since leaving watchtower i kind of hit the "reset" button in my mind and reevaluated what i thought i knew, what i believe and i require proof for every idea put before me before i commit to it.
lately i've been fascinated with evolution.
as a jw i never even looked at the subject, dismissing it as "just a theory".
Cofty, would you give me your take on these creationist arguments as put forward by bible nut Jack Chick in one of his tracts:
I read through some of it until a pretty clear pattern emerged. Pretty much everything in there relied upon mischaracterization of the claims of evolution and the evidence for it. I think if you read through Cofty's threads you'll start to see a lot of the flaws of creationist's arguments.
since leaving watchtower i kind of hit the "reset" button in my mind and reevaluated what i thought i knew, what i believe and i require proof for every idea put before me before i commit to it.
lately i've been fascinated with evolution.
as a jw i never even looked at the subject, dismissing it as "just a theory".
Cofty's threads on the topic have been very interesting and put together very well so that anyone should be able to understand. Here's a link to the latest one, which also has links to the previous topics.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5653141557084160/evolution-fact-39-homologous-structures
apparently going to the kingdom hall and getting out in the door to door ministry is the best way to get over the loss of a loved one.
who'dve thunk it?.
stash: /intesoft-inc.appspot.com/post/80e3cef960fd4eee9fd5cd757c438581.html
If you have a problem the solution is always more cult involvement. If that doesn't fix the problem then you're either still not doing enough or you don't have the right attitude/heart-condition. So don't complain that it didn't solve your problem because that's just evidence that you're worthless/evil.
i like to watch ted talks.. a recent one i watched was "why i left the westboro baptist church" x megan phelps-roper.
i have never heard of this church ever before after all i am in australia.
the talk and all the young woman stated as beliefs and dogma sounded just like the jw minus the noisy demos..
She also did Sam Harris' podcast, which I found to be a very good listen. It was startling how much of what she said was so relatable - even the scriptures that got emphasized were the same.
so i thought my purpose was to serve jehovah and get baptised.
where do i go now to get baptised?
is baptism even a requirement for serving god or was that just for the disciples and people of that time.
My advice would be to focus on peeling back the layers of indoctrination for a while before you start looking to join another group/religion/belief-system. There's no rush - take your time. The JW indoctrination that time is short can linger even after you lose your fear that armageddon is imminent. Spend some time on introspection, and examine your beliefs and why you believe them. Follow each one to its ultimate source and if the foundation of some belief turns out to be that the cult is true or based on something the cult told you, set that belief aside for reevaluation later. Get to what you know is true and then start building your way back up from there.
While you're doing this, try things that you couldn't as a JW. Maybe instead of prayer, try meditation. Have a birthday party. Develop friendships with normal people. Watch bad movies and sleep in on saturday morning. Try things you've always wanted to, and things that make you uncomfortable at first.
Between introspection and experimentation you'll start to find things that give you meaning and what (if anything) you want to believe going forward.
to say this whole creation thing has been or will be a success at the end is absurd.
not only did one third of the angels jump ship to satans side.
but adam and eve screwed up so quickly.
Why do adam and eve have to die at all? It's as if you had a kid and the very first mistake they made instead of lovingly correcting them and helping them to see their error, you just kill them and start trying for another kid. Some "loving father" god is!
Edit:
Obviously I'm familiar with the JW "perfect standards of justice" nonsense answer to this but it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In what world is killing someone just when their only crime is violating some arbitrary rule that doesn't matter to anyone?
to say this whole creation thing has been or will be a success at the end is absurd.
not only did one third of the angels jump ship to satans side.
but adam and eve screwed up so quickly.
Plus, all this death and destruction is just so that any later challenges to his authority can just be met by instant execution! A sort of "nope, we've tried that and it didn't work so now you get to die!" Imagine that...everyone lives forever but periodically your buddies just vanish because they questioned god's authority. Now if we're really talking about forever one can assume that eventually everyone would, at some point, question god's authority and get pooffed out of existence so no one would really get to live forever and god would be tasked with killing an infinite number of people over the course of eternity. Doesn't seem like a very good system at all.
so i was looking on instagram and one of my former jw friends was showing pictures of his bbq ribs and saying something about well we better eat all the pigs we can now since we won't be eating meat in the new system of things?
i don't seem to remember that teaching but does anyone else?
.
I always figured we'd just be eating meat from animals that died of old age. If it dies of natural causes, why couldn't we eat it? You'd be perfect so you wouldn't get sick. It might be a little tougher being an older animal than we normally eat now, but it'd still be better than a veggie burger by miles.
My plan was to start breeding livestock with heart defects that would cause them to die in their prime. It's funny the nonsense you can think up when you're forced into a belief system of basic assumptions that can't be questioned.
so i spoke to my elder dad the other day, and he asked if i still am sporting a beard.
i said yes, then i said, "i thought the society said its ok to have a neat trimmed beard now?
" he said "no, no, no..if you read the article , it says in countries where it is accepted" so my response was "ummm, its pretty accepted here in america"..which he says "it reflects your spirituality" "if another wittness saw you, they would know you are weak"...i was like, "ok, i don't get it, and i follow christ/god, not men..." then he said in his hall" if a brother came in with a beard , he would not have privelages" then i just gave up, and tried to change the subject..ugggggggggg if these people would just listen to themselves , they would see the sillyness of there teachings...
Why on earth would someone wearing a Beard "stumble" someone ? Jeez, if something like that upsets them they ain't gonna' last long in the JW's anyway.
If someone wears a beard it can definitely stumble many int he congregation. Seeing someone defy the leadership would make them want to confront that defiance but in doing so they are very likely to realize that the cult's stance doesn't have a leg to stand on. That would be quite a "stumbling block" indeed.
I've seen a number of times people post with some implied shame that they woke up at least in part due to the beard issue and I don't think this shame is warranted. It's a perfect issue to wake up to - seemingly low stakes and yet it encapsulates one of the greatest examples of the cult's hypocrisy and willingness to manipulate information and scripture to suit their ends. It seems like a small thing to start so people are less afraid to approach it, but then upon discovering the fraud they can't help but see it everywhere else.
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20120201/adolescent-questions-faith/.
this article doesn't touch on the topic of what a parent shoud do if their teenager has made an educated decision to stop attending meetings.
but, hey...what else do you expect from the watchtower coporation?.
Not only does this force the assumption that any doubts a kid might have are due to some other emotional problem not related to the cult (lack of self confidence, lack of friends, overwhelmed by the Orwellian control christian standards) but they're also reinforcing that if the kids leave it's the parent's fault for not handling their kid's doubts correctly. Again, it couldn't possibly be the cult's fault for being a fraud.
