Posts by doogie

46

Does the WTS disfellowship mentally challenged people?

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

.

has anyone ever seen a situation where the wts disfellowhiped someone who is autistic, retarded or otherwise mentally challenged?.

i wonder if the elders give them more leeway knowing that they are not always capable of making decisions as well as a normal person.. .

doogie

there was a guy in my old cong that was definitely challenged. he wasn't retarded, he was brain damaged. (he had gotten into a fight at a bar in his 20s and some one smashed his head on the sidewalk)

he was baptised in his late 40s or early 50s. he would sit at the back of the hall just shaking and sobbing. i'm talkign about REAL sobbing during the meeting. he had real self esteem issues and would talk to the elders after every meeting he went to about some new "bad" thing he had done that he needed to confess. he would try to give my dad his diabetes supplies (they both have diabetes) because he "didn't deserve them". it was terribly sad. not only because he was in serious need of some therapy but also because he had been baptised only a few years before. granted, he could've become far more unstable AFTER the baptism, but technically he had major problems decades before.

he was never disfellowshipped or anything (at least not while i was there...i've been gone about 6 years) but i have no idea if that was because he was brain damaged or because he didn't do anything 'wrong'.

293

A newbie's impression on this board, pros and cons

by smelly onions in

cons.

i don't know who is scarier, the jw's or some people on this board.

man, r u guys bitter?

doogie

Many on this forum can't conform to the WT's high moral standards, so of course they'll use whatever they can to justify their own messed up behavior.

man, i missed the poll again! apparently there must be some kind of poll that would show what "many" or "most" on the board feel, do, or believe in their post-JW lives. dang it! someone wake me up when the next poll is taken...

unless of course, the above was just an arbitrary assumption? you know what they say you do when you assume...

12

Converting

by xjustxanotherxstarx in

jw
friends

hey, my friends is a jehovah's witness, and his parents are strict about who he can and cannot see, we are very close, and i wish we could see more of each other!

i know we would be allowed to if i was his religion!

how could i convert and what would i have to do, and how long would it take?

doogie

However if you read Pastor Chuck Smiths "The End Times" pages 35 & 36, he predicted the end would come in 2006, also LUTHERN, BABTIST, CATHOLICS & the various ADVENTIST groups have also done the same.

you heard it here first...

the witnesses are no better than any other religious group, despite their claims of being the one true religion.

since that is the case (as adonijah has admitted) are the negative aspects listed above by jeannie and blondie and others really worth it? in the end, all you get is "just another religion"...

70

A Challenge For FunkyDerek... My Experiences With The Afterlife

by FMZ in

hey mate, don't mean to pick on you, but i know you are a good sport.

;) to all other non-believers, this thread is also for you..

it seems you always want proof and evidence of some kind of afterlife, but always have a "reasonable explanation" for any evidence put forth.

doogie

I seriously just wanted to see how people can twist and turn these events to try to make them fit into their own world view. It seems they think the same of me.

hey, hey...come on now. to each their own, but to insinuate that the "dissenters" have to manipulate the data to fit their own bias seems a bit unfair. the data already fits yours and my own respective 'biases'...that's why we start from our positions (either of material explanations or supernatural ones).

i don't know about anyone else, but i don't think you have to twist and turn these events to make them fit your worldview. i think they already fit quite naturally since you are someone who was (at least tentatively) already open to the idea of an afterlife. likewise for me, i don't have to twist and turn your story to make it fit my worldview. it already fits quite naturally into a materialist explanation (as has been shown).

as far as sirona's experience, i simply reserve judgment. whether i decide at this point to believe in her experience as proof (or at least favorable evidence) of an afterlife OR to simply dismiss it as nonsense, would be jumping the gun, IMO. i'd have to have a couple of questions answered first.

70

A Challenge For FunkyDerek... My Experiences With The Afterlife

by FMZ in

hey mate, don't mean to pick on you, but i know you are a good sport.

;) to all other non-believers, this thread is also for you..

it seems you always want proof and evidence of some kind of afterlife, but always have a "reasonable explanation" for any evidence put forth.

doogie

Some people are closed to it, some are open.

this is the long and short of it. for those that believe in an afterlife and spirits, there was probably an event that they experienced firsthand which they could only explain as supernatural. after that, it doesn't matter what anyone says...they believe. for those of us that are skeptical, belief will require harder evidence than second hand non-reproducible testimony.

(i don't mean that to sound callous, i just mean that for a skeptic to be converted it will take some mighty evidence)

70

A Challenge For FunkyDerek... My Experiences With The Afterlife

by FMZ in

hey mate, don't mean to pick on you, but i know you are a good sport.

;) to all other non-believers, this thread is also for you..

it seems you always want proof and evidence of some kind of afterlife, but always have a "reasonable explanation" for any evidence put forth.

doogie

Doogie, what about the rest? You are picking out bits and pieces and saying they apply to one or two people. Now.. take the whole reading, and see how many people it applies to. Then please explain that phenomenon.

ok, well, my girlfriend has 3 little brothers of varying ages (the youngest is 10). lately we've been doing more stuff with them and i've been bonding more especially with the youngest. i'm not embellishing when i say that i feel, if not paternal feelings, at least like a big uncle towards him. however, him being 10, i do lose my patience with him from time to time.

the patience thing, although maybe you feel that that is something that you're working on more than most, would apply to anyone in a parental position, i'm sure. also, judging by your and my age, its a pretty safe bet that there will be someone in our lives that looks up to us (be it a kid, a stepkid, or a nephew). i think it's also a symptom of being human to want others to see things our way, so the "let others be where they want to be" comment applies to far more people than it does not.

i'm just saying, and i could be wrong, but taken altogether, his comments seem remarkably accurate, but each detail on its own would apply to a statistically large portion of your (and my) demographic. (i.e. cold read)

70

A Challenge For FunkyDerek... My Experiences With The Afterlife

by FMZ in

hey mate, don't mean to pick on you, but i know you are a good sport.

;) to all other non-believers, this thread is also for you..

it seems you always want proof and evidence of some kind of afterlife, but always have a "reasonable explanation" for any evidence put forth.

doogie

Names are very hard because there is no "symbol" for a name. Often, names like "Rose" are often given, as there are symbols and icons that can easily be transmitted, but have you ever tried explaining the name "Keith" to someone? lol

i'm sorry, i don't know much about how the spirits communicate, but why do they have to speak in symbols? do they speak only in mental images? why can't they speak in the mental image of a K, an E, an I, a T, and an H?

Sure, anyone can make a general statement, and sure, the info could apply to someone else (Crumpet ;) ), but what are the odds that all of these facts would be so applicable. Even if he would have said "Hey Keith, your dead grandad Bill wants to say Hi"... that would have applied to someone else in England. Doesn't make it any more probable to happen.

sure, the names would've applied to other people in england, but statistically far less than a description of a tall military man with 2 dogs. personally, this grandfather applies to me as well. as far as i know, my grandpa did not have 2 large dogs at the same time, but he did in the course of his life. even the most direct aspects of the read have a certain amt of ambiguity. and in the end, if it turned out that your grandpa hated dogs, well, then the message just wasn't meant for you.

293

A newbie's impression on this board, pros and cons

by smelly onions in

cons.

i don't know who is scarier, the jw's or some people on this board.

man, r u guys bitter?

doogie

I already know the name of the publication coming out in the assembly and I haven't even attended yet! How cool is that?!

umm...not very? sorry.

45

light skin: so much for intelligent design...

by googlemagoogle in

... and evolution, by the way.

if we were designed by an intelligent creator, why the heck do we light-skinned people get burnt to death when the sun is shining?

not very intelligent design... .

doogie

Living in a multi ethnic community I see a lot of children of mixed race and wouldn't be surprised if in a few hundred years (peanuts to evolution) this will be the norm.
That is evolution in action.

yup. in part, that's exactly what evolution is. reproductive selection. plus, the amount of UV rays that currently make it through the ozone is a relatively new thing. time will tell how (or if) humans will evolve. chances are, we'll just have to stay indoors more. i guess that could be considered a form of behavioral evolution as well.

45

light skin: so much for intelligent design...

by googlemagoogle in

... and evolution, by the way.

if we were designed by an intelligent creator, why the heck do we light-skinned people get burnt to death when the sun is shining?

not very intelligent design... .

doogie

yes, right now i look like a lobster.

(in the voice of nelson from the simpsons): ha ha.

and if evolution is always trying to improve a species' ability to survive

evolution promotes qualities that allow a creature to survive to reproductive maturity, not necessarily to survive for the longest time. if a lifeform reproduces at 15 and dies of skin cancer at 16, their genes have still been passed on and they have been successful from an evolutionary standpoint (their genes have survived another generation).

evolution doesn't "improve" traits, it only gets rid of negative traits (traits that make it difficult for a lifeform to reach reproductive maturity). as of now, the lobster look does not generally kill you before puberty. maybe someday it will and only the people that are more capable of fending off the UV rays will survive long enough to reproduce...