yes i feel the same. but i also got more interested in "apocryphal" and extracanonical literature like the early "apostolic fathers" and religious history and church history in general. what's very very interesting is to compare all that to other religions in the region. the mesa-stone for example (i believe it's the mesa stone), replace "mesa" with "david", replace "dagon" with "yhwh" and you could slip it into kings or chronicles and noone would notice. they even had the same gear for temple service...
googlemagoogle
JoinedPosts by googlemagoogle
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25
I'm more interested in the Bible now that I believe it isn't inspired (?!)
by GetBusyLiving ini downloaded a ton of 'the teaching company' lectures on the formation of christianity and the gnostics, and have been reading books on the creation of the bible for the past six months or so.
if you havent looked into this stuff already, i'm telling ya it is some really facinating stuff.
are you at all like me and have become more interested in the bible since realizing it isn't inspired??
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Have you conquered the indoctrination?
by Frog insomething i?ve wanted to ask you all for a while.
had you 100% denounced jw doctrine to yourself at the time of your leaving the org?
i know many have said that specific issues prompted them to leave i.e., wt membership in the un, silent lambs/child molestation policy, malawi political party card issues, inconsistent changes in doctrine i.e., 1975/1914 generation not passing?new light begets old light begets new light etc.
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googlemagoogle
here's the link: What do JWs believe?
compare for yourself, how much of this do you believe. if you want we can help you refute every single point or show why this is nonsense.
[edited:] WOW, my first double post! yeah. -
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Have you conquered the indoctrination?
by Frog insomething i?ve wanted to ask you all for a while.
had you 100% denounced jw doctrine to yourself at the time of your leaving the org?
i know many have said that specific issues prompted them to leave i.e., wt membership in the un, silent lambs/child molestation policy, malawi political party card issues, inconsistent changes in doctrine i.e., 1975/1914 generation not passing?new light begets old light begets new light etc.
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googlemagoogle
here's the link: What do JWs believe?
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Have you conquered the indoctrination?
by Frog insomething i?ve wanted to ask you all for a while.
had you 100% denounced jw doctrine to yourself at the time of your leaving the org?
i know many have said that specific issues prompted them to leave i.e., wt membership in the un, silent lambs/child molestation policy, malawi political party card issues, inconsistent changes in doctrine i.e., 1975/1914 generation not passing?new light begets old light begets new light etc.
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googlemagoogle
been raised and baptized a JW, have not left (yet), but i don't believe anything of their teachings (and christianity in general) anymore. some time ago (last year? or even before?) i checked the list on www.watchtower.org about what jws believe. i made a checklist of how many points i can agree with. by then i didn't believe even half of them anymore. now i disagree with all of them.
though, there are some times, really rare times, when the thought comes to mind, what if there's a god that judges this and that. but then i quickly remind myself of why there is no jehovah, and if there would be (an)other god(s), he/she/it/they can't judge me, because he/she/it/they didn't make it clear what he/she/it/they want(s). -
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Awake! April 22,2005,page 9
by badboy in.
jesus told mary magdalene`i am ascending to my god and your god'.
why didn't jesus say`i am ascending to our god'
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googlemagoogle
what's the difference? what's the big deal? does it have any impact on your life and my life? hmmm... why didn't i write "our lives"?
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Ruined marriages
by greendawn ini just wish to know does the wts have a deliberate policy of splitting married couples if one of the spouses leaves the org even if adultery is not involved?
do they at least indirectly encourage this to happen?
and if yes is this a fairly recent policy?
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googlemagoogle
they indirectly (as always) do influence jws to corrupt their marriages.
last wt-study was about marriage and one paragraph was about someone committing adultery, and his then wife explained how it all started: "he didn't pray anymore, didn't have a personal study and didn't attend meetings".
this way the directly link "not going to meetings" with "adultery". you can imagine the big problem i had with my wife after the meeting, as i "don't pray anymore, don't have a personal study (the way they say it has to be) and don't like going to meetings". thus i'm an adulterer. almost. -
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A study of Galatians
by Billygoat inseveral months ago, i asked a friend of mine from church to become my "accountability partner.
" basically, someone that meets with me once a week and we share what is going on in our lives.
the point is to share joys, unburden griefs, pray together, pray for each other, be brutally honest with each other, study the bible together, etc.
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googlemagoogle
there is no such thing as "the bible view". because we were taught the bible shows god's will step by step, it's hard to think of the bible as a compilation of different books and VERY different theologies. but that's just what the canon is.
pauline theology has the "salvation by faith" flavour, which luther extremized to "sola fide/sola grazia".
jakobine theology is a rejection of just that. while paul says abraham was NOT justified by works, jakob (james) says he WAS justified by works. the paulinistic writer(s) of "hebrews" thought, rahab was saved by faith, james says, she was saved by works.
there never was a single christian view. there were plenty. and there was a lot of accusations and fighting, a big struggle for might and power. "true" believers vs heretics and vice versa.
the JW view is nothing less biblical than the bornagainers' view. btw the term "born-again" makes me sick. implies that they are the "true" christians while the rest is "false". not much better than JW. -
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Help me out with a list of loaded language JW buzz words
by Check_Your_Premises ini am preparing a summary of methods to use to build rapport with the jw cult member.
the summary will attempt to follow the methods used in the strategic interactive approach, which is described in steven hassan's book, releasing the bonds.. one of the things a person who has a loved one in a cult has to do is understand the loaded language.
as we all know the jw have just such lexicon of buzzwords.
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googlemagoogle
the sad thing is, tha when they write "obviously", the standard JW reading it thinks it IS obvious. usually when i talk about some issue and state that i did research this pretty well, i get the answer, the brothers have a lot more time and possibilities to research those topics than you do, so they must be right. yes, very infuriating.
i always wondered about the "wait on jehovah" thing, if the light gets brigher, why do we still read the bible? if the light is brighter now than before, the bible is pure darkness, as it's been written so long ago. -
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Help me out with a list of loaded language JW buzz words
by Check_Your_Premises ini am preparing a summary of methods to use to build rapport with the jw cult member.
the summary will attempt to follow the methods used in the strategic interactive approach, which is described in steven hassan's book, releasing the bonds.. one of the things a person who has a loved one in a cult has to do is understand the loaded language.
as we all know the jw have just such lexicon of buzzwords.
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googlemagoogle
- "obviously": we don't have any arguments to back it up, but it supports our doctrines
- "apostates": people who left "the truth" and are now "spreading lies", don't listen to them, if they are on tele, switch channels.
- "true christians": JWs
- "the world": everything else (and it's all bad!)
- "waiting on jehovah": swallow your doubts and wait til brooklyn releases a watchtower with an explaination. if they don't, continue waiting. -
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some advice about meeting door to door jws
by Hepzibah inhi im new here and found this forum via a search engine - i am a practicing christian and the other day i had a knock on the door - got into an interesting conversation with two jws and as i didnt have much time invited them back - in the meantime they had posted a booklet on the trinity or there version of it and when they came back the novice had been replaced by someone who had obviously had a lot more experience at talking to christians
i didnt want to get into a bible debate - and asked them about their salvation and how they knew they were saved - but they just seemed to be reading from a different script than me - as much as i tried we ended up batting bible texts back and forth
anyway to sum up - they want to come back to do a bible study on any topic i choose
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googlemagoogle
you know, they prepared what they are going to tell you. no matter what you say, they'll keep switching back to their topic. after all, that's the topic they prepared.