Nope - not me personally.
But just because I no longer have faith doesn't mean i can't respect those who do - no matter what it is.
jimakazi
JoinedPosts by jimakazi
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27
Still religeous?
by John Doe ini'm curious how many here were witnesses.
for those that were, what are your current religeous affiliations?
i'm still evolving, but currently i consider myself to be a cross between an agnostic and a deist.
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31
Is Love of God Real?
by donkey insince we cannot prove that god exists and believers claim that we need to have faith that he does indeed exist one can ask: can you truly love someone that you do not know exists?
if you went to your friends and declared your absolute love for someone and when they asked you who you loved you said: "i love jennifer with all my heart.
" and if the friends then asked to meet jennifer and you said "i have believe she exists but i have never met her, never communicated with her, never seen her..." would you your friends think you were cuckoo?
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jimakazi
Hi EvanescenceI checked your profile but no Bio. Whats your story?
Are you an Ex JW that converted to Catholicism? If so I'd be interested to know why.
My children are going to a catholic school [thjey are baptised], and my wife is catholic [born and bred so to say]. What I find interesting is she doesn't believe in a litteral hell [even though this is part of her faith]. I have attended mass with her and the kids a couple of time and find the traddition / ritual to be a nice change from what i'd experienced as a JW.
One defination of faith I looked up once was: belief without evidence. To have faith in this modern world is a rare thing, it can be defended, it can be domonstated, but by defination, it cannot be proved.
My personal belief is that if a divine being, or creator exists, and that he would is somewhat less petty than what is portrayed in the bible, certainly not a dictator, and no phycopath.
On subject of the bible I think the polite thing to say is that it's not well understood. Some of it may well be divine [round earth, hanging on nothing was an advance concept] but I think there a fair mix of human influecne - could every thought the prophets and co put to writing be inspried, or were some just bad dreams. Did they sometimes elaborate or exagerate - point is we don't know. I think people can take the bible far to literally, or put meanings to it that are open to interpretation. Given this I'm not going to attribute god with burning people - I don't understand why Jesus said what he did - but it's incompatable with my view of god. If I'm wrong I guess I will have a warm after life.
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31
Is Love of God Real?
by donkey insince we cannot prove that god exists and believers claim that we need to have faith that he does indeed exist one can ask: can you truly love someone that you do not know exists?
if you went to your friends and declared your absolute love for someone and when they asked you who you loved you said: "i love jennifer with all my heart.
" and if the friends then asked to meet jennifer and you said "i have believe she exists but i have never met her, never communicated with her, never seen her..." would you your friends think you were cuckoo?
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jimakazi
and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.
Really, seems hard for people to weep if they are in a furnace - literal?43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father
Are we to take this litterally too - souldn't like these guys are burning coz we know how the sun shines - it's on fire! or is "shining like the sun" not litteral.
Anybody, for example a human phycopath that wll delibrately burn someone - let alone a "loving" god that will cook people in hell is not fit for worship. It's akin to supporting a dictator like Saddan Hussain becasue you fear for your life. To think that people should obey God out of fear of hell because of some inconsistant passages in the bible seems unreasonable. Yes INCONSITANT as why didn't God mention hell in Genesis - slip his mind did it - not important information?
You don't like the peanut butter example - why? How is what god did any different - oh thats right his test was don't eat from the tree, and the result was death - stake a lot higher - and yet why did he alow Satan to test them.
There may be problems with what the JW's teach - BUT - this is not one of them.
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1
Jesus sacrifice
by DannyBloem inthe jw's make such a big deal about that jesus died for all mankind and that this was such a special act.... anyway, there are a lot of people on earth who gave (or would give) there live for only one person.
who on earth would not give his/her life for billions of people.
especially if you 'wake-up' after 3 days and get a lot of special favours.. just don't get it
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jimakazi
Hi DannyI'd have to agree with you. And sacrafice was only required bcause of rules that God put in place, after putting an artifical test in place for Adam & Eve, allowing Satan to trigger the "test" which they then failed.
For an allmighty being he doesn't seem to have a lot of control. He could have/should have stopped Satan in the garden of Eden. He could have /should have stopped the Angles who came down and mated with Woman - apparently against God will.
Anyway it appears God doesn't put much score on our lives. What about where God allowed Satan to torment Job, eventually wiping out his wife and children. I'm at the point where if God is as he is portrayed in the bible than he doesn't meet my imperfect human standards of ethics, love, or justice. And if we are supposed to be modelled on him, and hes supposed to be perfect then whats wrong with this picture?
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Explosions London Buses & Trains
by Crumpet ini can';t get through to any of my friends at liverpool street including my ex.
am really worried!
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jimakazi
Hi Crumpet
Glad you are OK. Our thoughts are with you and all in London at this time.
I've just been watching some of feed from Sky. What is obvious so far is just how damn civilized the Londoners are - real class.
God I hate terrorists.
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9
London explosions
by Cardinal Fang in.
just heard there's been at least two explosions in central london - one on the underground and a double decker.. don't know if any here are from round those parts or have family there - if so, hope all are ok. .
another 'sign' for the local dubs .
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jimakazi
Sounds bad - my thoughts are with everyone in London and all who have freinds and loved ones visitng there.
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31
Is Love of God Real?
by donkey insince we cannot prove that god exists and believers claim that we need to have faith that he does indeed exist one can ask: can you truly love someone that you do not know exists?
if you went to your friends and declared your absolute love for someone and when they asked you who you loved you said: "i love jennifer with all my heart.
" and if the friends then asked to meet jennifer and you said "i have believe she exists but i have never met her, never communicated with her, never seen her..." would you your friends think you were cuckoo?
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jimakazi
God hates sending people to hell,
What hell? [I didn't expect someone here to beleive in hell - you don't really do you?] God laid this command upon Adam: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will POSITIVELY DIE.” Not seeing any hell here - did I miss something [this is one the JW's got right - if you assume there is anything divine to the bible - I don't]
he does what he can to save us, but we continue to ignore him and his love and chose our own stubborn ways. Really we are the ones that send ourselves to hell by rejecting gods grace.
Really; When I give my kids a choice of peanut butter or jam, I don't add, and if you choose peanut butter I'll punish you. If I did this I'd be an unfit father. Also I wouldn't leave important instructions for my kids written so mysteriously that they couldn't understand them - or would end up fighting over what I had said - but this is effectively what the loving god has done to us humans. I'm sorry but to me god seems to be the ultimate dictator - I'm sure Sadam "loves" his people, but obey or dies doesn't cut it anymore, not for Sadam, not for god.
Actually I still beleive in a divine being - I just cannot accept that he is as petty as the bible, and most so called chrisitan religions paint him. And if he is as described than I will stand up and be counted - I do not, could not love anyone who acts like this - not a human - certainly not a "God".
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Recycling: Not for True Christains
by jeanniebeanz inso, i'm sitting here sorting out my recycling since tomorrow is trash day, and i remembered something that happened years ago that gave me a chuckle.. it was a sunday botchtower study and the topic was things that we should be doing to prepare for life in the new system.
even as a child, i didn't answer from the magazine and they never knew just what i was going to say; they would usually not let me hold the mic myself just for that reason... .
i had been learning about recycling to preserve our natural resources in school (6th grade, i was 10) and had my comment ready to go:.
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jimakazi
hi tetropod
Many trees are grown like a crop for the purpose of making paper - cut them and plant new ones. The paper mills are usually co-located with the forests to reduce the transport costs. The oveheads of recycling papaer is high, and the end products usually of a low quality. Paper is made from a re-newable resource, and glass is made from a resoruce I doubt we will ever run out of - once again it's easier and cheaper to start with new material.
There are however things that are made from products that are not renewable - these should be recycled or used with care.
Oil prices going as high as will help reduce consumption of a non renewable resource - maybe it will get people out of their 5.7 litre V8 trucks, to the point that the car manufactures will build vehicals that are less wasteful. We need oil to make many other things, burning it is such a waste.
If we as a society were so concerned about waste paper we would ban or severely limit junk mail - we don't so I assume most people really don't give a toss.
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When Jehovah's Witnesses do bad - Are criticisms of JW's valid? Part I
by rambaldi inwhen we see news reports of jehovahs witnesses who are reported to have done something bad, what do we think?
sometimes people ridicule us for that.
obey and become his special property, disobey and be rejected.
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jimakazi
What choice?
Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”
When I give my kids a choice of peanut butter or jam, I don't add, and if you choose peanut butter I'll punish you. If I did this I'd be an unfit father. What about if I told my kids that putting a fork in an electical socket will get them killed, then allowed some dickhead adult to tell them otherwise - and I know they are telling them crap, would I wait to see if they obeyed? If I loved them - I would stop the dickhead.
If Jehovah is all knowing and all seeing then he must have know what Satan was doing - but permitted it - so what kind of love does Jehovah have - seems to be defective by my lowly human standards. Lets think about it.. Adam's communicating directly with Jehovah - a spirit I assume, and another spirit come along [Satan] via a sanke and says "naaahh, you won't die". So why dod this so called loving god allow Satan to do this. Adam was totally innocent, not knowing good or bad, and hes got two spirits telling him different things... and he was supposed to know Satan was lying how...?
Anyway it's worse than that really - it was an artificial "do not" put in place purely so that Adam & Eve had the "choice to sin", and then he allowed outside influence to actaully test if they would. This is not love - this is the sort of thing a dictator like Sadam Hussain would do. But then isn't this what Jehovah is - the ultimate doctator. Obey or die!
Anyway we see a parellel of this loving behaviour when Satan and his domons are cast down to earth, once again hes' allowing outside interference. Did he have no where else to put them, Mar's, Venus, anywhere but here - I guess this helps prove his point that man is unfit to rule man.
And yet as you point out even afte the 100 year reign this loving chap is going to let Satan loose again.
Now as soon as the thousand years have been ended, Satan will be let loose out of his prison, 8 and he will go out to mislead those nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Ma´gog, to gather them together for the war. The number of these is as the sand of the sea.
Rambaldi - I was raised as a JW from age 5 till 22. I reached my own conclusion that there were things that just didn't stack up with what the witnesses taught, let along the constant changing of doctrine to the point if you today beleived what Rudderford and Russel beleived you would be disfellowshiped - yet these men are supposed to be in heaven as part of the 144,000. Or the hypocrisy of rmore recent publications which say "some mistakenly thought...." - yes because this is what was printed by the WTS. At the least the Pope said sorry for some of the things the catholics did wrong. When will the WTS admit error - and this isn't light getting brighter as in more detailed revealed stuff - this is what was taught as truth is now wrong, and in some cases has become right again.
www.jwfacts.com is a damn good place to read in your spare time - rather than defending the JW's on this site. You are wasting your time. However if you are visiting sites like this you must consider yourself above the advise of the organsiation already so maybe there hope for you yet.
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Is Love of God Real?
by donkey insince we cannot prove that god exists and believers claim that we need to have faith that he does indeed exist one can ask: can you truly love someone that you do not know exists?
if you went to your friends and declared your absolute love for someone and when they asked you who you loved you said: "i love jennifer with all my heart.
" and if the friends then asked to meet jennifer and you said "i have believe she exists but i have never met her, never communicated with her, never seen her..." would you your friends think you were cuckoo?
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jimakazi
Why would you love someone who is going to kill 99.9% of the population [acording the JW's], or fry a lot of people in hell [according to the Catholics]?
In the bible he doesn't seem to exhibit a lot of lovable acts; sending Satan and his demons to earth? apparently he is a Jealous god? he let his own son die due to some silly rule he made up.