at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
Thanks to Simon, who I believe is very gracious.
But to some of you, you kind of make this statement on the first page of this forum a bit of a joke:
"We...provide a friendly, tolerant and informative environment where you can ask questions, share information and make new friends."
Some of you are, but a lot of you are not the definition of friendly and tolerant.
And write all you want in reply to what I've written as I am not coming back to read any of it.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
DJS,
I believe you were an elder and had quite a “career” going up the ladder in the Society, if I read your posts correctly. Now that you are not one of Jehovah’s Witnesses I firmly am convinced that you have chosen to follow the noble path of rationality.
But you are also very angry. And you are not being rational in your anger. You were so sure I would be someone to condemn you to hell. You speak as you are so sure that I reject “facts, evidence and rational thought,” as if they are “anathema” to me. None of that is true.
A truly rational person, one who acts on facts and evidence and rational thought (as you mentioned) would not ‘bet’ that they knew things about me that they really didn’t. Evidence is about gathering empirical data, testing it, presenting results for getting them validated by independent and disinterested parties. None of that you did with me. Yet you are claiming you are “so sure” about these things about me. How can you be?
I’m not selling anything, not here to make converts, and will even leave after this last post so that I cannot be mistaken as someone trying to get others to adopt my views (though you feel justified in trying to get me to adopt yours--as your “here’s betting you can’t” demonstrates).
My parents died, an aunt of no blood relation looked after me, and under her roof I had to go to all the meetings at the Kingdom Hall and weekly book study and accompany her on field service when not in school. I did it from age 10 to 18, and never returned to the Kingdom Hall again when I was no longer under her legal custody.
I just came here after some Witnesses came to my door, read around a bit to see what the Witnesses were up to, and answered a question here about Bible reading. No agenda. But I’ve noticed how some people here just leapt upon me exactly as I had been hounded when growing up in the Kingdom Hall.
The only difference is that you folks aren’t elders or ministerial servants or pioneers or your basic everyday Witness anymore--at least most of you aren’t. But it is still the same thing I am experiencing.
From the point of view of that orphaned boy I was who still went to the Catholic school his parents had enrolled him into by day and accompanied his aunt to the Kingdom Hall by night, it is the same old song I hear you singing to me, and oddly enough the same people singing it to me: “You’re wrong in what you believe. Your belief system has caused destruction. It’s time has come. Joining us is the only logical thing to do. If you don’t you will die an idiot.”
I got called “stupid” and a “child of demons” and a “cursed idol worshiper” by circuit overseers, pioneer ladies, and elders, and just about everyone else who were JWs. And now that I am here, thinking I would find refreshing stories to share, I got the same old accusations from the same type of people. Only now you are atheists and agnostics or have a new religion (not all of you are the same).
I never understood how JWs thought there was “the truth” and how they walked around so proud that they had “the truth,” and felt as if having “the truth” gave them license to condemn everyone else.
Now that you are out, you are still saying the same thing to me. I am still being called stupid. Maybe as Catholic I am stupid.
I may be stupid to worship God, and stupid to pray the Rosary, and stupid to go to Mass where I believe the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Jesus. It does sound stupid. I don’t claim it sounds rational, and in fact I don’t think religion should. It’s a crutch to help you get through life. I admit it. I may be a very, very stupid man, still as stupid as I was when I was that orphaned boy.
But I was not stupid enough to join a cult.
So in my “stupidity” I see it as irrational to believe what you have to say now. I can accept becoming an atheist and turning away from God and following that path. It’s possible I am wrong and need to change.
But I am not going to do it because of what you said. In fact, would you follow someone who was stupid enough to join a cult and preach it for--how many years did you do that--now that he claimed he had found something better? Wouldn’t you at least be cautious of their claims? Is that rational?
You haven’t changed. You are still that elder that called this boy fit for destruction so many years ago. You just changed the team you played for, but you are still peddling judgment and self-righteousness.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
Not a hard question to answer, DJS, and not as if I haven't read what you posted about your past.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
Were you ever one of Jehovah's Witnesses?
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
And Catholics don't believe that atheists are condemned and will go to hell. That is not true, at least not in our belief system.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
So you aren't buying a life lived wherein important decisions for us as individuals as well as our species and planet are made by evidence and facts rather than superstition and belief in made up gods?
I'm not buying what you are selling.
I have no problem if my religion is wrong and I need to choose being an atheist. But I would not accept it from you. Why not?
I think it would be irrational for me to accept what you have to offer. Weren't you someone who was SO SURE about everything they believed when they were at my doorstop with their Watchtower magazines, Kingdom tracts, etc., you know, when as a Witnesses you told me that the world was "coming to an end" any day now. I used to hear how being a Catholic and thus a member of "Babylon the Great" made me marked for death by Jehovah because my religion had "caused so much death, destruction and divisiveness." You are still singing the same, old song. What's the difference? You were so sure you were right then, and you are still that obstinate person now.
"You theists have had your era." Yeah, I heard that from Russell: "The Gentiles Times have ended. The kings have had their day." Same song you're singing, just a few change of the lyrics.
"You theists have had your era, and it is coming to an end...It is being replaced by something much better." Yeah, I heard that in 1975 when my friend Leshaun was trying to get me to be a baptized Witness. Same promises, different brand, that is all that you are selling. Sorry, I don't buy snake oil.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
I'm here because I think I've something to share and that I can help people live a better life, with or without a god.
That mission means that I at times have to be a CDC warrior, trying to inoculate the masses while simultaneously destroying the disease or infection.
It is a noble cause.
It seems that was the same thing ex-JWs were saying in the name of religion while they were members of their local Kingdom Hall.
Oddly, some people who were attracted to or in the JW religion and then have left it still have this "mission" I will never understand--whether it's religion or atheism, you are still here "to share" what you believe can "help people" which includes "trying to inoculate the masses" against the views that aren't yours. Even as ex-JWs some still believe that the views of others are some sort of "disease or infection" that you set out to "destroy" with "mocking and humiliation when necessary." To me, I see no difference in what you were and what you have become.
As I told someone else on another thread, ex-JWs don't have the best track record for claiming they now have "something to share...that I can help people live a better life" with. Sounds like the same pitch I heard when they tried to get me to study the Live Forever book in the 1980s.
Jehovah's Witnesses offer nothing but "truth" that leads to spiritual and intellectual death, in a sense killing people with their "something to share...that can help people." Just because you are an ex-member doesn't make you an expert on what truth really is. I would not trust a surgeon who killed every patient he operated on because he followed some pseudo-medicine he believed was "the truth," even if he claimed he had now rejected that pseudo-medicine belief now. "Trust me to operate on you, as I won't kill you now."
JWs claim to have all the answers and oddly a few ex-JWs claim to still have this status. I am supposed to accept that whatever newfound view they adopt afterward is enough to make them a "warrior" with the ability to judge whether my or anyone else's views are a "disease or infection" that deserves to be 'destroyed.' This is the same line of crap you probably told people about the teachings of the JWs when you were one and how you felt against "false religion" and "the philosophy of the world." It sounds to me like you just like to join things or adopt views that make you feel right and give you the impression of being this "warrior" in your "noble cause" against what you again, like you did as a JW, view as a "disease." Yesterday it was "the true religion," today it might be your atheist views, tomorrow it will be what?
I didn't buy your pitch when you were holding a Watchtower in your hand and I'm not buying it now with this "new" thing you are trying to "inoculate" me with.
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
DJS wrote:
I was amazed at how many theists routinely made definitive statements that atheists were immoral, murderous, fornicators since they did not believe in god (not god, really but THEIR god).
...I always refute these ridiculous assertions and accusations with empirical evidence, but the theists don't like empirical evidence; it hurts their tiny little brains and their feelings.
...I push back with sarcasm and biting wit, including mocking and humiliation when necessary. Those tactics work; it shuts the theist the fuck up up for a while, at least until another one comes along in a few days and says the same things.
I can see that.
But not all theists believe that about atheists. I'm a Roman Catholic. I have not only written several times that atheism can be a source for good, I think the world would lose a vital and very moral necessity if the rationalism and security found in many atheists and their views were lost.
So you can't judge every theist by the example of the worst ones you come into contact with. That was what I was saying. Stalin, for instance, is one of the worst examples of a human being I can think of, not to mention a very bad example of what an atheist is or should be. It would thus be illogical to judge atheists by what Stalin's Communism has done.
Thus I understand the emotional scars and how they cause this reaction. But there comes a time that if we want to stand for reason, that we have to respond with reason and not react with emotion. I never wrote in any of most posts anything against atheism, but I got judged as if I had. This judgment was made not upon evidence, examination, test, or anything logical--and by people who claim that logic is they way to go--but emotion.
The original post and the thread is merely about reading the Bible again without Watchtower influence. Nothing else. Look what we are discussing! It's about an emotional response that caused an assumption about me, my views, and what I was writing about.
I find no evil in atheism and have little tolerance for those who do. I'm not advocating my personal convictions either. There shouldn't be a problem, and I feel for you, I really do. I am truly sorry for how you and your views have been treated. But just because a lot of atheists have told me I was an idiot and said horrible and false things about me doesn't me I treat them in any way less than giving them the honor they deserve as people. I would lose something very vital to my life if I turned a deaf ear to others just because they did not share my views. I understand if you cannot or choose not to be the same way as you don't owe me anything, and I don't judge you for your "sarcasm...mocking and humiliation" if that is the way you choose.
I'm here worshipping burning bushes and virgin births. Who am I to judge?
at the moment i dont beleive in anything.
im pretty much an open book, but my critical mind is very alert to bullshit.
but anyway i decided to re-read the bible with a non jw filter.. i researched online first which is supposed to be the best translation out there.
Cofty, I made the exact same argument you are making in your post. That line you highlighted from what I wrote meant to highlight how irrational some claims to the contrary really are.
I also never claimed that religion was any form of rational thinking.
And I don't believe nor did I state that people need religion or that atheists make bad societies. I was arguing against those types of views.
I've only been on here a couple of days, but I get that sense that because of the experience many of you have had with the Jehovah's Witnesses, it has left a few common "scar," so to speak that appears in the reactions to what I've written.
While I can't say that everyone here is like this or that it is not understandable, it seems there is a type of "knee-jerk reaction," for lack of a better expression, to certain phrases. It is as if people skim to find something in a post, see a sentence, and project a certain view upon it at face value, ignoring everything else written and taking the statement out of its intended context...as if people are searching for anything that looks like it attacks their current newfound "truth" and feel this need to react with a defense.
Cofty, I wrote repeatedly that much good can come from things like atheism and that claims which pointed to things like the atrocities of Communism were irrational arguments against the good that atheism can bring. I was showing how people can take anything, like religion, atheism, even orange juice and make something bad from them. My argument was that just because people can make "napalm from orange juice" doesn't mean oranges are bad any more than the fact that Communism twisted atheism for its own diabolical uses. What Stalin did does not prove atheism itself is a bad or unenlightened way of life.
Read the whole posts, people.
or do we give in to social constructivism?
to relativity?
or is there a way to be real and then to say whats real that everyone agrees to?.
Ruby456,
I appreciate that you took the time to give me such a detailed answer, but you do realize you didn't answer my question.
I asked,"What's the obsession with finding this thing that give you that objective view? What's the evidence that such a way to absolute truth exists?"
And as for being unscientific, if I am not mistaken, science has no model or theory that teaches that what you are talking about, what you are searching for, exists. Again, what's the proof that absolute truth and having a purely objective view of everything is possible for anyone? If there is absolute truth, what evidence is there that you can point to that source or way to it? And then what proves you would be able to process it and understand it?
I mean, if you were one who thought the religion of JWs was the truth, you don't have the best track record proving you can find and tell if you have "the truth" or not. "I was in a cult for several years and believed it was the truth, but now that I'm out, I'm a good judge of knowing what is true and not." I'm sorry, but how did you suddenly gain the capacity to judge such things objectively when you once failed at it so miserably?
I wouldn't trust a surgeon who killed every patient he had for several years following some pseudo-medicine he believed was "the truth," even if he claimed he had rejected that pseudo-medicine as nonsense now. "Trust me as your surgeon if you need an operation. I won't kill you now."
You are like that surgeon, aren't you? If you were a JW, you once claimed you had life-saving truth and in a spiritual sense "killed" everyone you taught JW nonsense to. Now that you left, you claim that there is still some single path for truth, and you expect me to believe that what you're selling now is correct?
