Posts by laurelin

14

spirtual growth at greatist peak

by the mole in

my sister called me last night and wanted me to go to an assembly with her in san francisco..she has a part on stage...i declined but she stated that her assembly mentioned the jw growth is at its greatist peak and still climbing....i asked if she really believes that and she mentioned all the new congregations in sacramento and auburn area and said the baptisim was so full they had to extend the lunch period.....is there any info to prove her wrong?..i have not gone this year..did any body attend and get this same info?

laurelin

Growth is relative to each country. On the KM last night one of the elders was wacing lyrical about growth in other countries, while pointing out that the Western world was slowing down. He had a point as there was 41 baptised, in contrast with 14 last year. About thirty of those were foriegn.

You need to look at things on a whole to see if there's any growth.

What gets me, is that you'd think they'd be pleased with a slowing down of growth.... after all the scripture says, "cramped, narrow is the road to life and few are the ones finding it" (or words to that effect) surely the more there are, the less they fulfill this scripture.

37

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES & Book BURNING (CDs TOO!)

by Smoldering Wick in

ok, i admit it...as a jehovah's witness, i burned a book.

when i was about 10 years old, a sister gave my mother a box of books.

i had been baptized for over a year and was quite the "little witness.

laurelin

If only that were true. Ghosts, goblins, ghouls, pixies, imps, elves and demons all lose their power the moment you stop believing in them.

So what happened to us then? Demons are the only answer, unless you believe in Ghosts and life after death etc. I don't, because unless something else makes more sense to me, I shall continue to believe in the bible. I do however believe in Demons, but only because I had first hand experience of them, the bowl and the lady were only two things that happened, there were a lot of other stuff that I'd really rather forget. And it was mighty odd how they cleared off when the cross was removed. Why does an upturned Cross have such power in Black Magic? The symbol of the cross is only borrowed from other religions by Christianity, it's part of paganism long before the Church decided to use it to prepresent how Jesus was killed. (I do agree that it was more than likely that Jesus was killed on a cross shape, but certainly nothing so refined as the shape you see used today). But for me I can't deny the existance of demons.

55

WT 2003 CDROM - User agreement!

by qwerty in

just borrowed a wtcd from a friend................ i carn't believe a "non" profit organisation can do this or rather put restrictions on the the coping of the wt cdrom.

isn't there literature distributed free?

then why is make the copying of the wt library for the benefit of declaring the "truth" wrong!

laurelin

Lurk said:

how can you defend a user agreement that prevents public viewing of a CD version of information which you actually want the public to know about and which you distribute in magazine format

They are protecting themselves from someone taking the CDROM, copying portions onto the internet with certain parts changed. Or at least that's how I see it.

Look how scared they are of Apostates. I firmly believe that they believe that Apostates would take the material on the CDROM and change it for their own benefit before posting it on the net. Please don't shout at me. I'm not saying that is what anyone here would do, just that I believe this is what they are worried about. And by saying that nothing can be posted legally they are protecting themselves. I don't see how they could possible keep an eye on what was posted if they gave carte blanch to people putting the CD on the net and you'd definitly get wacko's trying to change things on there.

Again I don't have a problem with this,as once again, from their point of view, it makes sense.

I have seen (in my long trawl through search pages) some websites and pages about Witnesses that can be laughed right out of court with the absurdity of what they claim. I haven't seen it on here, but there are outright lies posted out there. One of the ones that made me laugh was someone tried to use the Live Forever Book to prove JW's don't believe in Jesus dying for mankind. It's been ages since I had to do any think work where the books were concerned but it took me five minutes to disprove their theory using the same book (after taking five hours trying to find the darn thing!). It was glaringly obvious they were fabricating.... but only if you have access to the original book.

Same would go with the CDROM unless you have the original copy.

So I believe in denying internet usage of the CDROM they are in fact using their noddles.

This is of course, completely apart from the fact that they themselves have incorrect information on their own website...

37

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES & Book BURNING (CDs TOO!)

by Smoldering Wick in

ok, i admit it...as a jehovah's witness, i burned a book.

when i was about 10 years old, a sister gave my mother a box of books.

i had been baptized for over a year and was quite the "little witness.

laurelin

Everyone laughs at the suppossed dangers of crosses and other such stuff and no one seems to believe the power of the demons. When I was a child my parents moved to a bigger house and right from when we first moved in weird stuff happened. My brother (about five) would have conversations with the lady at the top of the stairs. It was put down to imagination till my dad saw her and then other stuff happened. We were sat at tea when a bowl just up and floated out into the kitchen all by itself. Screaming habdabs all around (well us kids anyway), my parents were more clued in to things and my father who had dabbled with the supernatural in the army (and told us he'd seen some pretty horrible things) wasn't fased at all. (Well he was, but he hid it better.)

He organised a "hunt" around the house for us older kids and eventually my mother found a cross nailed to the wall behind the wallpaper. They ripped the paper away, threw out the cross and for the next twenty years we had no trouble at all.

I've never doubted people when they say they've had weird experiences with the demons because it happened to us. I don't know why they need things to get in with (maybe they don't) and why they don't always get people even though they have these things. I guess it must be all part of the bigger plan in deceiving people that they aren't real. After all where's the mystery in something that you can prove and becomes common knowledge? The moment everyone believes Satan and the demons exist is the moment they loose their biggest weapon.

Whichever way you turn the cross it's all the same, it's all dangerous.

I may not be with the Watchtower on a lot of it's teachings, but this one I do agree with. Demons are dangerous.

55

WT 2003 CDROM - User agreement!

by qwerty in

just borrowed a wtcd from a friend................ i carn't believe a "non" profit organisation can do this or rather put restrictions on the the coping of the wt cdrom.

isn't there literature distributed free?

then why is make the copying of the wt library for the benefit of declaring the "truth" wrong!

laurelin

Point 6 is nothing to do with distributing the CDROM, it's to do with getting money for distributing said CDROM.

6. May I write commercial software or utilities that employ the program or data from Watchtower Library? No. It is not proper to charge for or to receive money from writing or distributing any software that employs the Watchtower Library program, utilities, or data.

This is only good sense considering the number of people who would try and copy this disk and then sell it on EBAY.

Personally I don't have a problem with them protecting themselves this way. They'd be stupid if they didn't and I've come to the conclusion that they are far from stupid.

30

Undaunted Danny's final clicher of WT's best blaspheme

by Undaunted Danny in

just my 2 cents but if i was to post what i would consider to be the single most convincing arrogant blunder of the wt(for me in my time) it would have to be below.

: when i heard this 'proclamation' i, (and many others at my cong) were convinced that this had to finally be it.

because there just was no way the wt could possibly say no babies again and not have it be the final,real ready rapture.

laurelin

cyber-sista:

I don't believe the Org is united at all. Each CO and elder body tends to interpret things differently than the next.

You're right and that's one of the main problems I have. They are inconsistent and don't even seem to see it.

This board has certainly opened my eyes to already niggling doubts.

30

Undaunted Danny's final clicher of WT's best blaspheme

by Undaunted Danny in

just my 2 cents but if i was to post what i would consider to be the single most convincing arrogant blunder of the wt(for me in my time) it would have to be below.

: when i heard this 'proclamation' i, (and many others at my cong) were convinced that this had to finally be it.

because there just was no way the wt could possibly say no babies again and not have it be the final,real ready rapture.

laurelin

I agree about American Witnesses seeming to have been told things we weren't over here in the UK. There has been a lot of things I've read on here and thought "Well I haven't heard that over here."

I'm not saying they don't happen but just that it seems to me that the "brotherhood" isn't quite as united as they'd like us to think it was.

Having said that, I think there are a lot of things said on the platforms at District and Circuit assemblies that come direct from that particular brother's own ideas and not from the Bible and that I have a big problem with.

I'm a strong believer that if it aign't in the bible then it aign't right. I have come to the conclusion that I will continue to remain in the congregation and bring my kids up with the right morals etc, but if I read something in the Watchtower that I can't back up in the bible then I will just ignore it.

As for the Smurfs.... I loved them, had a whole collection from the local garage... was it Shell or Esso? Anyway, if I had those darned things now they'd get me a fortune on Ebay....

20

OK for JWs to vote?

by davidsf in

what's the society's latest teaching on voting?

is it a "conscience" matter or is it still forbidden?

i got into a discussion with a jw on another board and she says it may be ok to go into voting booth to avoid danger but it 3was forbidden to actually vote for a candidate.

laurelin

That Question from Readers caused a lot of controversy in our family recently. I came to conclusion that it's not a conscience matter. You don't vote. If your faith is strong enough you won't won't. They do seem to have a letout clause for the less faithfull in that if you do vote then that's between you and God and in this I believe they are correct. After all, everything we do is between us and God eventually.

Like a lot of things; it all boils down to how strong your belief in God and the scriptures is. There are a lot of "grey" areas in the society that in all truth aren't grey areas at all. Strikes me it's pretty close to ear tickling.

34

UN Ban On Religion

by laurelin in

.

does anyone here know anything about the supposed resolution that the un have about banning all religion?.

i've done a google search but can't find anything and i'd be grateful for any help on this.. thanks.

laurelin

Thanks for the information everyone. I did wonder what it all meant as it seemed rather vague at the time. (it was about four months ago now that I was told).

We were actually told at a Circuit Assembly that it wouldn't be the UN that brought the decree down anyway but that it would be individual governments that decided.
I can't see the UN having much effect on anything as a lot of you pointed out. However having said that, I think the UN is very much a puppet and if it's strings are pulled it'll go along with whatever it's told to do.

I think Iraq was a classic example of that. America waited only for appearances sake and made it quite clear that they'd go in regardless of what the Un said and Britain's responce to the Americans is always "How high would you like me to jump Mr President?" so it's not something that I would rule out entirely as not being possible. I think they're only going to take so many people's heads being chopped off before they get strong. The countries do have the power to stop what's happening, but at the moment I think they worry too much about voters reactions. Take away rights and they won't have to worry. After all the constitution is only as good as the paper it's been written on as has been seen before in history.

34

UN Ban On Religion

by laurelin in

.

does anyone here know anything about the supposed resolution that the un have about banning all religion?.

i've done a google search but can't find anything and i'd be grateful for any help on this.. thanks.

laurelin

Does anyone here know anything about the supposed resolution that the UN have about banning all Religion?

I've done a Google search but can't find anything and I'd be grateful for any help on this.

Thanks.