Posts by OnTheWayOut

56

Sex before marriage

by Jules Saturn in

for ex jws, pimos, pomos, faders, born again christians, agnostics, atheists, etc.

what is your opinion regarding sex before marriage, has your view been influenced since you left?

in western society, you’ll probably find yourself ridiculed to be an 18 year old virgin so i am curious to hear opinions from here.

OnTheWayOut

Vanderhoven&:
Hi OTWO,

Do you agree that the Bible is against sex outside of marriage?

Do you believe that if this Bible standard was followed that our society would be better off in terms of the number of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and the problems that go with them?

The Bible is against sex outside of marriage, yes.
If "they" could get every human to abide by this one thing, sure- most of those particular problems would be nearly gone. (....just "nearly." I imagine there would still be unwanted pregnancies and abortions to some degree) But getting the human population to abide by one thing- WHO THE HELL ARE WE TO INSIST UPON IT?? And in your fairy tale of such a society, we no longer have to deal with problems like rape because men only have sex with their wife. And where does it stop? Should we go back to multiple wives? Should we arrange marriages young to make sure those crazy kids don't have sex before they are married? I won't even bother with applying other Bible standards since it is too "off topic" to discuss stoning your children or allowing slavery, etc.

A society that enforced such a thing would probably be a depressed society. People marrying whoever they wanted sex with and not checking compatibility, all so they could escape the death penalty for violating that "one standard." (I don't see any other way to enforce it.)

56

Sex before marriage

by Jules Saturn in

for ex jws, pimos, pomos, faders, born again christians, agnostics, atheists, etc.

what is your opinion regarding sex before marriage, has your view been influenced since you left?

in western society, you’ll probably find yourself ridiculed to be an 18 year old virgin so i am curious to hear opinions from here.

OnTheWayOut

Vanderhoven, that is the strangest "defense" of the Bible.

Basically, instead of addressing the issue of men raping women and then marrying them, it sidetracks with the use of words in the instance of Potiphar's wife and Joseph, then simply declares "Nonetheless, the claim......is incorrect."

Especially in Bible times, but still so- rapists are generally men. And to suggest a softening of the meaning centuries later is just reinventing what the Bible says. It was clear that if the woman was "engaged," she should have saved herself by crying out, so the Bible refers to rape and the people who read it back then knew that.

The Bible doesn't declare that people should stone a rapist (or otherwise kill him) unless she belongs to another man. The Bible tries to imply that the rapist is accountable for what he did. That means, he is stuck with the woman he raped. So that is written from a man's point of view- a man who understood the law not only allowed rape, but institutionalized it. If you want an unengaged woman, rape her and she is yours, especially if she did not cry out and doesn't want to be put to death.

And really, when we talk about women in the Bible being forced to marry their rapist, we are primarily thinking about men who have killed her parents in some kind of warfare, and then the man takes the child as a wife, giving the non-Jew no choice in the matter- hence rape takes place. Women were just property, valuable for sex and doing housework.

56

Sex before marriage

by Jules Saturn in

for ex jws, pimos, pomos, faders, born again christians, agnostics, atheists, etc.

what is your opinion regarding sex before marriage, has your view been influenced since you left?

in western society, you’ll probably find yourself ridiculed to be an 18 year old virgin so i am curious to hear opinions from here.

OnTheWayOut

Sex outside of marriage is considered a sin by most religions. Religions invented sin to make people feel guilty and cause them to go to the religion to appease their guilt via donations and/or service.

I have no use for religion and sin. For a long part of human history, marriage has been a protection to children. To me, that is the only part of keeping sex within a marriage that seems important. That, and we are still living under judicial systems influenced by the religious institution of marriage. So that means many people have to keep sex within marriage in order to protect their assets.

But I don't see how sex before (or without) marriage is anything wrong. If people would just use birth control, it should be fine.

48

Healing & Rebuilding Your Life - Feedback Wanted

by jp1692 in

i have been invited to speak at an international cultic studies association workshop this fall.

i could use your help in focusing on my presentation subject.. these workshops are for former members of any cult or other high-control, authoritarian group, not just jehovah's witnesses.

last year, i spoke at one of their larger conferences in europe.

OnTheWayOut

I know you asked for feedback and I hope all these different thoughts helped. In the end you know your topic and you will have to decide how much time to dedicate to each of these things.

With your subject title, Healing & Rebuilding Your Life, you kind of have to cover your step 1, but it could be as little as a general statement like "Everything you knew to be true was a lie. Now what?"

You don't want to offer any judging on the differing paths people take upon leaving, turning to God in another way or turning from God, but just emphasize that finding your path and yourself is important. There are many ways to say that. Loaded language might be a ln important part of that.

I also had little trouble breaking from the language mentality. I think it was because I got out of the military to join the cult, and had already broken from one language set. I also read Steve Hassan books and COC and made myself aware of the loaded language.

As I meet others, I see many still caught in cult thinking as revealed by their cult language- 'the truth,' 'field service,' 'in good standing,' etc. So I suppose #2 is part of #5. We have to examine ourselves to start finding our authentic self.

Good luck.

28

I don't get why some point to the no tolerance for gays and subjugation of women as a JW thing.

by blownaway in

some churches have taken the step to allow gays, women instructing men ect.

but its not a jw thing.

its a bible thing.

OnTheWayOut

Intentional, TD

48

Healing & Rebuilding Your Life - Feedback Wanted

by jp1692 in

i have been invited to speak at an international cultic studies association workshop this fall.

i could use your help in focusing on my presentation subject.. these workshops are for former members of any cult or other high-control, authoritarian group, not just jehovah's witnesses.

last year, i spoke at one of their larger conferences in europe.

OnTheWayOut

OTWO: so are you saying that you think “Treatments & Interventions” is the most important issue for people that have left a cult? What do you think is the least important from my list and why?

Every person's situation is different. In such a captive audience, people may have experience with your steps 1&2 and maybe 3, so I would focus on 4-6 to highlight more of moving on with a positive life.

But that's just my thoughts.

20

Is the Earth really that great?

by DATA-DOG in

i enjoy watching nature documentaries; david attenborough being my favorite host and narrator.

that being said, i’ve come to the conclusion that contrary to xianity’s teaching, the earth is not “perfectly placed/designed for life.” .

when you actually observe the world at large, without blinders, it’s a wonder that life even exists.

OnTheWayOut

Science does not yet know if Earth is extremely unique or just another planet in the Green Zone, a condition of habitability for a planet based on mostly whether liquid water could be found there, but taking other factors into consideration.

Even when a planet is habitable, life had to start there (or be transplanted there). And its a long set of circumstances that leads from primordial soup to oceans and forests and the like. You need the spark of life to develop according to the available conditions.

Earth benefits from its large moon and medium star and its axis and time of rotation and all kinds of other factors.

Time will tell, but most likely not in our lifetimes, if life is so resilient as to succeed in completely different environments or if there are other planets similar enough where the spark took off. With so many stars in just our galaxy and so many galaxies, I'm betting on a bit of both (resilience of life and other earth-like plsnets) making us not so unique.

28

I don't get why some point to the no tolerance for gays and subjugation of women as a JW thing.

by blownaway in

some churches have taken the step to allow gays, women instructing men ect.

but its not a jw thing.

its a bible thing.

OnTheWayOut

Xanthippe: Many Christians, and I'm not one of them btw being an atheist, try to accept the Bible as the work of imperfect men guided by God.

They're not fundamentalists so don't believe every word literally. They try to bring Christianity up to date with compassion. It's not the way I wanted to go but I can see where they're coming from.

While I might feel that the Bible doesn't allow for such a view of itself, because it declares itself "God's Word," that does seem like a natural evolution of Christian belief.

Eastern relgion has a history of gods and godesses and beliefs and rituals, and has evovled to people feeling free to reject and accept what parts they want. Many are diwn to accepting wisdom and ritual or meditation alone, but have dismissed the supernatural aspect. So I guess Christians might do the same.

But the Bible is just so loaded with ammunition for various hatreds and for the belittling of women. When groups still have to debate how far to accept 'the word,' better to scrap it in my opinion.

32

Apostate - what does the word mean to you?

by Tallon in

over a period of time i got to thinking - what does the word 'apostate' mean to me.

having given it some thought, this is my view;.

the org has given the word its own definition and basically use it to demonise people and consider them pariahs.. however, the jw meaning of 'apostate' is a mere word and only has power if recognised as such.

OnTheWayOut

To Watchtower, an apostate abandons their so-called "true worship" and shares their thoughts on how and why they've abandoned it.

The dictionary definition is close: One who abandons a religious or political belief or principle.

The difference is that there is no judgement in the real definition.

I embrace the label. I did indeed abandon the religion. It's not as dramatic as homosexuals embracing the negative intentions of the word "queer" and calling it positive, but it would be similar.

48

Healing & Rebuilding Your Life - Feedback Wanted

by jp1692 in

i have been invited to speak at an international cultic studies association workshop this fall.

i could use your help in focusing on my presentation subject.. these workshops are for former members of any cult or other high-control, authoritarian group, not just jehovah's witnesses.

last year, i spoke at one of their larger conferences in europe.

OnTheWayOut

I think many need to hear that it may be important to seek professional help, that if they do not do this for whatever their reason, at least follow up on self-help via reading books and perhaps finding other former members to vent with.