Our dependence on getting THE ANSWERS from others is what got us in trouble in the first place. My view is this: nobody has a secret pipeline to absolute knowledge about anything. They are all pretending and then convincing themselves they are certain.
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I tried to point out to a JW (former friend) of mine the fundamental error of his reasoning. He says he sees the flaws but where ELSE could he go? He is simply "assuming" that he must go somewhere else! It is like being a drug addict who knows his supplier is cheating him--but, he cannot do without the drug and is afraid of starting all over with a new source of the "high". It does not ever penetrate his head that all he needs do is KICK THE HABIT altogether!
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If it were truth it would not change but, change it has. Why did it change? Because it crashed head on into a meat-grinder of real world tests.
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Why ask "Will I die at Armageddon" when you really need to ask "Will I live during my own lifetime?" This life is real and may well be the only one. Does it make sense to throw away the life you HAVE chasing after other people's idea of a better one you have to DIE to achieve?
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1.Get up early and exercise in some way
2.Learn a new skill no matter how small or silly
3.Add one word to my vocabulary each day
4.Write a small monograph on something that interests me and then read it a day later
5.Spend time around children
6.Compose a piece of music or edit one I've already worked on
7.Keep up with world events and try to find an objective middleground for judging those events
8.Take any paragraph in any Watchtower publication and root out the hidden persuaders (mostly adjectives and introductory clauses).
9. Avoid passive days; find a way of being active
10. Get out of the house as soon as possible!
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Think of the Judicial Committee meeting as a spider web and you are the fly.
The spider invites you in but you don't have to agree. No, really!
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"When we build a building we have to build it somewhere. And no matter how how we build it everything rests on the bottom foundation. It is just as true of any argument or carefully reasoned system of belief. In other words, you can't escape what you start with." Examine your premises!
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It is human and normal to value our family which includes their opinion of us. But, when we are being valued in return by a standard that is false and warped, we have to recognise the source of any discomfort as being "other" than family. Seeing the whole world, even our own flesh and blood, always filtered through a bizarre cult standard of behavior is a sickness.
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Would a well-adjusted and goal oriented person be attracted to a group that deals with doom, death, servitude, and insularity? I rather think not!
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Superstitious people simply insist that somebody or something is in charge of the Universe ...and... plots it out like an Agatha Christie novel.
To me that is what it means to be SPIRITUAL. It is refusing to deal with reality by means of evidence, facts, knowledge or autonomy and it leads to vagueness, naivete and actions based on nothing more than coincidence or magic thinking.
But, heck--don't listen to me. What do I know?
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Christians automatically accept the fact we are all poop in God's eyes because we inherited "sin" from our great great great great great, (pant pant pant), great great Grandfather Adam.
Balderdash!
We are as good as we are able to be when we strive hard and have a spot of luck.
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If we could just avoid groups of any kind until we can objectively assess everything we've been told by some neutral standard! But, how many of us simply use a hand-me-down religious book like the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Koran or the Torah to do our thinking and evaluating for us?
It is vitally necessary to learn how to think rationally BEFORE we accept standards of right and wrong and develop an agenda-based morality and join a group.
***I went thru the "history" section of my old posts and pulled these from my early days on JWN