Do JW's still use the same songbook with a full color image on the endpapers of a group of Israelites singing praises, every single one having a full beard?
gaiagirl
JoinedPosts by gaiagirl
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67
If God doesn't want brothers to have beards, why does it grow?
by JH in.
men have facial hair and women don't, and that's god who decided that.. so why can't brothers have beards or goatees.
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gaiagirl
I watch 'Scrubs' fairly regularly, and enjoy it. However, I must speak up in defense of the U.S. version of 'Coupling', it seemed quite funny to me. Rena Sofer is both beautiful and brilliant, and some of the situations portrayed were as good as the best of 'Friends'. Ratings published in USAToday for the four episodes shown (10 or 11 episodes were filmed) were in the 12 million viewers range, not bad at all considering all the other shows on at the time, and comparable to established shows such as 'Frasier' or 'Will and Grace', and much higher than some other shows which were NOT cancelled. The show would certainly have developed an audience if they had just shown the episodes they had already filmed. Even 'Seinfeld' wasn't an overnight success, it occupied several different time slots before finally becoming popular. I hope that the shows which WERE filmed will at least be available on DVD someday.
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How many Bible studies does it take before brainwashing sets in?
by hubert ini would like to know how the study starts...... what kind of information is given to the potential new convert when he / she starts studying with j.w.
's., lesson to lesson.. what is taught in the first few "lessons".. when the brainwashing starts to be taught.
how many lessons it takes to convince the student that the w.t.
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gaiagirl
I think the answers to those questions would vary considerably from case to case, depending in part on the "neediness" of the student, their educational level, the skill of the study conductor, and probably other factors. As I recall, studies tend to start out in broad, general terms, "God has a wonderful promise for humankind", as well as a warning that Satan will fight to keep them from learning about this promise, all very well supported by scriptures cited. So, if a person is prone to accept the Bible as authoritative, it won't take too long for them to be convinced that they have been, prior to their study, misled or uninformed about the message of the Bible. So when someone says something unflattering about the WTBTS, the student immediately sees this as confirmation of prophecy, and "proves" in their own mind that what they are learning is the "Truth".
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jacob wrestling with an angel
by seesthesky inwhat do you think the following genesis verses represent?
24 finally jacob was left by himself.
then a man began to grapple with him until the dawn ascended.
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gaiagirl
It would be interesting to learn the history of this story, whether it is original to Genesis, or like so much else, borrowed from another culture. And when did the idea that the opponent was an angel begin? The writer refers to Jacobs opponent as "a man", not an angel. Jacob is quoted as saying he saw God "face to face". In some ways it reminds me of a story about Hercules wrestling with a giant (Antaeus?).
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Bible Reading Leading to More Doubt Than Faith... :(
by jeanniebeanz inok, it?s taken me longer to get my thoughts together on this than i expected, but here is the reason that i have come to have doubts in the divine nature of the bible; its failure to show that the god it describes is abiding by "his" own standards.. for example, according to 2 peter 1:20, the entire bible is inspired of god.
the main attributes of "god" are that "he" is love (1 john 4:8), "he" is just (deuteronomy 32:4), and "he" has all of the power (revelation 7:12).. with that in mind, my first problem with the bibles authenticity is that this ?loving god?
murdered the entire world of men at one point in history by drowning them.
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gaiagirl
The Bible makes a lot more sense if you read it with the idea that it is NOT inspired, but rather the writings of people who were trying to justify what they had already done. Every nation needs their own cultural mythology (think about the U.S., Pilgrims and Thanksgiving, George Washington and the cherry tree, Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Pecos Bill, etc. These are all legends, stories which have changed and grown over time. The Bible writers collected some stories from existing middle eastern mythology (the creation account and the flood), modified them to suit their specific audience, (the young nation of Israel), and added a lot of new material regarding origins in Egypt, conquest of Canaan, (which may have some kernel of truth surrounded by lots of myhological details), which kept growing over several hundred years, eventually becoming a large body of literature. Much later, in the 4th century A.D., selection was made regarding which books to include as part of the official Bible canon. As such, the Bible is no more "inspired" than, say, Hamiltons "Mythology", which collects the myths of the Greek and Roman cultures.
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Making new friends after fading
by M@el5trom inwhat are some good methods for finding and making new friends after fading away?
i know this is critical to help myself and my wife to move on, and we both have suffered from depression partly because we are isolated to each other for now.
we are good friends, but we both feel the need for others also.
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gaiagirl
I began hanging out at the Unitarian Universalist Church. This is a liberal church which allows each person to find their own path. It also doesn't require you to check your brain at the door. This guarantees that there will be a diverse group of people, some of whom are likely to share your values. I got involved going on church hikes, helping out at the rummage sale, etc. They offer lots of optional classes on various topics, such as "Rise Up and Call Her Name" (an exploration of feminine deity), "Theology of Sherlock Holmes" (seriously, exploration of basic assumptions of the stories by A.C.Doyle, compared to basic assumptions of some religions, this was VERY good). They also sponsor a bowling night each month, which I sometimes attend. So, there is lots of interaction with various folks, and I have made quite a few good friends.
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God's little inconsistencies
by cheeseman inwhat's the thing that really gets your goat?
for me it's god allowing incest as a means of filling the earth.
i mean, if it was good enough for them.....
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gaiagirl
How about how God supposedly must kill the children of wicked people in order to vindicate his name. Numerous cases are mentioned in the Bible, and according to JW's, children of unbelievers will also die at Armageddon. I'm pretty sure such a 'god' doesn't deserve anyones worship.
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Earthquakes - a sign of the End?
by Pole inlet?s assume earthquakes were to be part of ?the sign of the end?
given by jesus.
if we follow this logic, then what does it mean in real terms?
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gaiagirl
Earthquakes are a sign that there has been movement along a tectonic plate boundary, nothing more. When Jesus was alive, people living in the middle east would have no idea of an earthquake whose epicenter was in, say, California, although the conditions which cause quakes there today were operating 2000 years ago (and long before then). The only quakes they would have known about would have been those which actually affected the area in which they lived. Now with global news, we know immediately about events on the other side of the earth. There aren't more quakes (or more disasters in general) than previously, but we sure know about them quickly, no matter where they occur.
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Science is a threat...
by homme perdu into many religions but i dont understand why.
do you think there will be an understanding between the two?
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gaiagirl
Science and religion are ways of looking at the world. Traditional religion is a worldview which originated in primitive times when little was known for certainty regarding the actual world, its place in the universe, or humanities place in the world. Now that so much more is known regarding these things, religion needs to adapt to the new information which is available. To me, this includes acknowledging that we are part of an interconnected web of life, that we are genetically related to every other living thing, to start with. Every single thing we have which makes life better has come from science, not religion. True religion should be based on science, not dogma.
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Another WTS Misrepresentation from the Creator Book
by AlanF inhere is a good example of the sort of complex misrepresentations that the watchtower society performs.
the 1998 creator book says the following (chap.
" not, "what happened after the origin of the universe?
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gaiagirl
In his famous book "Cosmos", Carl Sagan writes (pg 257) "What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that?.....In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we would of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?" This seems a better answer than those which are given by the WTBTS.