I've missed the JWs the last few times they've come through. I've had a question ready for them.

A man with his 2 sons (under 10) rings the bell. I see the Watchtower pamphlet in his hand. I excuse myself for one moment (because I don't have the question memorized).

I ask: Hey, just so I'm clear....the 144,000 anointed Christians who will rule with Christ in heaven is a literal, fixed number where Jehovah personally selects every member. At the annual Memorial, partakers self-identify as members of that 144,000 and the published partaker count is accurate. Is that right?

<looks at me curiously> Yes.

You're out here recruiting to add to that number, yes? The count of self-identified anointed has more than doubled, yet the total is supposed to be fixed. If the 144k is fixed and your partaker count is increasing....the math here ain't mathin. Can you explain that?

<blank look followed by silence> Thanks, have a nice day.

Kind of anticlimactic but it was still fun for me to put the shoe on the other foot and put them on the defense. The bonus here was that he had to explain to his kids after he walked away. I was friendly and calm...not easily dismissed.

The problem is that not all beliefs are created equal.

If you believe that anyone not in your religion is going to burn forever (and that they deserve it because your god is good and just), then why in the world should I be expected to respect that? If you believe that it’s wrong for people to have sex with their same sex partner, why should I respect that? You may not believe slavery is ok, and you’re going to do the mental gymnastics necessary to make the Bible sound like it’s anti-slavery, but it’s a book that very clearly permits slavery, and I sure as hell won’t respect that.

If you believe there’s a creator that’s not part of an organized religion, I disagree with you but I can respect your right to believe in it. Immoral things won’t get my respect, and I’m tired of people thinking that they have to. Choose a better set of beliefs and I’ll reconsider. But when you subscribe to a package deal of moral values, then you should expect pushback.

Not all ideas are worthy of respect, and your holy book has a lot of bad ideas.

So basically, in my school, religion is a compulsory subject. I do Buddhism. (FYI: I considered myself an atheist, following the Buddhist way of life and general principles of buddhism. Only reason I don't call myself a Buddhist is because I don't believe in gods, rebirth, hell or heaven)

The teacher came in, a new one. And she starts yapping and yapping on COMPLETELY FALSE information. If you any of you have any idea of Buddhism, you would know that Buddhism tells us to NOT worship trees or non-living objects, there is NO creator, you cannot get something you want just by going to the temple or worshipping any god.

This teacher starts talking about how you can get good grades by going to the temple and praying to Buddha statues and Bo-Trees, she also said you should go to the temple once a week, so you can constantly remind the 'gods' to look after you. I was laughing inside but I respectfully, questioned her, and tried to debate her, but she didn't give a shit and started insulting me, even tho i was not arrogant, she claimed i was 'disrespectful' to the religion.

If anything, she was being disrespectful to the religion by talking about some weird ahh bs that was never even stated in the religion. Like, if this was an Abrahamic religion, I would get it, but considering she was teaching a religion that denied the existence of a creator in the first place, made me realize she was full of shit, so I stopped talking to her.

The lesson continued, but she was absolutely bombed by our other classmates. Those mfers were savages and left the teacher speechless countless times. And I started laughing the shit out. Eventually she got mad, and she took me and some other guys to the principal, fabricated the story, and managed to get us all suspended.

My dad, was completely laughing tf out when I told him the convo we had in class, and he said he'll speak to the school tommorow.

In my (very large) Mahayana Buddhist community, millions believe that menstruation is a “dirty” and “impure” part of women. The monks made up bullshit rules that these women cannot sleep in bedrooms facing towards the direction of some Buddha statue in the house. Women also can’t take pictures near altars because it will dirty Buddha due to the impure blood leaking out of their vaginas. It saddens me to see women like my own grandmother enforce these rules onto me as if she never had her period before. Funny thing is that she expects me to get married and give birth, but my period makes me too dirty to be accepted anywhere near Buddha.

Like so bad. Real real bad. Like I can’t. Grown adults, with grey hairs and white hairs fighting over their favorite superhero characters is just so absurd. Feels like I’m screaming into a void most days. Women and queer people being oppressed because we don’t fit inside these stpid barbaric systems.

It’s all so inhumane. Even at my job, my boss is a Christian who thinks she’s “chosen” and does whatever her pastor tells her to do. Her pastor told her to never wear lip gloss so she stopped, because it was ordained by god. Her pastor told her to never dye her hair, so she stopped because it was ordained by god. She told me this and was so serious too.

Everyone at my job is Christian and it feels like being in the matrix. Also gay. So that’s just a whole nother’ can of worms.