The spider in the bathtub

by DannyHaszard 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  DannyHaszard

  Jehovah's Witnesses on a Plane More thrills than 'Snakes on a Plane' More thrills than 'Snakes on a Plane'?
  Aspen Times, CO - 2 hours ago
  ... n "Jehovah's Witnesses on a Plane" - The good thing about snakes is that you might get lucky and be bitten by the kind that causes death in less than eight ... n " Jehovah's Witnesses on a Plane" - The good thing about snakes is that you might get lucky and be bitten by the kind that causes death in less than eight seconds. Not so with the JWs. Once the box of Watchtower magazines is released from the overhead storage compartment, the passengers and flight crew pray for the sweet, sweet relief that death would bring. Alas, the JWs insist that when you accept their particular version of Jesus Christ as your savior, death is no longer an option. Samuel L. Jackson tries to control the situation, but after hours of having the Bible expertly thumped in his direction, he begins to question the theory of evolution. The audience knows that things have taken an ugly turn when Jackson begins calling them "Jehovah's Witnesses" rather than "Jehovah's Moth%! Witnesses ."
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  DannyHaszard

  ....According to Statistics Canada, there are 155,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada, down 8.1 per cent from a decade earlier . There are some 6.6 million in the world. Witnesses find joy in baptismal pool
  Hamilton Spectator, Canada - 4 hours ago July 10 2006
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  DannyHaszard

  From Crass Comedy to Christ Talk

  She spoke with Beliefnet about her experience as a Jehovah’s Witness , the sometimes-controversial nature of her faith in Hollywood, and where she thinks she would be without God. How would you describe your faith? I believe in Jesus Christ as my ...

  • Belief.Net
  • 8 hours ago

  From Crass Comedy to Christ Talk The Christian comedienne Sherri Shepherd says that without God in her life, she'd be in jail, on drugs, or dead. Interview by Marshall Allen

  Sherri Shepherd stars weekly on the ABC sitcom "Less Than Perfect," appeared in the movie "Beauty Shop," and is frequently a guest on shows like "The View," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," and "Jimmy Kimmel Live." On camera, she’s an optimistic presence with comic timing honed by 16 years of stand-up comedy. Behind the scenes, she’s as likely to say, “Thank you, Jesus,” as deliver a punch line. Raised in Chicago, Shepherd was a legal secretary before she got into show business. She spoke with Beliefnet about her experience as a Jehovah’s Witness, the sometimes-controversial nature of her faith in Hollywood, and where she thinks she would be without God.

  Were you raised in church? When I was little I went to a Baptist Church with my grandmother. My earliest memories were of her falling out in the middle of the floor and they had to cover her with a white sheet. Every time we went to church it was scary. The music would start playing, and then everybody would start running and shouting and hollering and screaming. My grandmother would get up and just fall out on the pews. When you’re 5-years-old and she’s the woman that brought you to church that’s a little scary.
  
  After that, I was a Jehovah’s Witness. Being a Jehovah’s Witness, it was really a trip. We had to go from door to door, and we weren’t allowed to associate with the other children. It was a lot of rules.
  
  How did you become a Jehovah’s Witness?
  
  My mother. They came to the door one Saturday. My mother opened up the door, and I remember these really nice people came in. They were dressed very nicely and conservatively, and they came in, and they started talking to my mom. We really weren’t going to church, and we started going to the Kingdom Hall.
  My father started questioning the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the elders, which are the heads of the congregation, they came to the house and they tried to talk to him. They finally dis-fellowshipped him, like excommunicated him. And they came to the house, and they told us that we had to go to his second job and tell him that we couldn’t talk to him anymore. When Jehovah’s Witnesses get dis-fellowshipped, you’re to cut off all communication with them.
  
  My father was and is a great father. My father always wanted to do stand-up. He wanted to be an actor. But instead he did two jobs. He did customer service at a hospital and he worked as a waiter at night. He pretty much sacrificed everything for his daughters. I’ve got that in my mind, I’ve got to tell my dad I’m not going to talk to him? That’s not love. That’s when I got disillusioned with being a Jehovah’s Witness. Did you get disillusioned with religion in general?
  
  I didn’t get disillusioned with God, but because I had been a Jehovah’s Witness so long, that was all I knew. And as a Jehovah’s Witness I learned that all the other religions were false and that they were from Satan. I was taught my grandmother’s church was from the devil, so when I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses I really thought I was going to die and that I was going to go to hell.
  
  I felt like, well, I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness and that’s the true religion. I can’t go to church because those are from the devil. I felt like one of the walking dead. I was never mad at God. I just felt like God was mad at me.
  
  What brought you to where you are now?
  
  My mom was dying. I was getting evicted left and right. This was in 1993. I got involved in a really abusive relationship. I just was involved with the wrong people. I got into stand-up comedy. My boyfriend went to prison--he was stalking me, and then he went to prison. I got involved in stand-up comedy. I was getting evicted. My car was getting repossessed. I went to jail.
  
  Jail?
  
  I was in a jail for six or eight days, for traffic warrants. I felt like I was going to die. All this stuff was happening to me because I didn’t have God. I wasn’t going to church. I just felt like it was so evil from my upbringing. Why am I going to go to a church that was from the devil.
  When I say I was walking dead, I had nobody. I knew how important it was to have God in your life. I felt like: "God, I love making people laugh, and this feels so natural. And I feel so at peace no matter what’s going on in my life when I’m on stage. But I can’t go back to being a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m going to die, so if I’m going to die, I’m going to write all kinds of bounced checks. I’m going to sleep with a lot of people. I’m going to not pay my bills. I’m going to die anyway!" There’s one scripture, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry, because we’re all going to die.” That’s really how I felt. Let’s do everything! I went to jail because my registration was two years expired. Police would stop me and give me a ticket to appear in court. I had like eight of those. My bench warrants totaled $9,000.
  
  You’ve come a long way since then. Do you believe God has played a role in your success?
  
  If I didn’t have God I would have been dead. First of all, if I got into this entertainment industry without God. I would probably be on drugs. He put that desire in my heart when I was 4 years old. I loved to entertain my family. There was always that desire. I think he’s nurtured it. He’s opened doors. Why am I as successful as I am? I have no idea. I have no idea what I’m doing. Sometimes I look at God and go, “I think there’s somebody better to talk to these celebrities.” I really don’t know what I’m doing.
  
  You’re open about your faith, but how does that look on a daily basis? Also, are Christians persecuted in Hollywood?
  It’s hard sometimes. I let people know I’m a Christian. It comes up naturally when I do things. If they say you did a great job, I go: “Thank you, Jesus.” I do not mind saying: “Thank you, Jesus,” because I’m not that good. When people hear that, they go: “She’s thanking Jesus a lot!”
  
  [When I autograph] my scripts, I’ll write “God bless you.” Before we go on to tape a show, I just ask people if we can say a little prayer. I’m not trying to force it on you, but I like to pray so God can make everything smooth. I pray with the cast and that opens it up to: “What do you mean you pray?”
  
  I was like one of those Christians who are indignant...
  Read more on page 2 »

  More on the Faith-Based Initiative

  It also concerns me that once the pork barrel is filled, suddenly the Church of Scientology, the Jehovah Witnesses, the various and many denominations and religious groups,begin applying for money ...

  • Belief.Net
  • 8 hours ago
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  DannyHaszard

  Ahhhh,here's another jdub slam

  The Contradictions of a Hip-Hop Believer

  So you were raised Jehovah’s Witness? JR: Yeah, that’s a tough religion. You don’t have birthdays, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, you know, because that’s not the day Christ was born. So there’s no need to celebrate. I would get like a gift ...

  • Belief.Net
  • 8 hours ago
• 

  DannyHaszard

  Ahhhh,here's another jdub slam

  The Contradictions of a Hip-Hop Believer

  So you were raised Jehovah’s Witness? JR: Yeah, that’s a tough religion. You don’t have birthdays, no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, you know, because that’s not the day Christ was born. So there’s no need to celebrate. I would get like a gift ...

  • Belief.Net
  • 8 hours ago

  Double Crossed By Religion Ja Rule's new album 'Rule 3:36' asks a harder question about 'What If God Were One of Us?'

  by Paul B. Raushenbush
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  DannyHaszard

  The Second Coming of Jesus
  Skeptical Inquirer - 19 minutes ago
  ... Protestant fundamentalists (I include members of Pentecostal churches and such fringe sects as Seventh-day Adventism and Jehovah's Witnesses) became more and ... Jehovah's Witnesses have an even worse record of failed predictions than the Adventists. They teach that Jesus returned in 1914, but it was an invisible, spiritual return. However, they also once taught that 1914 would see the beginning of Armageddon, followed by the destruction of all nations and the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth. When this didn't happen, the date was moved to 1915. After that year passed, the date was pushed ahead again to 1918. Unfazed by the 1918 failure, 1975 was the next selection. As far as I know, since then the group has stopped proposing dates, although it still preaches that the end times are near and millions now living will never die. It's useless to bring all this up when a Witness knocks on your door because most Witnesses today are ignorant of their faith's bizarre history, or about the errors and sins of Charles Taze Russell, who founded their sect. A good reference on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses is an article in the Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions, and the Occult (1993), by George A. Mather and Larry A. Nichols, and the many references they cite. Fears of the Apocalypse The Escape from Reason
  Skeptical Inquirer - 22 minutes ago
  ... saved from it. Several Protestant sects, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, have held apocalyptic theologies in the past. Today the ...
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  DannyHaszard

  Martha Stewart settles with SEC
  Omega Letter Intelligence Digest (subscription) - 57 minutes ago
  ... But concluding that peace-loving Muslims represents true Islam is like concluding Jehovah's Witnesses represent true Christianity . ...
  

  See it's like the Elephant in the room
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  DannyHaszard

  Jehovah Witnesses shunned

  TASHKENT - Uzbek officials have shut down the country's sole openly active chapter of the Jehovah's Witnesses, accusing the religious group of aggressive proselytising, media reports said. Authorities in eastern Fergana province had received ...

  • Sunday Times South Africa

  TASHKENT - Uzbek officials have shut down the country's sole openly active chapter of the Jehovah's Witnesses, accusing the religious group of aggressive proselytising, media reports said.
  
  Authorities in eastern Fergana province had received complaints from residents about the conduct of Jehovah's Witnesses members in the province since 1999, www.press-uz.info, a website close to the government, said.
  
  "Jehovah's Witnesses, disregarding the laws on the privacy of citizens and freedom of conscience, and national traditions, stubbornly conducted belligerent and aggressive missionary work, even breaking into houses, pestering with their preaching and literature in public," the website quoted a justice department official as saying. The Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian group engaging in evangelism across the world, does not function openly elsewhere in Uzbekistan, where 90 percent of the 26 million people are Muslim.
  
  Religious authorities had earlier said that relations between different ethnic groups in the country were threatened by the activities of several religious groups that conduct missionary activity, forbidden under Uzbek law.
  Early this week authorities closed down a US based non-governmental group Crosslink Development International for violating laws and giving financial assistance to a religious movement, the Full Gospel Christian Church, under the cover of grant projects [email protected] Letters to editor ------------ Step back and look at things from their perspective-they know that the Watchtower is an American corporate cult with no humanitarian charities 'pestering with their preaching' in a Muslim country.
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  badboy

  STALKING?
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  DannyHaszard

  Hells Angels arrested across Canada
  Vancouver Province (subscription), Canada - Apr 5, 2007
  "We used to live in Maple Ridge and we had Jehovah's Witnesses as neighbours and they were way worse. They had loud parties, too, not just once or twice a ...