The Jehovah's Witnesses in a recent edition of "The Watchtower" of which I saw in a photo that someone had posted on the ex-JW forum at Yuku.com were talking about how to preach to evolutionists, atheists, Hindus and Buddhists in their area and another talked of how people are "concerned" people are becoming about the different kinds of families out there. The magazine mentioned how children are the leaders in their family and mentioned something about disciplining children. Well, being an ex-JW myself, the Jehovah's Witnesses largely seem to think that the parents control their children and that the husband controls the wife. It is one thing to encourage your child to clean their room, get good grades in school, stay out of trouble and give appropriate punishments when they do something wrong and explain to the child or children the consequences of their actions, but it is an entirely different thing to try and control your child's every move or to tell them that they have to believe what you believe or else you will no longer allow them to be a part of your life and that you will withdraw all of your love from them. It is not uncommon for religious groups to do this. It even happens in the JW's as much as some of them might like to think that such a thing doesn't happen or even when some of them deny that it happens.
The JW denomination is hardly as "family-friendly" as they promote themselves to be in my opinion, neither is the LDS Church of which I am also an ex-member of and neither are most fundamentalist Christian groups and organizations in general. "Family-friendly" is more of a code word for something else, it would seem from what I can tell. They seem to do a much better job at tearing family members, relatives and friends apart then ensuring that they have a happy, healthy and respectful relationship with one another. Most JW parents are loving, but sometimes their actions are not very loving. I don't see what is wrong with there being different types of families? I think that it is better to have someone in your life who loves you than to have no one at all. Love is very conditional in a fundamentalist Christian denomination and so is friendship. It's sort of like that saying, "It's my way or the highway". Why is a child born to unmarried parents considered "illegitimate"? I have never really like that phrase. It's like saying that the child should never have been born because it is somehow "evil" for a child to be born out of wedlock or that children raised by unmarried parents are not "real" families.
Some unmarried couples who raise children together or more stable, loving, kind and generous than a lot of children raised by married parents. There are kids raised in interracial households or children raised by two parents of the same-sex who are more tolerant and accepting towards harmless people who are considered "outcasts" by society because they act a little differently. Interestingly enough, atheists have a much lower divorce rate than religious couples. I think its horrid that so many religious groups don't do very much over spousal or child abuse. That should never be tolerated or ignored under any circumstances whatsoever.
Children born to unmarried parents are human beings just like every else and should be treated as such in my opinion. So should the children raised by same-sex couples. The same goes for children who have parents of different ethnicities, nationalities, political, cultural or religious backgrounds. I could never imagine shunning my own children, if I had any children of course. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing to my relatives, my closest friends or family members. Apparently Jesus and even Yahweh, who is viewed as being such a "loving" deity don't seem to care when religious groups rip apart, separate and segregate loved ones over differences in religious opinion. The historical Jesus probably thought that it was better for people to abandon their loved ones in order to follow his teachings, this idea is written in the Gospels, but you have to remember the historical and cultural context of the time period. Jesus/Yeshua was an apocalyptic preacher at the time and would have believed that the world would soon come to an "end" and that the Jews would inherit the world "yet to come" and their enemies would be "destroyed" by Yahweh. Why worship a god who encourages abandoning your family for not sharing you religious beliefs?
Could Yahweh truly hate Satan? Wasn't Satan supposedly Yahweh's most favored angel at one point? Could he say that he loved Jesus more than Satan, when he actually created them both, supposedly in his image I guess or the Hebrew pantheon of deities, including Yahweh creating these two individuals in their image and likeness? Can a parent honestly say that they love one child more than another or even go so far as to say that they hate one of their children, but love the other? The Bible isn't entirely "family-friendly" either. Read some of the stories in it with a critical and analytical eye. What about the Mosaic "law" that promotes the idea of executing disobedient children. Would you have the courage to bash your own child's skull in with a rock? I could never do such a thing and wouldn't ever dream of participating in such an abhorrent act. There are better ways to deal with unruly children without resorting to abuse or murder.
To me, no family is perfect. I think a family or a friendship is generally comprised of people of different backgrounds who love and care for one another, even if they don't always agree and that they try to help each other be the best person that they can be and look for the good in one another. If they can do that, then they have succeeded at being a great human being, if you ask me. Hate is not a good thing. The JW's say that they hate what Yahweh hates in the "Biblical sense" of the word. I don't think that hate is a good thing whether it is in the "Biblical sense" of the word or not. Biblically-inspired hatred doesn't seem much better than any other kind of hatred. Hatred, prejudice and discrimination, violence, segregation and genocide, these actions destroy lives. They make us weaker and do not contribute to the good of humanity. I recognize that humanity isn't perfect and that we may never achieve such a status, but I do think that we can better ourselves, a little bit at a time. I don't believe that humanity is in a "fallen state" and in need of "redemption" through sacrificial atonement in order to please any angry deity who never seems to be pleased with you, no matter how hard you try to appease him. The idea of sacrificial atonement within Christianity is pretty abominable to me. It's like a "get-out-of-jail-for-free" idea. Why shouldn't someone else have to die because of the flaws that you have and the mistakes that you make?
Such an idea sickens me. I view the historical Jesus as a victim of religious persecution despite him probably being a religious fanatic himself, rather than a person who died for the "sins" of humanity. Intolerance of religious differences led to Jesus' death. Maybe he wanted to die for his beliefs, but that wouldn't make any of his claims "true". The JW's certainly are not moderate in the religious thinking, in their eyes, you show complete obedience to Yahweh's "rules" fully or you will be murdered by his angelic army when Armageddon comes and you will remain dead for all of eternity. Such a belief is not appealing to me and it never really was. The more fanatical the JW's become, the more unappealing they are. Some people can be just fine living life that way, but others cannot. Is it healthy for people to live that way, even if they manage to do that? I'm a liberal person , an atheist and consider myself to be open-minded but I am not so open-minded to the point that I would let my brain fall out of my head with the idea of "anything goes" which is something similar to what Bill Maher said. I am not a hedonist. I don't believe that pleasuring yourself should be your first obligation in life. Sure, I want to be happy and I want other people to be happy too, but I don't believe that people can do whatever they want without considering their actions and how they affect themselves or other people.
The JW's often think that we cannot do whatever we want or we will face "divine punishment". I would agree that we cannot do whatever we please without considering how are actions affect others first, but I do not believe that we will face "divine punishment". Sometimes we as human beings have to create punishments for those who unceasingly engage in actions that hurt other people. Yahweh isn't going to throw criminals in prison for instance, we do that. The JW's are pretty big on religiously-based control. Religious control is not subject to any real change if you ask me and I don't think that it is without its consequences. Moderation is one thing, but having someone dictate what you can or cannot do or even think has it's consequences.
I was watching an episode of the show "Pawn Stars" and one of the pawn men talked about how the Pope's "moral authority" has done more for people than most governments. I think that some Popes were good people,but the Roman Catholic Church has its dark side, so do the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. Neither the Pope, the Governing Body of the Jehovah's Witnesses nor the Prophet of the LDS Church has any "moral authority" over my life and I don't believe that they have any right to do that to me nor anyone else. I am my own authority and I am accountable to myself as well as my fellow human beings when it comes to my actions and how they affect others or myself whether those actions were for the bad or for the good. What do you think?
Sincerely,
B.W.
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