Posts by Phil

25

Why Do JWs Come Here to Debate?

by Victor_E in

jw
friends

he who has sight is blessed; he who has insight is a thousand times blessed.

what motivates jws to engage in a debate with former jws?

this question is something i have written about in years past and my hope is that it will provide some insight to the newbies.

Phil

Victor e,

I am no scholar by any stretch of the imagination. I have yet to meet anyone in the past several years that is knowlegible enough to satisfy my curiosity. I cannot help but feel that one could go through his or her life without fully satisfying this curiosity. There has been so many books written on the subjects by very knowlegible people and scholars, that the search for the ultimate truth can only come from a superbeing. Bias seems to be a trait of nature, built in to the human DNA. I am sure the most intellectual persons on earth also contain some bias in their writings. There is a genious that said that if we can solve the existance of the universe we will solve the existance of a creator.

Reading all the words of wisdom that have been written is next to impossible. Absorbing and retaining all the main portions of these writings would be impossible. If I would ever meet such a person I suspect he would fill the requirements of the person we speak of.

25

Why Do JWs Come Here to Debate?

by Victor_E in

jw
friends

he who has sight is blessed; he who has insight is a thousand times blessed.

what motivates jws to engage in a debate with former jws?

this question is something i have written about in years past and my hope is that it will provide some insight to the newbies.

Phil

Victor:

"He that knows that he knows, learn from him"

How does one know if he really knows. For instance, a JW elder or board member will probably think he would qualify as knowing the truth, although a DF'd JW would think otherwise. Also the DF'd person would probably think that he qualifies as knowing. Am I missing the boat here? Would God be the final answer?

25

Why Do JWs Come Here to Debate?

by Victor_E in

jw
friends

he who has sight is blessed; he who has insight is a thousand times blessed.

what motivates jws to engage in a debate with former jws?

this question is something i have written about in years past and my hope is that it will provide some insight to the newbies.

Phil

happyman:

Only too frequently, "man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"

31

Is Relgious belief a trick of the mind?

by sleepy in

jw
friends

.

what is it about our brians that drives people to religious beliefs that are so obviously nopt founded in fact or reason?is it an inherant founction of our tiny brians or is it in fact our brians going wrong in trying to make sense of the world?

maybe its the psychological equivelent of an optical illution were your brain in trying to make sense of what it sees constructs an impossible reality .like say when you draw a "3-d" box on a flat piece of paper and the brain tries to work out which face is on the front , but it can't, as none is, but the brain will put one in front whatever.maybe religion is what the brain makes to explain the world and uses it so the weiredness of reality makes more sense.

Phil

There is no spoon?

You lost me.

21

JW Practices

by patio34 in

maybe this irked you in the past?

i had a hard time convincing--nay, believing--that we lived in such baaaad times.

jws have the belief that times are bad, so we had the task of convincing the householders of that.

Phil

It looks like this subject "JW Practices" got carried away off course. I will scratch this one.

21

JW Practices

by patio34 in

maybe this irked you in the past?

i had a hard time convincing--nay, believing--that we lived in such baaaad times.

jws have the belief that times are bad, so we had the task of convincing the householders of that.

Phil

We live in relative good times in the industrialized nations. No signs of world war, world domination by a single entity, we eat well, we live in comfortable homes etc. What we should be concentrating our efforts on is to improve the way of life in underdeveloped countries world wide so that they too can reep the benefits of industrialization. Keep close tabs on the environment people. This too will determine our fate.

Return of Jesus and/or Armageddon? Don't hold your breath. All the people on this board will not see it. Believe me, no one living today will see it. One thing you can count on is life in these united states will not get better for a long time. Things will progressively worsen. There will be people that will appear and claim to be the Messiah. Only small groups will follow and he too will fade away into oblivion.

Live in the here and now people.

3

Stockholm Syndrome

by Phil in

jw
friends

are there any readers that have studied or are aware of the term "stockholm syndrome" and its application to cults?

i have heard of this as it applies to people who are brainwashed in countries where torture is used to alter the thinking of people away from their past habits.

i have never heard it applied to the jw organization and its practices.

Phil

Are there any readers that have studied or are aware of the term "Stockholm Syndrome" and its application to cults? I have heard of this as it applies to people who are brainwashed in countries where torture is used to alter the thinking of people away from their past habits. I have never heard it applied to the JW organization and its practices. It appears to be similar and a lot more suttle.

31

Is Relgious belief a trick of the mind?

by sleepy in

jw
friends

.

what is it about our brians that drives people to religious beliefs that are so obviously nopt founded in fact or reason?is it an inherant founction of our tiny brians or is it in fact our brians going wrong in trying to make sense of the world?

maybe its the psychological equivelent of an optical illution were your brain in trying to make sense of what it sees constructs an impossible reality .like say when you draw a "3-d" box on a flat piece of paper and the brain tries to work out which face is on the front , but it can't, as none is, but the brain will put one in front whatever.maybe religion is what the brain makes to explain the world and uses it so the weiredness of reality makes more sense.

Phil

Most of the people on earth have become members of a belief system through their to exposure to the same religions of their parents. They are raised that way and become reliant on the belief that God will look over them, if they are good, for an eternity. Having said that, this provides comfort to the individual so that they do not have to be concerned about that facit of living in a society such as ours. Some people call it a "CRUTCH". Many of such persons become fanatics and as with the addict, cannot be convinced otherwise.

For those that do not fit into the above scenerio, we have the addictable person and the free thinker. The addict feels compelled to associate with a belief system and can never or almost never be broken away from their belief including hitting them over the head with it. The free thinker could have been raised in a religious atmosphere or not but elects to think for him or herself and questions everything that is presented to them and applies some logic to the case presented. All atheists, diests and agnostics are in this level of belief. All religions on earth that can be called religions cannot be logically explained. Areligious person will say it can and would be willing to spend a lifetime to "prove" it, but the final result at the end of his or her lifetime would be the same as it was when the subject was first brought up. Belief systems cannot prove what they say nor can evolutionists prove their theory. Belief systems have little to no evidence and rely heavily on conditionning the participants mind. The writer does not consider the Bible as evidence. Evolutionists have only evidence and what they have is quite impressive.

Of course, any person can possess any combination of the above symptoms. One must never forget that all belief systems have a goal to kidnap one's soul (not the soul as defined by the Bible or other such groups, but the soul that all people possess within their inner being-not God related) to alter it to meet the dictates of the organizers. It is amazing that an organization such as the Jehovah's Witnesses can attract and sustain as many persons as they do. There can't be very many free thinkers in this organization. When they discourage or restrict a person's thinking by discourageing the members from reading literature outside the organization, only a free thinker would see what control such an organization is trying to impose on its members.

I feel better now that I have said my piece.

10

Who Who's a JW?

by WorldsEyeView in

hi guys...

i was wondering who in here is a jw and who's not??

i thought everyone was, but from some of the stuff i have read people aren't.

Phil

To Tammy:

You say you were a JW and your family are still JWs. How is you life going with your family? How big is your family?Are you being harrassed by the elders and other members of the org.?

I am not a JW and never have been. My daughter is and she never discusses her life in Patterson where she lives now.

9

How Would You Handle This?

by Undecided in

i've been expressing myself about some of my doubts about god being an active creature in our life and my doubts about christ being the son of god.

i didn't know the young grandkids were listening sometimes when i was talking to the adults.

my daughter was telling my wife that her 10 year old son was crying to her because he was afraid of dying since god and christ wasn't real.

Phil

jknat:

I'm with you on this one.