The Atheist Jehovah's Witness

Save us Obi-Wan

2014-05-11T00:55:00.003-07:00

Save us Obi-Wan

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/2554k5/ben_kenobi_xpost_from_starwars/

Only in Jehovah's Organization.

2014-03-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Only in Jehovah's Organization

Surprise- LDS pictured in the photo above helping rebuild homes.

"Only in Jehovah's Organization" is something you often hear people say within the congregations. They are typically referring to the love of the brotherhood being shown and how they are the only one true religion and God is with them. It is also something I recently heard in regards to the Philippines typhoon disaster relief.

But what do we find? Are they really special?

Let's compare them to the LDS during that typhoon. They both knew the typhoon was coming. JW's may even go further than the LDS by saying they were preparing and evacuating before the storm ever hit. At this point both religions should have known to get to higher ground and be in a structurally sound building, it is questionable that the JWs kingdom hall was at higher ground and/or structurally sound enough.

JW's decided to hold meetings that night, and some took shelter in them during the storm.

33 died and 10+ presumed missing or dead.

Crazy stuff: A family stuff their refrigerator with doctrinal literature removing the food. Literature or spiritual food is often represented as more important than actual food. A guess here is that they were scared out of their wits and thought maybe praying and doing this would have God save their lives, which of course they now probably believe as they lived through it. The other parts of the video imply that God was watching over them.

LDS had some sheltered in their temples, but it is not clear if that was during the storm or after it.

39 members lost their lives in the storm.

Crazy stuff: bishop says that he prayed for their safety during the storm and from that he learned God really exists and he answers our prayers.

NO, it's not only in Jehovah's Organization. It's just like any other man made organization like the LDS. There is just as much love, ugliness, and crazy to be found. They like others give God credit for intervention and miracles but fail to stick God's fingers in the crap too. Sticking to a God that has a non-intervention policy seems wiser to me. Then one day you may even see no reason for any superstition at all.

http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/why-the-governing-body-owes-an-explanation-for-what-happened-in-the-philippines
http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/help-community/video-philippines-typhoon-haiyan-survivors/
http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/activities/help-community/disaster-relief/
https://www.lds.org/church/news/-welfare-and-self-reliance-are-rebuilding-the-philippines

https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-members-rally-to-aid-typhoon-victims-in-philippines?lang=eng

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/26/us/washington-landslide/

If they weigh the same as a duck....burn em.

2014-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

My co-worker is leaving, she wasn't a bad duck. So too go her christian screen savers and backgrounds.

Found an alternative one out there http://wtfbibleversewallpaper.tumblr.com/

And in case you don't get the duck reference... http://lexx.thebruce.net/poem/monty.html

Marrying my wife is one of the happiest days of my life

2014-03-01T04:52:00.000-08:00

even if it happened in a kingdom hall ;). One of the next happiest days is the day she walked out, of the kingdom hall that is!

Well recently my wife has decided that the JW's are not directly speaking for God. Although she is not disfellowshipped she would no longer be consider a JW and is in the monumental process of figuring things out. It took about 8 years. One of the things I truly regret is that I was so passive and didn't speak out more so that this day could have come sooner. There is of course a road ahead for her in finding peace and happiness while creating her world view point.

So my old blog tag line has been updated.

What's the big deal if the bible has even a tiny little error?

2014-02-06T22:58:00.001-08:00

So a long time ago when I was trying to figure out if I could trust the bible as the inerrant word of God, I had to decided if errors would be a problem. If I recall this was the tip of the iceberg for me. You see JW's often use the article "a" as reason that Jesus is "a god" instead of Jesus "is god". See John 1:1 in their bible. While there are a lot more and bigger problems in the bible than missing articles(or call it a translation error), the tiniest article illustrates what a huge difference in religions doctrine it can make.

After doing more research and seeing many many other errors you might just then decided to admit the bible is errant and now never ever really be certain that your doctrines are correct or that you could know things absolutely. You could then continue to bend over backwards making excuses and logical loop holes and try convince yourself it's still inspired somehow.... eventually you'll get to the point where you can just admit it's absurd.

If the smallest things can make a huge difference it's surprising that god couldn't at the very least do the proofread. Typically I wouldn't care but in this case people should even give a fuck about an oxford comma. Ambiguity is not a good thing when something is supposedly coming down as the word of god.

Interviews with some ex JW's

2013-12-30T17:56:00.000-08:00

JW's should be doing background checks but they don't

2013-12-30T13:18:00.001-08:00

People dealing with children should be given a background check.

You would think this would be a no-brainer, but the JW organization chooses not to do so.

While not a magical or holy spirit bullet to prevent all wrongs it would help keep members safer.

If JW's are forced to do background checks then they would be liable if the person had a record and they did not take measures to protect their members. If enacted I wonder how many elders and ministerial servants will have to step down to keep them out of positions of trust and authority.

Another step of civilization pushing JW's in a safer direction.
http://www.vice.com/read/an-11-year-old-is-suing-000919-v20n4

http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/TO7LR4JJR96PIHVVU

Jingle Jingle.. Have some Nog

2013-12-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

Musical interlude . please be in your seats within the next 15 minutes

2013-12-04T18:02:00.001-08:00

The slow sanitizing of extremist thought and actions

2013-10-29T14:18:00.003-07:00

My guess is that as the JW religion ages some of it's extreme practices will slowly be sanitized.

They already can accept most parts of blood, give it another 50 years and I would guess that blood becomes more symbolic and the value of life is placed higher than the symbolism of life, Or some better medical alternative comes along,(ie synthetic blood with nano bots)

Shunning/Disfellowshipping

Watchtower‘s July 2009 “Awake!” magazine, p. 29, No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family.
While they don't practice what they preach here , one can hope that eventually it may come to be.

The two witness policy, now(?) the directions are to tell the person they can/(should?) report to the local authorities, or at least I thought I heard this a few years back although I am not sure if they do this in all regions/areas.

A major influence of these must have been law suits that pressure the organization to make adjustments to protect its flock. Hooray for civilization.

JW divorce

2013-07-21T00:29:00.002-07:00

I do until death do us part, OR
-you cheat on me , which is the only valid way out in the eyes of the JW's
But
-maybe you'll die, and maybe you'll get there quicker if I feed you a bunch of crap and encourage dangerous behaviors, I'll invite over some good looking people serve drinks and try to get you alone with them
Or
-I'll just get the divorce and then cry and say how sorry I was for disobeying , who knows maybe they'll reinstate me within the first year or two but if I'm in love with someone else I might as well sleep with them and do something worth getting disfellowshipped for... Hmmm while I'm on sabbatical there were a few other no no's I wanted to do.

Or if you aren't sneaky and decide to play it straight you could end up separated or in a fake marriage with abstinence your nightly forte the rest of your life.

Try explaining this to non JW's , watch the eyes role.

A cult?

2012-09-09T18:31:00.002-07:00

I was going to a write about this but here is a link for now from someone else

http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/cult/is-the-jehovahs-witness-religion-a-cult/

The evil of Magic - Sparlock the Warrior Wizard

2012-09-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

My wife believes in Sparlock the warrior wizard - or The evil of magic.

She had me turn off the Frog Prince the other night because 'there's voodoo in it'. So per request I changed it to the Lion King, you know the movie with Rafiki the magic monkey in it. Oh and guess what , Cinderella,Aladdin, and some others are probably ok to watch too!.

So, why is magic 'bad'? I'd prefer an answer besides 'because the bilble/god says so'. An answer which any religious person should have if they ask themselves 'Why does god say so'? How do you draw the magic line on which ones are watchable? Is there good/bad magic? Could it maybe be more important as to the lessons being taught? Define magic........

Those are just a few of the questions I wanted to ask, but it was bad timing, so I am shelving the conversation for later. I just said 'you know it's not real'.

But back to the DVD that is magically ridiculous

If only I'd had me Lucky Charms to eat while watching it might not have gotten such a bad review. Emotionally manipulative, it pulls the 'it makes god sad' card and the you know what happens to those that are disobedient/stick card. Yup I sure do.... a psycho magic using god kills them. You are splitting hairs if you call the holy spirit something other than magic.

I can't blame my wife's reactions to much. She had a strict childhood in that area, with stories that left scars of fear about naughty angels/demons.

When I grew up my family wasn't that strict and I was able to wear a smurf shirt, read Tolken/Chronicles of Narnia/etc..., and see movies that contained magic. I came out the experience still able to consider them pieces of fiction. It wasn't tell later that I figured out that the big black book had bits of magic in it that might just be fictional as well.

I feel like putting that dvd in the trash, it seems like something a dodgy friend would give you. My little 2 year old will learn over the next few years what fiction, fantasy, and reality are. There shouldn't be any reason to make them feel bad or freak them out about this kind of thing, but of course I don't believe in a Satan that is out to get my child via a little purple toy wizard or a god that will smite them because of it.

update: Ooops , I spelled Tolkien wrong

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

2012-08-15T14:05:00.001-07:00

The Good:
Group-community support(mostly as long as you are in line with group think)
The usual basic good values directions (don't steal, kill, harm others, etc...)
A comfortable feeling you get from this notion you have all the answers(?)

The Bad:

An anti stance on
-extra curricular activities and association. cuts you off from people. an us versus them mentality.
-science,further learning, and education
-free thought, dissenting opinions, criticism, and interpretations. our way or the highway.
A lets wait for god to fix things approach.

The Ugly:
Shunning
Blood transfusions
There must be two witness, non reporting to the police
Basically things that can cause death or irrevocably change someones life and their family.

Views on things from years past to present have changed, so there is hope the shunning and blood transfusions stance will change. Without the force of possible legal repercussions it probably wouldn't/wont happen as soon as it should have. There are a few who hold a more a personal conscious matter and interpretation way of things, one can hope they get more influence.

Sex, Satan, and Saimin

2012-08-15T13:41:00.002-07:00

So it's been another year and another assembly.

The Assembly notes:
Sex:
We learn god is still interested in our sexual lives and how,whom, and where we do it.
Gods porno flicks are only to be of a particular straight missionary sex variety.
So bad on you homosexuals because the bible says so.
They still haven't figured out who you are hurting yet but you are not to do it and they are to be proud to have this stance.

Satan:
The Twilight movies were eluded to, and it wasn't because of bad acting,plot, and writing. They didn't talk about any particular bad lessons being taught but rather because it had blood sucking demon-ism in it. Prior years it was Harry Potter, etc.... I guess when one has a hard time telling fact from fiction it's not a surprise.

Saimin:
Can't recall actually hearing anything about that, maybe I was just craving it. A third S just seemed needed.

Thank God the assembly is over

2011-08-08T11:33:00.001-07:00

bat shit crazy.

Excellent story

2011-07-19T14:46:00.001-07:00

I am glad there are people out there like this.

http://watchtowerletters.com

Been listening to the book Nonsense on stilts during the work commute.

2011-06-12T18:45:00.001-07:00

Overall it is worth it. Mostly good with some annoyances. He was able to recap some history of science in better form than other history-science books I'd read which surprised me as this wasn't really his goal. He brought up good points on demarcation and deduction and induction which made me think. He mentioned a few times something about how we are just human so can't look outside the box, this got me annoyed a bit but I'll have to go back and re-listen to get the details correct and see why,(ie we as humans use things-tools 'inside the box' to see a bigger picture of what we normally see in the box, we might not know for sure but maybe we can get a picture of the box) Or perhaps he was going into , maybe it was Nietzsche's, observator-participator problem viewpoint. I re-wrote the last two sentences here because I shouldn't dismiss or invoke that objection with an ad hominem bias attack like I was, of that that is what one can expect from a professor of philosophy, but should understand it more fully why it annoyed me. I did re-listen a bit but hadn't found that section my beef was with yet.

A nice blog series that goes over the JW anti science stance

2011-06-12T18:28:00.001-07:00

"the smoking gun of intellectual dishonesty" has been detailed out at this sight and I am thankful he felt like taking the time to deconstruct things.

http://viewfromreality.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/a-guide-to-jehovahs-witness-anti-science-propaganda-part-1/

It's to bad JWs can't seperate their views of science from their religion, they'd be better off.

You have earned Death

2011-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Or so I was told again at the Memorial celebration. Inherited sin has to be one of the most abhorrent and morally bankrupt doctrines of them all. I guess how you view it comes down partially to how you view people , do you seem them as a means to an end or an end and of themselves. The other class'ist-authoritarian and 2 destinations stuff with one group having such surety it borders on paranoid schizophrenia was all part of the shebang to.

I guess I most probably am on the list, had a couple visits asking me to come. When asked if I was going at the time I thought well I'll just say yes and avoid the big whole hubba about it and then just not go. Then later I thought , nah I said I'd go and while there really wouldn't be any repercussions for not going it wouldn't kill me to go, even though later I was reminded I've earned death. Perhaps I'll re-visit/post my thoughts on this side point of honesty and lies as social lubricant versus it is always being better to tell the truth.

Anyway the same guy I studied with years ago was up there at the podium giving the talk, he never explained this inherited sin thing good the last time we talked together about it and this time was no different. All in all that old study wasn't to bad, I came away with the conclusion back then that using probabilities-Bayes theorem (not for the purpose of pascal wager crap) or Godel's theorem were a waste of time as they are based on assumptions to finish a set of axioms. That study was cancelled long ago because he felt I wouldn't get anything from it , so I said ok, later he did call back to see if I wanted to study again but I never bothered calling him back because I thought it over a bit and he was probably right as I do have this hang up on empirical evidence. And so that is thus part of the reason for my long hiatus, also because my wife doesn't ask me to go hardly ever anymore (assembly,circuit overseer visits). She actually didn't even ask if I was going to go to memorial this time and is actually figuring out her own beliefs which has caused her some concertation and dissagreement on issues like the gay and blood stuff, hurrah!

Next year I think I'd much rather go celebrate the day for the dead, probably better wine and bread and more of a party then trying to put a dignity cloak over old superstitious acts.

Let's not worry about what's true

2008-12-22T23:08:00.000-08:00

Those were the opening lines of a talk a couple weeks ago that was dealing with creation and a creator(?). Instead it was let's look to how peoples lives turn out following a creator. The Watchtower had some stuff in it about prayer and how people who prayed found their answers in the Watchtower. All very nebulous and subjective stuff that never has any real details. The let's look at the results approach wouldn't be so wrong if they would at least take a second to approach the counter points and thoughts.

Last week it was mostly about concentrating on the conceptual-spiritual things but they always tend to have to use material illustrations and examples which if those are taken to their logical conclusion contradict the points they were trying to make to me.

To the people at the doors

2007-06-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

To the girl that answered with her top off , I say thank you.

To the couple that I interrupted having sex before realizing it, I hope you still got it on.

To the guy who answered , "no one is here", lol.

To the people who told me their neighbors needed me more, may your neighbor find out.

To those who wonder if we peek in your windows, Pull the shades, I really tried not to but its hard self control not to see especially if there is some kind of motion behind it.

To the guys playing hide and seek and dove behind the couch but still made enough noise and gave themselves away, tag your it.

To the old people who were lonely and just wanted to chat, thanks for the tales and I whish you more family and companions/friends.

To the mean ones that would intentionally untie and sick a viscous dog on us without warning, grow up or may you also be ravaged by your own dog one day.

To the people watching football and sports, thanks for the timely score board updates.

To the people who were sleeping and most everyone else who has a gripe , thanks for your patience and my apologies.

A brief history

2007-06-05T03:04:00.000-07:00

I was 2nd generation JW. My parents had accepted bible studies when they were kids and eventually became more zealous than their parents who were partially in and out of what is called by JW's "the truth". I believed basically based upon my parents authority and what I had read and was baptised around 16. My extended family, which is of a pretty good size, are pretty much all JWs with a few exceptions.

I really have no horror stories to tell about my upbringing although I have some humorous moments I will share latter in my blog. There are some nuts in the organization but I personally had a fairly good upbringing.

When I say "raised JW" its hard to explain, you see there are the differn't levels of people in the organization and if you aren't "in it" its hard to explain it. Some people take the "bible based principles" and the "frowned upon" or "discouraged" to the maximum and others are a bit more liberal with their conscience if its not an absolute. My family was a bit more liberal in some things(movies) than others and stricter in others(girls). Some are not so hard line when it came to conscience matters and others are more like a brick wall and don't some things as a conscience matter.

The organization when writing on what it considers to be non black and white matters generally tries to heavily encourage things considered good and heavily discourage things that could end up bad. I think they try to error on the side of safety so to speak based upon their interpretation of the morals and principles in the bible.

There is a saying "make the truth your own". Well , I thought I had back when I was 16 but I really I hadn't. You see to have a balanced perspective one should look at all sides of a matter and I'd really only did the encouraged thing and looked at oneside with JW materials. Life moved on and got a little busy once I married and bought a home and moved around. And then there was a period of about 4 years where I just slid through things on automatic and did a lot of bobing of the head or snoozing at the meetings. Hitting about the age of 29 I heared a special talk about "why aren't you doing more in the truth?" which was trying to encourage brothers to do more. Thats when I hit my reality check.

I'd always had a niggling reason that I might not be doing more because I was lazy and selfish or busy with my time. And that was partly true. Well after the meeting and re-evaluating I thought I really had no excuse to not become a ministerial servant or even an elder and preach a lot more.

Being that I'd decided this I thought to myself , what makes me so sure that I can go out and sell this to others. You see I have a dislike for being a salesman. Even if we aren't taking money except donations, we are selling an idea or a belief.

So I thought I would do a deep refresher course so to speak to make sure all my truths were lined up and I was ready to go. I always had a habit of wanting to be overly prepared before I do anything. So I started reading the bible all the way through again and to go through some fairly massive books called the Insight to the Scriptures and figured I might as well read all of the societies material again. But before I went to deep I figured I should start with some of the simple things and work my way up. I choose to start with the simple topic of God/Jehovah.

This starting at the beginning was going to be a breeze. Imagine my surprise when I started to look at it and actually try to prove that God existed. After a lot of research with both JW material and others I came to the conclusion it was unprovable and I felt a bit like an idiot or clod because I had always accepted I'd had concrete evidence that God existed it just wasn't questionable but oh how obvious it was now to me that many people had found it a questionable topic.

After that moment the flood gates seemed to open for a lot of things and I was more critical in my thinking about everything. I questioned everything wether it was religious or non-religious. Over time I slowly decided I couldn't or shouldn't continue going from door to door preaching anymore and after a bit more time even took my self off the theocratic ministry school.

I'm now 33 and In the following months/years I will be re-hashing those same materials I went over and am going to re-go over them again because I've promised my wife that I would not give up and would continue to be open to the possibility of a creator. I love my wife very much and know how important it was before we were married and how much it still is now to her , so I do this out of love but not out of hope .
I've also agreed to continue to go to the meetings with her and every Wednesday I will do some studying.

I figured I might as well put my thoughts/thinking down in a blog so I don't have to rehash over it a 3rd time or if I do I have the notes from my prior visits to go back to. Some of it is going to be a bit boring to most of you so I'll try to intersperse some stories along the way.

Science or Religion

2007-05-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

We had a talk on Sunday. A talk = sermon for you non JWs.
It was so full of crappy logic, I'll lightly go over the topics spoken about.

The gist was do Not put your hope in science put it in God.
a) Scientist can be/are bad have lied before.
b) Science has brought about bad things
c) evolution is propoganda
d) bible was in agreement with science and supported 1)round earth , 2)water cycle, and 3)cleanliness 4) order of creation was explained in simple terms.
e) true science,(what the heck is that?) and archological evidence supports the bible
f) man wont bring about living forever and god will

Except for B and D he really didn't go into detail and just slung it. What an ass.

Well in correlating responses
a) All "people" can be bad
b) people do bad things.
c) I'd like to get into this in more detail later but for now since he just took a swipe at it with no backing I'll take a simliar swipe, Religion is propoganda.
d) I've seen proposals that actually support flat earth from the bible, the water cycle thing was not in detail so it takes a bit of a jump , I'm glad they burried their crap, and No there are countering/contradictory views on the bibles creation order. And lastly , some things are bound to be right some of the time, how about the times it's wrong?
e)Not all the time, I would have to go bring some items up , which he failed to do. So I'll just say sometimes and sometimes not.
f) We can actually see man trying we can't see god trying.

But back to point B) becuase he brought out that "science" has brought about landmines as an example and that yet science has not come up with a safe way to remove them and currently people just use a stick to poke and leverage up for how its being done and so often get killed trying to get rid of them. Utter bullocks, yes some do that but also there are also now robots that can be used to disarm mines and no one need die. A more importantly it was "man" that made them with the knowledge that science gave him. Don't blame the knoweldge blame man.

I really don't know yet that I think it's good to try to make 2 sides to a fence with science on one side and religion or spirituality on the other. It is good to know when ones actions are based upon "feelings" and reasoning or logic and reasoning or a mixture of both.

I do think though that science and logic can be used as a good measuring stick on how the physical world works and how we can react and live within it.

Faith is a stinky word.

2007-05-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

The word Faith bugs me. A different word should be picked. Perhaps feelings, belief, knowledge, evidence, or credulity, depending on your definition.

Definition 1 (JWs):
"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld," (Hebrews 11:1) and Faith is also “the evident demonstration,” or evidence for conviction, regarding unseen things. Our mental perception and heart appreciation convince us that such things are real, although we have not seen them.—2 Corinthians 5:7; Ephesians 1:18.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20020401/article_01.htm
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20031201/article_02.htm
The Insight Book(green JW book) even goes so far as to say it's concrete evidence. that evidence being.
1) Creation- The universe and world around us
2) Bible is accurate and true word of God
3) Jesus's Life story
4) Prophsey proved accurate

So this definition is coming from the angle of absolutes, or I have facts or I think I have facts that prove my belief. Basically its saying, even though I got these invisible/blind spots I have so much surrounding evidence that I can be confident I am right.

Needless to say I've seen counter arguments to many so called evidences including the ones above which I'll blog about later.

Once you subtract those evidences you no longer have faith based upon evidence but now come to definition 2 of faith.
That being of a concept for a gap filler, In the absence of facts it is a feelings thing or faith in faith or a personal experience thing. To me this is a bit of a cop out and a crutch, a hole in your argument, sometimes willful ignorance, it is abdicating your head for your feelings.

I really don't much like the word faith , it now has alot of negative connotations to me.

If you happen to have faith, wether it be definition 1 or 2, I don't mind as long as you don't do assholeish things because of it.