The Dalai Lama said it all!!!

by Zep 29 Replies latest jw friends

Zep

Zep if i had a choice i know which screwed up i'd prefer. What's the story with gentiles times reconsidered - is there an online copy?
>>not making light of peoples experiences with JW's....but i can show you some pretty screwed up worldly people and some pretty screwed families, thats for sure.
No online copy Of GTR available.....the closet you'll get to it online are AF's essays at http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/index2.htm
Im getting my copy from www.commentarypress.com......its taking 8 weeks to get here, should be just crossin the Pacific right now.....you can get it from Amazon if you got a credit card!
Frenchy

Waiting has asked a question which has had me wondering for quite some time.
why do you hang out with us?
Please don't get the wrong impression here. I think I speak for waiting as well when I say that we are happy to have these discussions and that everyone (who is civil) is welcome. But I am curious as to why someone who was never a JW would want to discuss these things with JW's. What possible interest would you have in these discussions? I know that I certainly would feel out of place were this a group of Jews arguing the shortcomings of their faith, or if the people here were Mormons challenging their prophet.
No one who has not been a witness (and I'm not talking about having had a six month Bible study) can understand the JW mindset. I know that's a broad statement but I stand by it. You cannot possibly know what it feels like to be a JW.
There is a discussion board that I frequent every now and then that's comprised of a wide assortment of 'Babylonish' religions, i.e. Mormons, Catholic, Pentecostal, Jews, etc. I have had some real knock down drag out discussions on a variety of subjects but I never, ever criticize their belief system, only individual doctrine or dogma. One participant knows I'm JW and said as much and then I got a lot of questions (none very nice, if you know what I mean) about JW's and my reply was always: "I'm not here to discuss or justify the JW religion or any religion for that matter. I'm only interested in doctrine." I don't defend it nor do I criticize it there. When they ask a question about what JW's believe, I answer in the third person and I am as truthful and straighforward as I can possibly be. They would never understand and it would be futile to attempt a discussion with them on the issues I take exception to with my religion.
Like waiting, I'm curious as to what it is that you get out of this. Would you care to share that with us?
-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
Zep

Why am i here...no reason really!!!!...only been here a few days.I'm just stuffin round on the Net like usual to be honest....i been all sorts of weird places on the WWW, its nots like i've made this place my home or anything!
Whats my story with JW's, errr! sorta complex!
Basically from 15 to 19 or 20?? i read heaps of WT stuff...i mean all the stuff, then started doing the bible thing, went to a few meeting...was really startin to get into it for a sec.You know, Just from reading a lot of their stuff they really got me thinking seriously about it, in fact i took it seriously for sure.....I'm just not a church goin kinda person....feel outa place in those joints which is probably to my advantage in the end else i probably would have ended up one...Seriously, given the right circumstances i may well have ended up a JW...maybe????
Anyway, Just when i was really studying it hard...i stopped just tossed it in....thought i'll do it some other time...and just forget it, other stuff was going on at the time!!!!
But all that end time talk had an effect on me.....Plus my circle of friends back when i was younger were "Headbangers" and there was all this talk of Satan, the Apocalypse etc....One friend even had this bizzare book which was on bar codes being put in the forehead (the mark of the beast), i just started reading JW prophecy stuff instead....my mind was sorta geared for it by then by then. Things are complex.
Anyway, like i said....i thought i'd just study their stuff later, so basically i was unresloved in respect to it... About 8 months ago i get this call from a friend who's head over heals in respect to JW religion...He's basically full of BS, but he got me thinkin about it again.
So another 6 months ago i wander into h20 thinking its a JW board just to check things out, its really an Apostate board if your've been there!...Anyway i just started reading more and more of the apostate stuff...i got sucked in....i found it very interesting, considering how i thought when i was say 15 where and i was rather convinced by this end of the world stuff....its was very interesting to see how wrong i could be, how easily dupped i could be!
I view WT mags as an interesting study of propaganda and mind manipulation at the moment, which is one of the subjects that really interest me.Last year i was into the whole Kosovo saga and just started reading up on Noam Chomsky stuff...which is all about media manipulation in order to gain a public consensus and JW's sorta tie in there...so its all kinda interesting in that respect.
But to be honest, to be straight up, i'm still not resolved in repsect to JW's...though its slipping away now from the reading i've been doing, i still feel i should give it a bit more attention.Theres a bit in me that still thinks i might be the truth....bizzare but true!
waiting

Hey Frenchy,
As you said, I really enjoy all the comments by the various mindsets. One point of yours hit home - it takes most of us years to gouge the JW mindset into our brains, to become True Believers.
The problem, in my opinion, with Dali Lama's thinking is that it's simplistic perfection. We as humans are simplistic - but not in the area of inhumanity to man. We can descend to depths that when written about make the average person turn away in disgust.
Watch any war movie - any movie about rape, incest, torture, and reality is the source. Perhaps magnified - but not always. I am a survivor of incest and torture - they do not show the explicit cruelty, for you see, it would be banned. Only in real life can inhumanity be experienced to the full.
"To be kind." The highest achievement - however, I strongly feel that it is unattainable in our world. The Dream? That we, in reality, would not have to live in our world. Surely a God who made us could destroy this world and make a better one. Surely, this world is not the best of his handiwork. Surely, he cares. That is the Dream. That is what is shattered.
Zep, you mentioned that non-JW's have the same family problems that JW's have. I completely agree with you. I was raised a Catholic by my mother. My father did not claim any religion (nor, I doubt, would any religion claim him if they knew him.) Studies over the years have shown that problems, particularily violence and sexual, transcend all demographics. And the USA, to my knowledge, is the dubious winner for more perversity than any other nation.
Australia is looking better, huh?
Carmel

Are you thinking He should have appeared on Mars rather than the northern Galilee? or rather to the Phillopines rather than the Philistines?
Carmel wondering who's hands you mean
waiting

Hey, Carmel,
Who you talking to? If it's to me, you're going to have to break the question. Got me stumped.
waiting, patiently.
Frenchy

Zep: You are an anomaly to me. You make statements like:
After all, the truth is a powerful weapon, you can make people do anything when you have "the truth"...even murder!.
Things are all different now, JW's look like nothing more than a high control totalitarian cult with some rather wacky world views and prophecies?????????? strange eh!
I'm glad they never got their claws into me too deep and that i have no family ties with 'em....
JW's were once fine Chocolate to a kid like me, now their looking like just boiled lollies....go figure!
So another 6 months ago i wander into h20 thinking its a JW board just to check things out, its really an Apostate board if your've been there!...Anyway i just started reading more and more of the apostate stuff...i got sucked in....its was very interesting to see how wrong i could be, how easily dupped i could be!
I view WT mags as an interesting study of propaganda and mind manipulation at the moment
And then you write this:
But to be honest, to be straight up, i'm still not resolved in repsect to JW's...Theres a bit in me that still thinks i might be the truth...
Is it just me or does this seem weird to anyone else?
----
...And that business with Dali Lama and his religion being kindness is extreme oversimplification. Religion is (has to be) more than being kind.
-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
Zep

Wires crossed here....sometimes i dont explain stuff too well??????????????And remember this...i just having a rant anyway!
1.After all, the truth is a powerful weapon, you can make people do anything when you have "the truth"...even murder!..
This is a famous quote by someone i forget.I was referring to the fact that when reading their stuff i could never understand the blood doctrine but i could actually overlook it and even rationalize it to a degree when i read the other stuff, since the other stuff seemed rather convincing.If someone is seen to have "the truth"......then people can be made to believe in and do the dumbest of things.....Ask
Hitler.
2 Things are all different now, JW's look like nothing more than a high control totalitarian cult with some rather wacky world views and prophecies?????????? strange eh!
Yeah thats right!
3 I'm glad they never got their claws into me too deep and that i have no family ties with 'em....
Halljelllulah.....Did they get their claws into me at all?.....well, depends on you want to define it, but to the extent that i read a lot of their stuff and they got me studying it, they it!
4 JW's were once fine Chocolate to a kid like me, now their looking like just boiled
lollies....go figure!
Whatever.....well, fine choclate????? errrr.....Well, simply things looked pretty good for awhile there when i was younger but today that look like sh't!
5.So another 6 months ago i wander into h20 thinking its a JW board just to check things out, its really an Apostate board if your've been there!...Anyway i just started reading more and more of the apostate stuff...i got sucked in....its was very interesting to see how wrong i could be, how easily dupped i could be!
Yep! makes sense!
6 I view WT mags as an interesting study of propaganda and mind manipulation at the moment
Basically thats right...thats how i view 'em
So why did i say this eh?????
8.But to be honest, to be straight up, i'm still not resolved in repsect to JW's...Theres a bit in me that still thinks i might be the truth...
Aint ambivalence a bitch......I said there is a bit, which is not a very big bit...but a bit nonetheless.....What i mean is that the WT to me at this moment sure looks like a crock of sh't, thats how i feel.....however there is this other side, thats rather compartmentalized that just wants to push the study a little further....wants to cover all angles.Its called "doubt".I'd say i was 90% resolved in relation to the WT.When i started out re studying the sh't 6 months ago....i was 50/50 probably.I was even intending to go to kingdom hall at one stage but that ideas getting snuffed out the more i read online...what would be the point eh!Things are never black and white Frenchy, always theres this schizophrenic bit and its in everyone!......
Zep

And that business with Dali Lama and his religion being kindness is extreme oversimplification. Religion is (has to be) more than being kind.
Nokiddin' frenchy, but that was not my point.....What do you think the Dalai lama was saying when he made that statement?.He's Buddist, a very complex religion...but he was trying to make a point!.Can you see it?????????...You could probably say Jesus went along similar lines at one stage in the bible?????What is "truth"...where should truth spring from?
Frenchy

Thank you for your reply, Zep. I'm not questioning your candor here, just explaining my difficulty with understanding your reasoning. You expressed your view of thier literature as:
..an interesting study of propaganda and mind manipulation at the moment
And then you say right after that:
...i'm still not resolved in repsect to JW's
I don't know, it still seems odd to me that one can make those two statements back to back.
What is "truth"...where should truth spring from
I believe I have run across that question somewhere before! Ah, yes, Pilate. Are you asking that question rhetorically? I would like very much to know what your definition of truth is, however. Really.
-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-

The Dalai Lama said it all!!!

Share this