"Worship is a human being's natural reaction to an encounter with the living God."
It comes down to a rather simple observation, it would seem.
In what way do we each "encounter" the living God?
The definition of "encounter" is that of an UNEXPECTED meeting.
Like bumping into Elvis.
If you've never heard of Elvis...no big deal.
However, if you are a huge fan...a VERY big deal.
Why the term "living" God?
Is it because a dead God would do us no good?
Meeting a hero in sports can be transformative if you follow the athlete's
career. A sudden face to face with Peyton Manning might give football fans a heart attack and stimulate hero worshipping :)
All of which is my (customary) long-winded way of answering the question.
When was I the truest of True Believer?
The answer is pretty simple: when I was in prison trying to serve Jehovah, my god of choice. I was scared, vulnerable, and in way too deep to help myself. I NEEDED God and the imagined protection a living Jehovah might offer.
At my worst moment--I cried out for that (promised) assistance.
The encounter I had was NOT with the living God, but with a rapist.
So, my answer is this.
As far as belief in a living Jehovah God, "NO!"
I HAVE encountered living Godly people who helped me when I needed it most simply because they embodied the qualities God (one might well believe) espoused and commanded.
THAT living proxy-meeting went a long long way toward leaving me very much OPEN to the "real" thing.
TerryWalstrom
JoinedPosts by TerryWalstrom
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49
How Many People Here Still Believe In “God”?
by minimus inbecause of this site i realized that there were many people who were active jehovah’s witnesses really didn’t believe in god at all.
i’m curious how many people believe in god?
i’m not interested in debating why you shouldn’t have a belief in a god or should.
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TerryWalstrom
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23
And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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TerryWalstrom
Cathy Newman is laying cuckoo eggs!
JP makes a statement.
Cathy Newman replaces JP's actual words with her cuckoo straw man.
Dishonest but highly effective in playing to her crowd and
throwing off the interviewee, in effect making JP defend against a doppelganger JP. An Evil Twin version of himself.
Brilliant but insidious. -
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Gordon Nehemia - Finding God's holy name with full vowels
by Da.Furious ini was just sent a link to a jewish scholar that apparently he has found 1,000 manuscripts with yehovah and latest discovery is one with vowels that supports the spelling yehovah.
so this pits the myth that jews have forgotten the name into rest.. i got excited jws about the finding in support of the nwt showing the name as it should be.. just wanted to share this with you guys.. link to the blog and podcat: https://www.nehemiaswall.com/1000-manuscripts-yehovah#more-13611.
also link to michael rood (blog:https://www.michaelrood.tv/) interview who is his friend:.
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TerryWalstrom
Are these Jews for Jesus people to be believed?
Where do we find such an announcement in
https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/magazine/
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And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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TerryWalstrom
Well, most of the cognitive sciences are crammed like a Thanksgiving turkey full of dressing with terminology, jargon, and such.
Jordan is an Academic required to utter the approved language of semiotic, psychiatric, Jungian, Freudian, philosophical patois.
To the extent a non-academic dips a toe in such a pond--the depth seems too profound for casual swimming.
I've watched about nine of his varied interviews and he can be very disarming, eloquent, pointed, precise, and illuminating when confronted about his opinions.
It appears to me most Professors are all huff and puff yet cowardly when it comes to taking a stand against prevailing establishment policies.
This guy has a backbone. -
23
And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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TerryWalstrom
I have a sort of built-in "bristle" reflex at vocabulary words which
For example. The core of religion is worship of the deity in some bounded form of do's and don'ts.
have a subjective definition.
First Principles: "What is this, fundamentally? What is its nature and substance, its reason for being?"
My take on "spirituality" is a kind of miscellaneous basket of non-conventional beliefs.
Reminds me of Ayn Rand's discussion on "stolen concept."
Take an existing concept, remove its genetic roots on which it logically depends and denies the validity of them.
Spirituality hollows out the necessity of a god or worship and fills it with a sugary pastry filling with fuzzy intentions and dubious consequences as well as no formal adherence to a boundary. -
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(Not?) Hypnotized
by TerryWalstrom inwhat you are about to read i've never told anyone before.. why?
because it is mysterious.. mostly because it is a bit like the corner of your eye.
you see movement there but you won't be reciting any eye chart letters.what you read next is sort of like that.i don't like to be vague.
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TerryWalstrom
There is a place in our brain which maintains our sense of BEFORE and AFTER while all of us ever live in is NOW.
This means Before is a fiction to some degree and so is After because of imperfect perception and imperfect memory.
Deja Vu is a hiccup in that time-tracking.
(Did you ever see the movie MEMENTO?)
Hypnosis could be a brain/mind hack to the authentication safeguard in our head distinguishing REAL from UNreal. This alternate version of events is uncanny because it is a distortion image rather than a direct imprint.
All this is untrained speculation on my part. -
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And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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TerryWalstrom
We are not allowed by nature to think unthinkable thoughts.
We cannot bear the unbearable without disintegration.
We will fracture.
Cognitive protection mechanisms kick in--as a natural safeguard.
What we NEED is an ability to moderate our mood and alter our consciousness in times of stress.
The more intelligent and intellectual the person, the more 'high-falutin'
the mechanism of moderation there is.
Stupid people give stupid reasons. Smart people give smart reasons.
What is REAL vs. what is "real" is not really the focus of Peterson's discourse (at least, as I see it.)
He has, to use a weird analogy, opened up his skull and has pulled out his brain in order to see how it works.
This is not possible, of course.
By analogy and deconstruction, it is modeled as real.
I like Peterson's process. I'm not so much interested in his final analysis belief system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y17YaZRRvY -
What you hide from yourself comes back to haunt you (Cognitive Dissonance)
by TerryWalstrom ini was paroled in 1969. i had been in prison since 1967. i was a political prisoner compelled by my religion to refuse military service.. (in order to preserve my faith, i could only change my thoughts.i couldn't change what happened.
i could only change how i remembered what happened, how i reported what happened.
)____________________the first rule of sanity.
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TerryWalstrom
I was paroled in 1969. I had been in prison since 1967.
I was a political prisoner compelled by my religion to refuse Military Service.(In order to preserve my Faith, I could only change my thoughts.
I couldn't change what happened. I could only change how I remembered what happened, how I reported what happened.)
____________________
THE FIRST RULE OF SANITYEach of us carries our world inside our head and it has been built a day at a time, a thought at a time.
This "world-building" more or less matches the real, objective world outside our head.Except...Not perfectly.
There's a really good reason for that.
You'd go mad if the two matched exactly.
____Thinking is NOT always an honest process.
No. No. No.
Between the horror and the human being is THE WALL.Each of us has a circuit-breaker
for unbearable thoughts protecting us from severe trauma
triggered at the unbearable moment.What does this mean?
The first rule of Sanity:
"The unthinkable must NOT be thought."Denial
If you can't bear a thought--you say, "No! I refuse to believe it".
This is the circuit breaker shutting down.Lies
A child confronted with a misdeed--rather than facing punishment--will LIE. It isn't sophisticated; it is NATURE; avoiding pain.
Lying is the act of hiding reality from others while Denial is the act of hiding reality from your Self.
___Our Mind cannot operate without data.
Survival often demands we corrupt that data.Sanity is the perfect balance between "thinkable" and the
unthinkable thoughts.
Question:What person do you know who does not "moderate their mood" by some kind of pill or consciousness-altering substance either legal or illegal?
The horror must be avoided at any cost!
______
In prison, at the age of 20, my Faith assured me I could not and would not ever be outside the full protection of my God. This was an unshakeable belief.
Then, the horror.
I was assaulted.My FAITH was betrayed by reality.
This was unthinkable.
My circuit breaker shut me down.
Denial. Then Lies.The lie: it was an "attempted" assault.
In order to preserve my Faith, I could only change my thoughts.
I couldn't change what happened. I could only change how I remembered what happened, how I reported what happened.Otherwise, there would be consequences unbearable to me and to the "world" I built and lived inside.
I would lose my Faith, self-respect, my Brothers and Sisters, my Purpose, my self-respect and--perhaps, worst of all:
"the only True Religion" might not be true.
So...Denial. Lies.
With this "COGNITIVE DISSONANCE" I saved the world! (My world)
With an imbalance of the mind, comes the great cost. Sanity.
I had suffered a trauma. Lying about the severity of it was like taking an aspirin for a bullet wound.
I began to unhinge. I split into two people.
Like many JW's, I began to live a Double Life.
Terry #1 was a devout Jehovah's Witness devoting 100 hours each month to the ministry and serving in the local congregation as a shining example of what a young man should be.
Terry #2 was an embittered, angry young man filled with rage and desperate to escape my fake world.
___I was paroled in 1969. I had been in prison since 1967.
The Me I had become was on a collision course with disaster.I lasted 5 years in a slow, crumbling disintegration of a person conflicted by every thought, value, and feeling. I was in a war with my Self.
Fight or Flight?
I fled.
Here is what haunts me.
Millions of JW's remain behind. What if I had done that? Would I dissolve into a robotic "True Believer" like all those people I still know today?I took my wife and 3 children with me. I didn't abandon them.
I couldn't.
Many men do just that very thing: A Clean Break.My father did that. I suffered a miserable childhood.
How could I do the same?
I could not.
_______Millions of Jehovah's Witnesses face Cognitive Dissonant thoughts every day.
They reconcile Reality with Faith in the Organization.The Horror is unthinkable: "I am in a cult."
Those of us who speak out are branded Apostates who must not be allowed to speak. The JW must never listen.
What price do they pay?
Sanity?
____
I think the worst Cognitive Dissonance is at the top of the Organization inside the mind and mindset of the Governing Body.
Each and every villain since time began believes he is good.
Where is their Sanity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y17YaZRRvY -
23
And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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23
And now for something you might be able to hear without repulsion
by TerryWalstrom ini won't give a long preamble other than to say this.
listen and see how you respond.
and now i'm passing it along to get your feedback.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lwxw5xs.
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TerryWalstrom
I won't give a long preamble other than to say this. Listen and see how you respond. I did. And now I'm passing it along to get your feedback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28i3lWxW5xs