for some background, i am still in.
still an elder.
very much awake.
if there are problems then jehovah will reveal them in time
What if he is revealing it? There are examples in the bible of god's organization going astray (mostly bad kings) but most of the time it resulted in the deaths of thousands that were just trying to follow along and remain loyal to god's organization. So it's not something to be unsure of or take lightly.
i worked a different shift.
i knew the people i worked with, but not as well as i could have.. anyway, religion comes up.
one guy mentions in front of another that i wrote a book about my religious experience.
So he can do just whatever the hell he wants to and Jesus will forgive him, but you're the one without morals? I just don't even know what to do with someone who couldn't see the irony there. It sounds like his definition of morality is just to feel guilty about the stuff you do, not actually bother to be a decent person. Anyone that takes a course of action with the expectation that they'll be forgiven for it is about the bottom of the barrel as far as morality goes.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that an atheist (at least a thinking atheist, not necessarily those that are atheist by convenience) would be more moral than a theist - atheists have no expectation in some sky daddy that'll come along and make things right, so we need to try to get it right ourselves. Theists assume that if they make a mess of things because it's easier/fun sky daddy will come in and fix it and forgive them.
have you noticed the article entitled "watch your associations in these last days" in the new august 2015 study watchtower?.
unless i'm reading it wrong, or somehow misinterpreting it, it is saying that we should be kind to intentional breakers of god's laws inside and outside the congregation, including fornicators, but that we must not be close associates with them.. are they already preparing for a shift in their disfellowshipping practices?.
here are the relevant paragraphs:.
so i'm catching up on r rated movies that i missed when i was younger.
"they live!
" was on the el rey network the other day so decided to watch it.. it was kind of eerie watching this being a fader.. here's a guy living under a controlling regime of elites and only he can see the control measures for what they are.
the neighbor child came over to play with my youngest child.
i think she's about 4 maybe 5. well anyway there was some strawberries out on the counter and she asked if she could have one and i said no.
when i looked over later i saw her sneak one.
the latest watchtower certainly indicates that the org thinks they are!!
why keep in expectation?
watchtower august 15 par.
once you really start thinking about it, the whole paradise idea is kind of depressing.
i remember growing up as kids my sister was the first to tell my parents (admittedly very courageously) that she wasn't sure she wanted to live in paradise, it sounded boring living forever.
i thought she was dumb for thinking that, i mean playing with lions!!!!
i just remembered this thing this morning:.
sharing the same faith with the king of pop made me feel important for belonging to this religion, even if he was never baptised.
we were not in america or anywhere close by.
so, the latest "kids" kingdom melody video is out.. here are some screenshots:.
.
yep, that's right, they showed a kid with a teddy bear getting baptized.. here's the video in full for documentation, if you can stomach it.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ellrtyj_maq.
OrphanCrow -
The difference between then and now is that prior to 1980, or thereabouts, someone could disassociate themselves without the enforced shunning that someone today would experience in those circumstances. Plus world conditions probably made it seem considerably more reasonable to make that particular bet and get baptized, with WWI a recent memory and WWII starting in 1939.
Today, world conditions are better than ever and armageddon is clearly nowhere near the horizon. Meanwhile, the punishment for changing your mind is much harsher. This time it's clear that the motivation is 100% control, not some altruistic desire to see these children survive the wrath of the desert god.
during the depression people committed suicide because everything they had invested in was gone overnight in an instant.
many people are very fragile creatures.
if by some freaking chance, (like enron, tiger woods, or the morning of august 1945 in hiroshima) the wts gets caught in a humongous scandal, say like links to human sex trafficking, (i can fantasize right) and the government steps in to investigate and finds them guilty and legally shuts them down permanently, will there be tons of suicides?
I think the persecution complex is built up enough that quite a few would only redouble their efforts to remain loyal to the cult if the government tried to shut them down. If, on the other hand, some freak natural disaster (an asteroid strikes the new cult compound right after completion and kills the entire GB and most of the higher-ups - now who's fantasizing?) I think there could be something like what you're talking about.
There's been too much preparing (even the recent "gog of magog" change) for a government to try to shut them down that I think it might actually have the opposite effect and pull in a lot of the fence-sitters and doubters.
