Belgian waffles
Fresh sliced strawberries
Maple syrup
and a dollop of whipped cream
made by my husband
Posts by blondie
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34What’s Your Favorite Breakfast??
by minimus into me, breakfast can be served at any time of the day.
a local bar in my area serves breakfast all day long.
for 5 bucks you get 2 eggs any way you like, bacon sausage or ham with home fries and toast!!
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17
clinking of glasses
by sosad1 inhello all - long ago i posted under sosad..... cant get back under that name so hello again.
i though i remember in hte last couple of years that there was a change in the strict practice of not clinking glasses and toasting,,, that it was more of a conscience decision.. was i dreaming this?
any help towards printed information on this subject is very much appreciated..
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blondie
jws are always straining out the gnat and gulping down the camel.
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150
Cause of Mass Shootings Mental Health?
by blondie ini have been sad to see so many groups and individuals say that the cause of these events are the mental status of the shooters.
i have looked over the backgrounds of these shooters, and few had medically identified mental health issues.
it is too easy to think that people shoot or kill other people because they are mentally ill.. actually, many or most people with real mental illnesses are most likely to be the victims of others.. i have been a volunteer with the organization called nami (national alliance of mental lillness) for 25 years now.
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blondie
I have been sad to see so many groups and individuals say that the cause of these events are the mental status of the shooters. I have looked over the backgrounds of these shooters, and few had medically identified mental health issues. It is too easy to think that people shoot or kill other people because they are mentally ill.
Actually, many or most people with real mental illnesses are most likely to be the victims of others.
I have been a volunteer with the organization called NAMI (National Alliance of Mental lIllness) for 25 years now. They have some good information on this.
NAMI Statement On Mass Shootings In Texas And Ohio
NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is deeply saddened by the tragic events that occurred over the weekend in Texas and Ohio. These mass shootings are far too common and impact every corner of our nation. Every time we experience a tragedy like this, people with mental illness are drawn into the conversation. The truth is that the vast majority of violence is not perpetrated by people with mental illness. Statements to the contrary only serve to perpetuate stigma and distract from the real issues.
NAMI sees gun violence as a national public health crisis that impacts everyone.
“In the U.S., it is easier to get a gun than it is to get mental health care,” states Angela Kimball, acting CEO. “We need to flip the script. It should be easy—not hard—for people to get the mental health care they need.”Mental health conditions are common around the globe, yet no other country comes close to the number of mass shootings our country experiences. As a nation, we need to address this disturbing fact. We implore and advocate for commonsense approaches to ending gun violence. For example, we support gun violence prevention restraining orders or “Red Flag” laws that don’t target people with mental health conditions, but that allow for the removal of guns from any person who poses a real, evidence-based risk of violence to themselves or others.
At the same time, we cannot forget that mass shootings result in profound trauma that increases the need for mental health care. One in five American adults experience a mental illness, but only 43% of them accessed care in the last year. There is a severe shortage of mental health professionals - more than 60 percent of all counties in the United States do not even have a single psychiatrist. People with mental health needs, including survivors, their friends and families, and first responders, are experiencing long waits for care, if they can get it at all. It’s time for Congress and the Administration to act and make access to mental health care a national priority for everyone.
We all want an end to these horrific acts of violence. To achieve this, we need to find meaningful solutions to protect our communities from senseless violence and lasting trauma. We owe it to future generations to end this cycle for everyone, because the status quo is literally killing us. -
19
Head Coverings for Women
by Diogenesister inwatchtower's ignorance around the historical background to many biblical directives has had a very negative effect on the lives of witnesses.. for instance paul said women should cover their heads because in corinth prostitutes walked the streets plying for business with their heads uncovered.
hence head coverings were never a symbol of headship but a directive very specific to that period, as was the blood directive!!.
watchtower leaders have been lawyers, businessmen, civil servants and door-to-door book salesmen, never, ever historians or biblical scholars.
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blondie
I would wear a head covering in areas that require it by law, to be respectful.
As far as I know there is no law requiring it in the USA (some people here actually want laws preventing women from wearing traditional headcovering) and no law or rule that was enforced in the WTS. During the time the WTS began, it was custom for women to wear head covering at church. Not so much now, apparently.
The WTS has actually a "talmud" of explanations for the elders regarding when a jw woman should or should not wear a headcovering. A female jw family member for many years, could not understand why sisters weren't required to wear head coverings when giving talks in the ministry school or commenting at the meetings, since they were teaching from the platform and in the congregation
(She was not very submissive, which I liked about her)
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69
Don't count on witnessing Watchtower's demise anytime soon.
by Roger Kirkpatrick inthe fact that there are pomi ex-jws who have been disfellowshiped or inactive for years who still live in constant fear of armageddon indicates that watchtower will manage to exist in one way or another for years, if not decades, to come.
watchtower, like all other religious cults, operate on the premise that "you can fool some of the people all of the time...and that's enough!
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blondie
I would say that if a known df'd person turned in a time report, I would expect the elders not to add that to the monthly total.
But I knew an inactive jw (for 3 years) not attending meetings, turned in 3 years worth of time reports, and that congregation's elders added it to their report to the head jws in NY. But he did not attend the meetings then or ever and never turned in a time report after that. He was his little test of their honesty.
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16
Two Bible Beliefs of Jehovah`s Witnesses ,Do They Align with each other ?
by smiddy3 in1.the first is 2 cor.4:4 that satan is "the god of this system of things" to blind the minds of the unbelievers etc.. so logically this "system of things" would mean the governments ,politicians, armed forces and law enforcement agency`s such as the police would it not?
so satan is in control of all of these under the banner of being the god of this system of things.?.
2. rom.13: 1-7 " let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities for their is no authority except by god".
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blondie
From 1879 to 1929 the WTS taught that the superior authorities were the secular governments
From 1929 to 1962 the WTS taught that the superior authorities were Jehovah and Jesus
From 1962 to the present the WTS has taught that the superior authorities are the secular governments.
How did they handle that 360 degree change?
I remember when this came in the WT, my jw family spent the whole day together discussing this and that it disturbed them that so many people died between 1929 and 1962, thinking that Jehovah and Jesus were the superior authorities.
By saying that today it is "relative" subjection.
The WTS always has a work or dance around for such changes. The WTS says while they were wrong between 1929 to 1962, it protected the WTS and its members from giving into nationalism.
re 1928 change
ut in Pastor Niemoeller’s confession reported above he mentioned the Bibelforscher or Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany and the Christian course of action they took even under stress of dictatorship and World War II. Up till 1928 they, too, had held to the ecclesiastical interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 concerning the “higher powers”. But that year this scripture was taken under re-examination, especially in view of the fact that the “times of the Gentiles” had ended A.D. 1914 and God’s kingdom by Christ had then been established in the heavens to bring in a new world with eternal blessings for obedient men of good will. The conclusions arrived at were published in the June 1 and 15, 1929, issues of The Watchtower in the article, in two parts, entitled “The Higher Powers”. Holding to these conclusions ever since has cost many of Jehovah’s witnesses their personal liberty and even their lives. But persecution, imprisonment, exile, and violent death were also the price which Jesus’ faithful apostles paid for paying back to God God’s things and to Caesar only Caesar’s things and for rendering proper subjection to the true “higher powers”. But such sufferings are not to be compared with the everlasting reward they have received. So, because of the pertinence of the subject, now that totalitarian ideas and practices and the idolatry of the political state and its emblems are spreading, we here take up a discussion of the crucial text, Romans 13:1-7.
1929
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1950841
But rather than being instructions by the apostle to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, Romans 13:1-7 has since 1929 been taken by Jehovah’s witnesses to be instructions on rendering to God what belongs to God. Why? Because the expression “the higher powers” is now understood to mean primarily the Most High God and his reigning Son Jesus Christ. Surely there are no powers or authorities higher than these. As rendered by the recently issued New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures Romans 13:1 reads: “Let every soul be in subjection to the superior authorities, for there is no authority except by God; the existing authorities stand placed in their relative positions by God.”
It cannot be said of the other political powers and authorities of this world that they were types of Christ as God’s Chief Servant and that therefore God gave such political powers their authority. Certainly Caesar’s government in killing the Son of God and thereafter persecuting his faithful followers was not a type of Christ’s government authorized by God.
The political powers of this world are, therefore, not the “superior authorities” to whom Christian souls are to be subject in every demand they make. Every law and statute that is in harmony with righteousness the true Christians will obey in an exemplary fashion. But any law and demand made in conflict with the superior laws and commandments of God they will not obey, for that would mean to render to “Caesar” what belongs to God.
1962
How does the WTS dig themselves out of this hole? By putting "relative" in front of subjection, and not saying directly, the "superior authorities" were never Jehovah and Jesus, but were the secular authorites, but only in relative way. So just a so-called "clarification."
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1962761#h=9:442-18:747
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1962842#h=46
By God’s permission during his time allowance for it we have had the so-called Higher Powers or “superior authorities” in political control of the earth till today. These have been established by God’s permission according to his arrangement of man’s affairs.
When God displaces the present Higher Powers with his own kingdom over mankind, God will directly appoint and put in office the Ruling Authorities of his righteous new world.
Then, right afterward, Paul passes on to his discussion of the “superior authorities,” and thus has his sights focused on, not what is inside the congregation, but what is outside it. So the “superior authorities” have their setting logically in the world outside the congregation.* Certainly we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are authorities outside the Christian congregation.
Here on earth there are many limited areas of subjection that Christians must observe according to God’s written Word. Even Jesus as a boy in Nazareth “continued subject” to his earthly caretakers, Joseph and Mary. (Luke 2:51, 52; Gal. 4:1-5) So the subjection of children to Christian parents is commanded, in 1 Timothy 3:4; Ephesians 6:1-4; younger Christians are to be in subjection to older ones (1 Pet. 5:5); slaves or servants to owners or masters (Titus 2:9; 1 Pet. 2:18; Eph. 6:5-8); wives to husbands (Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5;1 Pet. 3:1, 5; Eph. 5:22-24); women to the brothers in the congregation (1 Cor. 14:33, 34); and congregation members to brothers who faithfully minister to them. (1 Cor. 16:16) All these are cases of relative subjection, having limitations; for, above all, we must do as James 4:7 tells Christians: “Subject yourselves, therefore, to God; but oppose the Devil, and he will flee from you.”
15. Accordingly, what kind of subjection is that which must be rendered to “superior authorities,” and why?
15 In the same way the subjection that Christians must render to the “superior authorities” of this old world is merely relative, for it does not leave God and conscience out of consideration. For instance, the apostle Paul says that one reason why every soul ought to be subject is that “there is no authority except by God.”
when Christians subject themselves to Gentile “superior authorities” with their different systems of government and law, they conform themselves to those laws that show the work of conscience according to what God originally wrote in man’s heart. Since the Christians’ subjection to worldly “superior authorities” is only relative, it does not obligate them to obey any worldly laws that go contrary to the laws of the Supreme Lawgiver, Jehovah God.
Since the Christians’ subjection to worldly “superior authorities” is only relative, it does not obligate them to obey any worldly laws that go contrary to the laws of the Supreme Lawgiver, Jehovah God. Even during the Gentile Times the prophet Daniel refused to obey the Medo-Persian law that forbade him to pray regularly each day to Jehovah. The miraculous deliverance of Daniel from the lions’ den proved that he had done right in not subjecting himself to King Darius to the point of breaking God’s law.—Dan. 6:1-23.
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44
Money! How much did you "Contribute" To The WTB@TS When You Were A Member
by The Bethelite ini was in full time service for six years including bethel.
once i got out of bethel, i figured i had already given them six of the best years of my life (ages 18-24) working as a slave/drone in their factory, so i rationalized that i had given them enough... so over the next 27 years i would say maybe $200 bucks is it.
i think their whole "voluntary contributions" idea is biting them in the ass, because over all jehovah's witnesses are a cheap group people with a few exceptions.
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blondie
I filled up my library that way too. The WTS did put out a caution that too many jws were buying large ticket items but the congregation donations did not match the order....
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27
Who Was/Is The Most Beautiful First Lady In USA?
by minimus injackie kennedy was considered the most beautiful for years.
melania trump is obviously an ex model.
michelle obama has been touted as a true beauty.
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45
Whatever is bound on EARTH is already Loosed in Heaven
by Alex Williams inwhen a person is guilty and worthy of punishment, the judgment ‘will already have been bound in heaven jesus said and if they are loosed or innocent it will already have been “loosed in heaven..in such judicial deliberations, jesus says, “where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there i am in their midst.” .
psalm 127:3.. children are a sacred trust, “an inheritance from jehovah.
jws abhor child abuse and view it as a crime.its recognized that the authorities are responsible for addressing such crimes.jws do not shield any perpetrator of child abuse from the authorities as has been alleged.
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blondie
Just a side point, not related to this directly
In my family this scripture sounded like a heavenly solution to constipation
The WTS misinterprets this scripture for its own benefit
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44
Money! How much did you "Contribute" To The WTB@TS When You Were A Member
by The Bethelite ini was in full time service for six years including bethel.
once i got out of bethel, i figured i had already given them six of the best years of my life (ages 18-24) working as a slave/drone in their factory, so i rationalized that i had given them enough... so over the next 27 years i would say maybe $200 bucks is it.
i think their whole "voluntary contributions" idea is biting them in the ass, because over all jehovah's witnesses are a cheap group people with a few exceptions.
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blondie
I had family members who did accounts and donated to keep the lights on, knew where the money was going though.