logansrun

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Posts by logansrun

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  21

  What most surprised you about your life after leaving the ORG?

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  been a long time folks.

  howdy.

  here's a question: what has most surprised you about your life after leaving the organization?

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  logansrun

  Another personal observation that was somewhat surprising: I don't necessarily feel any happier or unhappier overall when comparing my JW as oppossed to my ex-JW life. Certain aspects of my life I am happier about (ex: intellectual freedom, less guilt, etc) and certain aspects I am a little unhappier about (ex. less social life, occassional feelings of unstructuredness, apprehension over world conditions). Overall, my experience has been that happiness has more to do with biology than with being part of a religion or not. (Of course, everyone's experience will be different in this regard).

  B.
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  17

  Reification of the "cult" idea

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sometimes i must confess bewilderment at peoples talk of cults: i.e.

  comments like well, the witnesses display all the characteristics of a cult as noted by [insert anti-cult website here].

  has it occurred to anyone that the idea of a cult is a human invention, indeed a very peculiar modern human construct in comparison with the rest of social history?

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  logansrun

  
  

  Sometimes I must confess bewilderment at people’s talk of “cults”: i.e. comments like “well, the Witnesses display all the characteristics of a cult as noted by [insert anti-cult website here].” Has it occurred to anyone that the idea of a cult is a human invention, indeed a very peculiar modern human construct in comparison with the rest of social history? Now, I’m not saying the modern invention of the “cult as a negative social group label” is necessarily wrong or bad, but just that that is what it is: a human invention. Logically, the fact that a website or some authority figure has put together a list of “cult characteristics” does not by necessity mean that the list they comprise is somehow the entire truth about the matter. I think too often people pull out arguments about “cults” the same way that JWs pull out their Reasoning Books: from “These are the characteristics of the true religion” (human construct) to “These are the characteristics of mind-control cults” (human construct). I believe these are both gross reifications, albeit I am more apt to agree with the latter than the former.

  I personally believe the idea of a “cult as a negative” is an outgrowth of liberal Enlightenment thinking which emphasized rationality and individual freedom. Only after the Enlightenment could “excessive group conformity” be considered a feature of a cult.

  Don’t get me wrong, I believe the idea of a “cult” is somewhat useful. Just bear in mind that it is a far slippier and culturally contingent concept than what appears to be the case when reading certain posts on this forum.

  B.
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  21

  What most surprised you about your life after leaving the ORG?

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  been a long time folks.

  howdy.

  here's a question: what has most surprised you about your life after leaving the organization?

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  logansrun

  Interestng comments from everyone so far. Here is another item that I've been surprised about:

  -- Although most "worldly" people I've met have gone to college, not everyone is as financially successful and intelligent as one might naively expect a college education would bring, so-called "worldly fulfillment." The value of a BA has gone down considerably in the last fifteen to twenty years and MBAs are a dime a dozen. I've done well at school and have met some very intelligent people, but even among them there are plenty who are making peanuts while pursuing their PhD in Literature, and when they finish the jobs are nary to be found. In short, college does not necessarily equal success, at least from a financial point of view. (Quite strangely, some of the less glamorous career paths at two-year colleges -- where JWs mostly are "allowed" to attend -- actually are a better "deal" in a way: nurses, dental assistants, auto repairmen all make more than your average four year college graduate, at least to start.)

  B.
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  21

  What most surprised you about your life after leaving the ORG?

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  been a long time folks.

  howdy.

  here's a question: what has most surprised you about your life after leaving the organization?

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  logansrun

  Here's some more surprises that I've experienced:

  Most people are not all that interested in your story as a JW/ex-JW. It's just not that big a deal to them. (usually)

  People are pretty much just as screwed up outside the org as inside it. I've heard so many talk about how many JWs are depressed, alcoholics, etc. As I've noticed, this is a trend outside just as much as in.

  I thought I would really feel a NEED to belong to a group of some kind on leaving the org: religious, political, "apostate" (haha), etc. Not so! I don't necessarily feel a need to belong to any organization, quite frankly. I found this a little surprising. Put another way, I guess I just don't feel a need to be around THAT many people quite that often.

  Forgive my broad brush, folks. These are generalities I'm talking about.

  B.
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  21

  What most surprised you about your life after leaving the ORG?

  by logansrun in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  been a long time folks.

  howdy.

  here's a question: what has most surprised you about your life after leaving the organization?

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  logansrun

  Been a long time folks. Howdy.

  Here's a question: What has most surprised you about your life after leaving the organization? Is there any disconnect between what you thought it would be like and how it actually is? I realize this question probably can only be answered adequately by those who have been out of the organization for awhile. Here are some surprises that I noticed:

  1) The world is a lot more COMPLEX than I had thought. I remember leaving the organization still carrying with me a style of thinking that can best be described as "categorizing." I still fight this tendency, although my experiences have directed me to realize that the world -- universe, society, culture, even my own mind -- is far more complex and subtler than I had originally thought upon leaving the society. It took me a long time, for instance, to see that not all religious believers are "full of shit" or that one's political inclinations cannot be simplified into a neat dichotomy.

  2) There are a lot of things outside the organization that are just like things inside it. For instance, gossip: pretty much the same outside as well as in, in my experience (I'm just waiting for the "ohh, that's not so" crowd to start railing at this one!). Another example: hierarchy and "do-gooders": same. Ditto for "unwritten rules" (just work in an office or go to a university and this will easily be borne out).

  3) To be frank, I thought some things would have been easier and some things much harder once I was outside the organization. For me: making lasting friendships -- harder; dealing with JW family -- easier.

  Hmmm....I'll think of some more. Care to share?

  B.
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  13

  The apostate line

  by MsMcDucket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  while i was in walmart, picking up my meds from the pharmacy, i happened to run into some witnesses.

  they were waiting for their meds.

  my youngest daughter was standing a few feet back, so i yelled to her "come on over here and stand in the apostate line".

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  logansrun

  I then told my youngest "you are not allowed to be one of those people". "I, absolutely, refuse for you to be one."

  Would you reject your daughter if she did become one? Are you making choices for her -- forevermore? Are you perhaps inciting the same type of prejuidicial "we good / they bad" mentality that Witnesses promote?

  Is the opposite of a Witness by necessity an "anti-Witness"? Just some food for thought.

  Peace,

  B.
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  24

  CS Lewis Quotations

  by LittleToe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  what resonates with you?every war, every famine or plague, almost every deathbed, is the monument to a petition that was not granted.. .

  c. s. lewis, letters to malcolm: chiefly on prayer, a harvest/hbj book, 1963, 1964, p. 58..

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  logansrun

  “There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled together.”

  Interesting. I think I'm in a minority of people who think Jesus is one of the most over-rated religious figures of all time. To me -- forgive my crassness -- he appears to be a typical 1st century Jewish Apocalyptic prophet who was confused as anyone else back then. He looked for his answers to life's problems from the sky, answers which simply never came.

  I find it fascinating that the one Gospel most people are attracted to is the one that modern scholars find to be the least authentic of the sayings of the historical Jesus, namely the Gospel of John. All that love and mystical stuff came later. The real Jesus preached a bloody solution to the Roman inhabitation of Israel. Nothing special in the man himself. What his followers said about him is another story, though.

  But...that's just my humble opinion. :)
  
  Bradley
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  12

  Have You Witnessed To JW's With Postcards?

  by Honesty in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  someone mentioned that since postcards are so quickly read information can be processed by the jw mind before they realise it is from a source that is not pro jw.

  have any of you here had any experience sending postcards containing delightful words of truth about the troof?.

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  logansrun

  It's the "same old shit" in the sense of the compulsive need to proselytize and the assumed efficacy of such evangelism.

  B.
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  12

  Have You Witnessed To JW's With Postcards?

  by Honesty in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  someone mentioned that since postcards are so quickly read information can be processed by the jw mind before they realise it is from a source that is not pro jw.

  have any of you here had any experience sending postcards containing delightful words of truth about the troof?.

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  logansrun

  Same old shit.

  B.
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  13

  Evolution - Have you ever thought about...?

  by Qcmbr in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  why out of all the species that exist only humans seem to be radically different in every shape and way?

  its almost as if humans have stopped 'evolving' and have started to diversify in looks rather than in additional mutations.

  all haddock look pretty much the same as each other, daisies are pretty much just daisies etc.. in fact it seems that the greatest variety within a species seems to be when artificial means are used (domestic cats, dogs etc..) .

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  logansrun

  I remember when I was a JW creationist I thought of all sorts of "But have they thought about....?" questions for evolutionists. "Have evolutionists thought about why, if we evolved from monkeys, there are still monkeys?" "Have they thought about how asexual plants and animals could evolve?" "Have they thought about why humans are the ONLY species which is conscious of itself?" "Have they....???" And on and on and on.

  Short answer: They have. I thought I was "sooo smart" for seemingly being able to ask "imponderable" questions that some PhD in biology from Oxford must have missed. Boy was I wrong.

  Why don't people just do themselves a favor and do some research on the internet from one of the great sites on evolution such as www.talkorigins.com (or is it .org?)? Yes, r-e-s-e-a-r-ch. These types of questions have been asked and very good naturalistic explanations are out there.

  B.