- I can read whatever I want. I have books from St. Augustine to Jewish philosophers to Catholic writers like St. Bernard and Eusebius. No elder criticizing me for my book collection. My father was a book lover and prior his death he amassed over 2000 books that elders considered demonic.
- I love playing video games instead watching TV, and I do not feel a shame about it.
- No meeting twice per week for book study, school of theocratic warfare, and WT publications.
- Continuous eduction without feeling guilty.
- Spending holidays with my Jewish in-laws.
- I vote and I participate in local political activities.
- Living a life as the only one I ever get.
Posts by kaik
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25The JOYS of being an EX-JW
by nicolaou inadd to the list and let's see the weekend out on a positive note!
1. sunday mornings.
alarm not set, cuddles with the mrs, tunes in the bedroom, coffee, bacon, another lazy coffee in the garden .
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kaik
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The new focus on This Generation is 70 C.E., Not Today
by FusionTheism inhere is the very latest writes about "this generation.
" looks like they are preparing to change it again -- now the focus is on 70 c.e., instead of modern times:.
jesus--the way book (2015), page 254 and pages 258-259:.
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kaik
The issue with the generation of the Jesus time is tricky. Average lifespan of Roman citizen was 33 to 45 depending on the province and social status. Therefore, majority of people born and living through the time of Jesus was already gone when Romans sacked Jerusalem. While the age 70 was nothing special, but it was rare, and lest than 10% of Roman population ever met their grandparents. So the generation that witnessed the destruction in 70AD were children and grandchildren of the people to whom Jesus and John the Baptist preached. -
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What's worse, brutal murder or fornication?
by Tornintwo injust to give you a bit of background, i've been researching my doubts for over a month, i'm convinced that although they may have some things right, they have a lot of other things horribly wrong.
i'm still clinging to a faith in god, because i see a creator's hand in nature, and i believe in jesus and his teachings, love, mercy, compassion.....that if everyone truly applied these (including jws) then all would benefit.. but i read this article in march and it's been on my mind ever since.
where isis stone a young couple to death for sex before marriage (a bit graphic).. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017800/sickening-images-blindfolded-bound-couple-brutally-stoned-death-fornication-isis-militants-iraq.html.
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kaik
Also, it is crucial to mention that fornication laws were implemented as a prevention for STD. Back then people did not know how to protect themselves from STD and it caused widespread biohazard problems for the society. Even Roman society had stricter laws against promiscuity, which were rooted in widespread gonorrhea outbreaks in the Roman times. In the 1st century also witnessed arrival of herpes, and it was only known to be spread by intimate contacts and Octavian Augustus issued laws that forbade kissing. Romans until late antiquity considered kissing as unclear act and was looked up with disgust by the society. Emperors like Commodus and Severus were known to kiss in the public causing a scandal. -
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Do you consider this site Godly or Ungodly
by Truthexplorer inover the years, i have seen a change in heart with the country i grew up in and the general view of what they perceive as how everyone should view things in relation to morality.
a strictly religious country for centuries now forever changed within a short number of years.
i have also seen the viewpoint on this site gradually change in many ways.
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kaik
Generally, it is ridiculous when evangelical crowds of bigoted Catholics threaten human race with brimstone because of the human progress, but comfortably omit the horrors of the past and idealized it as lost golden era. My parents were born during Depression and lived their childhood in WWII. My father witnessed his hometown to be bombed in 1944, execution of partisans and Jews. And I should mourn these horrible years? Where was his god when millions of people were tortured and slaughtered? And going back to distant history to the horrors of French Revolution, 30Years War, 100 Years War, to Mongol/Ottoman/Roman conquests; how can anyone defend these times. When plagues appeared, there was no whatsoever any treatment, no antibiotics no antivirals, people were just left to die. Even with present problems in the world, our time is far more better than any other year in the human history.
What it seems that the bigoted crowd cannot accept the fact, that the human race can make progress to better and thus need evangelical control and indoctrination to control the masses.
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Do you consider this site Godly or Ungodly
by Truthexplorer inover the years, i have seen a change in heart with the country i grew up in and the general view of what they perceive as how everyone should view things in relation to morality.
a strictly religious country for centuries now forever changed within a short number of years.
i have also seen the viewpoint on this site gradually change in many ways.
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kaik
VI, I love Thomas Paine writing. Interesting is his life when he barely botched guillotine in 1794 while in Parisian prison. After his death, his grave was desecrated and his remains were lost in time. -
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What's worse, brutal murder or fornication?
by Tornintwo injust to give you a bit of background, i've been researching my doubts for over a month, i'm convinced that although they may have some things right, they have a lot of other things horribly wrong.
i'm still clinging to a faith in god, because i see a creator's hand in nature, and i believe in jesus and his teachings, love, mercy, compassion.....that if everyone truly applied these (including jws) then all would benefit.. but i read this article in march and it's been on my mind ever since.
where isis stone a young couple to death for sex before marriage (a bit graphic).. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017800/sickening-images-blindfolded-bound-couple-brutally-stoned-death-fornication-isis-militants-iraq.html.
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kaik
If you really read Dante's Inferno, does not matter what sin you have committed, you will end up in hell. This book is actually great way to analyze your moral, social, and ethical dilemma, because does not matter if you were unbeliever but lived moral life, or you had committed the most hideous crimes you end up in the same place - hell. However, you can be murderer and rapist, but if you believe in Christian God and repent, you go to Purgatory and eventually Heaven. So the issue with Christianity and much heavily in the Islam, is the submission and control to the will of God versus exercising your free will and do what is good and beneficial to the mankind.
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Do you consider this site Godly or Ungodly
by Truthexplorer inover the years, i have seen a change in heart with the country i grew up in and the general view of what they perceive as how everyone should view things in relation to morality.
a strictly religious country for centuries now forever changed within a short number of years.
i have also seen the viewpoint on this site gradually change in many ways.
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kaik
That time is now near...Which time? The time in 1350 when Black Death ravished Europe and Asia and killed 100 millions of people, where Mongolian armies sacked entire cities and Jews were burned to death in Europe by thousands? Or the the times of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao with gas chambers, the SS, and NVKD executing millions for their ethnic and social status? Or it was the time in the 1st century with Nero and Caligula, and gladiator fights, and where people were sold into slavery as a cattle? Why was not your idea of "will continue to the point when Godly intervention" back then when it was needed? Today is selling people to slavery illegal, dictators get prosecuted in the world courts, killing people due war is consider a war crime, plague can be treated by antibiotics, and never humanity lived better than today. You are delusional. Try stoning disobedient children due autism and you will end up in prison. Or forcing women to marry their rapist is not only disgusting but also utterly wrong. And you advocating these "moral" views? Glad you are gone.
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My Parents Lost Forever?
by Hold Me-Thrill Me inmy father served in the second world war.
he served in the south pacific.
he loved his time in the military and my mother was more than supporting.
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kaik
Billions of people passes through this planet and billions will be born, live, and die. Everyone who had died never came back from dead. Not single time. While many of you and me included want to believe that there is after-life and another chance, the reality so far we have, is the only life on right now at this moment. I have accepted that I will never see my biological father and brother; and people who left live in my memories. What religion is had done, is selling a snake oil to make your present life meaningless for promising unverified another life after the death.
Instead preoccupation with the death, people should make their present life more meaningful for themselves, their love ones, for their community.
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WHY DO ONLY A FEW START TO QUESTION DOCTRINE CHANGES AND NOT EVERYONE?
by disillusioned 2 inthere are many on here who state specific changes in wt publications have caused them to start questioning (understandably you would think), and yet the majority don't.
why is it only a few individuals that do this?
curious as to what others think about this.
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kaik
JW do not have very well defined system of beliefs, and majority of people are ambivalent toward specific doctrines. The only exception is veneration of FDS, rest of the theology is irrelevant to ordinary witness. If WT would preach existence Trinity and hell under new light, majority of witnesses would not even care about the sudden flip-flop doctrine. JWs are taught not to question the authority of FDS, and they would not disagree with it as the beliefs toward specific doctrine is irrelevant to spiritual survival. JWs believe that sailing the ship of FDS will guarantee an eternal life, regardless what the FDS had claimed. -
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Article: "Come to Jesus' evangelism no longer works" (Food for thought)
by AndersonsInfo inhttp://www.thewhig.com/2015/05/13/come-to-jesus-evangelism-no-longer-works.
'come to jesus' evangelism no longer works .
by gerald walton paul, kingston whig-standard .
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kaik
Evangelical churches should had learned this problem from Catholic Church. After Reformation it became clear that Catholic missionaries and indoctrination of European population would not work. Many Catholics openly debated back then to abandon dammed Europeans souls and put missionaries into newly discovered tribes that became gullible toward the work of the Catholic missions. Evangelicals from 1850's onward repeat the same concept as did Papacy centuries ago. The proselyting had worked into certain degrees for American based protestants, but this was worked for generations born well prior WWII and has nothing else to offer to masses after WWII. Apathy toward religion and decrease of church affiliation is one reason why "Old evangelism is now consigned to history. It’s dead and the church is dying."