Just imagine if life has evolved in the sub-surface oceans of Europa - it must be marveling at how finely tuned its environment was just for it - this life wouldn't be able to survive if not for Europa's oceans. The frozen surface of the ocean keeps the life forms from venturing too close to the surface where they'd be killed by the radiation from Jupiter. Europa is even just the right distance from Jupiter that tidal forces keep the internal temperature perfect without tearing the moon apart. These life forms would surely think that the odds of another planet existing with these fine-tuned conditions would be astronomical. Surely Europa was created just for them!
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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27
"If the Earth were just a little bit further from or closer to the Sun, we would all freeze or burn"
by Island Man ini'm sure we've all heard this argument by theists employing the fine-tuning argument.
are you aware, however, of exactly how much this "little bit" really is?
theists would have us think that the slightest change in the distance would have drastic implications for survivability.
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PS. 105:15 Anointed...
by tor1500 inthis week bible reading is ps.102-105.
i noticed in ps 105:15: saying, “do not touch my anointed ones,and to my prophets do nothing bad.".
so are these part of the 144,000?
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OneEyedJoe
Literally every description of the 144,000 is taken by JWs to be figurative, except for the number. A number that, in context is clearly figurative - it is 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of isreal and since their coming out of isreal is taken to be figurative then the number of tribes they are taken from is figurative so the total number must also be figurative. Furthermore, essentially every number in the book of revelation is considered to have some figurative/symbolic meaning. 10 is "earthly completeness" 7 "godly completeness" 6 is falling short of godliness, etc etc. Why is this number different?
I've never heard any JW give anything resembling a reasonable defense of 144,000 being literal.
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American democracy in crisis
by slimboyfat inokay cut to the chase.
the united states has got a problem.
hillary clinton is so unpopular that practically any republican who ran against her would probably have beaten her.
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OneEyedJoe
If you want to let Trump in by accident and precipitate the end of civilisation, I guess Green or Libertarian is the way to go.
It's that kind of thinking (along with the winner-take all electoral system) that has us stuck with two bad choices. Voting 3rd party may aid in someone you don't want winning this year (which it sounds like is going to happen either way) but if enough people go for it, it will get the 3rd party a voice in the next election which could have a huge impact going forward.
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Any regrets whilst you were in the Org
by Tallon inthe biggest regret i have is of 'shunning' persons who were disfellowshipped and for 'marking' ones deemed as bad association.. there's no way i can approach these people to ask them for forgiveness as i've emigrated to another country however, by this post i'd like it to be known..
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OneEyedJoe
Same here. Worst thing I did was not inviting a couple of my cousins to my wedding. They'd never even been baptized, but since they were raised in the cult and were dating (and presumably sleeping with) lots of worldly guys, my whole family decided that they might as well be disfellowshiped since they knew better.
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Can an atheist date jw?
by concernCitizen inhey everyone!.
first of all, i'm not a jw, in fact i'm an atheist, or if you really want to be technical about it i'm probably something like an agnostic atheist or something.. but, my girlfriend is a jw, she seems very rational about it though, it seems to me that she believes in a lot of it but not exactly all, for instance she does understands and believes in the scientific age of the earth and evolution.. when we started dating almost a year ago she made it clear she as religious person.
i never saw that as a problem, it's not like i'm trying to convert her or she's trying to convert me.
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OneEyedJoe
Best advice I can possibly give you is to cut bait and walk away. She's in a cult that controls just about every aspect of her life. Even if she seems like she doesn't believe/do all of it, the indoctrination can lay dormant beneath the surface for years waiting for some life event (often death or having kids) to trigger renewed cult involvement. There are many "unbelieving mates" on this forum that are here because they married an inactive JW that rekindled their cult involvement in this way.
Since many folks in your position tend to brush off the above advice, your next best hope is to read Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan to get a better idea of what you're dealing with and try to help her to wake up from the cult indoctrination. Once you've read through that you can use sites like this one and jwfacts.com to learn about the cult and introduce information that may help her to see it for what it is. This is likely to be a large investment for you and is in no way guaranteed to work. She's already shown that she'll put the cult and her mother ahead of you, so there's no reason to believe that she'd change course as you try to expose the cult. Most likely she'll become very cold and push you away, which is why my best advice is to move on.
In answer to the question in your title - JWs are STRONGLY discouraged from dating any non-JWs ("worldly" people) and will often face pretty harsh sanctions for doing so. If she's having sex with you (or anyone she's not married to) and that is discovered, she will be "disfellowshipped" and shunned by all JWs. Since she was raised as a JW, that means that she will probably be shunned by just about everyone that she's ever had a close relationship with (since she's dating you she's clearly a little more liberal about outside relationships, but I would hazard the guess that you're the exception, not the rule). If she is/becomes "inactive" (this means she stops preaching door-to-door) and stops going to meetings her dating you will likely result in shunning by most/all JWs even without her being officially disfellowshipped - they will assume she's having sex and that she needs to be disfellowshipped but just hasn't gotten caught.
As a side note - her belief in the age of the earth is not evidence of her straying from the JW stance - they have somewhat informally accepted the earth's age in recent literature (just doing it in such a way so as not to turn off old-timers that remember when the earth was supposed to be ~50,000 years old). Evolution is also a kinda weak point for her to be liberal on - most JWs don't put enough thoughts into their beliefs to realize that if evolution is true it completely unravels their doctrine. You may also be mistaking her acceptance of so-called "microevolution" for a real understanding of the issues. JWs believe in the global flood of Noah's day as literal and believe that afterward god introduced variation in the species to get from the limited population on the ark to what we have now. My point in saying this, though, is that she may seem somewhat reasonable about certain issues, but if you demonstrate that they show the cult doctrine to be false then she will almost certainly recant what she's said and burrow deeper into the cult.
I wish you the best of luck, whichever course you decide to take.
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Reinstated and then fade
by Zeds Dead ini'm a man - d'fd for 2.5 years now and divorced.
find it hard to date girls out here only due to always having this secret i carry with me that i was once a jw and the thought of telling a girl one day why my family don't acknowledge me as even alive.. recently been thinking of trying to get reinstated and then do a quick fade as i cant go back to the whole jw stuff.. easier said than done and was turned down twice by elders after an immediate attempt 2 years ago.. my motivation for trying would be 1.
) to see if family make contact and 2) play the last hand in their game and give the middle finger.. interested in viewpoints?.
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OneEyedJoe
Getting reinstated just so you don't have to explain to a date why your family doesn't have anything to do with you seems to be a very silly thing indeed. In my mind you'd have more to explain about why you have to pretend to be a JW when around your family. I'm sure you'll find that there are plenty of girls that will love that they won't have to worry about meeting your parents and dealing with in-laws down the road.
You'll probably also get more respect for having integrity in spite of the fact that it comes at the cost of your family. It's part of what makes you you and what makes you an interesting person. Everyone has a past, it's not your fault you were (presumably) born into a cult. It's not shameful that you were in a cult, it's remarkable that you escaped.
What's more is that exJWs don't have a monopoly on estranged families. It happens all the time. You're not that unrelatable, and chances are you'll find many who have a either experienced strained relationships, or know others who have, due to religion. Maybe not as extreme, but your situation is far from unique.
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BITE Model - Sound Familiar?
by pale.emperor inresearching cult mind control brought me to this site: https://www.freedomofmind.com/info/bite/bitemodel.php.
it's like reading a gb mind control manual.
it was my intention to make bold only the ones that the borg do... but they do 98% of them!!!.
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OneEyedJoe
You missed a few:
Changing a person's [...] identity. They don't force a name change, but they certainly do push their "new personality" on you pretty hard.
Meditating and singing should both be bold - while it's not the type of meditation that you'd normally think of, they do encourage you to read the bible and meditate on it. Singing at meetings is a very powerful indoctrination tool - they force you to profess your faith with their lyrics even if you don't fully believe and that causes CD which will be likely to push you toward belief.
In some cases they also create financial dependence - with bethelites and with the many uneducated ones that have little choice but to go to work for a JW.
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$40,000.00 USD, and counting.....
by DATA-DOG ini'm not sure if anyone is keeping track, but as of today, the wtbts has spent $40,000.00 usd to avoid releasing sensitive documents to the superior authorities.
that's $40,000.00 usd of "dedicated funds.
are you a born-in jw?
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OneEyedJoe
They had a month and then the court was going to evaluate the effectiveness of the sanctions. I believe the hearing was Friday.
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$40,000.00 USD, and counting.....
by DATA-DOG ini'm not sure if anyone is keeping track, but as of today, the wtbts has spent $40,000.00 usd to avoid releasing sensitive documents to the superior authorities.
that's $40,000.00 usd of "dedicated funds.
are you a born-in jw?
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OneEyedJoe
I believe the hearing has already occurred. Saw a comment from one of the guys from jwsurvey saying they've applied to get the court documents and will report back once they know how it went.
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Just a little anecdote illustrating how out of touch the typical JW is
by sir82 inthis weeks book study lesson was on martha, the sister of lazarus.
the chapter in the "imitate their faith" book praised her for being "industrious".. the conductor at our congregation meeting was just positively gushing about how "industrious" modern-day jw women are.. he was so exciting, he could barely get the words out.
following is not an exact quote, but conveys the gist:.
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OneEyedJoe
The closet organization comment is pretty typical of chauvinists - ostensibly it's a complement, but it's one that's intended to reinforce stereotypical gender roles to keep women busy and out of the "men's work." What more could you expect from a male-dominated authoritarian cult based on an ancient book written by a male-dominated authoritarian society from the stone age?
Whoever it was who down voted me it was a joke.
