so i'm still stuck on the jw email spam train, and my mom sends me this powerpoint with a horrible, horrible presentation with job 38 set to a bunch of pictures of the universe and whatnot.
you know the passage, it's all "where were you when i created the earth, you insignificant gnat".
and the point, i guess, is to show that god is all powerful and awesome.
The ending of Job as its now found in the Bible is horrible. Whats the morality lesson there? Might makes Right?
Afterall, what I basically get from God's answer is that we (insignificant worms that we are) have no right to question how he interacts with humanity. That we shouldn't try to call him out on our ideas of whats just because he's above all and isn't held accountable to anyone.
The best thing about being God is never having to say "I'm sorry".
yes we saved and loaned and skrimped to build our own hall as we share with 6 other congs amd our area keeps growing bigger.
we even picked out the land....nice, perfect for a hall.
we had 147,000 so....then the advice comes from "above" that bethel advised us not to build since the bookstudy is cancelled our hall can take one more cong????
Finally Free,
Was the project you're talking about the A.H. at Norval? When I was part of some Italian congregations, thats where we went. They have nice lamp posts outside as well for that $ 3M.
I can tell you quite a few Italian jws were ticked that instead of making any changes there, many of their congregations shortly thereafter got dissolved. They were spread out to different English congregations of which many of them have to travel to the much further location in London Ontario. Horrible driving in winter time.
after having been raised in the jehovah's witnesses for 44 years ( getting out 6 years ago ) i have now come to peace with my view of what i personally feel about the existence of god , or no god, or whatever is flying around up there in outer space.
i am basically agnostic for sure / perhaps leaning atheist and i've come to that decision based on the years and years of unfulfilled false promises of being in a mind control cult ( jehovah's witnesses ) claiming to represent an alleged " god " or " jehovah " saying there would be a paradise, and armageddon to destroy 99% of the earths population.
also- i enjoy helping others without thought of being rewarded for it.
Rationally, I'm agnostic, because there isn't any sure way of knowing God does or doesn't exist. Heck, we can't even be absolutely sure about our knowledge of the material.
Practically speaking, I'm atheisitc in that all the gods and stories about them are undeniably fashioned by ourselves. If you take the time to study the history of beliefs, say, you can even find a few examples of how some of these gods formed/changed over ttime. IOW, human conception.
Morally, I'd like to say I'm liberal (NOT fundie) Christian. I find portrayals of that kind of Jesus and his treatment of others appealing in that they're heavily humanistic. But since that take really doesn't require any aspect of the supernatural, and since most Christians also stress the Trinity or the Ransom which I simply don't buy, I'd probably have to say I'm more accurately a Christian sympathiser.
just heard this interview.
by this self-help rabbi guru.
that he spent a period of .
Well, the JWs would appear to be helpful to him in employing various techniques to change his behaviou for the better. But we who were/are in it know bettter. I'd fear it would only further his burn out and who knows what negative feelings about himself.
Some people with issues like (insert whatever mental or emotional ones you wish to attribute to MJ) would benefit from some form of active mind regulating. Trouble is its got to be for the good of the individual and not the Borg.
I think MJ should have retired, sell off as much as he could to remove debt but maintain decent trust funds for his children. Then practice yoga somewhere far far away from the spectacle. I'd think that would have been relatively healing to him. I'm not going to touch his possible deviant leanings except to say that meditating could hopefully reinforce different patterns of thought and hopefully suppress others.
i have read a few threads that speak of lurking spies for the jw that watch this website.
is this true?
i really don't have a problem with that, but to me it appears entirely sacreligious from what they preach.
I kinda liked how Renaia replied. Just cuz that sort of stuff is close to my heart. Not that I believe any of it. Conspiracy theories are my secret pleasure.
I highly doubt that there's any sanctioned project by Bethel or COs to hunt for dissidents. But I know for a fact that individual elders have taken it upon themselves to scan through this site and are monitoring whats being discussed to relay it back to the CO and some of their contacts in Bethel. Basically to suck up.
Of the hundreds of elders who scan here for whatever reasons, an occasional zealot may make a connection and call someone upon it. I personally know back when this site was on the older server I had to ask that some of my posted material be removed because I disclosed a little too much about myself. I knew of an elder in the congregation I was at, that was a little overly zealous in his crusade to find dirt on a couple of publishers that were on facebook and some other sites. They weren't on JWD but the elder didn't know that.
a thowoff from ren's thread obviously.. i am firmly convinced that what is called christianity today - is actually just pauline theology.. if you removed all the portions of the nt that are attributed to paul, and actually accepted as primary the words of jesus and his direct followers - the worldwide movement would look far different doctrinally.
and as far as the fundy's go - they would be lost without the deep judgmentalism and rules oriented thinking of this writer [whomever he really was].. if ren's thread could go 15 pages and counting - why not this one?.
thoughts?.
Paul certainly had to be seen as a central foundation figure since both the pro-orthodox and the marcionite streams were claiming Paul supported their own versions of christianity. Without Paul, iyou'd have nothing akin to modern christianity with its expiatory ransom for salvation. If the jewish starter group was Essene influenced, then I'd imagine the reality of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction would have been devastating.
I'd think you'd have more offshoots of groups like the sabeans and the manicheans though. Although much more closer to the Egyptian mystery religions than Marcion's conception.
a thowoff from ren's thread obviously.. i am firmly convinced that what is called christianity today - is actually just pauline theology.. if you removed all the portions of the nt that are attributed to paul, and actually accepted as primary the words of jesus and his direct followers - the worldwide movement would look far different doctrinally.
and as far as the fundy's go - they would be lost without the deep judgmentalism and rules oriented thinking of this writer [whomever he really was].. if ren's thread could go 15 pages and counting - why not this one?.
thoughts?.
Well,
I've read one particular authors' speculation that the earliest Jesus movement was actually an offshoot of the Essenes and that they were following the teachings of their Teacher of Righteousness who had died ~ 100 BC. Paul actually began changing things within these ecclesia by claiming that he was actually in communique with the 'risen' Teacher . IOW, Paul created Jesus and thats why so early on there was only a focus on this heavenly Christ figure by Paul and nothing about the Palestinian Jesus.
New converts would be expecting Judgement Day to be soon upon them, so they'd be more interested about the "risen Christ" than on what a historical Jesus did in the past.
There seems to be reason to believe that "sayings" of Jesus circulated very early on though. Once Jerusalem was destroyed and apocalyptic expectations dimmed then the demand for Gospels also grew.
(on proofreading this, i feel that this is more preachy then i meant it.
so as a disclaimer, i hope you know that if you get that impression, that i didn't mean it that way.
having said that, this is what i feel, so if you relate to this in any way, enjoy.
AllTimeJeff
Thanks for the good place your words are coming from. I'm often on the brink of being Ahab, but also often being the weak Winston from 1984. Your post like so many I've read from other posters are really healing. We've got to hate less the "Other" and our own "Self" and learn to make the most of things in the here and now.
Renaia
We're all fallible humans here. And you're right, its not just the JWs that use cold/cool interactions as a means of social control. I don't see JWD trying to coverup anything though. Anyone who's made a mistake has it pointed out to them. Bull---- is called for what it is. There's freedom of expression. Humans are naturally going to be eloquent and sometimes just nasty.
But we ( EDIT:all | for the most part) intuitively "get" where most of us are coming from. I have to agree with Minimus. You're intentionally trying to provoke the negatives. Maybe because you need to drum up some bit of support for the idea that ex-jws are "hypocrites" too. Don't forget that last word.... too.
i had a quick look and i didn't see this posted yet.
(apologies if it has been.).
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090626/canada/canada_us_jehovahs.
What would be good, too, is for the government to provide as much free counselling for the child, afterwards. So as to help them rid themselves of any destructive (i.e. cult induced) guilt and to hopefully see that the health system had their best interests in mind.
i am not the oldest but have 3 years here!
restrangled.. how about you?.
About 5 years, this August. I was lurking for maybe a couple of months before officially joining. The posts here were vastly better than the stuff I was reading on the H20 BB. (I only lurked there).
