Posts by Liberty

44

Question: Why was it ok to sell unbled meat to a foriegner for them to eat?

by Lady Liberty in

hello all... ok, i have a question for any takers: deuteronomy 14:21 says this:.

21 "you must not eat any body [already] dead.

so, it is obvious that this is why they could not eat a animal that they found that had died, say from natural causes.

Liberty

All great points on this subject. I have a Conservative Jewish friend who told me that Jews are allowed to eat blood in emergency situations of starvation. He explained that under Jewish Law your life is more valuable to God than following the dietary code if it is between life and death as these scriptures you all have recounted verify.

Logically , it would follow that taking a blood transfusion to save your life in a medical emergency should fall into the same category even if you were attempting to follow the dietary prohibition. My Jewish friend also said that Jews do not consider blood transfusions to have anything to do with eating blood anyway.

As Mary has pointed out, it also never made sense to me that as a JW it is OK to eat any old meat from the grocery store with not a thought given as to how the animals were slaughtered. Most meat sold is not bled in accordance with Biblical Law unless it is Kosher. Why JWs will die before taking a blood transfusion (which has no Biblical mention) and yet would happily eat blood in unKoshered meat (which is directly mentioned) never made sense to me even as a 12 year old child. The JW blood policy would at least have some consistancy if JWs only ate Kosher slaughtered meat or slaughtered it themselves so as to verify that the animals were bled properly but they don't.

The JW policy is complete nonsense from every angle.

My Jewish friend says that the prohibition against eating blood has more to do with "humanely" slaughtering animals than it does with what we eat. Kosher slaughter entails using a very sharp knife which cuts the neck from ear to ear, one of the few places on the body where there are the least nerve endings combined with the most blood vessels so that the cut is as painless as possible. Bleeding to death is likened to falling asleep also lessening the pain of death for the animal. This also explains why animals without necks or easily visible blood were prohibited such as shell fish, crabs, lobsters, and most insects. He also said that waiting until all the blood is drained before cooking or eating the animal avoids cooking animals while still alive as was done in other cultures. Not eating milk with meat has similar roots since it is cruel to boil a calf in it's mother's milk.

121

Does God REALLY exist? (An Attempt at an Online Bible Study)

by theMartian in

with the global village now teaching evolution as an absolute fact, and the 'creation museum' making a mockery of the bible, any bible study should begin with this question!

however, the biggest hinderence to learning truth is clinging to concepts we've accepted as 'truth' without being willing to take a closer look at other possibilities.. i ask that ridiculers have fun on other postings, so that it might be possible to enjoy comparing what we have learned, how we see things- and also share what we have found to be facts-truth!.

(and i will not "count the time", as promised; that's unimportant to me, anyhow!).

Liberty

HI Martian,

Without 2000 years of complicated apologetics the Biblical account of creation makes no more sense than any other primitive creation myth.

15

Is it easier for a witness (vs Christian) to stop believing in God?

by Guest with Questions in

i dont have any statistics but am curious if there could be any truth to it; that it might be easier for a witness to stop believing vs a christian.

i dont see this at any of the churches i have attended; people leaving in droves with some totally discarding any belief.. 1 the jw org is the only truth.

you question its authority, then you question god.

Liberty

In any Christian dominated culture I don't think it is ever easy to stop believing in God. Who wants to be a hated minority as a matter of simple choice? I am now an atheist but it took me years after leaving the Watch Tower Society to come to this conclusion. I don't think it is "easy" to become an atheist but a hard core believing JW puts much more thought and energy into their beliefs than your average Methodist so if a JW begins to question and see the inconsistancies in these beliefs then they are more willing to research it to it's logical conclusion, which for many leads to atheism.

There are many JWs who return to mainstream Christianity because they are satisfied that the Watch Tower's corruption was the real cause of their cognative dissonance but for me I left over Biblical issues which went beyond just the teachings of the WT Society and I developed a keen interest in Zen and other Eastern philosophies. Mainstream Christianity still held too many inconsistancies for me to be comfortable with it and I was already seen as odd and part of a pitied if not hated minority...socially retarded ex-JWs so I had nothing to loose. I was driven to research and have my questions and doubts answered so I devoted my young adulthood to study and as such I was way too nerdy to attract any distracting and frightening females (which through Watch Tower brainwashing were all made out to be plague ridden whores anyway). Thousands of dollars were spent on personal books, school texts and University classes which did not progress toward a degree because I was intent on seeing for myself what evolution and science was really all about. I also studied the Bible and religion in University classes as well as secular history. This wide study field (along with working full time to pay for it) is why it took me almost 20 years to finally obtain a degree.

In short, all of the evidence I weighed in my studies of all the different fields proved the Bible wrong over and over again. Perhaps a mainstream Christian wouldn't care that the Bible doesn't jibe with science and history but it was vital to me so when it didn't I concluded that the Bible was just another man made writing and then I couldn't see the point of in believing in a God who didn't even bother to communicate with us. The random and seemingly cruel Universe I saw dailey really pushed me to conclude that if there was a creator God He must be one sick sadistic bastard. I really found inner peace when I concluded that there was no intelligence behind the horrors I knew were happening every second of every day. I can live in a Universe like ours and I sleep better knowing that there is no God behind it just random and uncaring chaos.

To answer your original question, I would say that an intensley devout JW who has doubts is probably more likely to become an atheist than a mainstream average Christian because Watchtowerism claims to be a reason and study based religion whereas traditional Christianity does not. "Easier" is the wrong word, however. I think "more likely" fits better.

49

Ray Franz is going back to meetings? WTF!!!

by Crumpet in

jw
friends

okay i am getting messages from gay exjw site message board that ray franz is back at meetings.

i cannot imagine this has a fragment of truth... has anyone heard about this?

can verify or otherwise?

Liberty

Hi Mum and twinflame2,

It has been thirty+ years ago now but I do seem to recall that the Society did once teach that anyone who was of the Anointed Remnant (hence a member of the Faithful and Discreet Slave Class) could sin against the holy spirit and would become a member of the dreaded "Evil Slave Class" in Satan's service and that they would have been guilty of the unforgivable sin. This was to make once high ranking apostates look even more demonic so we would stay away from their writtings. At this time I think it was primarily aimed at those who had disagreed with Rutherford when he took over after Russel's death and at some of Rutherford's latter disgruntaled associates because there had been no big shake up at Bethal in the early 1970's that I am aware of.

I think at some point new light was introduced claiming that only Jehoover Himself could judge who had committed an unforgivable sin, leaving the possibility open that even a high ranking Anointed could be reinstated.

I am not sure, but I don't think an earthly-hope other sheep could be guilty of a sin against the holy spirit since we were never in direct contact with it. One advantage of being a lowly R&F JW was not having to worry about commiting an unforgivable sin.

49

Ray Franz is going back to meetings? WTF!!!

by Crumpet in

jw
friends

okay i am getting messages from gay exjw site message board that ray franz is back at meetings.

i cannot imagine this has a fragment of truth... has anyone heard about this?

can verify or otherwise?

Liberty

Always keep in mind that R. Franz was content to remain a JW and to keep his opinions to himself (and a few close friends who asked) up until the overly paranoid GB (I'm sure uncle Fred was the most insistant) forced him out on trumped up charges. I am convinced that had they left R. Franz alone after his resignation from the G.B. he would have never written his books. Raymond Franz did not want to leave his life-long religion. Thanks Watch Tower Society for being so paranoid that you created for us the great apostate R. Franz and his writtings.

After being DFed on such flimsy charges and knowing it was all spawned and directed by the G.B.'s irrational fear I think Ray finally realized that he wasn't going to be allowed to live out the rest of his life quietly so he might as well get things off his chest and clear the air since they really couldn't hurt him any more as the Organization was already encouraging romours about him to be spread. They literally gave him no choice. R. Franz's reluctance to quit being a JW was the proof to me that he never intended to start a "Bethal revolution" nor create his own religion. I think he would have been content to slowly and queitly reform the Organization from the inside as he had been doing since he was first added to the G.B. along with the other "liberal" G.B. members and Headquarters staff.

I'm frankly glad the hard-liners threw him out otherwise, I'm sure that the Watch Tower Society would have become a more progressive and energized religion with a ready made resident "oracle" to replace Fred Franz when he died. Raymond Franz would probably have helped to direct the the W. T. Society in his own image much the same way that Rutherford changed it from Russel's time and Fred Franz changed it after Rutherford's death. Being a JW would be much more appealing and a faster growing movement had Ray not been railroaded due to an unanticipated combination of Fred's paranoia/jealousy and Ray's self-destructive (in an organizational sense) honesty. The religion would still be based upon many falsehoods however and would probably have retained many cult-like features even under R. Franz's influence (due to organizational inertia more than any evil intent) so it is ultimately good that he was removed from the situation allowing him to think and see more clearly.

I was troubled that R. Fraz's logic, skepticism, and intellect apparently never saw through the problems with the totality of the entire Bible since he retains so much of it in his personal belief's. In short, I would not be surprised if he still attended an occasional meeting.

13

What Stage Are You At Now?

by mtsgrad in

jw
friends

i was born in the "truth" and reached the dizzy heights of becoming a servant and that attended the ministerial school.

in the last three years i emotionallly left the "truth" and stopped attending last year.

however, i am still very confused theologically.

Liberty

Hi mtsgrad,

I don't think any ex-JW can claim a "10" because there are levels of emotional damage and fear that reason and logic can never fully reach. I'd claim myself to be a "9" now because I feel NO confusion on any rational level. Keep in mind I said, "any rational level". Reason, logic, and years of information gathering erases Watch Tower nonsense from the higher brain functions but little bits of the lower brain's emotional/irrational beastial subconscience remain ready to give me nightmares or a chill up my spine when conditions are just right. I don't mind too much because I know now it is not real... but it is there waiting for the death of my rational mind.

If you feel you are a "3" then I highly suggest some real study to free yourself from superstition. Do yourself a big favor and start by reading Raymond Franz's books Crisis Of Conscience and In Search Of Christian Freedom if you haven't already. Next, try researching the history of the Watch Tower Society using non-WTS literature to expand your objectivity. Also read the works/research of ex-JWs and learn of their doubts and how they answered them. Next, try reading the Bible (not the New World Translation) without the Watch Tower's preconcieved notions and interpretations to guide you. Read it as just another book you are reading for the first time and let it say simply what it says. You will be amazed at what you will see without all the fancy commentary running in your head.

At that point I would take some Bible classes at a community college or a University so that you can see the so called "worldly" or secular viewpoint to ballance out your objectivity and reawaken your skeptical powers. Think freely and be free. Take some history and science classes. Read all of Carl Sagan's books, especially if you can't go to college. Objective study will clear your confusion like hot sun light through a fog. It will take time though, I have not been to a Kingdom Hall for more than 20 years

My Best Wishes on your own search for truth

44

Do You Think The GOVERNMENT Should Require You To Wear A Seatbelt?

by minimus in

jw
friends

in new hampshire, the council that has power to make laws happen, voted against the mandatory seat belt law.

it appears that seat belt use will remain voluntary.

do you believe the government should require such laws??

Liberty

Like so many of you have already illustrated it is clear that as the government does more it will need to restrict your rights more and more in order to control the control until you are like a dependant child or even a slave. Government controls, services, and regulations create reems of new regulations to define, clarify, and plug loopholes of all the previous government do-gooding. As we become used to these regulations we become more child-like in our willingness to accept even more.

Clearly, I have an agenda. I am a libertarian. Human beings are not perfectable and there is not now and never shall there be a utopia were everything is perfect. This is the first step in abandoning the childish and unrealistic religions of communalism in all its forms. We must accept that we cannot legislate better people into existance as it has failed since the inception of civilization and the dark dominance of communalism throughout most of our history.

Though not perfect or perfectable people are at their best when government interfers the least. By nature most people are cooperative and interested in self-preservation (selfishness). Accepting human nature as it is rather than "what it should be" allows free markets in both commerce and ideas and human beings can progress to their full potential, not perfection but as good as it gets. This state of freedom has always proven to produce better results (not perfect, just better) than any state regulated "perfection". Examples of state sanctioned perfection include when Catholics and Catholic-based state governments controlled most of Europe during the Dark Ages, the Nazi German Empire, and those glaring successes Communist Russia and Communist China.

Experts in perfection are always going to insist that they know what is best for the unwashed masses. They fail every time because they always forget one important fact, they themselves and their grand ideas are not perfect. Communalizing imperfection just makes it more imperfect. Ideals born in imperfect minds or committees of minds will be imperfect as well as any institutions formulated by the imperfect. Brutal singular authority in the sevice of an ideal does not equate with perfection.

I trust people to be people. I trust individuals more than groups. I trust reality more than ideals. I trust idealistic governments seeking perfect solutions to all of our problems the least. Ideals kill and maime people. Many more people have been killed by perfection seeking idealists than will ever be killed by individul selfishness or even stupidity. What are the real costs of providing "free" food, "free" medical care, preventing alcoholism, preventing drug addiction, preventing sexual obssesion, preventing cheating, or any social problem we can think of including people getting injured because they weren't wearing a seat belt? Living in a police state with a stagnent economy and the suppression of "dangerous" behaviours is too high a price. Having huge populations of non-violent people locked up unproductively in prisons because they gamble, drink alcohol, use drugs, or get paid/pay for sex is too high. Having the corruption of the police and polititians who take bribes or indulge themselves in these vices and the organized criminals who thrive under this suppression is too high. Wasting huge sums of money and resources on an idealistic drug/alcohol/tobacco/firearm/porn/prostitute/gambling war that has always been a complete failure at the cost of millions of lives in imprisonment, state sanctioned murder, and theft (confescation of property) is too high a price to pay.

I accept the reality that there will always be social ills and inequallity but freedom will minimize these ills unlike the perfectionist policies of communalism which always make these problems worse because they refuse to accept human nature as it is.

46

If Creationism is true explain races.

by DeViL DriVeR 76 in

so the bible speaks of how multiple languages came to be in babylon with the tower of babel, you all know the story.

ok so thats the bibles view on languages but what about races?

how are some people light skin others dark?

Liberty

Hi MadTiger,

I have not gotten a response from other creationists but I'll try with you. Why would God create whales, dolphins, and manatees which are fully aquatic but must come to the ocean's surface to breath air when He already knew how to make fish which can get their oxygen directly from the water? Why did God create land plants and animals with a vital need for water since it is often difficult to find and billions of land organisms have died due to its lack and much of the earth's land space is wasted because there is no water available? Why not just design land plants and animals that don't need water or that could at least use sea water? Why is most of the water in the world salty if land plants and animals can't use it? Why didn't God just make all water fresh? Why do we need to eat when we could easily be designed to just use sun light for energy? Billions have starved because they could not find enough food so why design things that need it? Why are so many things designed to kill so that they can eat? Why design parasites and pathenogenes? Why design things to get old, ugly, weak, and sickly that die a long painful death? Even if death was needed why not be strong and healthy and then just die instantly and painlessly. Even if I bought into the punishment for sin for humans then why are animals punished too with old age and long, painful deaths?

Why did God create monotremes( the platypus and echidna), mammel-like animals which produce milk through skin pores but have no nipples, have fur, yet are semi-ectothermic, and lay eggs like reptiles and birds? They are strangely like transitional animals you would expect in evolution much like amphibians which start out as fish and then develop the organs of land animals? or worms that change into flying insects? it seems there are alot of transitional animals afterall, why if they were created directly, do we see so much evidence for bad design and evolution-like steps??

21

Crisis of Conscience

by sexyk in

jw
friends

i ordered crisis of conscience a few minutes ago !

i've heard many great things about this book for people who have left the jw religion and were having a hard time, like myself.

for those who read it, has it changed your life in any way ?

Liberty

I hadn't been to a Kingdom Hall in over twenty years when I read COC. I wish I had known about it sooner because it takes all your dangling threads of doubt and unanswered questions and ties them together into a more understandable whole. It is an excellent book and I found it doubly interesting because the author's tenure of being on the Governing Body almost perfectly matched the dates and duration of my most active time in the cult (late 1960's to early 1980's). So much of what he recounts sparked memories of the changes and events we saw on a congregational level miles away from Brooklyn adding much to his crediabilty and proving the incrediable centralized power of the Organization and of its influence over our lives. I would even swear that R. Franz's writing style was already familiar to me because some of the Society's reading material was actually written by R. Franz during these times.

I left the Watch Tower Society in the early 1980's knowing something was wrong. For me it was an accumulation of various logical disconnects between the Society's own internal rules and cosmology and their even greater disconnect with what I knew to be scientific fact. Noah's Flood was a real problem for me because even as a youngster I kept both fresh water and marine aquariums and knew that there was no way that any type of aquatic life could have survived in both forms from the only two possibilities the Flood presented: either a fresh water dominated flood or a salt water dominated Flood which would have killed off all life in one or the other of these environments and yet just 3500 years or so later we have both thriving ecosystems. I also knew how sun dependant and delicate corals were and how slow they build up giant reefs like the Great Barrier Reef so I knew there was just no way that there could have been a literal Global Flood submeging coral reefs for months hundreds of feet below the surface just a few thousand years ago. Nor was there a good explaination of how plants and animals could repopulate every seperated continent in just a few thousand years looking all the while like they were perfectly adapted to live there all along.

Some internal logic problems I had included not understanding why it was OK to drink coffee and other caffienated drinks with drugs in them but disfellowshipping people for drug use when they smoked or chewed tobacco. Shouldn't all nonperscription drugs be banned or no drugs at all to be consistant? What about the completely unscriptural beard ban while women clearly violated scripture by having their hair done and styled at beauty shops and wearing makeup? Why did we wear suits and dress clothes all the time since I was pretty sure Jesus and his poor disciples didn't wear the finest dress clothes out in their ministries nor did I think the early christians turned in time sheets nor did they ask for donations. I was also angry with the clear scriptural role women should have had by remaining silent in the congregation and yet they commented at the studies and participated in the ministry school. I was also very unsure of how the Remnant of the 144,000 were communicating God's will to the Organization since back then there were 4 or 5 old anointed faithfuls in our congregation who I had never heard or seen communicate in any way with headquarters. I also didn't understand how the END could be near when the majority of the world's population in Muslim and Communist countries had never even been contacted with the "Good News". Not taking a blood tranfusion to the point of death but then eating unkoshered meat, the whole reason for the scripture on blood in the first place was about making sure your meat was kosher slaughtered. Not to mention sweeping 1975 under the rug.

After reading COC it was very clear that the Anointed Remnent of the 144,000 didn't really run the Society and never had. This was the biggest lie I had been told and it is clear why it was told. R. Franz's insider view was a perfect compliment to fill in all the gaps that a Rank and File JW doesn't know about his religion. It was also comforting to see that even members of the Governing Body didn't understand all the rules nor were they convinced 100% about much of the JW dogma. COC answered many questions. It is important to have these blank spots filled in and the questions answered because many of us who leave still believe in parts of what we were brain washed with and books like COC and other research will go a long way in freeing you from all forms of JW nonsense so you can live a guilt and fear free life.

67

The Great Tribulation is picking up speed!!!!!!!!!!!!

by unbaptized in

the tribulation is really starting to speed up it's pace.

i just read that atleast 3 types of animal and plant life go extinct every hour.

global warming threatens the entire planet, crimes against women and children are at a all time high, honeybees dying off for unexplained reasons, the threat of nuclear war, the ravage of infectious disease.

Liberty

Hi unbaptized,

You are wise to remain "unbaptized" if this is the case. As to "The Great Tribulation", let an old -timer from back in the 1960's-70's tell you the real truth, we heard this exact same "evidence" 40+ years ago and yet the world is still here and unchanged as far as I can tell. Don't let these clowns (the Watch Tower Society) frighten you as they have been saying the same things since the 1870's and ALL their "spirit directed" predictions have FAILED. NOT A ONE has come true. Do yourself a big favor and objectively study the history of Watchtowerism and you will see that even their predictions for 1914 were wrong as they said it would all be over by then. AFTER it failed they eventually claimed to have predicted WWI but their own literature will prove that they most certainly did not.

Benifit from us old-timers and our experience with the Watch Tower Society then do the research and you will see they have FALSLEY predicted this over and over again to several now dead generations of people. Ask yourself, "why would God 'spirit direct' His true organization to instill false hope in people over & over again only to have them and Himself PROVEN to look like a fool to His enemies?" Not to mention the faith destroying effects of such false predictions. Why would Jehovah do something this stupid over and over again? How would potential converts who choose to ignore the real warning because the have learned about all the false past ones be fairly served? Why would God make it that much harder for people to see the REAL END and why "choose" an organization like the Watch Tower to spread such faith destroying falsehoods?

All I can hope is that you will honestly think about it. Good luck in your own search for truth.