Expectations/reality.

[Neil Richardson]

I'm interested in hearing what people like Odd, Yrt and Fudge (if he's still tuned-in) were told by their clergy about atheists during their superstitious lives, then how they found the reality, if there was a difference.

[rayne]

The perceptions of atheist by theists (in general) is quite fascinating.

[yrtemmyscirtemmysa]

They had an Awake! about atheists on the march? but during my time little was said specifically about atheists , what they teach is that wordly people are under satan's snare meaning anyone who is not a jw is blinded by satan. Then we would open up our bibles to read about how miserable these wordly people are, and people who leave the cult will become just like these wordly people.

[rayne]

Yrt: Did they offer any sort of demostration or were you expected just to believe them?

[pro.dev3]

When I was 14-15 I asked a Muslim cleric about the Atheist argument. According to him "They sit in a dark room and say, God if you exist turn on the lights" since the lights do not turn on they believe that God does not exist.

Sadly this is what I believed in until 2007

[yrtemmyscirtemmysa]

Originally Posted by rayne

Yrt: Did they offer any sort of demostration or were you expected just to believe them?

Every weekend they have discourses after reading the watchtower (they have two differently separate watchtower magazines, one is for non-jw's and jw's and the other is just for jws, studied at the kingdom hall), at times they talk about experiences of how bad someone was and how much better this person became after converting to jwism, other talks were about the exact opposite and they would cite examples in the bible like the latter days of solomon as their way for providing evidence, inculcating generalisations and mis-labeling.

I was expected to believe, we were not allowed to form our own opinion, according to their dogma forming your own opinion can lead to apostasy, we called ourselves brothers yet we all spy'd on each other to make sure that we do the right thing,anyone that doesn't and continues not to do so is kicked out and shunned by family and so called friends. They think scientology is bat shit crazy but they should look at themselves, but they wont, not with mind control and a lack of critical thinking skills.

[Strato]

The christian conception of the atheist is spelled out for them in Psalms 14 and 53, which are pretty identical. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." It condemns his thoughts, intentions and deeds as utterly abominable, corrupt. This was written during the first millennium BCE. Christians hide behind the Bible. "I'm only quoting what it says!"

It's interesting that such a brave, dangerous intellectual comrade existed. Was he a Greek traveler? I say, he, but females, women or young girls could have spoken the unspeakable. Dismissing the god proposition as the First Cause is conflated with moral corruption, at least in Middle Eastern monotheist derived religion. The political and militarily unifying monolith, theocracy.

In "The Pilgrim's Progress", Puritan allegory (John Bunyan,1678), Christian and Hope brace themselves as Atheist saunters toward them, with his cavalier remarks, heading back the other way to where they are pressing for, the Celestial City ("celestial North Korea", to quote the Hitch). Of course he is misrepresented and ridiculed, but he's still about, cropping up.

But no, as it turns out, many atheists would do you a good turn, if they could. For me, it was uni. precipitated the turn.

[DanDare]

That sounds very Calvanist.

[Praxis]

Originally Posted by Strato

The christian conception of the atheist is spelled out for them in Psalms 14 and 53, which are pretty identical. "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God."

To which a suitable reply is "Well if even a fool can grasp it... !!"



My ex husband's family were/are all JW's and an early best friend got drawn back in and she cut me off. I learned all about this worldly bullshit and the other shit they believe.

Batshit crazy is not an overstatement.

[Alex]

the local priest here suggests the secularism is very isolating, that there is no community outside of a religious denomination, also how wrong it is that we try to lead the good church goers into temptation.

I have found atheist to be ethical, intelligent, articulate people, all of my friends are atheists I no longer have friends that are theists, not because I dislike them, just that I can no longer relate to their ignorance and fear.