slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  18

  Will they change the Yearbook format?

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  pure speculation here but i'm wondering if - with the numbers flat-lining - that the gb will stop giving country by country stats, or perhaps at least some of the statistics.. we used to get a monthly stat in the km - then that was "simplified" to "highlights".

  only the "good" stuff.

  then with the new clam workbook, no stats at all.. i wonder if the yearbook will soon only contain "positive" spun stats.

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  slimboyfat

  He ebook still has the full report sir, I am pretty sure!
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  18

  Will they change the Yearbook format?

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  pure speculation here but i'm wondering if - with the numbers flat-lining - that the gb will stop giving country by country stats, or perhaps at least some of the statistics.. we used to get a monthly stat in the km - then that was "simplified" to "highlights".

  only the "good" stuff.

  then with the new clam workbook, no stats at all.. i wonder if the yearbook will soon only contain "positive" spun stats.

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  slimboyfat

  Yes we've got reason to believe the figures. Census results in various countries, including Canada, Australia, Brazil and Mexico, consistently show higher numbers of self-identified JWs than publishers reported in yearbooks, sometimes significantly higher.
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  18

  Will they change the Yearbook format?

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  pure speculation here but i'm wondering if - with the numbers flat-lining - that the gb will stop giving country by country stats, or perhaps at least some of the statistics.. we used to get a monthly stat in the km - then that was "simplified" to "highlights".

  only the "good" stuff.

  then with the new clam workbook, no stats at all.. i wonder if the yearbook will soon only contain "positive" spun stats.

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  slimboyfat

  As soon as there are two or more years of decline I think it's pretty inevitable they'll stop publishing most or all statistics. They may stop even if growth is simply near zero.
• 
  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  slimboyfat

  Okay so now you're saying it is possible to be a Christian without being either ignorant or dishonest.

  But you are saying that the Christian God has been disproved?

  Is that correct? And is there no contradiction there?
• 
  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  slimboyfat

  So you admit that you characterise Christian believers as either ignorant or dishonest?

  It should be pretty clear that by "believers" I meant Christians, since we're not exactly overrun by Hindus or Sikhs or other religions on the forum. And are deists who allow for an impersonal God normally described as "believers"? I didn't think so.

  Anyway since you feel so terribly misrepresented (always) let's gladly clarify, it's just the 1.6 billion or so Christians that you are you calling either ignorant or dishonest. Other kinds of believers, deists, agnostics and Jedis no doubt eagerly await your judgement.
• 
  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  slimboyfat

  Or if thoughtful atheists are embarrassed by atheists who go around insisting God has been disproved and believers must be either ignorant or dishonest.
• 
  19

  Britain Branch Relocation - Chelmsford, Essex

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i97qudi-jwe.

  .

  a-19-e 10/15.

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  slimboyfat

  His accent sounds a bit like Jack Barr. Did they at any point explain why they need to do this relocation? In the past new branches were sold as necessary expansions to increase capacity. What's the rationale for this? It seems like a lot of activity for activity's sake, and collecting donations.
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  20

  Are we victims of abuse? Should we even think of ourselves that way?

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  abuse is such a serious word and i'd hate to use it lightly so if anyone reading this has suffered physical or sexual abuse please know that i absolutely do not equate religious abuse with your suffering.

  that being said, many of us were lied to and manipulated for decades.

  this cultic 'abuse' has borne fruit in shattered relationships, broken families and estranged children.

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  slimboyfat

  Yes it probably is.

  A strange thing is that as long as you are "under the spell" it can work out okay for you though. Many people seem to be happy and thrive as JWs.

  I read an academic article recently, I can't remember the title, that looked at health outcomes associated with strict religions in particular, if I remember correctly.

  It said people who stayed in such religions had similar health outcomes to the general population. But people who left such religions had worse health outcomes. I think this included but was not confined to mental health.

  It's very stressful to leave JWs because it alters your perception of what life is all about and where it's going. And causes all the personal problems mentioned too.

  Sometimes I think of JWs I know who are smug and I think, "they'll find out in the end it's a lot of rubbish, that'll knock the smugness out of them". Then I think to myself, "they'll probably never have that realisation, they'll do pretty well, and be smug until they die".

  Sometimes I think smug believers are the lucky ones. They may be victims too but they show no signs of it.
• 
  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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  slimboyfat

  so what's up with your desire to know what posotivism means viv
  

  Also, how come we've adopted Viv's odd spelling of positivism? ;-)
• 
  583

  What is the purpose of life?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while reading the magazines the other day it occurred to me that jws never really had a very good answer to that question.

  because it was aimed at young people and it said something along the lines, "if you believe in god you have a purpose, but if you don't believe in god your life has no purpose or meaning".

  i think that is a faulty analysis of the situation.

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• 

  slimboyfat

  Since nicolaou is still waiting for that answer to the initial question of the thread, here goes...

  A few years ago I was interested in existentialist solutions to the meaning of life. It's commonly an atheistic perspective on life associated with philosophers such as Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus, but also the Christian philosopher Kierkegaard and to some extent the philosopher Heidegger who was a practising Catholic (among other things). I especially liked Camus' emphasis on the absurd nature of the human condition and the position we humans find ourselves in. We are in a world without inherent meaning and yet we seem doomed to strive constantly as if there is a point to it all.

  Sartre said we are forced to choose how we will respond to our situation, there is a compulsion. This predicament can at times cause an uncomfortable sensation like nausea. As, for example, when we are at the top of a cliff, looking down, there is sometimes an absolute realisation that we can choose to fall or we can choose not to fall. The choice is utterly ours, and we cannot say there is no choice. We must choose, gladly, most often, the choice we make is not to fall. But the lesson is that all of life can be likened to that extreme choice. And when we realise this, there is the sense of nausea. We must choose what to make of our lives: whether and with what to inscribe it with meaning. Faced with the absurdity of a world without inherent meaning, we cannot avoid this choice.

  Nietzsche discounted heaven and hell as providing ultimate meaning, but he did teach what is called the "eternal return". This is the idea that when we die we go back to the beginning and live our life again, exactly the same, and again, and again, eternally. Some have said these comments by Nietzsche were a result of mental illness toward the end of his life and not to be taken seriously. Others have said it's a metaphor to live your life by: if you approach life as if it is going to be repeated eternally you may choose to get up out of bed earlier, not bicker needlessly, do something worthwhile, something authentic, instead of making inauthentic choices leading to time spent tediously and pointlessly.

  Authenticity is a key idea for existentialist writers, and promoted as the goal for a life filled with meaning of our own making. And it's easy to see how the idea of authenticity is an appealing concept for former JWs who have often struggled with authenticity when breaking from the JW religion. As a recent author has said, living a fake life is simply bad for you.

  https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/25/why-being-a-fake-is-bad-for-you

  However in the past few years I have come to doubt the wisdom of inscribing our lives with individual meanings. Maybe we don't need to find life inherently absurd, and there is an alternative to simply making the best of it as individuals as we can,