Hi Aractus, and thanks all for the welcomes.
"Culty" is being kind. The best description of the Jehovah's Witnesses is "a high-control cult." Not that I noticed in the time that I was there; I bought the story hook, line, and sinker. It probably stuck as long as it did because I was raised in that environment, and so it was 'normal.' My faith didn't fail because of the JWs as much as because the Bible did not convince me that god was real. Once I started to read about the JWs specifically, I was surprised to learn just how much I did not know about them. That's one of the control mechanisms- the less the membership knows about your history, the easier it is to shape that history however you wish. The internet is devastating to groups like that.
I agree that they edit their version of the Bible to suit their aims, as well. In some ways, I see that as the modern-day equivalent of what has been happening to the Bible since it's first words were being written. The changes and revisions have been less drastic since the church assembled it into its present form, but such books have historically been reflections of the cultures and politics of their time. One of the benefits of getting away from a high-control cult is that I no longer prevent myself from reading and studying information that challenges what I believe. I've been enjoying this site tremendously. Not because of its stated aim, but the way it researches the history of the Bible and what it tells us about the people who... built it, I guess is the best term.
That's my approach. After almost 30 years of forcing myself not to know, and another 10 or so of slowly coming around, I simply enjoy learning without the guilt and without the self-imposed restrictions.
"Culty" is being kind. The best description of the Jehovah's Witnesses is "a high-control cult." Not that I noticed in the time that I was there; I bought the story hook, line, and sinker. It probably stuck as long as it did because I was raised in that environment, and so it was 'normal.' My faith didn't fail because of the JWs as much as because the Bible did not convince me that god was real. Once I started to read about the JWs specifically, I was surprised to learn just how much I did not know about them. That's one of the control mechanisms- the less the membership knows about your history, the easier it is to shape that history however you wish. The internet is devastating to groups like that.
I agree that they edit their version of the Bible to suit their aims, as well. In some ways, I see that as the modern-day equivalent of what has been happening to the Bible since it's first words were being written. The changes and revisions have been less drastic since the church assembled it into its present form, but such books have historically been reflections of the cultures and politics of their time. One of the benefits of getting away from a high-control cult is that I no longer prevent myself from reading and studying information that challenges what I believe. I've been enjoying this site tremendously. Not because of its stated aim, but the way it researches the history of the Bible and what it tells us about the people who... built it, I guess is the best term.
That's my approach. After almost 30 years of forcing myself not to know, and another 10 or so of slowly coming around, I simply enjoy learning without the guilt and without the self-imposed restrictions.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
