Posts by mindseye

48

Went to my first meeting today anonymously!

by TimothyT in

hi everyone.. jack and i decided we would go to his local kingdom hall this morning.

although i have no interest anymore in being a jw, i think its still nice to have regular bible discussions, etc, which can give you something spiritual to think about each week.

i love it and i think its damn good for you.. today, jack and i walked in, a little nervous, but were greeted and welcomed like friends.

mindseye

Do any of you still feel this? Do you still desire the spiritual push or the desire to just have nice friends?

Definitey felt the spiritual push, even when I was going to the meetings. Sure, I got that warm fuzzy feeling of 'fellowship' sometimes, but still - something wasn't quite right.

Now that I've explored a lot of different philosophies and religions, I've found that the JW religion keeps one in an underdeveloped, ever-nascent form of spirituality. It's very tied to the material - works, beauracratic score-keeping (turning in time), over-stressed hiearchy. Nothing that I would now find 'spiritual'.

I know the feeling that they're 'nice people'. One thing I always admired while growing up in the US south is how the Witnesses always crossed racial barriers. And since I was never baptized, I am on good terms with a few of them and consider them good people. But that doesn't ever make me rationalize the controlling practices and lack of freedom in the religion.

So, Tim, you have to work it out man. The thing about spirituality is that I find it has mostly a psychological basis. Very rational people tend to reject it altogether and become atheists/agnostics. Very introverted people may be drawn to mysticism and the eastern traditions. Extraverts tend to like the fellowship of a church (though they can find it in other places). In the end you have to find what's right for you. Best wishes!

19

Kaballah - Is it a religion, a cult, a philosophy or what?

by freetosee in

jw
friends

a friend of mine says kabbalah is not religious, but rather a scientific approach to matters.

i me it seems to have strong religious characteristics and the people i have meat seem very cultic.

i must admit that i have not looked deeply into kabbalistic teachings.. what is your assessment?.

mindseye

From my understanding it's similar to Gnosticism, in that it pertains to a revelation of God rather than a faith based approach (seems mystical, but from what I've read, some adherents do not like it referred to as mysticism). It divides God into an impersonal 'unknowable' aspect, and a 'revealed' aspect that communicates with humanity. The Tetragrammaton is read in multiple combinations, with each one describing an aspect of the divine. It's an interesting system of interpretation.

I have a friend who reads a lot of Kabbalah texts, and he's also heavily into Gnosticism. He only studies it personally, so I couldn't comment on any cultish or religious aspects of it. Like any religious system, it probably has the potential to be cultish.

I'm not familiar with any scientific claims on the Kabbalah, but it seems that many throw the word science around way too much without knowing what it really means.

22

How do you feel about not seeing your dead loved ones again?

by highdose in

jw
friends

it always felt rather unatural the thought of seeing people who had been dead for years.

how would they come to terms with the huge passage of time that had passed?

how would they be able to cope with the fact that their family had probably hugely changed since they had died.

mindseye

When my mom died, some of my JW relatives talked to me of resurrection. I told them it was a nice idea, and I hoped it might be possible, but that didn't mean that I believed it.

Now I'm not sure it's even a nice idea. From my observation, it keeps people from acheiving a sort of closure that's important after losing a loved one ... to borrow from Proverbs (and an earlier post today), expectations are postponed, making the heart sick.

In contrast, viewing life and death as a natural cycle, and nothing as permanent, has better helped me deal with grief.

9

Making peace with death

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

have you come to grips with the reality of dieing and ending it all, for many it was an unfathomable reality especially with the idea that many now living will never die.. but have you made peace with death?, have you resolved in your mind that death is not a painful reality and it is unfair to cheat it..

mindseye

My mother passed away not very long ago. I was very close to her, and her death was sudden. It had me heavily reflecting on mortality, and even more on how to live life. The grief of loss was great, but I think I made some peace with death. I came to the conclusion - unlike what Witnesses believe - that death is the natural order of things. Observation of nature shows that nothing is truly permanent. I also noticed that I dealt with my mother's death better than many of my JW relatives. I found this a bit strange since they believe one day she will be resurrected. I think maybe the lack of closure has some psychological effect (or maybe they sense deep inside that the resurrection idea isn't true).

Dying doesn't bother me so much, it's more the idea of my body breaking down and getting sick. Some of my relatives died pretty agonizing deaths due to cancer. Others struggled with Alzheimers and other maladies before they died. A better case is my great grandfather, who lived a full life into his 90s with everything reasonably intact. One can only try to live as healthy and fully as possible, I guess...

33

Do most JW's belive their own private version of the religon?

by highdose in

jw
friends

trying to work with jw's and their cd i notice that the harder i push their beliefs the more likely they are to hit back with some werid version of jw belives that exsists only in their own head.. its almost like they listen to the bs from the platform, run it through their head and then process it through their own filter and end up with a bastardised version of "the truth" that they feel comfortable with.. .

anyone else encountered this?

and whats your theory about it?.

mindseye

This thread is spot on. I've noticed this with my family and many other JWs. I even know one who denied the term 'the truth', as if it was something the society did not actually teach. He said that is what just some misguided JWs say, and that they really shouldn't say it. He then came to some conclusion about how truth is ever changing, hence the 'new light' doctrine.

78

God exists? God doesn't? God is a different concept? Convince me!

by punkofnice in

i am in a spiritual void at the moment after a year out of the borg and 50 years in.. i'd like to hear 'brief' evidence for the existance or non existance of god/s without an argument between members here.. i'd like to get fresh view points as mine is now so critical it's telling me to be an agnostic or atheist.

why?

i am in want of evidence, not just words from a copy/paste troll & no links.. i just want to open up to new possibilities but with evidence to support it not just 'faith'..

mindseye

I like the Gnostic-like idea of the "God/Kingdom/Love within". It makes sense on an intuitive level.

As far as explaining a external deist God through reason, fuggedabout. If one could, religious people wouldn't need 'faith'.

In the west we're so stuck in this atheist/theist mindset, this binary thinking seems to inform all of these debates.

There's other options, like strains of eastern thought: God/Gods might exist, but it doesn't really matter anyway. Deal with the root problem (disconnection from nature, suffering, etc.)

10

What do you know about Friedrich Nietzsche?

by highdose in

jw
friends

i was supposed to study his stuff in collage, i let slip to the elders that i was supposed to study him and they went mental.

like i was about to study the devil himself!.

i was told that he inspired the nazis and that he belived that concentration camps were a great idea.

mindseye

The association between Nietzsche and the Nazis is mostly due to the actions of his sister, who was a hardcore National Socialist. She deliberately manipulated his letters and work in order to make him look rabidly anti-semitic. It seems the Nazis, including Hitler, had a superficial reading of Nietzsche. They interpreted his idea of a 'Superman' as some sort of Aryan ideal, while most agree that he meant something more akin to a Renaissance man or fully realized individual. He was quite critical of anti-semitism and German pride in some of his work.

Highdose, the brothers that freaked out on you truly had a reason to fear Nietzsche. It was reading his work as a teenager that gave me motivation to break free of the Witnesses once and for all. His ideas are delightfully dangerous to conventional thinking, he was a philosophical sledgehammer.

Nietzsche was not the first to criticize religion and God. What he was addressing when saying 'God is Dead' was what he saw as a great spiritual crisis that was coming, because God was no longer relevant to modern life. In his view, Christianity expoused weak values anyway, and had run its course ("The last Christian died on the cross" is one of his great quotes). In Nietzsche's evaluation, man (and he is gender specific, Nietzsche was a bit of a sexist) had to reevaluate his morals. To him, values were to be defined by vitality, power and living life to the fullest. In this sense I see Nietzsche as a optimistic, life-affirming philosopher.

Nietzsche is fun to read compared to some other philosophy, which can be dry at times. He is very poetic, which is why he is the favorite of artists. He is also very arrogant, opinionated, witty, and even contradictory, which is why he is also a favorite of many angst-ridden adolescents.

9

What about the Tribulation?

by Retrovirus in

the tribulation was not specifically covered in my "bible studies".

but the main "teacher" several times said how she prayed for strength that she would remain true to jehovah when she was tested "in the persecutions".. so, i understand that there has to be some sort of tribulation and persecution of the faithful before armageddon.

why i'm confused is that every stock market dip, new virus or extreme weather event is hailed as the beginning.

mindseye

bigmouth summarized it well...Tribulation is the epic battle befo' the big A goes down. It accounts for much of the 'crisis porn'.

9

What is sin?

by kes152 in

jw
friends

what is sin?.

mindseye

Sin is basically something made up by ancient religions to make people guilt-ridden and miserable, LOL. Ethical systems based of off well-being and empathy for one's fellow man make much more sense, IMHO.

54

Stop making the BINARY error of Jehovah's Witness theology

by Terry in

true or false.. black or white.. life or death.. .

the above are binary.

this or that.. computing is based on binary choices.

mindseye

Excellent post, Terry. It really is a great insight into the psychology behind JW theology.