this is my first post.
as i am currently disfellowshipped, i have no one else to discuss these things with.
even if i was actively associated with the dubs, i suppose i'd still have no one else to discuss this with.
If you do a Google image search for Babylonian world view you can see what the "Cosmos" looked like to people at the time the bible was being written. The earth is a flat disk with a solid hemisphere of the Firmament above it. Above the firmament and below the earth are the waters of chaos.
Read any scripture that describes the world and you'll find that it fits perfectly into this picture.
The flood makes a whole lot more sense too.
i remember a roman catholic priest acknowledging on the bbc that the outrageously anti-clerical tv comedy father ted was a humorous mocking of his church but an acceptable thing.. try mocking the jw religion to a believer and the result is so very different.. just why is it that jehovah's witnesses can never take even the faintest hint of criticism of their religion?.
I've found I can criticise the bible but not the Org.
I mean Samson? 300 foxes? Really? Live foxes??
I live in a heavily fox populated part of the world but unless there was some kind of fox shop nearby there is no way in Hades that I could get hold of 300 live foxes.
This kind of statement gets met fairly good naturedly by my JW family, I guess because they can invoke god magic for any biblical weirdness. They can't invoke god magic for current day stuff though because big J doesn't get involved right now.
i'm agnostic.
there could be a god, but i don't believe it's the god described in the bible.i grew up a jw believing in the bible.
after i left, i didn't want religion but was determined to be a christian on my own.. but things started to unravel.
It makes me wonder what I'm still blindly accepting as fact that is actually false.
it's not as if the sheep was trying to seduce the shepherd, the poor creature was violated.
we have come a long way from those days, thank goodness.
so why slay the sheep or beast?????
I like that idea! So if Adam hadn't been so fussy we could all have Sea Otters for wives? Cool!
Truth is rare.
What we have is "Working hypotheses", which we call truth until reality forces us to change.
so my girlfriends, friend has invited me to her little boy's christening.
6 months ago if you'd asked me this i'd have recoiled in horror.
in a catholic church?!!!
Good on you P.E.!
I've not been to a Catholic event, but I have been to a High Anglican wedding. It's interesting to observe but, of course, the main benefit is being a part of your social group and not an outsider. That's what being a JW always denied you, being part of society.
well how's it going round your way?
massive increase of interested ones?
did you even know it was supposed to be happening?
I just had Sunday lunch at my JW parents house. My JW brother was there too and I even went for a walk in the park after with my JW nephew and NONE of them said a thing about coming to the meeting.
If they truly believed then wouldn't they be dragging me to the meeting? This makes me think that they know something's wrong but that fear or inertia is keeping them in.
would i?
i wouldn't mind if he slept through eternity (he sleeps most of the time anyway).
i'd just like to be able to move him around occasionally.
Speaking as a dog lover I have to say that this thread is full of so much crazy that I feel the urge to chase it across the yard and up a tree barking furiously all the while.
this is my first time posting on here so i’m not sure where to start.
i’m trying to keep it as short as possible since i could expand much more.
i’ve been in the process of waking up in the last year and a half.
Hi Untruth and welcome! You've woken up but your wife hasn't so is there any reason why you can't take your foot off the gas and sloooow down?
I know that the drive to convince someone you love who you think has wrong beliefs is incredibly strong (keeps me awake at night sometimes), but what really is the rush?
Have you read Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan? I found it's methods of gradually helping people useful. It can take a long time, years even, but the risk of rushing things is that you'll push the person even further in and lose them entirely.
Good luck!
Matt
this is the one thing that i have struggled with since leaving the organization.
i recognize the need and value of belonging somewhere, being a part of something, showing up weekly to a community where me and my husband and children are loved and utilized and incorporated and cared for.
a place where are my kids qualities are nurtured and encouraged , and then reigned in and developed when needed.
Move to a small village? They tend to be tightly knit communities. We lived in a village in the Cotswolds for a year. Village fetes, weekly pub quizzes, everyone into everyone else's business... I thought it was great, but it drove the wife mad. YMMV.
