Posts by donny

12

TRUTH: Here today and gone tomorrow

by Terry in

the man who invented the religion known as "jehovah's witnesses," was joseph franklin rutherford.. he is the same man who spread the message, "religion is a snare and a racket.".

that's right, religion was the poison that caused the rot in the world.. were jehovah's witnesses a "religion?

" hell no!.

Terrys New Book

by SAHS in

jw
friends

i just finished reading terry walstroms new book i wept by the rivers of babylon, and i just had to say that i thoroughly enjoyed it!

i just purchased the kindle version from amazon about a week ago and found it quite hard to put it down.

(heres the direct link: http://www.amazon.com/wept-rivers-babylon-prisoner-conscience/dp/1492902063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=utf8&qid=1394547792&sr=1-1&keywords=i%20wept%20by%20the%20rivers%20of%20babylon&tag=vglnk-c1113-20.).

donny

It is a great book about one's harrowing journey through the Watchtower.

25

What happened to the "Witness" part of Jehovah's Witnesses?

by donny in

i just got back from my afternoon walk/run and about a block from home i saw two sets of jw's going door to door handing out invites to the memorial.. the first pair walked past me and only said "good afternoon" as they passed.. about two minutes later the second pair approached me and handed me an invite to 2014 memorial on april 14. i asked them why they chose the jw's as their church of choice and was told "we'd like to chat more but we have a set number of invites we have to get out before the memorial.

if you contact the kingdom hall listed here, they will tell you more... on how god's kingdom will rid the world of satan and the evil associated with him.".

i replied "you can't talk now?".

donny

I just got back from my afternoon walk/run and about a block from home I saw two sets of JW's going door to door handing out invites to the memorial.

The first pair walked past me and only said "Good afternoon" as they passed.

About two minutes later the second pair approached me and handed me an invite to 2014 memorial on April 14. I asked them why they chose the JW's as their church of choice and was told "We'd like to chat more but we have a set number of invites we have to get out before the memorial. If you contact the Kingdom Hall listed here, they will tell you more ... on how God's Kingdom will rid the world of Satan and the evil associated with him."

I replied "You can't talk now?"

"No sir," came the answer. "We are quite busy at the moment but check out that contact info and your questions will get answered, I promise."

As he left I took a look at the invite and it is just a 4" x 5" piece of white paper with no pictures. The text reads:

Memorial of Jesus’ Death

You are warmly invited to meet with us to observe the anniversary of Jesus’ death. Find a meeting location near you.

You Are Invited

On the night before he died, Jesus instructed his disciples to commemorate the sacrifice that he was about to make. He told them: “Keep doing this in remembrance of me.”—Luke 22:19.

In 2014, the anniversary of Jesus’ death falls on Monday, April 14, after sundown. Jehovah’s Witnesses invite you, your family, and your friends to come on that date to listen to a brief talk explaining why Jesus’ death is so important.

This free event will take place at:

1484 Constitution Blvd,
Salinas, CA 93905
(831) 442-1400

What happened to Witnessing by the Witnesses? And I know they are tight on money, but this invite was obviously printed by a publisher on his home PC.

26

Seeds of Doubt.

by donny in

seeds of doubt.

what was it about the jw religion that first gave you serious doubts as to its truthiness?.

for me it occurred in late 1984 when we were studying the brochure the divine name that will endure forever which had been released at the summer convention that year.

donny

Great replys everybody! Many of your points/issues you listed so far were other notches taken out of the Watchtower tree that finally led to its toppling for me.

26

Seeds of Doubt.

by donny in

seeds of doubt.

what was it about the jw religion that first gave you serious doubts as to its truthiness?.

for me it occurred in late 1984 when we were studying the brochure the divine name that will endure forever which had been released at the summer convention that year.

donny

Seeds of Doubt

What was it about the JW religion that first gave you serious doubts as to its “truthiness?”

For me it occurred in late 1984 when we were studying the brochure “The Divine Name That Will Endure Forever” which had been released at the summer convention that year. I had been baptized a year earlier and was still in the “unshakeable faith in the leaders” phase.

One of the sections talked about the pronunciation of the name and how some complain that it should be “Yahweh”. That issue never did bother me. I always chuckled when someone would argue that there was no “J” in Hebrew and a few minutes later would refer to “Jesus.”

However what did begin to bother me was the introduction of “Jehovah” in the New Testament. The brochure stated truthfully that there were no known existing manuscripts from the very early church era that contained the name. They all used “Kyrios” which was rendered “Lord” in English.

The Society insisted that the name was there, however the scribes of the early church allowed the Jewish superstition of avoiding saying the name cloud their thinking and eventually all references to Jehovah were removed from the New Testament.

This did not sit well with me. How could the most high being, who seemed to place a lot of importance on us knowing his name, allow mere man to erase his personal identity from all early church documents. That just did not make sense.

Then I began to look at the translations of the New Testament in Hebrew that were cited in the appendix of the New World Translation. Perhaps there was some hope to be found there

So I went to the library a few weeks later and did some of my own research. I looked up a couple of these Hebrew translations and discovered that these had done just what the translators of the New World Translation had done. They had taken the manuscripts containing “Lord” and rendered it as YHWH.

However, unlike the NWT, the Hebrew versions were more consistent in their rendering of “Lord.” They used it in passages like Philippians 2:11 so if you translated it back into English it would read “and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is YHWH, to the glory of God the Father. “

When I asked an elder about this he stated that “Those Hebrew versions were correct in ‘restoring’ Jehovah’s name to the Greek scriptures however they let the prevailing Trinitarian mindsets of the day to cloud their good judgment.”

This issue caused the first crack in my spiritual armor. I tried to put it to the back of my mind but it would always pop back in from time to time. As the years progressed I began to discover other types of waffling and questionable methods of reasoning as well as outright misrepresenting of others when using their writings for quotes.

What caused the first cracks in your armor?

37

What's the greatest movie no-one's ever heard of?

by rory-ks in

you know, that film you really love, but when you mention it everyone's, like, "eh?".

i'll get the ball rolling.

for me: ulee's gold..

donny

"My Week in Atheism" by John Cristy and David Smalley.

26

Sing Dirges to Jehovah?

by donny in

back in 1985 my then-wife and i were having a lunchtime "gathering" at our place to show some support to the ones in our congregation who were full-time pioneers.

i had just recently received the vinyl collection of the songs featured in the song book "sing praises to jehovah" which had been released the previous year.. .

many of these melodies sounded depressing to me although i would have never admitted it at the time.

donny

LOL noolite I also remember the song "Keep Your Eyes On The Prize". I recall a funny incident related to that song back around 1986 involving two young JW's. One member had reported that he had been out in Field Service with his partner and close friend when the friend put in a cassette in the car stereo and it began to play.

This close friend of his had recorded a parody of this song. He said he did not recall all of the verse lyrics verbatim but it was a story about a good looking woman that worked at a restuarant that they often visited while in service. The chorus of the song contained the line "Keep your Eyes on her Thighs."

The songs creator was reproved and left the organization a year later.

12

You know you have been out long when............

by donny in

you know you have been out of the organization for some time when no members of the present governing body were "ruling" during your sojurn.

i have tried to keep up with who is a member and learn a bit about each one.. of the current crop, i find anthony morris iii to be the most grating and irritating to listen to.

who do you find the most annoying?

donny

So who is the longest serving on the current body?

12

You know you have been out long when............

by donny in

you know you have been out of the organization for some time when no members of the present governing body were "ruling" during your sojurn.

i have tried to keep up with who is a member and learn a bit about each one.. of the current crop, i find anthony morris iii to be the most grating and irritating to listen to.

who do you find the most annoying?

donny

You know you have been out of the organization for some time when no members of the present governing body were "ruling" during your sojurn. I have tried to keep up with who is a member and learn a bit about each one.

Of the current crop, I find Anthony Morris III to be the most grating and irritating to listen to. Who do you find the most annoying?

12

Suggestion for title of final Final Talk from GB

by sparrowdown in

ok, so it's right before the big a.. gb are just about to depart heavenward but not before leaving us something to remember them by.. so after several rounds of rock, paper, scissors one of them goes up to the podium, adjusts his tie, clears his throat and says....... .

"so long, and thanks for all the fish".

now anyone familiar with hitch hikers guide to the galaxy would know that was.

donny

Dammit folks, it appears the Hindu's were the true religion after all. Well you can't win them all!