If you have been born or sucked into a cult, everything you inherited from it is suspect, Gods, reference materials, science, the whole lot. You have to cut it off at the roots and start over, admitting to yourself that everything that came from its quoted source material could be tainted, even if it did 'tickle your ears' at the time. Trying to hang onto the bits that you liked could lead you into being sucked into another cult, in which case, you may as well have stuck with the one your friends and family are in.
Overwhelmed
by Freedom rocks 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Black Sheep
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Xanthippe
Trees and plants are food and flower factories which function in SILENCE and give us SWEETNESS and FRAGRANCE, and they work for others (not for themselves).
This is not helping Ireneus. Plants and trees use flowers to attract pollinating insects so they can produce seed to propagate themselves. If what you say is true there would be no poisonous plants.
We've learnt not to eat berries, leaves and fungi that harm us by trial and error which must have involved watching loved ones die horribly. Teaching Disney world doesn't help people cope with the real world
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zeb
see pm
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Freedom rocks
I don't believe In the bible anymore, I am more looking for scientific answers to life/creation/evolution so I can hold my ground on why I dont believe in the bible.
Maybe I'm looking at it from a jw perspective though in that people who don't believe the bible are dumb and misguided and have no answers.
I feel as if I have to have more knowledge on life and how it got here but maybe I just need to learn to accept that we don't have the answers.
It's the smugness of jws that I hate In that they say they do have the answers (I'm sure you all know the smug smile I'm on about lol when they say they have the answers to why we're here, etc). They have no solid evidence to back up their claims.
I'm not really bothered about why we're here but it would be nice to know more about how we're here, if that makes sense. These are the areas of science I'm looking into, it's just confusing when there are so many conflicting arguments.
I'm not looking for the answers off anyone on here either @dupstepped, I'm just looking to see if others are doing similar research and are going or have gone through similar motions after they left and where they are now.
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pale.emperor
I feel it wise not to fall in the Watchtower trap of ever thinking we have "the truth". I live my life using evidence presented to me, if something better comes along I'll consider it and if it works go with it. My worldview is basically a model I use to navigate through the world around me.
This idea that we need to know "the truth" is the reason we have religion in the first place. Bronze age man see's a rainbow and so believes a man in the sky put it there as a promise not to bring a flood.
Now that we know about light particles being refracted through water vapor the bronze age explanation sounds like something a child would say, yet 8 million JWs actually believe the rainbow story.
Rather than worrying about what we believe, try to be comfortable with the fact that you will go on learning everyday. In 10 years we'll probably look back on today and laugh at some of the things we once thought. Especially medically. But this is actually a wonderful thing - not being content with "just believing" something, if we keep testing, questioning and trying we'll keep discovering new things.
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Xanthippe
I'm just looking to see if others are doing similar research and are going or have gone through similar motions after they left and where they are now.
It took me a while to realise that JWs confuse evolution for which there is a huge amount of evidence with the origin of life on Earth which nobody has an answer to. They make jokes about how could amino acids have been produced in the ocean from chemicals with just the action of lightning and then got themselves out of this toxic environment to become proteins.
Nobody knows, although amino acids have been produced under laboratory conditions. Warm thermal vents within oceans is one theory now but no one knows for sure. However this has nothing to do with evolution which has been proved. The so-called missing links, transitional species that the JWs make fun of have been found. When I realised these two issues are quite separate I stared to make headway.
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cofty
I don't believe In the bible anymore, I am more looking for scientific answers to life/creation/evolution so I can hold my ground on why I dont believe in the bible.
It takes time and effort. I feel able to refute every argument ever made by a creationist and respond to any objection to evolution but I've been reading science books for over a decade. Watching YouTube videos are of very limited value and there will always be those plausible-sounding creationist videos that seem to have merit. The people who make those creationist videos - just like Perry - have never read a science book in their lives.
If you are serious about learning you need to commit to reading. Don't be in a hurry.
Check out this series of threads on Evolution is a Fact..
They will introduce you to some of the topics that you can go on to learn more about.
Here is a suggested reading list to get you started. There are no shortcuts. Feel free to ask questions, there are plenty of us here who can help.
Your Inner Fish - Neil Shubin
Why Evolution is True - Jerry Coyne
Why Darwin Matters - Michael Shermer
Life Ascending - Nick Lane
The Blind Watchmaker - Dawkins
The Selfish Gene - Dawkins
The Greatest Show on Earth - Dawkins
Evolution - What the Fossils Say - Prothero
The Making of the Fittest - Sean B. Carroll
Endless Forms Most Beautiful - Sean B.CarrollIf you want to know the latest developments in abiogenesis read 'The Vital Question' by Nick Lane
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Half banana
Freedom rocks, your situation is very familiar to all those of us who have left the JW cult. There is anxiety that all our precious foundational religious beliefs are being dispensed with and we are left with a void.
As JWs we were robbed! Robbed of our human right to know and understand according to factual evidence. Instead our whole life was the product of what we let the Watchtower impose on our minds and hearts as to what reality was. They were so very wrong-- and we were led up the garden path.
I think then that the first determination we should make is to be able to assess is whether a belief is based on a stories or based on fact and evidence. There are other things going on in our minds as we get rid of JW nonsense but from the point of getting a proper grip on reality we have to start somewhere and this is it.
Understand what is "belief" and what is testable fact and be ruthless about it. Understand the difference.
For example although many people have forever believed in a spirit world there is no concrete evidence for things which are invisible and cannot be measured in any way. Their existence is only in people's minds as the result of wishing to believe.This is the essence of belief.
Humans are however not logic machines we have a strong emotional component, it created our many cultures and is drawn from our earliest experiences in life, the warmth and security of being cared for as an infant. . . but don't get snagged in this mode because the normal human grows up (not JWs!) and works things out for him or herself.
As we work things out after JW life we must ask a new set of questions. Not "Does the religion approve?" but "Is this or that idea based on solid evidence?". Evolution for example is based on solid evidence but if you live in the United States there exists a movement to stem the loss of Biblical authority and is creating its own defensive culture to support the indefensible claim that God created the world. Look at the evidence. You looked at the internet and heard "others" said there were arguments against evolution. Look at the evidence for yourself.
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Sara
@Freedom Rocks:" It's the smugness of jws that I hate In that they say they do have the answers (I'm sure you all know the smug smile I'm on about lol when they say they have the answers to why we're here, etc)."
Yeah, I really can't stand that bit. If you question them because something really does not make sense or is bluntly untrue its like 'in time you will understand, you are just not there yet (and we are)' like I'm the one being stupid.
And yes I have the same as you .. I'm investigating .. EVERYTHING .. reading all kinds of books and opinions and I get swayed from one opinion to the other as well.
For JW it's easy .. everything in the bible is true, because it says so in the bible.
