i am agnostic.
i will count how many agnostics, atheists and christians that are reading this forum regularly.
please answer my question.
A Believer,
Jehovah witnesses are Christians in that we follow christ.
Your organization doesn't even believe that the Ransom applied to the ordinary Jehovah's Witness ("Great Crowd"). What's more they make it overt by not partaking of the emblems which is Christianity's holiest ritual based on the idea of a ransom.
i am agnostic.
i will count how many agnostics, atheists and christians that are reading this forum regularly.
please answer my question.
You should have added in your title "Theist". There are those who believe in a god but not in the Bible.
As for me, atheist with a pantheistic leaning.
what is your understanding on the earth remain forever???
today it's a fact (99,999%) that the earth will be consumed by the sun in the future be it 3 million or 3 billion years.
a topic we have been discussing here on paradise earth in the last two or three days and i notice no believer chimed in.
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever. - Ecclesiastes 1:4 New King James Version
Off topic but...
That verse from Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite Bible verses. It is also the Bible verse that the title of the book Earth Abides is inspired by. Earth Abides is an apocalyptic fiction book that shows how nature and humans living in nature can reconquer the earth after 99.99% of humanity dies. No blood and guts like modern sci-fis, just a peaceful transition to a state of nature. It is one of my favorite books.
As for the Earth getting vaporized 5 billion years from now, it will first undergo runaway greenhouse effect by a warming sun in just 1 billion years. The sun gets warmer throughout its lifespan.
As for the contradiction between those Bible verses and science, it would be stated by an apologist of the Bible that God will prevent that fate from happening in a perfect universe.
any elder has never asked me that question so far but i want to be prepared to answer that question if any of them ask me that question in the future.
i hope that they will never ask me that question.
any suggestions on how to answer that question would be very much appreciated.
Elder: Do you believe that Jehovah is using the Organization today?
Iamallcool: On what basis do you say that the organization is Jehovah's?
Elder: Look at all our doctrines, it must be The Truth!
Iamallcool: Can't Satan use a doctrinally correct false prophet to mislead others?
Elder: ???????????
the jw org keeps its servants busier than ever these days so that their minds are occupied 24/7.
they ensure that there is no time for anything "worldly" to distract them.. in last week's watchtower article on spiritual health they are putting pressure on the congregation to learn other languages on top of everything else they do.
they allude to the fact that their spiritual health will suffer if they cannot understand the talks and publications in other languages.
i personally think the truth which the jws are missing all together is that the wts has devised and constructed a doctrinal gospel (1914) specifically to assist toward the proliferation of the literature of which this organization publishes itself.
they allure people with them then exploit these ones further in the distribution of those pieces of literature all while stamping the information as bible truths.
i see jws as well controlled robotic sales representatives for this unscrupulous religious publishing house.
Finkelstein,
...I cant help be dismayed that people today in this age of information are still believing in ancient mythology, words and activities expressed by forgiven ignorant humans, 2 to 3 thousand years ago.
“The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors."
Thomas Jefferson - Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823.
The
Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson
and Abigail and John Adams page 594. Edited by Lester J. Cappon
there are quite a few here who have been disfellowshipped for apostasy.. then there are those that have successfully faded.. why the different outcome?
are the ones that got df more out spoken?
or does the discrepancy lie with the elders?.
Darkknight757,
I asked if the GB know what they are even teaching anymore? They cannot even keep up with their own "light."
In response to the "light gets brighter" meme I say that "There is no light getting brighter but instead a bunch of light bulbs burning out and being replaced by the Governing Body.
there are quite a few here who have been disfellowshipped for apostasy.. then there are those that have successfully faded.. why the different outcome?
are the ones that got df more out spoken?
or does the discrepancy lie with the elders?.
There are quite a few here who have been disfellowshipped for apostasy.
Then there are those that have successfully faded.
Why the different outcome? Are the ones that got DF more out spoken? Or does the discrepancy lie with the elders?
It gives you more control and more dignity to fade out. I tried but because I was outspoken I got disfellowshipped anyways. As for discrepancy amongst the elders they are all the same with your experience being an exception.
I can see nothing in the elders handbook to indicate they must DF someone who is inactive or has left the org in the dust
In the 1980s, during their witch-hunts, they were coming to the houses of inactive ones and sometimes tried to make them sign a paper that stated that they were no longer attending meetings. If they signed it then the disfellowshipping announcement would be made.
They were treating inactive ones in the same manner as disfellowshipped ones.
I knew an elderly lady who was disfellowshipped for not attending the meetings.
Back in the early 90s when it was discovered I had read "Crisis of Conscience", they had a judicial meeting with me but basically told me to keep my thoughts to myself and they would leave me alone. Maybe that was on account of .my active JW wife?
You were fantastically lucky! In my judicial committee I told the elders that I was not promoting sects (they had read the scripture which mentions that). They responded by saying that I was "a sect of one".
I had a neighbor who got disfellowshipped along with her husband for reading that same book.
i think the decision to move to a more secluded place was probably started taking shape right after silentlambs march at headquarters in clear public view of their neighbors.
i mean how do you respectively live something like this down in front of all those neighbors close by?
that's why i think they are heading for the boonies because deep down they know that their public reputation will only go from bad to worse at this late date of the faithful & discreet slave of god con game.
Here's the version of those two girls' testimony without the editing:
in his book crisis of conscience, raymond franz likened the governing body to the proverbial 'iron fist in a velvet glove'.
this would seem harsh if it weren't for the fact that there is ample proof that their policies and teachings have caused much pain amongst the friends.
for example, many families have been torn apart through their shunning policy.
No. Yes.
