so my jw father is sick.
my mother uses the opportunity to try and preach to my 16 year old daughter.
i simply told my mother to: "please refrain from trying to lure *my daughter* in with jehovah's witness questioning.
I'm thankful to Jehovah for the children & grandchildren that Jehovah has given me as He promised. They soothe my heart for the ones I've lost.
I have some bad news. They will leave her, too. When a relationship is conditional there is no love.
Most the children of the people I grew up with in my home congregation have all left the Witnesses.
my wife and i have been together for 12 years.
married for 6. she was born into the truth, i studied for 2 years before we got married.
we would attend meetings on a weekly basis, go to conventions, and memorial every year.
Worstfear:
I am sorry for the suffering you are experiencing. Your wife made a choice and now you both will suffer. However, your suffering can end sooner by coming to terms with reality - happiness comes from inside of us and not from an external source. Do not put your happiness in her hands or the hands of anyone else. When you do you become that person's slave. She made her choice and her actions are hers alone to own. It is not your fault.
You are asking for advice on what to do. I recommend first and for most to take care of your health, both physically and mentally. Be sure to eat healthy, exercise, and get sleep. Find someone to talk to and seek the help of a therapist is if you feel the need.
Second, seek legal counsel to assist with the divorce. I would not seek revenge or be spiteful as that will only bring you down and cause regret down the road. Love is the sacrifice of the self for the other with no expectation of reciprocation. Romance is the wanting of someone else to satisfy your wants, cravings, and desires. Romance is the craving of joy or pleasure from someone else physically or in a way that builds the ego.
Adultery is the only Biblically approved reason for a divorce. It doesn't mean you have to get a divorce. She made the choice. Everything is on her.
this experience was posted about a year ago.
it seems like a crackpot co was giving his prediction of what "might possibly happen in the future" .
now it seems like he wasn't such a crackpot after all.. quote.
Everlasting life can be yours too if you subscribe to the JW.Org streaming service...for a "small fee".
Is this where the bankrupt publishing company that Charles Taze Russell started over 100 years ago is going? It sure seems that way.
Nice post, PistolPete.
you have probably heard all kinds of excuses why god doesn’t communicates with his creation or why he doesn’t intervene.. some examples.. no one can see god because he is a spirit.. but we can hear god---yet he chooses not to talk to humanity.. god only communicates with certain people.
moses, samuel, abraham, etc.
but there are many people today who also claim that god spoke to them yet we ignore them but believe god spoke to people who lived thousands of years ago and we can’t really verify if that was so.
I believe what Slim Boy Fat is referring to is called "qualia".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia
With qualia we see the difference between conceptual knowledge and experiential knowledge.
I like this explanation -
Qualia is the term to used describe actual subjective experience and sensation, as opposed to mere knowledge and information.
The concept is best described by Frank Jackson's color blind scientist thought experiment: A scientist knows everything there is to know about the color red from physics, optics and neuroscience, but is color blind, and so she doesn't know what it's actually like to see the color red. If we then somehow repaired her vision so that she can now see colors, and let her see the color red, she would learn something new about red that she didn't know before, despite all of her previous knowledge about the physics and biology involved. This additional knowledge she gains is the qualia of seeing red.
you have probably heard all kinds of excuses why god doesn’t communicates with his creation or why he doesn’t intervene.. some examples.. no one can see god because he is a spirit.. but we can hear god---yet he chooses not to talk to humanity.. god only communicates with certain people.
moses, samuel, abraham, etc.
but there are many people today who also claim that god spoke to them yet we ignore them but believe god spoke to people who lived thousands of years ago and we can’t really verify if that was so.
So as I am following -
If God does not it is either because -
(footnote - I am using "God" simply as the term for whatever may or may not have caused everything to be set in motion and not a specific deity.)
I can understand how a person would come to such conclusions if their paradigm of what everything is comes solely from a Western, Judeo-Christian culture. That is why I always find it interesting that such debates are not whether or not there is a god, but whether or not the God of the Bible exists.
There is a famous saying in India - "The only atheists here are the people who went to Catholic school."
you have probably heard all kinds of excuses why god doesn’t communicates with his creation or why he doesn’t intervene.. some examples.. no one can see god because he is a spirit.. but we can hear god---yet he chooses not to talk to humanity.. god only communicates with certain people.
moses, samuel, abraham, etc.
but there are many people today who also claim that god spoke to them yet we ignore them but believe god spoke to people who lived thousands of years ago and we can’t really verify if that was so.
The claim that God doesn't communicate with humans is based on the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever.
What do we mean by "communicate"?
Notsure what sort of evidence would you accept?
Great question. I do not mean to be inflammatory, but are we talking some sort of two witness rule or three witness rule?
i’m an atheist.. let’s assume i am wrong, i am willing to be.. let’s give people a god, let’s even make him the god of the bible…... does he deserve to be worshipped and obeyed?
if so, why does his abhorrent actions not morally make you question allegiance to him?.
does his authority alone allow him to murder and drown and order war, to throw people into a lake of fire?.
Let’s give people a God, let’s even make him the God of the bible…..
You ask the question, "Even if God exists why worship him?" However, you quickly turn it into "the God of the bible."
When it comes to that question, we have to be more specific. There are many gods listed in the Bible and we find out about more as time goes on. Is it El, YHWY, the Lord, or even Jesus (if you grant him divinity).
I have come across some interesting information over the past couple of years where it shows the Israelites had several gods during the course of their history. There are even those who suggest that in the Gospels Jesus rebukes the religious leaders for worshipping YHWY when their true god is this "Lord".
I get your argument about why any would ever want to willingly worship the god of the Old Testament. Keep in mind, part of that is because morality is dynamic and not static. Religious belief is part of culture. Culture is a learned experience. Over the centuries it begins to look like "that's the way it has always been." This is not true.
So, I think another way to look at it is "How could anyone in our current culture and in this modern day and age choose to worship the brutal god of the old testament?" I think the reason is simpler than we think - we were raised to believe it.
True, some people choose to accept this blood-thirsty tyrant as their god later in life. I have no idea why other than the shared experience. People find something to belong to and want to share in the emotional experience the others in the group have.
I get wanting to follow the tenets of Jesus. However, Christianity tends to say "You have to accept the YHWY if you want the Jesus." That is hard to come to terms with.
I also see Vidqun's point. Who am I with my first world, suburbanite morals to tell God what is right and wrong?
isn`t there enough evidence to acknowledge the god of the bible has been a failure ?according to wt / jw teachings ?.
a god that has supposed to have created the visible universe and everything in it ?.
some points where i would challenge that from an earthlings point of view using the bible if only in paraphrase.. doesn`t god create everything perfect ?
From the Watchtower side of things I ask - "Why do 144,000 humans have to give up their humanity to undo Satan's dirty work if Jehovah purposed humans to live on earth forever?"
From the other side of the Christianity coin I ask - "If God's original purpose was for humans to live forever on earth why do the faithful now go to heaven?"
Either way Satan foiled God's purpose for mankind to live on earth forever.
with the passing minimus, we all may think about what this site has meant to us personally.
i lurked here for quite a few years before becoming active as a poster....still i consider what i have done to be very slight compared with others.
may minimus rest in peace and a big thank you to all that have helped me here over the years.. a new member that is a pimo elder (reservations) posted here about how he could wake people up while remaining a pimo elder.
I agree with JW To; If you are a PIMO Elder/Ministerial Servant/Pioneer and want to help others wake up, but cannot leave at this time, the best thing you could do is quit doing anything that is not required.
Show up to the meetings and sit their like a bump on a log with a smile on your face. Isn't this the best life ever? If the elders ask you anything just answer with a big smile, "I believe whatever Jehovah's organization tells me. It is the best life ever!"
Those who want to wake up will get it.
is the fact that no god/god ever communicates with us evidence that no god/god exists?
i think it is very strong evidence that no personal god/god exits, especially a benevolent god who wants humans to know him him/her/it, to obey him/her/it, and/or to love him/her/it.
since no god/god communicates to us (including those who sincerely want communication with the/a god/god), wouldn't it be sensible for those who pray to what they believe is the/a god/god to cease all efforts to communicate to a god/god?
"Left-minded" or "left-brained" is referring to that part of human though the operates in the realm of the concept of the physical universe. If it can me measured, if it can be weighed, if it can labeled that portion of human thinking accepts it. Left-brained thinking also tends to be dismissive of right-brained thinking.
Right-brained thinking is that which we recognize, but cannot put into words of put our finger on whether literally or figuratively. It is also the realm of intuition. That is why persons who have certain experiences of a divine nature have trouble putting that experience in words.
As far as the Failed Hypothesis, I totally agree -
Stenger believes we have more than enough evidence of absence of the Judeo-Christian God. He adds that many arguments for God that were once compelling are now weak or irrelevant in light of modern scientific understanding. Stenger does not think we should be dogmatic about disbelief in God, but says the evidence is overwhelmingly against the belief.
Any evidence/experience one can obtain about God will not line up with the concepts of the Bible.
