if your very serious about a girl and youve been going out for over a year, but she is waiting on you to get baptized before marriage.
its too hard to leave.
but there are questions i have that i dont even think there are answers too.
Let's start with the questions. Give us some of them.
About the relationship, if she truly loves you, then there shouldn't be CONDITIONS on your beliefs. Youre relationship with God is your private business. Your beliefs (as long as they don't harm anyone else) should be yours and yours alone. You need someone that is going to love your UNconditionally.
ive been studying a while and my gf is a baptized jw.
she wants me to get baptized.
but ive got many questions that ive never got satisfactory answers for.
It's very difficult when a relationship is involved, but you have to realize that they want you to get baptized and that they view it as a LIFETIME commitment. At any point after you are baptized and question the organization or anything else, you could becomes disfellowshipped for apostacy.
Be sure you understand fully the implications before you ever get baptized. You might love your girlfriend, but this religion causes so much harm and damage to families if you ever decide it's not what you want to do.
Keep reading, keep posting, keep asking questions!!! QUESTIONS are the best thing you can do!
anybody's jw parents ever use that "don't spare the rod" song and dance as an excuse to beat the living shit out of you?
my parents used to relish in the whole physical punishment thing.
i guess the question i'm trying to get at is, do you think wts promotes and encourages physical violence in the home?
There was a thread not too long ago about the children in the back of the KH always getting spanked because they couldn't sit still. I am not sure if the scripture was used to promote so much discipline, or just to always condone it, but I do know that if any children were misbehaving the comments from the people in the Hall were always "That kid needs a good spanking!" or "if that was my kid I'd have my husband take the belt to him" etc.
It was used too much to condone child abuse that is for sure. When I complained to the elders about my mother's abuse I was told that it wasn't their business... but of course everything else is.
well, it had to happen.
my first opportunity to show my new colours.
had a phone call today from the elder who takes our bookstudy.
I always find the best way to shut anyone up is to say "no thank you" and end it. There is NO need for you to give any explanation, excuse, or anything else. Just simply state over and over "no thank you" if you say you're busy, they will say "when is a good time" if you say you're going on vacation "they will say when are you coming back" etc....
Just simply say no. They can't do anything else then.
Good luck. I hope it's just the once a year call.
jw doctrine teaches that jesus was not god.i do not know if is doctrime , but i also get the idea that jws believe the bible to be completely and literally correct.. luke 18:19 : jesus asks a ruler "why do you call me good?
nobody is good , except one , god".. how , then , do jws explain john 20:28 , where thomas says "my lord and my god!".
if jesus was not god , he would certainly rebuke a disciple for blasphemy.so , why did he not set thomas straight ?
They say that he didn't call him God directly, he called him "a God" or "my God" more as use of a title, than calling him the Almighty God.
They said something like he was giving him respect and praise but did not say he was the BIG god, merely a smaller god.
Some stupid explanation.
When I was probably 10 years old there was a sister in our hall that rode her bicycle everywhere, didn't drive, was a vegetarian, very hippy-type clothes, and was a regular pioneer. All of the sudden overnight she was disfellowshipped and it was rumored to be because of "apostacy" although at the time I couldn't figure out what that was.
She wrote a letter and mailed it to everyone in the KH and all I can remember is that the elders called around the day everyone would receive it and said not to open it, but she denounced them.
That next Thursday night she showed up at the KH during the meeting and yelled all kinds of things at the elders during the meeting. 4 brothers immediately got up and physically dragged her out and then trespassed her. I will never forget it, but now as an adult I think she must really have felt like she was wronged by them to go to such lenghts. I always thought she was nice.
i was reading in the news about some churches don't have enough space to hold the members, as they are growing so fast here.
one reason i noticed was this:.
kara ruffin, along with husband mark and their two young children, will begin worshiping at the lawndale drive location sunday.
I met a really good friend who was very involved in her Catholic church. Every weekend they did social things with the teenagers. They even had a sleepover INSIDE the church, all the church ladies brought food and the kids watched movies and they had a blast. I thought it was so odd, but church is supposed to be a place for the community to not only worship God but also to rejoice. It made sense after I thought about it.
I don't attend church, don't really feel the need to, but living through Hurricane season I saw a lot of churches in our area become headquarters for relief, FEMA, Red Cross, etc could park their trucks in their parking lots for free... they had free hot meals for months to anyone who walked up. It was pretty amazing. The boy scouts did lots of clean up every weekend. It really touched me.
The JWs preach against religions, but the churches actually witnessed a lot during the hurricane disasters just by their actions.
i just recieved this note from one of our faithful and discreet slaves... keep an eye out for the march 2005 km.
word is that the awake will only be published once a month starting in january 2006.. sincerely,.
district overbeer.
Where is the blessing? The figure of publishers was raised to a higher number by integrating the 15 minutes regulation 2 years ago, where the old people wer re-established as publishers.
I didn't realize that, or didn't think about it. So you only have to turn in 15 mins of field service time to be counted? That is insane.... so the numbers show an increase when it's just the attenders who didn't ever go door-to-door. Makes perfect sense to me.
for arguments sake lets assume that the wts teachings that the bibles prohibition against blood is valid with regard to accepting a transfusion.
jws are now being told that while they cannot accept whole blood or whole blood components such as red blood cells, white blood cells and blood plasma, they can if their conscience permits accept blood fractions.
i have thought quite a bit about how and why the accepting of some blood fractions and not others is supposedly a conscience matter.
couldn't understand how the WTS could allow them.
That is the point actually... they want to follow RULES, they want to be told if they are ALLOWED or not allowed to do things. The best thing in parenting that you can learn is CONSISTENCY. You can't change the rules or it causes problems.
I think that is what is going to happen. A lot of these old timers JWs are going to get confused with the rule changes, how 20 years ago they weren't allowed and now all of the sudden they are allowed. I did mention it in an email to my mother 2 weeks ago and she hasn't responded at all, which tells me that she isn't happy about it either. She is very dogmatic about the blood issue, and I was a blood issue baby at birth.
This maneuver might cause more damage, it might take a long time for the ripple effect, but it's definitely going to plant some seeds of doubt.
they'll be lucky to see me at all at the farguing book study meeting!!!
damn it, if they don't have anything new to study, why not move some of the other meetings' material to this hour thus making shorter those other meetings???!!!
of course not, for this move would be too simple yet smart and full of common sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
You know traditional book clubs meet and pick apart books and spend hours on one book... NOT YEARS... I mean seriously, how DEEP is the book that you need to study it every single week and go over it again and again and again?
If you're too stupid to get the point the first time, then you need to give up. It's clearly the repetition tactic.
