Posts by jaffacake

97

Greatest Storm in History Coming Today

by Amazing1914 in

jw
friends

hurricane katrina is heading for new orleans, la, and will hit it by this afternoon.

it is the largest hurricane known in history.

the entire storm range covers more than 50% of the gulf of mexico.

jaffacake

Lately, saying you’re a Christian doesn’t seem to be as all encompassing as it use to be. Not in the sense of it being totally negative but more in the sense of it not being precisely exclusive to any one specific ideology except there was a guy who you call Christ involved in your belief system.

Dave, what do you mean - lately? In Mark's gospel when Jesus followers complained of others not of them who were saying and doing things in Christ's name, what was Jesus response? I believe he said something like "anyone not against us, is for us" So less of the lately please, what you describe is closer to the original :)

Saying you’re a Christian leaves the one you are saying it to open to a huge variety of possible implications.

Yes, that's cool. I believe the NT teaching against sectarianism is important.

You know what makes me sad? Believers and non believers who are so sure they are right and everyone else is wrong. Christians who believe only their style of Christianity is right. Yet I believe that very belief is the central trait of false religion.

I feel just as strongly about dogmatic non believers.

I tend to disappoint people because I won't or can't put myself into a specific Christian box. I won't ask which non believer box you belong in.

29

Anyone read Da Vinci Code?

by ESTEE in

jw
friends

has anyone read da vinci code?

love and light,.

estee

jaffacake

I've been wondering is it really fiction?

I'm afraid so, its been checked out. That's why it doesn't really claim to be anything more than a novel.

13

Is it OK for a Religion to change doctrines and beliefs as time goes by?

by JH in

jw
friends

.

i say that if they are inspired from god, they shouldn't have to modify their beliefs.

either they are inspired from god, or they aren't..

jaffacake

most religions can't stand the concept of change at all on anything .

That's not my experience...which religions are against the concept of change? None that I have been involved with.

The only time the WTS makes changes is when it has already been proved wrong or caught out. WTS is less open to change that any religion I know. The changes are not really voluntary, but about survival. Because its style is to publishes so many doctrnes and predictions (that it no doubt sincerely believes) that are PROVED false, that it has no option but to make changes. It is the only way to survive.

Rusell and Rutherford used to scoff those Christians who believed that pyramids were built as tombs for Pharoahs. Why - they could 'prove' it was designed by God as his stone witness (it even corroberated the 1914 date by the length of its passage). But when King Tut's tomb was discovered in the 1920s WTS changed its doctrine from pyramids being designed by God to being designed by Satan. Come on...you claiming credit for being willing to change unlike other religions?

14

Worldly Relatives

by sammielee24 in

jw
friends

while you were a jw how badly did you feel obliged to treat your non jw relatives?

did you not visit with them?

did you keep your kids away from them?

jaffacake

Hey, no one take this the wrong way, but I was brought up a Catholic then a SDA, before spending most of my adult life as agnostic/athiest.

Worldly was a term I too was brought up on. But I can honestly say, the JWs I know are more 'worldly' in the Biblical sense than many non-JWs. How dare they claim this word as their own and distort its meaning to mean non-JWs when the Biblical meaning would certainlt include most JWs within its scope.

29

Anyone read Da Vinci Code?

by ESTEE in

jw
friends

has anyone read da vinci code?

love and light,.

estee

jaffacake

Not yet, but I'm tempted. Trouble is, I just can't get away with reading fiction when there are so many science books on my wish list.

I tell a lie - I'm bidding for all six volumes of studies in the scriptures on e-bay, and it doesn't get more fictional than that (except perhaps current Watchtower mags).

Do you recommend DaVinci Code?

97

Greatest Storm in History Coming Today

by Amazing1914 in

jw
friends

hurricane katrina is heading for new orleans, la, and will hit it by this afternoon.

it is the largest hurricane known in history.

the entire storm range covers more than 50% of the gulf of mexico.

jaffacake

Seven006

Many wise words

I am a Christian, but the notion of 'God's will be done' is an excuse for humankind not taking responsibility for learning, researching, and most importantly - doing something about it, real practical involvement for good!

9

my brother may have seen the light

by Ellie in

jw
friends

.

my younger brother may finally after 2 years have seen jehovahs witnesses for what they really are.. the whole time he has been studying he has had no social life, they have been happy for him to go to meetings and out on field service but nobody has wanted to bother with him socially.. he has been living in the house of my older sister who is a devout witness and a bit of a cow.. anyway, a few weeks ago she asked him to leave as she didn't think he was trying hard enough to 'make the truth his own', so he moved in with a couple of his collegues who share a house.. anyway, he has just been round to my house and told us that he has had a brilliant weekend with these 2 collegues, he even went to the pub yesterday and met a girl and has been on a date with her today.. this may not seem like a big deal but it is, the difference in him was phenomenal, he seemed so much happier and its given me hope that he might finally be breaking free.

jaffacake

Congratulations! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you (oops - can I say that?)

13

Is it OK for a Religion to change doctrines and beliefs as time goes by?

by JH in

jw
friends

.

i say that if they are inspired from god, they shouldn't have to modify their beliefs.

either they are inspired from god, or they aren't..

jaffacake

I don't believe any religion is inspired by God. But I believe there is clear teaching in the Bible that we must continue to adjust our beliefs with time and clearer understanding. Otherwise we would still believe Christ would return in our lifetime, like Paul and early Millennialist Christians mistakenly believed, for a while at least.
Even Paul, as a NT author, was updating his beliefs between his earliest and latest letters. I do not believe the concept of one true religion, based on a collection of doctrines. This is wrong and wholly anti-Biblical.

It is wrong to make changes the way JWs do it though, by claiming to get information from God, or by claiming exclusive rights to understanding scripture.

6

Hurricane Katrina, Heeding Warnings: Lessons for Armageddon?

by Oroborus21 in

jw
friends

why do people not heed warnings when the evidence is clear that disaster is not only possible but highly probable?

are people so arrogant that they think that "it can't happen to them"?.

"get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

jaffacake

Over millions of years, there have been but few interludes between many ice-ages and many other conditions when out planet has been uninhabitable, or almost so. The okay time (for us) we've experienced in the past 10,000 years or so, is very unusual and unusually long lived, based on averages.

We are overdue a major climatic change, but perhaps we are helping it along this time.

Nobody really believes Armageddon to be an event such as taught by JWs & fundamentalists, do they?? If you do, I recommend a good reliable Bible commentary to see what Scriptures actually teach.

As for warnings, as pointed out by Carl Olof Johnson...it seems that many people these days (millenialists) misunderstand Jesus' words. Read Matthew 24 and the parallel chapter of Luke again. We are being misled by the very things Christ told us NOT to be misled about!

97

Greatest Storm in History Coming Today

by Amazing1914 in

jw
friends

hurricane katrina is heading for new orleans, la, and will hit it by this afternoon.

it is the largest hurricane known in history.

the entire storm range covers more than 50% of the gulf of mexico.

jaffacake

I don't understand this either. Perhaps it is just the wrong way to understand God and the Bible?

Perhaps the problem with the kind of thinking behind this thread, is that it represents a complete misunderstanding of how to understand what Scriptures really teach about the nature of God, his purpose, creation, infinity versus temporal etc.

So many Christians seem to believe in a very simplistic notion of God as some kind of super-being who is controlling things from a place somewhere above. You know, the sort of God that is directing things, deciding which prayers to answer, who to let live and die. Perhaps that's the only way our little minds can try to understand.

This seems a severly limited view of God and His purpose, and happens to be at odds with what the Bible actually teaches. Unless of course we are determined to read the Bible on only one level, that being its most superficial and literalistic. This is however what JWs and many other Christians do all the time, and why we end up with a book of rules, and these sort of questions being asked. If we are confused about the rules of the 'game', perhaps we have not even begun to understand that we are not even in a 'game' and everything we have been taught is based on wrong 'magical thinking'.

Such interpretations of Scriptures makes God out to be some kind of localised super hero, who seems only to concern himself with our little planet. I can't believe in a God who creates - as if a game, and provides cryptic clues, with a few winners and many losers. That is a typical view of many religions, and IMHO wholly false.

Are we so proud that we pretend we know what is involved with creating a universe, or what it is like to be God? Those of us who are believers, believe we know how the Eternal Word manifested on our planet 2000 years ago, but who knows how many other countless planets and manifestations of the eternal Word of God have occurred.

Hey, I'm just thinking aloud...that's what can happen when folks don't have doctrines to follow or religious leaders to tell us what to think and believe.