Which 5 Books Would You Recommend?

by leavingwt 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    Slim - Does this translate into you being a very pragmatic person, or does it mean you have a great interest in abstract things? (Please forgive my question, if it doesn't make sense. I'm not exactly certain how to word what I'm trying to ask.)

    I have recently been reading some of the American pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty, and it very much chimes with my own feelings on many things. I increasingly tend to think that asking whether something is "true" is not only futile but frequently harmful, and that we are better of "changing the conversation" as Rorty would say, to ask whether something is useful in a given context, rather than correct or true and in some yet-to-be-finally-established absolute sense.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp73xE_AoVc

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyx0rNyxFrk&feature=related

  • leavingwt
    leavingwt

    Slim,

    Thank you for responding, after only 4 short months.

    Interesting topic. As a JW, I subscribed to a "Moral Absolutism". My former thinking was unconcerned with pragmatism. It was about status, loyalty and adherence to dogma.

    These days, I think more like you, about what is useful. It requires some heavy lifting to refuse to look at things in black and white. The results are worth the effort, IMHO.

    -LWT

  • DrJohnStMark
    DrJohnStMark

    A list of five (could give ten or so). In an irrelevant order:

    - James Penton: Apocalypse Delayed (about JW)

    - Carl Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World (about it all, surprisingly JW mentioned)

    - Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Craddle (about life)

    - Magnus Mills: Three to See the King (about freedom)

    - The Bible including the Apocrypha (the best apostate book ever)

    Of these KV had most influence on me when young and CS around the time of getting out of the org.

  • leavingwt
    leavingwt

    bttt -- For the benefit of new members. Many interesting book recommendations. Keep 'em coming.

  • jookbeard
    jookbeard

    I'll go with

    1) CoC; Franz

    2) ISoCF; Franz

    3) Apocalypse Delayed; Penton

    4) Sign of the last days when? Carl Olaf Jonson

    5) The Gentile Times Reconsidered ; C O Jonson

  • mentallyfree31
    mentallyfree31

    It's already been mentioned, but Captives of a Concept by Don Cameron blows away entirely the theory that God has ever had anything to do with the Watchtower organization. I remember reading it and suddenly backing away from the computer while cursing and realizing for the first time in my life that somebody hath done pulled one over on me!

  • benoforia
    benoforia

    why go this lent to blasphem the spirit???? if u are out just act mature?

  • Ding
    Ding

    Others are:

    Jehovah of the Watchtower by Walter Martin

    Why I Left Jehovah's Witnesses by Ted Dencher

    Witnesses of Jehovah by Leonard and Marjorie Chretien

    Thus Saith the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses by Randall Watters

  • sooner7nc
    sooner7nc

    benoforia, we go watevr lent w want. we no blasfem sprit! we act matur youkiss ass!

    Learn to read and write and you'll be able to read all of these good books too.

    Good suggestions everyone.

  • Thetis
    Thetis

    1. Leaving the Saints - Martha Beck

    2. The spiral staircase - Karen Armstrong

    3. Most of Alice Miller's Books especially the Drama of the Gifted Child & The Body never lies - highlights how institutionalized

    religion can contribute to the crushing guilt that prevents us from being healthy and conscious adults.

    4. Crisis of conscience

    5. The Power of Now - E Tolle

    5.

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