Posts by Liberty

40

Need Everybody's Help!!

by Metamorphosis in

jw
friends

ok - i've placed myself in a make or break situation.

i don't post a lot so you may not be familiar with me, but feel free to read my initial post on my situation.

a little has changed - i've now not turned in a service report the last two months (june and july) - first time in 25+ years, it feels great!

Your information is good. Unfortunately, your wife must be willing to overcome her "cult-control" filters to see it. If she has some reservations about the WTB&TS you might get through but if she is a hard core beliver it will not matter how good the evidence is. This may be make or break for your relationship.

If you haven't already exposed her to any information you might be better off approaching her from a simple "I can't believe a Loving God would kill all the unbeliever's babies and children at the big "A" and this has really been bothering me.". Or explain that when you run the numbers it becomes clear that the longer Jehovah postpones the big "A" the greater the number of people who will exponentially be killed because the population of nonbelivers is growing at a vastely higher rate than believers (JWs) and that their preaching work can never catch up to reach them. The big "A" should have happened years ago when millions would not have been born just to be killed. You may also mention that huge areas of the Islamic world and Asia have never been touched by the JW's message and that the Society uses "collective guilt" to excuse this uncomfortable fact. Is God a racist and is He regionally biased? The scenario presented by the Society just doesn't make any sense and this bothers my conscience.

There is NO "Apostate" information contained in these obvious self-evident problems/contradictions. The other thing that bothered me long before I ever had any exposure to "Apostate" information was how could Jehovah be inspiring the Society to "cry wolf" over and over again as it relates to the coming of the big "A". If your wife is a life long JW surely she realizes that even in her short lifespan the Society has promised that the "End" was only a few years away over and over again. How does falsely claiming this strengthen anyone's belief or faith over time? Why would God "spirit direct" them to falsley proclaim this over & over again only to tear down a believer's faith and make nonbelievers all the more skeptical?

I only suggest bringing up these points because you could not be accussed of having "Apostate" sources for these troubling problems nor are they very complex or fact heavy since they are mostly common sense observations which trouble the emotions of a kind and loving person.

Best of luck what ever you decide. You are in a tight spot.

284

NAME JUST ONE thing....ONE THING...revealed by God....

by Terry in

somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.

but, why are you still buying?

when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.

Liberty

Terry, Bible appologists are stuck with little if anything to refute your well made point. Any one who honestly approaches a real study of the Bible will find that there is nothing contained in it that was not already common knowledge among other ancient peoples. Another telling sign that there was no divine inspiration among Bible writters is that so many misconceptions held by other ancient cultures are repeated.

Even the oft quoted predictions of future events cannot be documented to have been written any time before the actual events occurred, the destruction of Jerusulem by the Romans in 70 A.D. for example was supposed to have been predicted by Jesus some 40 years before yet there are no original texts which can be dated from before 100 A.D. In short, anything not documented to have been written before 70 A.D. about the event is useless for proving any divine inspiration.

Most of what the Bible writers knew came from the superior regional civilizations which dominated the So-Called-Promised-Land over and over again and can easily be traced back to predate any Judaic culture. The Egyptians had an especially strong influence upon the region and were the first documented to practice monotheism, dietary restrictions, and even circumcision which were later claimed by Judaism.

It is also very clear that Jesus promised to bring about His Kingdom within the lifespan of the original Apostles. 2000 years have now passed without any fullfillment. Not one thing predicted has come true without alot of mental gymnastics to "prove" a "spiritual" fullfillment much like the JW's "invisible" enthronement of Christ in 1914 when the evidence for the real event could not be found and so an "invisible" event is substituted. Invisible evidence is the same as no evidence.

47

Intelligent Design Clobbered Again

by AlanF in

jehovah's witnesses seem to have drifted toward the political notion of "intelligent design" in recent years.

several times since 1996 their literature has referenced the book darwin's black box by michael behe, which book has become a kind of bible for iders.

the book introduces the notion of "irreducible complexity" in a formal way as disprove of evolution.

Liberty

Oh hooberus you must know that most of us have studied your Bible, extensive apologetics, and Christian beliefs till we are blue in the face. The fact that most of us have also bothered to study science and really learn about evolution puts us ahead of you since we know the arguments inside and out from both sides.

There is NO scriptural answer for the problem of suffering in the world apart from imaginitive apologetics from centuries of Christians trying to make sense of their contadictory and confusing Bible, hence your reference to Creationism books. Books about what people think the Bible means are NOT the Bible or God, they remain simple human conjecture. That the Universe, as we all know it, is cruel and chaotic is a fact, and only we humans have ever attempted to answer why it is that way. Your God remains silent about the issue.

What creationists always fail to see is that if there really is a Creator then He is ultimately responsible for evil in His creation. You can blame the Devil or humans all day long but the Creator remains the sole cause of His creation and as such the sole source of evil. This is a real problem for you guys and it has never been solved. We who believe in a natural Universe do not have such a conundrum because a Universe unguided by intelligence looks just as it should, uncaring, cruel, and brutal in its accidental forms. Only we humans bring a measure of morality and kindness into this chaos.

31

Ridiculous JW superstitions

by B_Deserter in

i'm not talking about the stuff you hear at the kingdom hall, i'm talking about the "experiences" you were told of by people you knew.

the big one for me was demons.

so many people i know had experiences with them.

Liberty

Hi B_Deserter,

Your mother believes that the heart is a thinking organ because that is what the Watch Tower Society taught for years. The ancient Israelites believed this too, but like everything they believed it came originally from Pagan (GASP!) cultures which greatly influenced, for most of Israel's history, the tiny, powerless, oft-conquered, and wholly unoriginal Israelites. The Egyptians had a huge influence over the region and they were the source of much of the Jewish religion/culture including the incorrect belief that the heart was the thinking organ, others include circumcision, dietary restrictions, the concept of monotheism.

The fear of demons is another idiotic belief encouraged by the Watch Tower Society. I now laugh to myself when I think that super powerful and intelligent spirit beings second only to Jehoover Himself have nothing better to do than hang out in old clothes and furniture just waiting to "demonize" and frighten JWs. Pure nonsense. I can't believe I used to fall for this stupidity.

47

Intelligent Design Clobbered Again

by AlanF in

jehovah's witnesses seem to have drifted toward the political notion of "intelligent design" in recent years.

several times since 1996 their literature has referenced the book darwin's black box by michael behe, which book has become a kind of bible for iders.

the book introduces the notion of "irreducible complexity" in a formal way as disprove of evolution.

Liberty

Hi Top Hat,

You must be pulling our chains. You can't really be this shallow? A god who can create a universe can surely come up with a less brutal and horrific solution to overpopulation.

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.