Posts by daystar

49

DID ANYONE ELSE GET PASSED OVER W/THE KN TRACT?

by juni in

jw
friends

i live in a small, rural town pop.

2000. my daughter and i did not get any visit or tract.. i thought this was supposed to be a final warning - a life saving work.. not complaining, but just curious if you didn't get one.. juni .

daystar

Yes, thankfully, my door has been a "passover".

77

Farmers Branch Tx. assault on illegal immigrants (Mexicans)

by hambeak in

the farmers branch city council ( a suburb of dallas, tx.

) has voted unanimously to make english the official language of the city.

also to fine landlords that rent to such ones.

daystar

Parkland Hospital says that 70% of all new births there are to undocumented, and illegal, immigrants.

Dallas hospital cares for illegal immigrants.

It's a problem that I can't see an easy answer to. We can't really turn them away in such cases. I certainly don't want to see that. But the drain is untenable.

Shouldn't the U.S. hold Mexico responsible for the sad state of affairs in their own country that causes so many people to cross the border illegally? Does the Mexican government just not want these people, their own people, to stay in their country? Is this really an issue of a Mexican class war?

What I do know is that I don't particularly like to feel pressure to learn a new language in order to communicate with illigrants (my new word for illegal immigrants) who aren't trying to learn the language of their adopted nation. I know, English is not the official national language , but it is in practice. And I do know that I don't like the idea that legal citizens' tax money is going to pay for illegal, foreign immigrants to take advantage of our systems.

62

What song would you like to hear entering the Kingdom Hall?

by JH in

jw
friends

here i am, rocked you like a hurricane.

daystar

Ooohh... Johnny Cash says "God's Gonna Cut You Down"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e0EQlQXoEo

God's Gonna Cut You Down

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head's been wet with the midnight dew
I've been down on bended knee talkin' to the man from Galilee
He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel's feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, "John go do My will!"

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's done in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down

11

Does the Governing Body go out in service?

by megsmomma in

jw
friends

does anyone know if they have to go out in service like the other jw's?

also, are the lawyers for the society jw's?

daystar

Does anyone know if they have to go out in service like the other JW's?

I don't know firsthand by any means, but I would bet that they don't, at least not like the R&F. I'll also bet that if they do, it's only to give outward show of righteousness. Besides, they're GB jobs are so much more important than doing the preaching work directly, no?

31

The Difference between being a Convert and being raised a Witness

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the difference between being a convert and being raised a witness having come from a single parent family, i realized the need.

for some sort of structured and organized way of life.

roman.

daystar

Do you recall the emphasis placed upon reshaping yourself, your personality, on Bible-based (read WBTS dogma based) doctrine?

Well, imagine this being inculcated from a very young age. Our personalities were to some varying degree created by the WBTS. Contrast that with someone whose personality was developed prior to being converted.

Imagine being an adult, raised in, and coming to the realization that you are not who you are, or would be, otherwise. In some ways, who we are inside shines through, but there are these walls built within the psyche causing all sorts of psychological challenges.

If you were a convert, you at least have the perspective of a "before" the indoctrination began. Those of us raised in having nothing like that. We have to create ourselves anew.

What might be interesting is to see how many "raised ins" stayed Christian vs. eventually following alternatives and compare that with converts. If they were Christian before, did they go back to the religion they came from (more or less), or did they also tend to lean towards alternatives (atheism, paganism, etc.)

16

Jeff Foxworthy on Jehovah Witnesses

by moomanchu in

>thought these were funny, please ignore if they're old news.

> these are some jokes that jeff foxworthy had to say about jehovah's .

> the fact is that they are somewhat accurate.

daystar

I can't find anything on www.snopes.com on this, but it's highly unlikely the Foxworthy had anything to do with this.

Still, funny...

16

Do you need God?

by daystar in

when i first left the witnesses 15 years ago, i still believed in the jw god, jehovah, as the real and only "true" god and that all the others were not real.

they were real in that people worshipped them and as a distraction from "true worship", but to me, they were simply imaginary entities.. no other gods actually existed.

there was jehovah, satan, and the angels and demons.

daystar

Does thirst prove the existence of water?
Every society of people throughout history has placed Gods over themselves. They feel a need.

Ok, using that logic, do the needs a homosexual person feels prove that homosexuality is okay? Is the need a murderer feels to, you know, murder, proof that it's okay?

(Sorry to mention the two together. Just trying to make a point.)

You're appealing to what you feel is a natural impulse as a sort of proof that "something must be there" when I doubt you would find that such a proof would hold for many, many other things.

16

Do you need God?

by daystar in

when i first left the witnesses 15 years ago, i still believed in the jw god, jehovah, as the real and only "true" god and that all the others were not real.

they were real in that people worshipped them and as a distraction from "true worship", but to me, they were simply imaginary entities.. no other gods actually existed.

there was jehovah, satan, and the angels and demons.

daystar

God is like my frontal lobes. Sure I can do without them, but my aim in life would be significantly curtailed to 70 short years...

The assumption is that "with Him" you'll last longer somehow. I prefer to make no such assumptions.

I'm not debating that it is somehow possible that some fragment of my consciousness might survive physical death, I'm just not counting on it, and I'm certainly not going to allow any authority (even a god) to use that to exert control over me.

16

Do you need God?

by daystar in

when i first left the witnesses 15 years ago, i still believed in the jw god, jehovah, as the real and only "true" god and that all the others were not real.

they were real in that people worshipped them and as a distraction from "true worship", but to me, they were simply imaginary entities.. no other gods actually existed.

there was jehovah, satan, and the angels and demons.

daystar

When I first left the Witnesses 15 years ago, I still believed in the JW God, Jehovah, as the real and only "true" God and that all the others were not real. They were real in that people worshipped them and as a distraction from "True Worship", but to me, they were simply imaginary entities.

No other gods actually existed. There was Jehovah, Satan, and the angels and demons. The rest were all sideshows created by Satan to lead people astray from the worship of the "true" God Jehovah. This is what I was taught and this is what I believed, as completely as I believed anything at all.

But, Jehovah had never really helped me with anything. I prayed and I prayed as sincerely and devoutly as a person could. I was a good Witness. I commented regularly, went out in service... nothing... Anything that I achieved, I ultimately achieved on my very own.

So, what was the God of the Witnesses to me? This was a god that never actually spoke to me, through Christ (who never spoke to me either), or personally, in my heart. I was never one to expect to hear an actual voice. I assumed a certain degree of subtlety. I was told that he at least spoke to us all through the "spirit-directed" organization. So, what did he say to me? He told me that life on this earth sucked right now and it was all our faults. He told me that I was born in sin, evil, imperfect, and that I had to follow His (their) rules in order to hope to make it into the paradisaical New System, complete with a theocratic government, governed by Jesus Christ for the thousand year reign, until the final battle, after which governorship would be transferred to Jehovah.

The conversations He had with me were one way, through the WBTS, and all he ever did was tell me what a bad person I was ("original sin") and how I was expected to spend every available hour of my life devoted to His service, which of course meant servitude to the WBTS.

I eventually discovered (after leaving the religion) that the Jehovah they believed in and taught about, while bearing some resemblance to the God (Adonai, ha-shem, YHVH) of the bible, was not, in fact, the same entity. The Jehovah they described in their publications was simply not the same entity.

Just imagine having a person described to you all your life, only to meet them and find that they are nothing like what you were taught to expect!

I thought on this and thought on this and thought on this. The god I was raised to believe in was nothing more than a mental construct formed by the WBTS!!

Now, I could have discovered for myself a version of Jehovah I believe in. And in fact, I did for a time. But I kept coming back to the realization that it was still just a mental construct which likely had little bearing on reality. I considered what I knew, or thought I knew, of people in my life. I realized that I really only knew about them what was contained within my mind about them. To other people, they were different people. I found this true about not just people, but with everything I could conceive of. The image I held in my mind of a thing, or in my heart, was simply not the thing in itself.

So, this being true to me, I thought, "why do we feel such a drive to believe in God?" I searched within myself for this. And what I found was that in my heart of hearts I wanted to believe in God, some God, some ultimate Supreme Being, and in some hope in some sort of afterlife... because I was afraid.

I was afraid of dying. I was afraid of the unknown. I was afraid that there may not, after all, be any meaning to life. And so, I considered this, deeply. Why did I feel such fear? Well, I was taught this fear. It is not necessarily an innate thing as many would have told me. Why should I be afraid that this life is all that I may have, that I must forge my own path, that I must be self-reliant, ultimately?

And several things occurred to me. Who might benefit from my fear? Well, any religious "authority" would, certainly. Also, it occurred to me that I was being kept from maturing into an adult by relegating power to a god that, ultimately belongs to me. Blasphemy!! No, not at all. Assuming God is omnipotent, omniscient, etc., how could He be jealous of my taking ownership of the full power of being, simply, Human, which He, after all, gave to Me?

Do you need God? Do any of us need God? Would a god be okay with us worshipping him out of fear?

If there is a God, He's not talking much to me. I'd prefer to worship the full potential such a god infused into each and every one of us as "little gods" than some big bearded guy sitting on some cloud, some "where", doling out law and retribution though some religious "authority", expecting obedience through fear of losing out in some reward which may or may not even exist.

32

Sparkplug is going home this afternoon

by hambeak in

jw
friends

spoke with decki on the phone just now and she has some pain which is understandable.

she got some pain meds this am and she told me the dr. will probably release her this afternoon.

she loved everyones posts.

daystar

{{{decki}}}