zen nudist

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Posts by zen nudist

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  39

  Parousia and invisibe presence

  by Hellrider in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i`m discussing something with a jw.

  i claim that the greek "parousia" doesn`t mean invisible presence, it simply means "presence".

  isn`t that correct?

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  zen nudist

  invisible presence - see emporer's new clothes.
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  77

  why do so many religions claim that Jesus is God?

  by evergreen in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hi everyone, i have often wondered why so many religions view jesus as being god.

  every website i look up claiming to be the christian faith strongly believe that this is the case.. i mean the actual trinity doctrine didnt come about untill about the 3rd or 4th century and was originally the catholic church that brought it about.

  although jehovahs witnesses seem to push jesus into the background a lot which is something that has always troubled me.

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  zen nudist

  as a total unbeliever I now read Jewish mythology known as the bible and still see no trinity in it.

  from start to finish I find two seperate characters which no one in the book seems to confuse.

  one of them is identified as YHWH Elohim the other has a gradual build up and is described more and more as each chapter unfolds but is always kept seperate from YHWH and no one makes any statements which seem otherwise....

  he is first called THE SON OF THE WOMAN who will crush the serpents head.

  then SHILOH, the one who has the right.

  Then in no particular order.... one like a son of man. [daniel] the seed of David [psalms and elsewhere] the one who would be known as the prince of peace the mighty one of God [Isa Jewish publication society El-Gibor] etc etc etc.

  the NEW TESTAMENT equates Jesus will all these designations and does not seem to go beyond in my view and the view of many others who do not see Jesus ever calling himself God

  nor do we find it impossible to resolve references that trinitiarians cannot seem to accept without seeing such things.

  arguing whos view of jewish mythology is correct is really rather silly www.jesusneverexisted.com

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  33

  1914 question

  by drew sagan in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  put aside all of the 607 b.c.e., there is another question that i'm not familiar with and mabyee some of you know what there explanation is, or if they don't even address the issue.

  we are all familiar with the account in daniel chapter five, and nebuchadnezzars dream about the tree.

  daniels explanation of this dream begins: .

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  zen nudist

  JWs accuse other christians as hallucinating things like the trinity into the bible

  and the nation of Israel represented by a fig tree in Matt 24,

  then they turn around and do the very same things when it suits them

  with the 7 times of daniel and Michael being Jesus.

  but they know better because God's spirit is directing them, I guess....though they are not inspired (^_^)
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  11

  Emotional Misfits!!!

  by Golf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  when anyone talks about the jw's the only thoughts that wiz through my mind is, emotional misfits!

  yesterday, my sister-in-law stopped by and spoke to my wife for close to two hours.

  yes, it was about pass problems with her husband and the elders.

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  zen nudist

  I dont know about this thread, how many really contented people do you meet of any stripe?

  I dont know all that many emotionally balanced people, JW or not.... seems this world has a way of keeping

  most of its passengers off an even keel[?]
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  38

  Why would a current JW choose to be rude and offensive?

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've recently had lengthy pm discussions with a person claiming to be a current jw.

  this person has been above the standard level of arrogant for a jw, raising conceit to practically a defining characteristic.

  you almost expect that when you're dealing with a member of the "elite".. but he goes beyond it.

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  zen nudist

  anger is a response to pain

  what is paining them? injury to either or both their own self view and their ideal fantasy world view... those who threaten

  it are paining them and they respond with anger which often seems like arrogance.

  Hatred is founded on the belief that some aspects of reality are evil or wrong and need to be destroyed, removed or imprisoned by whatever means necessary with as great a passon as one can muster.... black and white good vs evil views often cause this and JWs are far from the only ones so infected.

  Children seems to naturally develope very concrete ideals and poke fun, taunt and even harm anyone or anything that does not match up... some adults have simply refined this stradegy, some have just retained it raw.
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  4

  I got lost somewhere...

  by DannyBloem in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  .

  ... on the road from craddle to paradise

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  zen nudist

  you are in the center of your own mental universe, you are in the present moment

  you have never moved, how could you get lost?
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  30

  What do you believe in now?

  by YoSista in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am discovering a whole new way of life and thinking now that i have left the *truth*.

  part of me still believes in some of the teachings, i just don't agree with the organization, its difficult to find amiddle ground, i just wondered what some of you have decided on, what your beleif system is now?

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  zen nudist

  
  I came to see that there are really only experiences.... and our mind invents beliefs about these expeirences which are also experiences and so there really is nothing to do but compare and contrast and examine and evaluate these with other experiences.... and so I found everyone has their own unique point of view and thus their own unique Belief Systems or BS which naturally flows from their mental orifice... and I found one of the wiser of these orifi was a man named Robet A Wilson who advises that we should never take any BS too seriously and apply that to ourselves as well.... I have never found any better advise nor better point of view to this date.
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  31

  My Unhappiness is because of Witness Thinking I have not given up

  by joelbear in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  its pretty clear to me that my continued depression and anxiety is mostly tied up with even after all these years, still basically thinking like a witness.

  1. i expect things to be perfect.

  i expect myself to be perfect and am continually disappointed.

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  zen nudist

  the basic problem is that JWs have installed an iron clad measuring stick up your arse which makes it hard not to walk around in pain;

  that measuring stick is an ideal fantasy which rejects reality in most if not all catagories.... extracting that stick from your arse is difficult as its not always easy to believe that it is wrong.... because you have been conditioned to see right and wrong long before they installed their own special teflon coated beauty.... it went in easy enough because most of it matched the values you had installed in you from your parents, culture and traditions and you hardly noticed the initial pain it caused as you likely agreed with most of it....

  many JWs remove the JW ideals but leave the earlier sticks in place and never quite get away with walking with that free bounce in their step they could have... some just get most of it and leave a few splinters behind [pun intended]
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  16

  Did You have Peace and Joy?

  by Honesty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while you were associated with the jehovah's witnesses did you have the peace and joy that the bible, especially the new testament says jesus' followers will have in abundance?

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  zen nudist

  as a JW I had very little peace or joy.... I even felt that I was so unworthy that I could only hope to help someone else make it.

  peace, I have since found, comes from accepting the perfection of each moment, while as a JW, I could only compare each moment to the fantasy ideals of paradise and heaven and could never find reality worth anything but damnation.
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  23

  Did God create good and evil?

  by THE SHOOTIST in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isaiah 45:7 says he did.

  gen. 3:16/17 says that he placed the tree of knowledge of good and bad in the middle of the garden.

  didn't god say in gen 3:22 that after man ate of the fruit he has become like us (the gods)knowing good and evil.

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  zen nudist

  what determines good vs evil? many people seem to think some things simply are one or the other and don't consider why very deeply, but it bothered me and I looked into it and one day it occurred to me what Genesis is really saying.....

  before any concept of good and evil exists, there is only your perceptions of reality as you find it, its just there, nothing good, nothing evil, just sights, sounds, feelings, etc....

  the tree of knowledge represents an artificial line which seperates some of reality into good and some into bad based on an IDEAL, which is the part I was having a hard time seeing..... this IDEAL is often unconscious within us and difficult to see its boundries, but once you get a handle on it, it becomes the framework which you use to compare reality and divide it up, some of it good, some of it evil.... depending on how it helps or harms this IDEAL....

  the bible is basically saying the power to define the IDEAL belonged to no one but God and if Man took this power unto himself only trouble would result.... when Adam and Eve ate they lost paradise.... the could no longer see things as they were, but were now dividing them into good and evil catagories based on fantasy ideals of their own making, arbitrary and ignorant fantasies...they saw they were naked, vulerable and defenseless and fear resulted from their anticipation of punishment and harm... and since they did not die, the expected god to come along and kill them so they hid.

  interestingly enough God does not kill them nor cause their death in any way, however he tells his hidden audiance that man, now like the Elohim, knowing good and evil for themselves [interesting that the other beings were not seeing one god as the ultimate ideal maker, no?]

  cannot be allowed to live forever in this state, no explanation why though is given, however the unfolding of the rest of genesis, indicates that with this knowledge the thoughts of man always degenerate and lead to nothing but violence.