The Baby and the Bath Water

by NeonMadman 49 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LoneWolf

  You're welcome.

  The main thing I got out of the "Babylon" book was that a history of the two organizations, Jehovah's and Satan's, did exist.

  "The Two Babylons" hit me so hard because it made possible the side-by-side comparison of the two. Therefore, whenever I saw an account of a Biblical event such as the flood, as was recorded by the Babylonians, the differences between the two were what fascinated me.

  I would ask myself, "If I was Satan, what advantage would it give me to word it in that way." The answers were glaringly obvious and just blew me away.

  The other books fleshed everything out.

  LoneWolf
• 

  Sunbeam

  Hi folks

  Just another evangelical checking in .

  Interesting topic, NM. I'll be interested to read other people's replies to your original question.

  I was never a JW, but my husband was. When he finally accepted that the WT was a cult, it was a relief for him. He'd left still thinking that it had the truth.

  We've done a lot of research - freeminds, past WT's, the Bible, etc - and now he generally agrees with mainstream Protestant theology, but isn't remotely interested in being involved. He describes his faith as dead rather than living - it's only in his head, not his heart.

  All the fallout as a result of leaving the society and debating the doctrines of the WT ad nauseum has 'innoculated' him in a sense.

  BTW, I think I read that Randy was a Christian before he joined the JW's too...wasn't it via a Billy Graham talk?

  Love
  Sunbeam
  xxxx

  PS LoneWolf - I always love your insightful threads. Looking forward to part 2.
• 

  NeonMadman

  LoneWolf

  As a reader who appreciated the "Babylon" book and "The Two Babylons," you might also want to read the other side of the story. Specifically, I am recommending Ralph Woodrow's book, "The Babylon Connection?"

  Woodrow is an evangelical preacher who, many years ago, wrote a book called "Babylon Mystery Religion - Ancient and Modern." It was essentially a re-phrasing and updating of a lot of the same material presented by Hislop in "The Two Babylons." Later in his career, Woodrow concluded that Hislop's work was flawed, withdrew "Babylon Mystery Religion" from circulation, and wrote "The Babylon Connection?" to set matters straight.

  If you're interested, it can be ordered from amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0916938174/qid=1011441017/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_3_2/002-7345327-0532014

  Tom
  "The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode." ---Bob Dylan
• 

  Sunchild

  After reading LoneWolf's responses and going back over the rest of the thread a bit more carefully, I see that this [probably] wasn't intended to be YET ANOTHER Christians vs. Atheists debate. *g* So as long as no one tries to preach at me for it, I guess I'll throw in my two cents, too.

  Ever since I was a little kid, I've been fascinated with magickal stuff. Stones, crystals, plants, potions, the "fairy spirit" that lived in my room (I made a little shrine for her when I was eight), all sorts of things. My essence never changed, not even when I was bound and determined to put my magickal leanings behind me and become a good little Christian girl. No one could take that away from me.

  When I reached my breaking point with the JWs about two years ago, I really WAS at a breaking point. I was crying all the time, I felt like I was going crazy, felt like I was tainted and evil and sinful and rotten and no one could love me, let alone Jehovah. Strangely, though, the Goddess was there, just waiting for me. I've heard that Christians often feel they have a calling. Well, that's how it was for me, too, and I couldn't stay away. I read books, looked at Web sites, hung out in the local Wicca shop.... All of it, it felt like ME, and it felt like home in a way that Kingdom Halls and churches never did. I finally cried tears of joy instead of self-contempt.

  Heh. When I think about it, it even makes me tear up now.

  In other words, I was born this way. I left the Jehovah's Witnesses and chose the path that was always mine. Every Pagan I've met -- online or off -- says essentially the same thing: "I've always felt/believed this way. I just didn't know it had a name."

  So, now you know how a JW ends up becoming a Witch.

  *Rochelle.

  ---------
  "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
  -- Professor Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone.
• 

  larc

  Back to the original question,

  After I left the Witnesses, I continued to pursue a college education, which eventually included advanced degrees. I was greatly influenced by the study of science in general, and the study of the behavioral sciences in particular.

  Ever since leaving, I have been pretty much of an anti-organizational person. I don't particularly enjoy structured social environments, so joining a church was pretty much out of the question from the get go.

  By the time I finished my degrees, I came to the conclusion that spending time trying to figure out the nature of God, etc. was pretty much a waste. I was more interested in learning about ideas that had more applicable merit. Furthermore, I did not see any differenct in the quality of religious versus nonreligious people. From my experience, the vast majority of people were basicly good, hard working folks who were just trying to the best by their spouses and their children.

  Lone Wolf, my purpose was not to high jack the thread, but to clarify my point of view. Perhaps I should have put my point of view at the end of a discussion, rather than as an opening statement. At any rate, my journey required considerable thought, and my conclusions were not arrived at in a casual fashion.
• 

  JT

  Namewithheld says:

  Agreed. I don't understand why people assume an atheist is an atheist because they want to 'get away with being bad' / avoid guilty conscience, or in the x-JW case, because they cling to the 'all other religions are bad' thought. I know for myself, once I objectivally studied the bible, and other 'holy' books, it became quite obvious that these were the writings of men - and were used in religions to control the people. I see no hand of god in those books or in any religion today. End of story. So, until I see a fellow walking on water, turning water into wine, or smiting people with fire from heaven, I'll just keep on keepin' on!

  ________________

  and you will burn in He!! for your views.....................

  ###
  this is what i was told when i stated much the same as above-

  If there was one thing that Rutherford got right and that is:

  "Religion is indeed a snare and a racket"

  PASS THE PLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• 

  LoneWolf

  Hi, all.

  Thanks, Sunbeam, for your kind words.

  I know many like your husband. Many feel that it is just so mixed up and confusing that they just throw their hands up in dispair.

  NeonMadman --- I've heard of his book, but haven't had the chance to look it over yet. There were things in Hislop's book that I disagree with too, the prime one being that he was limiting his application to the Catholic Church. I was obvious to me that it really applied to all religion, for there are common threads that run through all of them.

  You speak as though you read it. Was he perhaps a Catholic trying to defend his faith, or was he going deep into the subject and trying to show that the entire concept was wrong?

  Sunchild --- I certainly understand how one could follow that path. I have a daughter who is a "child of nature", although she has never shown a desire to get into the magic end of things. She is so attuned to nature that she's even fed wild skunks out of her hand. She married a young man who is half Mescalero Apache, and I have become familiar with some of their beliefs. I'd like to write a great deal more on this, but that should really belong under another thread. If you see one concerning The Blind Men and the Elephant, click on it, because some of it will be for you.

  You remind me of Opal Whitely. She was raised within a few miles of my place about 80 years ago and wrote a book while still a child. I've read portions of it, and it is written in a childish manner, but her viewpoints are so novel that the book took the nation by storm. My bet is that you would be utterly fascinated with her thoughts. She did almost the same types of things as you describe with the little things of nature. Wish I could remember the title. I think it was something about the woods.

  It's probably out of print, but maybe not, as I think they are still selling some locally as it involves our local history. Check a book store if you wish. They've got a marvelous network for finding out of print books.

  larc --- I thank you for your reply. I certainly knew that you had not chosen that path without a great deal of thought being behind it.
  Your writing reflects that.

  Hope I can get to the thread I mentioned above to Sunchild fairly soon. My thought is that all of us are trying to do the same thing but in different ways. We want to know the truth, where ever that may be. Remember that Jehovah says that he is truth and the God of truth? Truth is a big thing. Perhaps all we are doing is examining different sections of the elephant.

  JT --- LOL. He boils it down to few words . . .

  LoneWolf
• 

  NeonMadman

  larc and Sunchild:

  Thanks for coming back to tell your stories. Again, they are the sort of tales I was hoping to evoke.

  LoneWolf:

  Woodrow was and, as far as I know, still is, an evangelical Protestant minister who was very impressed with "The Two Babylons" as a young evangelist, and wrote a book summarizing its main points in twentieth-century language. Later on, he concluded that Hislop was wrong about many of the things in the book, and wrote the second book to correct matters. If you follow the link to the amazon.com page that I gave you above, Woodrow himself has provided a much more lengthy and detailed account of the writing of the second book and his reasons for doing so.

  Tom
  "The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode." ---Bob Dylan
• 

  waiting

  Howdy NeonMad,

  My original contention was that some ex-JW's who have rejected religion did so because "the Society demonizes all other religion, so the logical conclusion to reach is that, 'if this isn't the truth, then nothing is'." I also speculated that "the unreasonable restrictiveness of the borg may cause a reaction in many of being unwilling to accept any sort of religious restrictions in their lives." I then said that "All of this, in many, leads to a total rejection of faith of any kind." Notice, I said in many, not in all, not even necessarily a majority - tom

  Many jw's imho, believe that when people leave the jw's, they don't join another religion because those leaving still know it's The Truth, they just don't want to live it anymore. Thus, they stay away from all religions because all other religions are lies - in their opinion.

  I was born an Irish Catholic, became a jw at age of 20. Stayed within the org. until I was 50. My husband was born jw, stayed until 56. Average education & business background. Now? Agnostic - both of us. I just don't want to make a 100% choice on any side - and don't feel it's necessary. All 3 of my children left before us, and all claim to be believers/christians - one attends Presbyterian church - likes the minister.

  On the point of atheist/agnostic/believer - no one can prove anything. I would suggest that more wars are fought by believers than atheists. But there are a more believers than atheists also.

  I would think that human nature is the key to goodness/behavior rather than our religion. Our religion can have enormous impact, but then, so can upbringing, etc. We can be swayed by all kinds of things, but our human nature, our essence is the finalitity of our performance, imho.

  As was brought out on another thread, Stalin was a devout atheist - that didn't stop him from slaughtering millions of his own countrymen. The Popes have always been christian - that didn't stop them from leading the Crusades which cause the slaughter of millions of persons, their own and others.

  Good & bad on all sides.

  waiting
• 

  Mindchild

  Hi Tom

  I want to start off by saying that I appreciate your interesting story and you are just as welcome to the board as anyone holding different beliefs. As I got into this thread late also, I don’t want to rehash everything that was discussed between Larc and yourself but I thought I would make the few points for the benefit of all.

  First, I’m and atheist’s atheist. Essentially I believe there is enough scientific and logical evidence to satisfy ME personally (not everyone) that the existence of the JW type God is impossible. This doesn’t exclude some definitions of what God could be in my understanding, but again I reject completely the JW ideology of what they believe God to be both in terms of a corporeal being and the said personality characteristics of such an presumed entity. I won’t go into the evidence here as to why I feel that way, I just wanted to let you know that some atheists do indeed feel this way and their choice is made by investigation and research.

  I would also like to say that I’ve had extensive personal contact with literally several hundred atheists (at one time I was a supporting member of American Atheists and routinely attended meetings and rallies) and I wanted to tell you that YES, there are many reasons why people become atheistic and quite often it is not a studied decision, and can in fact be based completely on emotional or circumstantial events. There are certainly many people who become atheist or agnostic for reasons of logical inquiry and an honest search for understanding. Quite often in the online world you will see passionate debates between atheists and Christians, and of course here on the board as well. This doesn’t mean that everyone is as zealous or confrontational any more than the same being true for each Christian or members of other belief systems. I just mention this because you might end up getting in a flame war sometime online and it is easy to think that when you are up to your ass in alligators that everyone wants to get a bite out of you. Actually in person you will find a lot of these same people to be warm and fuzzy, extra friendly but sometimes online we all seem to play to win, and that gets carried to extremes sometimes and leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

  I thought you did a really good job of presenting yourself as reasonable in your posts and trying to clarify things. I wish we could all do a better job of this.

  In closing I would like to make one final point for the benefit of both Christians and Atheists on this board. It is easy to hijack a thread and turn it into a battleground, especially when some or all parties either perceive sarcastic hits or outright attacks. It becomes very personal then and often just resorts to name-calling and degenerates from there. I don’t think anyone benefits at that point, and in the heat of passion we can often make ourselves look like fools just by being suckered into a confrontational fight. I therefore suggest to everyone that if there is a big issue that you want to debate, devoid of the emotionalism and personal attacks, and to do so in a fun way…then start a debate and label it as so. To see an example of this, you might want to look at the thread: Do JW's Deserve Respect—The Debate in which this topic was done in a “court room” setting where both sides had to play fair. It shows that we can have diverse ideas presented without beating up on each other.

  Kind Regards,

  Skipper