Take a look at this ad that was shoved through my front door this morning

No, I feel you are completely just in your opinion.

I have nothing against religion or people having faith and spirituality I feel it's their choice and their choice alone, BUT to put fear upon children in this way is completely and utterly wrong in my opinion these children are not able to view life in care free way which every child should be able to experience in their youth this is very detrimental to them and their development and will probably shine through into their adult hood.

Not only are the exposing their own children to this, I have seen them hand out this flyers/invitations to kids age 8-16 even at age 16 it's something they should not have to worry about just yet.
It's the parents right to teach a child about things of this nature, they have no right to force this on other peoples kids even more so when the child can not comprehend the situation.

There's nothing we can do about this though, we can get angry/annoyed whatever but still nothing can be done and if something were done you would see many post on here "PTTB STEALING MORE CHILDREN!".

This group sadly, has been dealing with this forever, the end has and was suppose to come many times before but never has, and so they keep coming up with more dates.
It doesn't make sense to me how some people can lack such rationality, it didn't happen the first handful of times , what makes this time so different?

Anyway,
All we can do is be there for them when they come of age and if you meet someone who was once a Jehovahs Witness do not judge them, they've been judged enough by their own family/friends be open to them embrace them and support them.
I have a few friends who grew up in that environment and the judgment and ridicule and just flat out abandonment and cruelness from their own family and "church" makes me sick, one girl was kicked out and rejected by her family for having Lupus, ugh I can't even keep a cool head about it really, but like I said before I just try to be there for her the best that I can it's the best anyone can do.
We need to remember that they are victims.

your going to believe what you want to believe.

the bible itself says that we do not survive death. from dust we are made and to dust we return. so its not so much JW's you disagree with, but the bible in general. many people dont agree with the bible

to be rational is to have understanding. any rational person can see something is up with the world. you would have to be blind not to see that things are getting worse and worse.

just because JW's acknowledge this doesnt make them irrational. nor does it make them victims or wrong.

yes i agree with you that every child should have the chance to grow up with a carefree environment. but you have to acknowledge that this is becoming harder even if you dont believe in the "end of the world". life in general provides enough to keep them worried for 2 lifetimes.

If you where to go by your avatar wyleecoyote, I would invite myself in and chat all night

I love their literature, enjoy reading it, but after 25 years as a Mormon, I can't even think of wanting to go to a place that makes me give up every shred of my brain and my liberty to think and feel and do what I want. Thank God for a country that allows freedom to worship who, what, how, or where we may. Some countries aren't as lucky.

This is inevitable.



JWs believe that when we die we go into a void of a slumber. By this they also believe all reported contacts from the otherworld including deceased relatives are actually demonic entities. Yes or no?

yes, but my point is that not its not just JW's but also the bible.

eccl 9:5,10

That could easily be taken to mean in the afterlife we have no ego or earthly desires, not that there is nothing else.

Either way, this is what Iam getting at. Dont you think these types of ideas inhibit gaining new knowledge and experience and considering there is more to life than the material realm?

i answered the door once in a jedi costume, full robe and lightsaber....subsequently the did not want to learn about the force..

umm no it cant.

i dont know how much clearer the sciptures can be. eccl says that the dead dont think. they are not even conscience of the fact that they are dead. i dont see how that translated into "ego" or "desire"

i mean if you dont believe in the bible, thats fine, im not criticing your beliefs. but if one professes to follow the bible, its quite clear about what it means to be dead.

even when jesus and the apostles revealed that certain one would be raised to heaven, words like "resurrection" and "raised" are used. so even in light of an "afterlife" or "second life", the death are inactive, nonexistent, UNTIL brought back to life



if there was more to life that our fleshly existance, yes you are right, it would inhibit thoughts on the subject.

but your whole argument is based on the assumption that there is in fact more.

spiritual phenomenon doesnt equal immortality or transcendence.

when you burn a log, yes the ash is made of the same material as the log, but that doesnt mean the log continues to exist

Oh I definetly agree and that would have p*ssed me off pretty bad to be honest. What if someones son or daughter got ahold of that ya know? It woulda scared the living crap out of there. Im sick of these people walking around claiming end of world. Personally I think that pamphlet was just to recruit more people, and that they dont believe the end of the world is near at all.

The lengths people will go too. Its sickening.

reply to post by cathedral

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Good points. I was thinking exactly the same thing the other day. If everything is predetermined here on Earth, then why did God even bother with the rest of the universe. Seems like a waste, unless of course he's playing the same game on every other planet with intelligent life. It wouldn't surprise me at all. God comes across as some kind of cosmic joker who likes nothing better than to abuse & torment his creations.

It's sad how you have all these negative people going around preaching about prophecy and the end of the world, yet ironically in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus denounces anyone who puts their faith in priests, prophets, prophecy and politicians. Sounds like good spiritual common sense to me.


[edit on 17-7-2009 by kindred]

O RLY?



Its just perspective. The people who wrote the Bible were most likely initiates into mystical societies (so was Jesus!). When they say there is no conscience that does not mean no life after death. It may just mean our Earthly consciousness is dead. Being in the astral is differant, we do not experience things as we do in the waking world.




Not so, its conjecture and opinion with disinformation and dogma with some important spiritual information in there somewhere.



I do not understand why the use of such words would imply that the dead are nonexistant. What they might have been trying to get across is that things in the afterlife/alternate realms things are 'unmanifest'. The ancient Indian religions and others all have the same symbology and resonance and characters like Jesus. All the Earths religions are the same at the core. Nearly all the other religions therefore are simular to the Bibles teachings. However the only one that seems to describe to you and others that the dead do not experience anything is what you think is described in the bible.



But the Bible clearly describes a heaven and hell. Who occupies these?



Energy is formless and ever changing, it is never static, it never just sleeps.

I have been awakened twice this week by JW knocking on my door, I work third and I wish they would not do that. Anyone who knows us, including our docs and jobs know not to knock or call unless it is an emergency. But a total stranger wants to wake me up and discuss the end of the world ( I answered the door in my teddy, using the door as a way to hide my lack of clothing) I expained that we work 3rd, but the response was to state that we don't have time to neglect our need to survive. They STILL tried to keep talking away!

This was beyond annoying. And why are they suddenly on my street?

I apologize on their behalf for not exercising prudence and discretion. They should have been a little more considerate and asked you when would be a better time to visit.

However, we do have a stronger sense of urgency to communicate a life saving message. Please know that we do it out of love. Again... sorry.

Visit my new thread: www.abovetopsecret.com...

This thread is another example of how ATS does something that I have never seen before in my life.

It brings people from a WIDE variety of Religious Beliefs, Spiritual Beliefs and Lack of Beliefs ALL together to have discussions.

How freaking cool is that!?!?!? Add to that the fact that this thread has been reasonably peaceful and full of attempts of different Faiths to try to understand why they believe the things they do.

A gathering where everyone in the Audience believes something different and everyone is afforded the exact same opportunity to speak.

Truly ATS is the bringer of Understanding. Here we can learn to understand WHAT someone believes and we can learn to understand WHY someone believes. We can even come to learn what of our own beliefs someone does not believe and why they do not believe like we do.

I give ATS a flag and a star.

Ever since I moved to a house with two wood-burning stoves I've never objected to junk mail or leaflets being put through my door.

I need the paper to get the fire lit.

reply to post by kindred

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When I was very young my uncle who had a telescope, started showing me the night sky, so by the time I started getting religious education classes in school I already had a good idea about what the universe was actually like.

as a result, when a teacher told me that a jewish wizard had puffted the rest of the universe into existence in a day after taking 7 days to make just the earth, I knew I was been asked to believe a lot of nonsense.

There is a huge credibility gap for anyone who looks at the night sky and is then asked to believe, 1 small bunch of people, from 1 small desert on 1 small blue planet orbiting 1 small orange star, which is part of 1 very ordinary spiral galaxy are some how much more important than anything else in the universe.

To me it’s very obvious that the bible is just the story of some old tribal god that has managed to survive to the present day.