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A layman's journey from religion to reason
Render unto Caesar
Godspeak
A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.
Come OUT and play!
The Word
Spread the Gospel
Hymn book
If I may toot my own shofar, a few of the posts I like best:
Spake the people
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"I have to say that it MIGHT have been a little easier for you to walk away if your family was...
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Lots of good stuff in your comment. Let me reply to a couple of items:
First, I salute...
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"Jehoprah"? : )
You know, I haven't thought so much about one point you raise: "God can...
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I honestly have to disagree with you on this point. LOL I've read through a lot of your...
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Like the above posters pointed out, pursuing higher education's always been strongly discouraged...
"I have to say that it MIGHT have been a little easier for you to walk away if your family was drifting away and you had friends outside the congregation."
Without a doubt, that made it easy for me. I've come to realize that I was in an unusually accomodating situation! I know it's far more difficult for many other people, whose family and friends remain in "the Truth"; for them, it's really throwing away everyone closest to them. My hat is off to everyone in that situation who manages to escape; they're far tougher than I needed to be!
Re fear of the New System: Very interesting take on things – and, I have to admit, a surprising one to me too! I don't believe I ever heard of any JW expressing fear of the New System (at least, no one said anything like that to me!).
In my case, I never pictured that all the works of mankind would be destroyed. Maybe that idea is in a publication I missed, or maybe it's an area where different JWs imagine different things, but – to the degree I thought about it at all – I imagined that, sure, we'd still have boats and buildings and all kinds of stuff in the New System. Maybe pre-NS art, music, etc. too, as long as it wasn't sacrilegious stuff (and I'll grant that, from the fundamentalist viewpoint, that does whittle the offerings down a lot).
Cars? Trains? I myself never heard a prediction one way or the other on that; my assumption would have been that, sure, we'd still have them if they were needed and the bad effects (pollution, etc.) were mitigated (divinely?). Or maybe we wouldn't need them, and then, hey, that's great, because, you know, eternal life in paradise to the max! (Translation: Maybe the NS story is as vague as "life in heaven" scenarios, after all...)
In any case, I guess I imagined that we'd still have as much technology and art and other good man-made things as we wanted (as long as it was also Pleasing To The Lord and all that). And on a personal level, I was pleased as could be about the thought of living down close to the animals and bugs. But that's because I was a kid, and was already outside trying to play with all the animals and bugs I could catch. : )
Now, all that said, there was still one quiet horror lurking below all that Tribulation + NS stuff, and you touched upon it: Billions of dead people denied entry because they didn't have the right religion. Including Grandma and Grandpa and all those school classmates and...
We kids did ask about that, and the answer was always some sort of vague cross between "That's why Jehovah's giving them a chance now" and "When the NS comes, you'll be happy and you won't worry about it". Or something like that. Essentially "don't think about it".
It seems to work on kids. But I'm certain that had I stayed with "the Truth" into my 20s, that point would have caused an ever-widening crack in my "faith". My thinking now is this: If, bizarrely enough, it should turn out that the Christian God is real and "the End is nigh" and all that, then I would praise Adam for having chosen his wife over God, and I would likewise throw in my lot with humanity, not some invisible sky alien. If that means passing up God's little "reward" and going down with my loved ones, than so be it! I can't respect anyone who'd choose otherwise.
Lots of good stuff in your comment. Let me reply to a couple of items:
First, I salute you and your brother for leaving "the Truth" in order to be honest to yourselves, even when it meant losing your community. You overcame the wall that keeps lots of people locked inside.
"Reading the bible cover to cover over and over didn't strengthen my faith in the bible, it destroyed it."
Amen. Ask a bunch of atheists what's the one book they'd like Christians to read, and you'll get a lot of answers – but one very common answer will be The Bible. The whole thing, not passages cherry-picked by a pastor. There's no better reading to make a believer queasy about his faith than all those blood-soaked, hate-filled, women-loathing scriptures that the sermons gloss over. Unfortunately, few believers actually will read the whole thing...
Job? Yep, a horrible story. The pastors and elders, following the biblical authors' lead, tell the story as if Job were the center of the universe. But how about this: Try telling the story from the point of view of one of Job's kids:
"You're a kid. God lets the Devil kill you as part of some bet they're playing out. You aren't consulted or divinely 'visited' or anything. There's no test of your faith. No coming to 'know God' and living your life accordingly. No choices for you to make, no options, no anything. The story's about Job; you're a prop. A dead prop. Later, Job gets new kids, but you stay dead. The end."
Lovely. Now repeat the above obscenity for all the first-born in Egypt, for every child on Earth in Noah's flood, and on and on. The Bible's message: "Unless God picks you out as a main character in his little play, you're lower to him than a tissue. Now shut up and die already."
"Jehoprah"? : )
You know, I haven't thought so much about one point you raise: "God can read your thoughts". That's such a perfect guard to keep believers from questioning the authority of church/doctrine/etc.!
"Don't ask questions; the leaders might find out" isn't too strong a guard; you could still have quiet conversations with other doubters, or study secretly at a library, etc. But "Don't ask questions; God can hear you" – wow, you don't dare do anything for fear of being divinely busted! Awesome bit of mind control.
Anyway:
"Remember: god is love. "
Yes. He'll just love you to death!
I honestly have to disagree with you on this point. LOL I've read through a lot of your blog, and on a side note, I have to say that it MIGHT have been a little easier for you to walk away if your family was drifting away and you had friends outside the congregation. We were ABSOLUTELY forbidden to have worldly friends and our WHOLE family was in "the truth", so my brother and I were a lot more susceptible to the cultish control than might have been the case for you. That having been said, more on topic, GOOD LORD I cannot even tell you how much I hated the thought of the new system. All my life (I just turned thirty and have only been out of the organization for about six years) I was TERRIFIED of the thought of Armageddon - not because of the great tribulation (even though that did scare me) but because first; there were people that liked and cared about even if I wasn't allowed to have friends in the world and it really made me sad to think about them dying - and not being able to express my sadness over their death because that would be traitorous to god somehow. Beyond that, I liked what we humans have made. Knowing that all art; painting, literature, sculpture, architecture, music, film, video games, any sort of artistic product, EXCEPT what the Witnesses made would be destroyed filled me with dread. No matter how beautiful and paradisaic the new system might be, it could never make up for the loss of all that humanity's created over the course of its existence. Plus, I'm not a nature boy - I like nature, I love natural beauty, but I'll admit - I like it from a distance. A picture of a tropical beach; a panorama of a lush jungle. I don't want to actually BE in the dirt and bugs and crawly things. Not my cup of tea. Having to farm; weave my own clothes; build my own house; live without cities (remember - Nimrod built the first city and he built it to be in opposition to Jehoprah; ergo, we'll have no cities in the new system) all of that was TORTURE to me. Having to spend ALL OF ETERNITY living in some sort of G-rated commune farming with no intellectual stimulation whatsoever? TORTURE!!!! I don't know about you, but growing up, most of the people I knew (older than me) seemed to be adamant in their belief that there'd be no (or hardly any) advanced technology in the new system. I can't even remember how many times I had to listen to people saying something along the lines of "and there won't be any cars or planes or trains; and it'll be fine! cuz we'll live forevar!11! if you have to take ten years to visit a friend or relative on the other side of the planet cuz you had to walk there, it's ok - cuz you'll live forevar!!!". TORTURE!!! No technology? Really? I have live for all eternity with nothing to read but the watchtower, nothing to listen to but kingdom melodies, living in my own personal little house on the paradise? HELLLLLL NO!!! I used to actually sometimes think I'd rather die in Armageddon than live in THAT eternity. Not that living forever (or at least a very much longer amount of time than I'm going to) isn't appealing; but living in THEIR version of "paradise" forever? No thank you.
Like the above posters pointed out, pursuing higher education's always been strongly discouraged (though this scan would be the first time I've ever actually seen it in print that blatantly). There are the powerful families... the ones who somehow do go to school, have kids who do things that are "bad" (whether more minor like having an aura of unsavoriness or more major like drinking and fornicating) yet somehow get forgiven and have no reproach on their families. Those people can get their higher education without question but those are actually rare. While I've seen and heard of such families, they haven't been consistently in every congregation I was ever in (and I was in a LOT, thanks to moving around a lot growing up). I remember the numerous talks, both at the meetings AND in the assemblies and conventions about the dangers of pursuing higher education. The things they always SAID were the obvious rhetoric about "why waste your time pursuing wordly things when we have so little time before the end; focus on spiritual things (i.e. the ministry work) instead".In my experience what was always unsaid, yet VERY STRONGLY FELT were a few discrete, yet related issues. First, pursuing higher education for the sake of learning makes the implicit statement that you value secular education and are potentially willing to believe in or at least listen to the lies of the world (remember that wordly history and archaeology are so often wrong, wordly science is so often wrong, all secular knowledge except as quoted in the Awake is wrong or at least potentially wrong). Second, pursuing higher education for the sake of having a higher wage-earning potential implies that you don't believe in the immediacy of Armageddon or the last days - ergo, you're not really putting faith in what the faithful and discrete slave is telling us about us being in the absolute last days of the last days. Third, and tied into the higher-education-for-sake-of-earning motivation, OBVIOUSLY, you wouldn't feel the need to get a decent job and make a decent living if you weren't putting material things first - put the kingdom first and god will provide; clothe his followers like the lilies of the field, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Fourth and finally, pursuing higher education for the purpose of acheiving a higher social or socioeconomic status would be showing fear of man and placing value into worldly status which would be an EXTREMELY unacceptable attitude amongst any of Jehoprah's people. While the last point is probably the LEAST likely to EVER be a bona fide motivator for JWs seeking higher education, I can guarantee from listening to people talk that it seemed to always be a given assumption that people who pursued higher education often (if not always) had such a motivation. The thing is that they've gone back-and-forth so many times on this point, but they've always consistently come back to the anti-higher education stance for the simple reason that education makes you think and thinking is inimical to JW theology. My brother and I came from families that had been born and raised "in the truth". We lost everyone we ever knew by walking away from the faith, but we HAD to because we both finally hit a point where we couldn't pretend to believe anymore. It was our inability to stop thinking and our insatiable intellectual curiosity that drove us to learn everything we could - even about the "truth". Reading the bible cover to cover over and over didn't strengthen my faith in the bible, it destroyed it. Sending bears to maul kids to death for making fun of a bald man? Genociding all of humanity AND the animals (how sacred was their bloodlife THEN) in a global flood because people were partying too much? Denying salvation to all the gentiles and thus condemning them to permanent death until the Israelites rejected Jesus and we all got offered salvation thanks to their bad? Women being permanently condemned to second-class status and lifelong subservience and deference just because they were born with different genitalia? Lot's daughters raping him and having his kids? HUH?? Abraham being willing to murder his son because Jehovah told him to? REALLY? JOB! THE WORST STORY IN THE WHOLE BIBLE!!! SO MANY TALKS GIVEN ABOUT JOB'S FAITHFUL EXAMPLE. His children murdrered, all the suffering and torment he was put through, and for what? To prove a point to Satan? Really? Perfect god's perfect justice let him sit back and watch as Satan not only sadistically tortured Job for no reason, but MURDERED HIS CHILDREN. Then, when Job gets his rewards for his faith, he gets ten new kids? WHAT!? Even as a little kid I couldn't help thinking "but why didn't he just resurrect his old kids... no matter how many new kids he had, they'd never be able to replace his old kids... they're different people... they're still dead...". Thinking is the JWs' (and all religions, really) worst enemy. THIS is the TRUE fundamental reason why they hate and will always hate higher education. True; they need professionals. They need lawyers and doctors and even scholars that are familiar with ancient languages and the archaeological and historical context of the times that biblical events took place in to properly translate and understand the ancient texts. The need for educated professionals though will NEVER outweigh the need for an uneducated, mentally pliant mass of people who not only don't question whatever they're told, but lack the critical thinking skills to do so were they ever so inclined.
ZOMFG - MY MOM (both my parents were raised in "the truth" and raised me and my brother in "the truth" as well) AND MY AUNTS USED TO ALWAYS QUOTE THAT STORY TO US WHENEVER THEY THOUGHT WE WEREN'T BEING RESPECTFUL ENOUGH TO THEM! Even as a little kid, I used to wonder about how could SUMMONING A BEAR TO BRUTALLY MURDER A BUNCH OF KIDS BY MAULING for calling some bald dude bald be "perfect justice"? Except, of course, I used to IMMEDIATELY push that thought out of my head as soon as I unwittingly had it because, you know, Jehoprah could see into your mind and read your thoughts and even just that one thought could get me permabanned from the new system for all eternity for committing the unforgivable sin of, you know, QUESTIONING our loving yet vengeful and capricious god's magnamity. Remember: god is love. Spiteful, jealous, vengeful, murderous, cruel, sadistic, and remorseless love.
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I had no idea what WLC looks like, but now that I do a quick check... Hey, you're on to something. In particular, these guys all have the same nose.
A rocker, an astronomer, and a theologian, who look like three brothers? Therefore, God!
Lol actually, I find the resemblance between Roth and William Lane Craig kind of uncanny. He looks like what WLC would look like as a crazy homeless guy...
Yes, the corporate "rat race" path may have seemed foolish to some people if the world suddenly ends – and it also seems foolish to some even is no such end comes. It's not for everyone, and a more blue collar trade can be, exactly as you say, a respectable and great way to both contribute to the community and earn a living. (A very good living in many cases, too!)
I don't see anything inferior about such trades. Nor is there anything wrong with an adult proposing such a path to a young person, based on sound reasons. Say, a Jehovah's Witness elder telling a youngster, "I know you're looking at going into law, but I wonder whether you've at least considered some other options. I've been a builder for 40 years; let me tell you why I love this work..." Followed by a frank discussion of the good and bad of different careers, based on fact and experience and, sure, even plenty of opinion. What's wrong with that? Nothing!
The problem facing some religious youths is a different one, though: Adults steering them into career paths not because of practical and reality-based considerations (education cost, job market, expected pay, job satisfaction, etc.), but because of ridiculous faith-based concerns. Like fear of universities' effect on belief. Or even a calculation of what job skills will be most in demand after Biblical Doomsday!
That's just wrong. I think we're agreed on that.
I think it is more to do with what's more important. If the end of the world as we know it does come soon, who wants to say, "Wow, amn't I glad I studied for seven years to be a lawyer, then another seven at a junior position in the company, slogging day in day out, from 7 in the morning until 7 at night? Sure I had a fancy car and home, but it's all ashes now". From reading the previous posts some feel that unless you have a "higher" education, studying loading stress points on bridges, or how to programme computers, it's as if your brain and power of reason is somehow stunted and you will remain a Neanderthal. Where would we be if everyone wanted to be a doctor? Who would empty your bin? There are many honourable jobs a man can where he can live a simple life, feed his family and have self-respect. Education is a life-long experience, not simply confined to a few terms at university, perhaps studying a specialised subject. The world would be a better place if people simply learned good manners and cast off the cynicism and sarcasm. I don't think there is such a university course available.
True. With wacko Creationist stuff like this, the US as source is always a good bet statistically, but Canada and the UK are also good possibilities – and as you note, the lunacy can extend anywhere.
This might be the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre. Not sure if the parent is Canadian but the ignorant are everywhere.
Simple: Head to the support services of Dell or Microsoft, or an online computer support forum.
There's always prayer, too, though I can pretty much guarantee it never works.
HI, there:
I bought a Dell Laptop with windows 7 home premium a month ago and I reinstalled the system with the windows 7 DVD came with the Laptop. However I don't know I need to activate the windows 7 at that time.
Now after 30 days, I have a problem that, the windows message says that, my activation period has been expired. Even when I tried to input the product key on the Dell laptop, it is said that the product key is invalid.
Would you please tell me what to do except reinstalling the windows 7 if reinstallation can solve this problem.
Thank you.
Well, we haven't "talked" in over a year, so there's no time being wasted. Anyway, I agree with what you say. And I have to add that the attempts by believers to justify atrocities is such an eye-opener to me. Back in my religious days, I don't remember challenging my fellow believers on that point (I was sadly sheep-like), or being challenged by non-believers. (I wish someone had done so! I'm really curious as to how my young believer self would have replied.)
About the best you can get from those atrocity apologists is an evasive "Yes, there is some awful stuff in the Bible. But..." Which is a pretty dishonest attempt to duck the question. We're not simply charging the Bible with "containing awful stuff"; the fact that it does so is obvious to anyone, and what of it anyway? The daily newspaper contains awful stuff. So what?
No, the charge we're making is that the believer's God himself committed inexcusably horrible, depraved acts; that God, as described by the believers, is an utterly immoral being. Just as you noted. That's the charge we're making, and the one that the apologists refuse to meet head-on. I would still love to hear the "pros" like D'Souza answer that, if they haven't already tried.
You know, that scenario – animals can talk, and even mediate with higher powers, but most human are blocked from hearing it – has a great ring to it as story background. Your self-description sounds like a character from a novel... If by chance you're a writer, how about working that into a story? (Ideally removed from "sin" and religion, but hey, I really don't have a problem with religious fiction that presents itself as fiction.)
Anyway, thanks for the sharing. I like that image of the girl and her "medium" Kitty!
Are you referring to the predictions by Jehovah's Witnesses about the date for Armageddon? You're certainly right that they don't know the day. But I see no reason to claim that they even know the season. Or reason for them to claim that this silly bit of mythology is anything but just that.
On the other hand, if the end of the world is coming... Jesus doesn't know the day either? He'd better get on the ball; he's supposed to be leading the damn thing!
You are wasting your time talking to Markarios. He has been so thoroughally brain-washed that he thinks black is white, evil is good, hate is love, the slaughter and torture of innocents and the continuous rape of young girls is justified if your favorite god orders it. This man's position is the epitome of all that is evil about the morality taught by the leaders of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It is no wonder that the Christian Bible sometimes confuses the Yahweh god and the Satan god. (See the differing accounts of the census taken by King David. In one version the Yahweh god told David to take it, then punished him for doing so by killing his innocent daugher while another version says that the Satan god told David to take it and that is why the (equally evil) Yahweh god committed a disgusting revenge murder.
This is wonderful - it never really occurred to me that other children didn't daydream of Jesus. But I'm about to embark on a creative project where we are rewriting Bible stories from other points of view. Anyway, as a happy little girl with an overactive imagination, I was certain that animals could talk, but humans were just too full of sin to hear them. Afterall, Eve did the humans in by tricking Adam, didn't she? Now we can only use 10% of our brains at a time. There goes telekenisis. I day dreamed that I could talk to my cat, and that she could talk directly to Jesus. So we'd be hanging out in the back yard, feeling the cool grass on our backs and the warm sun on our fronts. And Kitty (that was my cat's name) could invite Jesus to come hang out on the grass with us. And he would.We never actually did anything. We didn't fight demons - we just hung out. Sometimes we sang church songs.I think I did this because my parents used to tell me I could talk to God, and I thought they were absolutely mad. In this way, Kitty was my medium. Interesting... now that I think about it.
Mathew 24:36 showed that even Jesus at that time did not know the day or hour but he said to keep on the watch so if they get the day wrong they still have the right season... false labor doesn't mean your not pregnant it just means your anxious to see it get here I hope we never give up excitement.
Wow, this is quite a unique and thorough resource. In many lands, employers aren't supposed to ask about employees' religious practices – and yet, the employers then have to deal with all the thorny issues those practices raise.
I see there are plenty of miscellaneous juicy court cases covered too (JWs assaulting people who don't take their magazines? Wow, I never saw such fun while "out in service"). I expect I'll have comments to make on some of those cases as I wade through the site.
Thanks!
http://jwemployees.bravehost.com/
The following SUMMARIES OF OVER 1400 JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CRIMINAL and CIVIL COURT CASES will provide the BEST and MOST ACCURATE info about Jehovah's Witnesses, their beliefs, and how they ACTUALLY practice such day to day. The following website summarizes 900 court cases and lawsuits affecting children of Jehovah's Witness Parents, including 400 cases where the JW Parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions for their dying children, as well as nearly 400 CRIMINAL cases -- most involving MURDERS: DIVORCE, BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS, AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES jwdivorces.bravehost.com The following website summarizes over 500 lawsuits filed by Jehovah's Witnesses against their Employers, incidents involving problem JW Employees, and other secret JW "history" court cases: EMPLOYMENT ISSUES UNIQUE TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESS EMPLOYEES jwemployees.bravehost.com
I would expect that the JWs would be especially keen to have doctors as members – captive physicians who'll work with the "no blood transfusion" insanity. Then again, a JW doctor trying to push that doctrine onto non-JW patients would be a disaster. Hmm, is there even such a thing as a JW surgeon?
Yep, except when they need more attorneys, doctors and other professionals in the org. Or if you're of the 'privileged' class. Check out the McCabe family in San Diego: http://www.mccabelaw.net/our_practice.htmlI finally went to school at 40 years old, after being jw for 23 years. It took me another 3 years to get a clue and quit the religion. sheesh