Posts by trumangirl

23

The Memorial: Blasphemy or Monty Python Sketch?

by metatron in

soon the special night will be upon us, when millions of jehovah's witnesses.

will gather together for the sacred purpose of merely passing around the emblems.

of christian salvation and rejecting them.. this event proves to me that anything, no matter how silly, will be treated solemnly.

Can you help?

by mouthy in

i am proof reading a book about jehovah's witnesse's.

can any one tell me how much time a special pioneer has to put in service now,.

also what are the hours suggested for pioneers, & rank & file.

There's currently no minimum hour requirement for MS and elder publishers. They're so desperate to prevent elders from dropping out, the idea is they are expected to put in what their personal circumstances are. But if an elder fell to below the average publishers hours a month regularly, they would be encouraged to do more, and might be removed if no improvement is made.

In New zealand at least, the average for publishers is about 8 per month. This is the expected minimum for a good JW. It's what the CO inferred in 2001 anyway.

trumangirl

23

The Memorial: Blasphemy or Monty Python Sketch?

by metatron in

soon the special night will be upon us, when millions of jehovah's witnesses.

will gather together for the sacred purpose of merely passing around the emblems.

of christian salvation and rejecting them.. this event proves to me that anything, no matter how silly, will be treated solemnly.

trumangirl

my hubby was an elderberry,,, te he.

23

The Memorial: Blasphemy or Monty Python Sketch?

by metatron in

soon the special night will be upon us, when millions of jehovah's witnesses.

will gather together for the sacred purpose of merely passing around the emblems.

of christian salvation and rejecting them.. this event proves to me that anything, no matter how silly, will be treated solemnly.

trumangirl

Elderwho that is a good point, i've never thought of it like that (only faded in the last year or so).

I got totally confused reading R Franz's books, about what the 'hope' of the great crowd was meant to be. Got that one on the 'backburner' of my shaky spirituality!

I will be going to the memorial this year (grin and bear the awkward questions). I always accepted the memorial (tho I felt guilty about not 'feeling' appreciative enough or anything). But I thought it was nutty how the MS and elders who did the passing round had to line up in a row and pass it along to each other afterwards. Also annoying how the speaker stays on the stage and tells us boring incidental details about the type of wine and bread they use. My hubby was an elder and he didn't do this, he sat in the audience when they were being passed round.

By the way I checked with him just now about DF'd ones, he said that definitely the policy is to include them. Must be a few errant elders who decide it aint enough to consign someone to tartarus, you gotta rub it in some more on the occasion we're supposed to be reflecting on God's love and mercy ..

trumangirl

12

Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4

by Leolaia in

in my recent thread on the nephilim and the rephaim (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/68224/1.ashx), i indicated that the legend of the titans was broadly related to the canaanite and hebrew myths of the nephilim and rephaim, but here in 2 peter we see more recent hellenistic influence on jewish legend.

according to hesiod and other greek writers, the titans were the wicked offspring of ouranius and gaia ("heaven" and "earth") who initially had sovereignty over the cosmos but whom zeus and the olympian gods defeated and consigned to eternal bondage in the prison called tartarus in the netherworld.

iliad 8:13-16 describes tartarus as a bottomless pit located below hades, a distinction reminiscent of hades and the abyss of revelation.

trumangirl

That was hard going but interesting. I'm interested in ways the bible echoes ancient religions as it is a topic I know little about.

Wondering, are those writings you refer to older or newer than the bible? Also do you the references in the bible to tartarus are the writers using a figure of speech that was familiar to the readers (like us saying 'achilles heel'), or do you think they actually were referring to the concept?

trumangirl

17

Sad but maintaining

by Lady_Kaye in

i really did not know what to title this post so i just put how i felt.

where do i begin?

well due to my past experiences with religion.

trumangirl

Lady Kay I echo Flying high now. So sorry about your brother. And hell is an unchristian doctrine, (JWs are at least right on that score!). The (un)christian lady seemed to be talking about bad karma coming your way, but this is an empty superstition and has no place in christianity.

I hope you are with kind friends and family right now.

6

Self control

by trumangirl in

since fading, i've noticed my 'self-control' is better.

i mean by that, things that i really believe are wrong or not good for me, i find easier to resist.

not that i did anything 'gross' before, but just things like being gluttonous, bitchy, dishonest, materialistic, all those things that i don't want to do because i know they have bad consequences but do anyway sometimes (because of being 'imperfect'?).

trumangirl

Since fading, i've noticed my 'self-control' is better. I mean by that, things that I really believe are wrong or not good for me, I find easier to resist. Not that I did anything 'gross' before, but just things like being gluttonous, bitchy, dishonest, materialistic, all those things that I don't want to do because i know they have bad consequences but do anyway sometimes (because of being 'imperfect'?). And this in spite of me having lost any respect for the WTs 'guidance' and rules (unless they fit in with my view/conscience).

I wondered about this, and my theory is that JWs are expected to have SO MUCH self-control over things like meeting attendance, witnessing, personal study, submissiveness, even their thoughts and attitudes, that they just can't do it all and end up lapsing into 'sin' . There is only so much self-control a human can have and we have to direct it at the things that matter and that we truly believe in, not a set of rules dumped on us from an external source over which we have no control. So the WT's emphasis on self-control can backfire through sheer overload of expectations.

What do others think of my theory about self-control? Anyone had similar personal experience?

trumangirl

22

Armagedon, still looking like a dummie.

by PinTail in

i was raised a witness for fifty years to watch world events, now i am aproching my retirement years and still no armagedon.

where is it?

trumangirl

Matt 24:23 - "Then if anyone says to you 'Look! Here is the Christ' or 'There!' do not believe it". v 27 - "For just as the lightening comes out of the eastern parts and shones over the western parts, so the presence of the son of man will be".

Jesus did warn us not to believe claims like what the WT makes. If only we'd listened earlier! When/(if?) Jesus kingdom does come, it's going to be as obvious as sheet lightening!

AND most importantly, we won't be judged based on how much marketing of WT magazines we did!! YAY bring on the kingdom I say!

trumangirl

14

e-watchman, thoughts from past topic

by confusedjw in

i was looking back and a month ago there was a topic about e-watchman and who he was and why he would expose the wt with one side of his mouth and encourage loyalty with the other side.

i wonder if these might be the reasons.... 1. he himself claims to be of the anointed and truly believes he is helping to expose the "evil slave" amongst jehovah's people.. 2. by encouraging loyalty to the wt he doesn't scare away the numberous active witnesses who read his columns and send in questions.

they read and stay in the congregations.

trumangirl

I was quite taken by ewatchman when I first discovered him - in fact his site was the first JW-based one I ever visited as a borg - a relative emailed a link to it to me. It enabled me to realise that to leave the org does not necessarily mean abandoning faith in God and the bible and having no hope. It broke through the sense of 'loyalty' I felt for the 'faithful and discreet slave'. To use a phrase, it was like 'scales falling from my eyes'.

Ewatchman is great on prophecies - he demolishes 1914 and the WT's other erroneous interpretations of prophecy. And he relates his interpretations to real life history and current events - most intriguing and plausible. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating - ie if the precursors to armagedon happen as he says, then we'll be justified in sitting up and taking more notice.

Where he falls down in my view is his unreasonable insistence that JWs are "Jehovah's organisation" despite so much evidence to the contrary. It is possible to take the concept of armageddon seriously without believing that God presently has a chosen organisation. Some ewatchman fans will try to stay in the org, but I tried this and found it too stressful - I found it stressful trying to stay quiet about things, having had my mind opened I wanted to study everythingelse besides the WT, and my social life was a nothing anyway because I was labelled as 'weak'.

Overall I think the net affect of ewatchman will be a loss of JWs out of the org. Which is good.

trumangirl

49

Let's Dare The Ahole JW Lurkers

by Valis in

hey watchtoer dubbies!

i dare you to disfellowship me at the meeting!

my parents are david & patricia bush.

trumangirl

Oh and Valis, is that really your nipple? It kinda grosses me.

trumangirl.