Posts by eljefe

55

Why do men "play" dumb?

by Netty in

jw
friends

so i am here this morning with my octopus arms, making the kids breakfast with one hand, getting them dressed with the other, doing their hair with another hand brushing their teeth with another hand, etc.

you get the picture... while my husband sits at the table reading the newspaper.

both kids are complaining of sore throat and have some sort of summer cold, so i asked hime could you please get the medicine and give them some medicine, and what does he do?

eljefe

I'm sorry I wasn't listening. What were you saying? ;)

7

blow up dolls - can you trust them?

by ballistic in

by lance whinery

burbank, ca - dale mckinney?s 14-month relationship with blow-up doll "oral amber" was on rocky ground tuesday after he came to the conclusion she was a cheating, lying whore.

after spending labor day weekend with his family, mckinney returned to his two-bedroom apartment late monday night and immediately suspected something was wrong.

eljefe

Have you ever seen the video for Crystal Method's "You Know It's Hard"? Its pretty funny and a good song. The video is about a who has a blowup doll that decides to leave.

View it here. Click on Videos then "You Know Its Hard".

7

Skeptics Annotated Bible

by eljefe in

i found this site yesterday and i thought i would share it with everyone.

you can find it here: www.skepticsannotatedbible.com.

it has everything from the bible, the quran, to the book of mormon.

eljefe

I found this site yesterday and I thought I would share it with everyone. You can find it here: www.skepticsannotatedbible.com.

It has everything from the Bible, the Quran, to the Book of Mormon. It is well researched and pretty funny.

44

Did the WTS make an atheist out of you?

by JH in

jw
friends

shouldn't a religion bring people closer to god?

it would seem that many became atheist after being deceived by the wts.

unlike other religions, the wts was very precise in what was to happen during the 20th century.

eljefe

I am holding out on the final decision. I keep thinking that I am too angry at JW's to separate God from JW's.

11

Learning not to be judgemental

by eljefe in

jw
friends

the other day i realized that i am having trouble learning not to be judgemental.

as a witnesses i was always looking at others and judging them.

now, this is the most difficult thing to quit doing.

eljefe

I find myself judging my new "worldly" friends. We go to bars and I watch their actions. I find myself judging them while they are kissing or fondling some stranger. This seems to make me tighten up.

So where does the moral dilemna arise? imho, it arises from our own ongoing lack of self-worth, with the consequent desire to please everybody possible, and receive their approval (even if only via responses to a post we make on a db); and thereby the same kind of so-called self-affirmation that we got as JWs.

I agree with you. It seems as JWs we have to become so bland to make sure that we don't offend anyone. I have been trying to express my individuality more.

11

Learning not to be judgemental

by eljefe in

jw
friends

the other day i realized that i am having trouble learning not to be judgemental.

as a witnesses i was always looking at others and judging them.

now, this is the most difficult thing to quit doing.

eljefe

The other day I realized that I am having trouble learning not to be judgemental. As a Witnesses I was always looking at others and judging them. Now, this is the most difficult thing to quit doing. Did anyone else find this to be true?

45

Banned From the Bible

by Sweetp0985 in

i may be late in seeing this special on the history channel, but did anyone else see this show.

it was about books being banned from the bible that further explains events that may or may not have happened the way it is written in the bible.

this show peaked my curiousity and i went to the library and found the book who wrote the bible?

eljefe

NWT

It does not prove someone forged Caesar's name to the document ... nor that it has been "tampered with" during the dark ages .. nor that our extant copies are corrupt ... nor that extant copies are unreliable. So, what?

Are you going to tell me that we have the complete book of Mark?

Mark 16:8 So when they came out they fled from the memorial tomb, for trembling and strong emotion were gripping them. And they told nobody anything, for they were in fear.

Even the Watchtower has admitted that we don't have the entire book of Mark. Better yet, this last verse of Mark directly opposes that of Luke or John (I can't remember which).

When would have been a good time to alter Mark? During the period several years after Jesus' death. So if we can see that Mark was either cropped or changed, what can we say about the rest of the gospels or the entire Bible for that matter?

70

In All Honesty, Are You A Happier Person Now Than when You Were A JW?

by minimus in

jw
friends

jws say, "the apostates are miserable!!

".....do you feel miserable?

(i don't).

eljefe

From Shawshank Redemption:

Reviewer: You feel you've been rehabilitated?
Red: Oh, yes sir. Absolutely, sir. Yeah, I've learned my lesson. I can honestly say that I'm a changed man. I'm no longer a danger to society. That's the God's honest truth.

BTW I am happier after I passed the angry stage. I can honestly say that I'm a changed man.

45

Banned From the Bible

by Sweetp0985 in

i may be late in seeing this special on the history channel, but did anyone else see this show.

it was about books being banned from the bible that further explains events that may or may not have happened the way it is written in the bible.

this show peaked my curiousity and i went to the library and found the book who wrote the bible?

eljefe

JC:

Thus under this theory, I can only imagine there us always present "sufficient influence" to make sure the Scriptures we know today as "The Bible" is essentially what was God's intended gift to us, mankind in general but particularly to those "anointed ones" who are custodians of God's light.

So who took care of the Bible before there were anointed Christians?

Satan, of course, would be desperate to create his own works to distract from the scriptures so one would suspect other writings, even of a pseudo-Biblical nature would show up and be promoted in later times by his followers -- so there's that too.

You sound like my Dad. Anytime something could not be explained, he blamed it on Satan instead of looking at the issue logically. ;)

Interesting, but I suppose you have to have "faith" that the essential Bible is serving God's purpose. It's an amazing work and the Dead Sea Scrolls prove it is well preserved. At last the JWs do have a lot of good research on the Bible itself supporting it as a reliable copy of the original works.

The Dead Sea Scrolls only show the preservation of the Old Testament. However, the books of the New Testament are highly suspect to me for the reasons I stated earlier in this thread. I subscribe to the theory about Jeremiah. Many scholars believe that after/during their exile in Jerusalem, Jeremiah "edited" a lot of the stories and oral tradition of the Jews and made most the Old Testament.

There is no hard evidence to back up or refute this theory. Again, you get back to the blind faith argument.

45

Banned From the Bible

by Sweetp0985 in

i may be late in seeing this special on the history channel, but did anyone else see this show.

it was about books being banned from the bible that further explains events that may or may not have happened the way it is written in the bible.

this show peaked my curiousity and i went to the library and found the book who wrote the bible?

eljefe

Another good show was Frontline's From Jesus to Christ (article):

Here is a quote from it:

About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and of the Coptic script, place them c. A.D. 350-400. But scholars sharply disagree about the dating of the original texts. Some of them can hardly be later than c. A.D. 120-150, since Irenaeus, the orthodox Bishop of Lyons, writing C. 180, declares that heretics "boast that they possess more gospels than there really are,'' and complains that in his time such writings already have won wide circulation--from Gaul through Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

Here is a quote from another site (link):

As for the New Testament, there is one second-century fragment of John's gospel known as the Rylands fragment, but it is very small and contains only a few verses. The earliest substantial manuscript support for the New Testament comes from the Chester Beatty papyri, which date to the third century. These papyri contain most, but not all, of the books of the New Testament. The first complete New Testament manuscript is the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates to the fourth century. Therefore, the oldest papyri containing most of the books of the New Testament were written at least 120 years after the originals were composed, and the oldest complete New Testament manuscript postdates the original autographs by at least 220 years.

Basically we have a complete Gnostic gospel from the third century but more probable is the early second century. We a have semi-complete third century New Testament. I have more confidence in the "apocrypha" not having been changed than our current cannon.

Anyway, if you ever get the chance to watch it, I highly recommend it.