Researcher2023, my private messaging privileges on this site were taken away from me some time ago by the moderator of this site. As a result, but what means may I reach you privately? What is the website URL in which people may fill out your survey? I am located in the USA. Does my location prevent me from being included in your survey?
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
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Research project: A study designed to explore the experience of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses
by Researcher2023 inas part of a psychology msc research project, i am looking for participants to take part in a study designed to explore the experience of leaving the jehovah’s witnesses.. former witnesses who were raised in the organisation will be asked a few questions about their reasons for leaving, their experience of leaving, and how their life has changed since leaving.. taking part involves completing an interview over the internet.
according to research needs, the number of questions asked in each interview may vary.
the interview will take between 5 – 90 minutes depending on the questions asked and the level of detail you wish to provide.. your participation will remain confidential and anonymous, and it is completely voluntary so that you may withdraw at any time up to two weeks after the interview.
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Got ALetter!
by Biahi inso, my daughter got a letter from a female jw, containing a tract.
i want to respond to this woman, in a kind way.
she included a phone number, and email, return address is the kh.
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Disillusioned JW
RULES & REGULATIONS, that WT article which you included a snap shot of, is one the WT's printed messages which greatly disturbed me when I was a baptized JW. I strongly disliked the WT telling me not to read literature which was critical of the WT, or that any other way disagreed with the WT's teachings. I strongly disliked the WT trying to control my mind by manipulative means and by trying to shut down critical thinking about the WT. Such articles by the WT also made me wonder from time if the Wt had something to hide and it a number of its teachings are false. But it turns out, while I was a JW I never received any apostate literature. Much later I received some such literature, but it was by me seeking it out books of such and buying them or borrowing them from the library, and by searching for articles of such on the internet.
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Got ALetter!
by Biahi inso, my daughter got a letter from a female jw, containing a tract.
i want to respond to this woman, in a kind way.
she included a phone number, and email, return address is the kh.
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Disillusioned JW
punkofnice, apparently the envelope was opened by the receiver, since what was inside it was read. As a result, in the USA at least, it thus would be a federal crime to put the letter back through the postal system using the same envelope as the outside envelope and thus without paying additional postage.
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Hell, what is it
by Anony Mous inso perhaps we all heard the jw story about jesus talking to gehenna and he was referring to a place outside the city where there was a dump burning refuse and everyone knew what it meant.. according to jw.org: tradition relates that the valley of hinnom thereafter became a place for the disposal of garbage.
and the bible provides confirmation for this.
at jeremiah 31:40, for example, the valley of hinnom is evidently called the “low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes.” there was also the “gate of the ash-heaps,” a gate that seems to have opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley of hinnom at its juncture with the kidron valley.—nehemiah 3:13, 14.. i think i heard that in the study of the greatest teacher book first.
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Disillusioned JW
Vanderhoven7, does your idea of resurrection of Christians to life in heaven include the idea the human soul of those Christians completely ceased to be, and was later recreated by God as a spirit soul (much like the the WT says happens to the 144,000)? What about your idea of people from pre-Christian becoming resurrected? In your mind do their human souls completely cease to exist and later become recreated/cloned? Or, do their human souls become dormant (such as asleep) and later become revived. Do you believe that Christian go to heaven immediately after their human bodies die (or starting after 70 CE, right after die), or do you believe they go heaven at a future time in a rapture when Christ (according to the Bible) comes to execute judgment at around the time of Armageddon, or do you believe they go heaven at some other time?
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Hell, what is it
by Anony Mous inso perhaps we all heard the jw story about jesus talking to gehenna and he was referring to a place outside the city where there was a dump burning refuse and everyone knew what it meant.. according to jw.org: tradition relates that the valley of hinnom thereafter became a place for the disposal of garbage.
and the bible provides confirmation for this.
at jeremiah 31:40, for example, the valley of hinnom is evidently called the “low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes.” there was also the “gate of the ash-heaps,” a gate that seems to have opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley of hinnom at its juncture with the kidron valley.—nehemiah 3:13, 14.. i think i heard that in the study of the greatest teacher book first.
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Disillusioned JW
Anony Mous, I was shocked when I read your comment of "There was no refuse dump that continuously burned, there is no literary, biblical or archeological reference to such place, and a place like that would leave quite a footprint you’d think." I thought there was really was such a dump existing for centuries before 30 CE. I thought such ever since I read the idea in WT literature and thought it was a historical fact. Your comment is very educational and revelation (of naturalistic kind) to me.
Anony Mous and anyone else, does that mean that when Jesus (according to the NT Bible) spoke of Gehenna he meant it is a place of eternal conscious torment instead of the annihilation?Anony Mous, due to your post, I now think the WT used the tradition of a refuse dump that continuously burned in which already dead evil people were tossed into, in order to defend the WT's idea of Gehenna being a place of annihilation instead of eternal conscious torment.
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Hell, what is it
by Anony Mous inso perhaps we all heard the jw story about jesus talking to gehenna and he was referring to a place outside the city where there was a dump burning refuse and everyone knew what it meant.. according to jw.org: tradition relates that the valley of hinnom thereafter became a place for the disposal of garbage.
and the bible provides confirmation for this.
at jeremiah 31:40, for example, the valley of hinnom is evidently called the “low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes.” there was also the “gate of the ash-heaps,” a gate that seems to have opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley of hinnom at its juncture with the kidron valley.—nehemiah 3:13, 14.. i think i heard that in the study of the greatest teacher book first.
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Disillusioned JW
Vanderhoven7 I remember you made a post in which you said you wrote and published a book stating your analysis and view about human souls and about hell. I haven't read that book but please answer in this forum the following. Do you believe that human souls (or human minds) die when their bodies die? Or, do you believe that some human souls exist alive to some extent (such as a shade) until after the 1,000 years, which according to Revelation is when the dead are released from Hades, after which some of them they then attain full life (by resurrection) and the rest go into Gehenna?
Are you an independent Christian, or you are a member of a specific church or denomination of Christianity? If the later, which church or denomination are you a member of of? Also, what are your views about evolution; do you believe God used it to make major kinds of living beings? Do you believe the biblical flood account? If so, do you believe it was a global flood or a local flood? If you don't believe the biblical flood account, do you think the writer (or writers) of the account intended it to thought of a global flood or as a local flood?
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Hell, what is it
by Anony Mous inso perhaps we all heard the jw story about jesus talking to gehenna and he was referring to a place outside the city where there was a dump burning refuse and everyone knew what it meant.. according to jw.org: tradition relates that the valley of hinnom thereafter became a place for the disposal of garbage.
and the bible provides confirmation for this.
at jeremiah 31:40, for example, the valley of hinnom is evidently called the “low plain of the carcasses and of the fatty ashes.” there was also the “gate of the ash-heaps,” a gate that seems to have opened out onto the eastern extremity of the valley of hinnom at its juncture with the kidron valley.—nehemiah 3:13, 14.. i think i heard that in the study of the greatest teacher book first.
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Disillusioned JW
Anony Mous and anyone else, well then according to the NT what did Jesus mean when talking about being tossed into Gehenna, or from a literary (or Bible as literature) perspective what did the character Jesus mean about Gehenna in the story about being tossed into Gehenna?
What do you think of what The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan) says about it under the heading of "Gehenna". Under that heading it says "Gehenna was originally the Hebrew name of a valley just south of Jerusalem's southwestern hill (Joshua 15.8) called "the valley of Hinnon". It also talks about later meanings, including in Jewish apocalypticism "influenced by parallelism with Persian ideas of a judgment in fire".
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Should Jehovah's Witnesses Trust the Governing Body?
by Vanderhoven7 inif there is evidence that jesus invisibly chose specific men at headquarters in brooklyn new york in 1919 to be his faithful slave and that mandate and ability passed on to future directors...then the answer might just be a resounding maybe.. what is the evidence for this invisible appointment and what is the evidence that this is just watchtower mythology?.
i hope jws like scholar and fisherman will explain why the trust the gb.. i must be honest, i see no evidence at all to put trust in either the 1919 selection or the current men taking the lead in warwick.
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Disillusioned JW
In light of Psalm 146:3 (NKJV) which says "Do not put your trust in princes, Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help", please consider the following questions.
Should Christians put their trust in the Apostle Paul and in what he wrote in his letters which are included in the NT? Should Christians put their trust in the Letter called Hebrews and in the human who wrote it down? Should Christians put their trust in those NT letters which self identify as being written by the Apostle Paul but which modern NT critical scholars say are written under a false name, and should Christians put their trust in the person or persons who wrote those letters? Should Christians put their trust in the NT letters attributed to John and Peter and should Christians put their trust in the humans who those letters.? Should Christians put their trust in the John who is attributed as writing down the NT book called Revelation? Should Christians put their trust in what humans wrote down in the books making up the Hebrew-Aramaic scriptures (OT), and should they trust those humans wrote down those books?. What about those books called Apocryphal?
Should Christians put their trust in the miracle claims written down in the Bible (OT and NT) by humans?
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Is it Logical To Beleive In A Creator - GOD ? In This Scientific Age ?
by smiddy3 ini don`t think so .
hasn`t science ,astronomy ,time , .....proven it an illogical beleif ?.
with the information about this solar system and it`s planets ,other stars and their planets that we have information about ,and the fact that no god has ever revealed him/her self in any shape or form 'there is no evidence that a creator / god has ever existed.. except in the minds of humans who want to control a section of humanity .. the fact that religions rely on "you have to have faith" to beleive in a god ,surely is a cop out.. i look forward to your comments .. and a happy new year to you all..
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Disillusioned JW
Consider what is said at https://www.noemamag.com/the-conscious-universe/ in the article called "The Conscious Universe: The radical idea that everything has elements of consciousness is reemerging and breathing new life into a cold and mechanical cosmos."That article says in part the following.
'Recent research into slime mold — a single-celled eukaryotic organism that has no brain, no nervous system and looks like a yellow puddle — found that it makes decisions, perceives its surroundings and can choose the most nutritious food from numerous options. As an experiment, researchers arranged oat flakes in the geographical pattern of cities around Tokyo, and the slime mold constructed nutrient channeling tubes that closely mimicked the painstakingly planned metropolitan railway system. At Columbia University, the biologist Martin Picard has discovered that mitochondria, the organelles found in the cells of almost every complex organism, “communicate with each other and with the cell nucleus, exhibit group formation and interdependence, synchronize their behaviors and functionally specialize to accomplish specific functions within the organism.” Nobody is concluding that mitochondria are conscious, but if an animal the size of a dog acted like this, would we intuitively ascribe to it some basic level of consciousness?'
Regarding what is said above about slim molds, I saw that demonstrated in a science program on PBS television broadcast and I was very impressed by it.
See also https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-consciousness-pervade-the-universe/ in the article called 'Does Consciousness Pervade the Universe? : Philosopher Philip Goff answers questions about “panpsychism” '.
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Is it Logical To Beleive In A Creator - GOD ? In This Scientific Age ?
by smiddy3 ini don`t think so .
hasn`t science ,astronomy ,time , .....proven it an illogical beleif ?.
with the information about this solar system and it`s planets ,other stars and their planets that we have information about ,and the fact that no god has ever revealed him/her self in any shape or form 'there is no evidence that a creator / god has ever existed.. except in the minds of humans who want to control a section of humanity .. the fact that religions rely on "you have to have faith" to beleive in a god ,surely is a cop out.. i look forward to your comments .. and a happy new year to you all..
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Disillusioned JW
Fisherman I believe you have given an accurate idea of Krauss' idea of the universe, such as "that the universe, its drive , description and dynamics always existed". I agree with that view, that the universe (according to some definition of the word "universe) or nature, has always existed. To me that is what science strongly points because science has not found a beginning to dynamic energy and thus not a beginning to nature. As a result to me that means there that nature (and the universe in a broad sense which includes what existed prior to the big bang) was never created and thus there is no creator, and thus no God. I am satisfied with that idea. But to me that is not miraculous, at least not in the supernatural since, though it is highly amazing and mysterious. To me the universe in the broad sense, namely nature, is all there is and it influences us and we are a part of it. Maybe that view means nature is ultimate.
I also think that perhaps on some level the universe as a whole might be conscious. By that I mean in the sense of panpsychism, and even that what exists at the quantum level might be the building 'blocks' of such consciousness. Thus, to some extent we (Fisherman, slimboyfat, and I) might have some degree of commonality in regards to the idea of intention being bound up in (or playing a role in) the existence of the universe.
https://blog.unitedseminary.edu/the-canvas/religious-naturalism-a-theology-for-uu-humanists-part-i-0 says the following about religious naturalism. [I am a naturalist, but I am not religious and thus not a religious naturalist. I do however have the same view about naturalism as stated in the following quote, except for me not being religious.]
'For the religious naturalist, nature is ultimate; there is nothing above, beyond, or in addition to nature. For that reason, the religious naturalist is vehemently anti-supernaturalistic. There are no supernatural entities of any sort, no heavenly realms or otherworldly destinies, no overarching cosmic purpose or direction, no miracles or special revelations, and no immortal souls that live on after death. Such items, as Wesley Wildman cleverly puts it, are not on the religious naturalist’s “ontological inventory” (Wildman 2014: 42-43). Nor is there any anthropomorphic divine being determining or guiding the course of history. Once again, what there is, and all there is, is nature. This means that there is nothing outside of nature, and anything that does exist, including humans and their civilizations, is a part of nature.'
slimboyfat you might appreciate the following which is also said on that web page.
'I think it is fair to say that Unitarian Universalism is the foremost liberal religion in America today. And, to me, religious naturalism is the quintessential expression of a liberal theological outlook. Like UU liberals, religious naturalists are anti-authoritarian to the core, insisting on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Like UU liberals, religious naturalists draw on a diverse array of sources such as science, poetry, art, and the world religions. Like UU liberals, religious naturalists look to the guidance of reason and experience, including the “direct experience of that transcending mystery, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” For the religious naturalist, that transcending mystery is nature itself.'