

  Drachir,

  To me, SPIRITUAL=IMAGINARY.

  There is a small part of me that maybe would agree with you, but to be honest Im afraid of a life that has no purpose (even imaginary) or no higher meaning. That highlights flaws in me, I suppose. Thanks for your honesty!

  Sirona
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  8

  What does it mean to be Spiritual?

  by VM44 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what does it mean to be spiritual?

  does it mean a person's thinking is mostly about spiritual things?.

  what if the spiritual concepts that a person has are incorrect,.

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  Sirona

  Hi,

  What a good question!

  Im not entirely sure what "spiritual" is. I suppose that someone may be spiritual in any religion, or in that same religion considered not spiritual.

  My own interpretation is that Spiritual means connected to the spirit. The spirit can be considered our own soul, the part which is not tainted by human concern but which guides us. I believe that all the universe is connected in terms of spirit or energy. For instance, when a person walks into a room, they can influence others in that room with their very presence, or they can "feel" the atmosphere of a room. That is a demonstration of energies proceeding from us and being felt elsewhere. Everything we do can produce a reaction that could *possibly* be picked up by others.

  I believe that we can tap into the universal spirit.

  Jesus comment about Spirit and Truth may simply mean that we should be truthful with ourselves and others. Not that there is a single Truth that people should believe.

  Despite all of my views listed above, I also accept the idea that some (including myself) may be deluding themselves. I study psychology, and I have read about studies regarding "spiritual experience". Basically, a "spiritual experience" can be induced with electrical pulses in certain parts of the brain.

  I choose to take this psychological evidence as fact, however, I wonder if my very REAL spiritual experiences are just PERCIEVED by that part of my brain (as discovered in the experiments). Just because these experiences can be artificially induced does not mean they cannot occur naturally.

  Freud said all religion was collective neurosis. Having seen what I believe to be ghosts and predicted the future, having had a message given to me by a ghost which was then externally verified, I think I must be more neurotic than most!

  Sirona
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  2

  Sirona, about duality..

  by Introspection in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi, i thought this should really be in a separate thread... i dont think that part of duality is "bad" as such.

  i accept the bad as necessary.

  i can't see how duality itself could be bad - im not sure if you mean the fact it exists is bad or that people believe it exists is bad.

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  Sirona

  Hi Intro,

  I didnt notice this thread until just now!!

  About your comment regarding people believing in duality being bad...well personally I think that this belief has had a good effect on my life. Firstly, I dont see negative things as *purely* things that "bring me down" and I certainly dont see them as caused by some negative external force (e.g. Satan). This means that when something happens thats negative, I dont feel powerless against it. When I was JW, I often felt powerless against evil because the all powerful "god of this system" was inflicting it upon me and my only way out was to plead Jehovah to help me. I viewed the solution as external to myself. This is a form of "learned helplessness" that exists within the JW community. Believing that good and bad exist naturally and serve their purpose allows me to view bad things in a different way (or at least attempt to) and approach the issue feeling ABLE to do something about it.

  I admit its not just the bad that encourages us to change things. However, imagine a world that is perfect (according to the JW perfect world theory). If your life was "perfect" why would you ever seek to make any changes? why would you challenge yourself? You may challenge yourself in little ways, but lets face it, things would really remain the same *forever*!

  If we can get over the good and bad business maybe life would be more interesting..

  Interesting idea. How could this possibly happen though? Human beings will always label a +tive experience as "good" and a -tive experience as "bad". Maybe the polarity discussion has centered a little too much on good/bad though. This discussion could move on to the Yin/Yang idea - with that, Yin/Yang is accepted by many as NATURAL. Thats the point I was making. Why do we want a perfect world anyway?

  Sirona
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  28

  Why atheism?

  by Skimmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on varieties of atheism:.

  can we even speak of clear and distinct ideological borders among atheists, agnostics, and theists?

  absent any commonly accepted scientific proof of the existence of god (or gods), we must consider that the labeling is based on an individual's personal interpretation.

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  Sirona

  Hi, I havent had time to read all these comments yet, but I would like to say I agree wholeheartedly with this comment by RunningMan:

  Christians apparently need to categorize athiests and explain their heresy through the
  use of character flaws, past injury, or indoctrination.

  Personally, I am not atheist, neither am I christian. I dont believe in the God of the bible.
  Sirona