My mother had a bible study that one night had a vision am immediately stopped the bible study as she felt Jesus had talked to her and so she did not need the JW religion. Mum thought it was Satan, she thought it was God, a Scientist may think it was a wonder of the mind. Possibly the bible writers had similar experiences and the literate ones wrote about it.
I also believe some people believe they are doing people a favour by lieing. They want to get what they think is an important message across, and lie in all honesty to get that message believed.
jwfacts
JoinedPosts by jwfacts
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49
How did they dare?
by Narkissos in.
this is a very simple question which came to my mind shortly after i broke free from the jw/fundamentalistic mindset.. assuming (1) that "god" didn't do and say everything that the bible texts record him doing and saying, and (2) that the writers were not cynical, machiavelical atheists forging a "god" for the sole purpose of mind control, but really believed in their "god", the question is: how did they dare make their "god" speak and act?.
this question, of course, is pointless to you if you believe (1) that "god" did do and say everything that the bible texts record him doing and saying, or (2) that the writers were cynical, machiavelical atheists forging a "god" for the sole purpose of mind control.. but if you are somewhere in between, as many of us are (i think), this is a fascinating question which can help us get a better idea of the true nature of faith, between passive "fear of god" and the audacity of literary creation.. any taker?
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jwfacts
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My friends experience at elder school
by Grouper ina friend of mind went to elder school recently and i convoy the following for him: .
the co asked him previously if he could assist with a demonstration showing the superiority of wtbts education to university education.
my friend holds a few masters' degrees and will be starting a phd program soon so the co thought he would be an excellent candidate to demonstrate the superiority of wtbts education, but there was a little problem my friend he said no.
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jwfacts
Grouper,
I'd love to hear some of your experiences of the JW underground. I was out West and things never went much past heavy drinking. We always heard stories of the beach suburbs and what they got up to but never knew how true they were.
My mother is a Circuit Overseers wife (COW). She is very approachable and relates well the the young ones but they never admit to their wrongdoing to her or Dad. She is convinced that most of the young ones are crispy clean. Yet I have been hearing rumours that the young ones on their circuit are really shocking and use the congs as a meeting point. Do you have any interesting stories?
My step son is 18 and not an active JW and he has been going to worldly parties and Witness ones and said he can't see any difference. -
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Did you hear about the congregation where.........
by enlightenedcynic ini am new to the board and am looking forward to many insightful discussions here.. a good friend of mine attends a congregation where sisters are working behind both the literature and magazine counters.
the brothers who were handling those responsibilities were removed because in the elder body's opinion, none of them were "exemplerary".police officer explained that save for the elders and a few of the ministerial servants, none of the men in the congregation were meeting the national average in field service time, so for the foreseeable future, "exemplerary".
the irony here though is that the same men who are unfit to handle the literature and magazine counters are qualified to offer opening and closing prayer for meetings and do reading for the watchtower study.
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jwfacts
Its a bit of a double standard, since sisters are not even allowed to sit at the head of foot of the dining tables in bethel.
I was at a table once and a visiting sister that came in for a tour sat at the foot of the table at lunch time. A brother came over and made her move to the side of the table as it is too much of a priviledge for a woman to sit at the foot. I could never work that one out, you can't get much lower than the foot. -
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AUSSIES: PLEASE READ THIS - Is JW accountant Australia's top tax fraud?
by ozziepost inappearing in the current issue of australia's brw ("business review weekly") magazine is the cover story of the australian taxation office's cracking down on tax fraud.
two high fliers are singled out, a former assistant tax commisiioner and...... a cpa (public accountant) well known to jws in sydney.
because the practice is staffed and run by jws, some of them quite prominent in dub circles!.
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jwfacts
Blue Lagoon?? not sure who that is.
I think he was married to a girl named Anna and his brother was married to a Vietnamese girl called Christine. I'm sure you'd know him he was out Wetherill Park way. -
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Why Christianity is all about judgement!
by free2beme inthis joke was written by the comedian emo phillips.
what makes it funny is that it captures christianity to the exact point we all should know.
enjoy .... voted the funniest religious joke of all time.
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jwfacts
Heres the JW version of the joke
You could change it to,
Are you Protestant
Wow me too. Are you Baptist or an Adventist.
Adventist
Wow me too. Are you a follower of Russell or Ellen White.
Russell
Wow. Me too. Are you a Russellite, Covenant Bible Student Pastoral Bible Institute, Berean
Bible Institute, Associated Bible Student, Jehovah's Witness, Worldwide Church of God, Concordant Publishing Concern, Assemblies of Yahweh, or Layman's Home Missionary Movement. -
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AUSSIES: PLEASE READ THIS - Is JW accountant Australia's top tax fraud?
by ozziepost inappearing in the current issue of australia's brw ("business review weekly") magazine is the cover story of the australian taxation office's cracking down on tax fraud.
two high fliers are singled out, a former assistant tax commisiioner and...... a cpa (public accountant) well known to jws in sydney.
because the practice is staffed and run by jws, some of them quite prominent in dub circles!.
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jwfacts
There was a brother that i was in bethel with who a few years later ended up in the newspaper with a photo and the caption "Is this Australia's most corrupt person". He left bethel and became a professional con man, ripping people off with bogus schemes. He even ripped of his own brother. I just can't quite remember his name.
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Did you hear about the congregation where.........
by enlightenedcynic ini am new to the board and am looking forward to many insightful discussions here.. a good friend of mine attends a congregation where sisters are working behind both the literature and magazine counters.
the brothers who were handling those responsibilities were removed because in the elder body's opinion, none of them were "exemplerary".police officer explained that save for the elders and a few of the ministerial servants, none of the men in the congregation were meeting the national average in field service time, so for the foreseeable future, "exemplerary".
the irony here though is that the same men who are unfit to handle the literature and magazine counters are qualified to offer opening and closing prayer for meetings and do reading for the watchtower study.
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jwfacts
Welcome enlightenedcynic,
When i was a kid in the 80's we had a sister doing the congregation audit because all the brothers were so useless at it.
Reminds me of another thread at the moment about the part at the elders school saying how much better WTBTS education is than Uni. I ended up doing the audit in a different congregation and the brother on accounts had no idea how to fill out the sheet and the first audit report I did contained two pages just of the errors in the report. -
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My friends experience at elder school
by Grouper ina friend of mind went to elder school recently and i convoy the following for him: .
the co asked him previously if he could assist with a demonstration showing the superiority of wtbts education to university education.
my friend holds a few masters' degrees and will be starting a phd program soon so the co thought he would be an excellent candidate to demonstrate the superiority of wtbts education, but there was a little problem my friend he said no.
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jwfacts
I went to Uni in the 1980s and had problems from the cong for being so rebellious. Yet I never got laid or drunk, didn't even make any 'worldly' friends. Nor was my mind opened to apostasy. My uneducated JW friends all left in their 20's it took me till my 30's to see I was part of the great UnTruth.
On the other hand, I have thrown quite a few parties over the years and had many a JW hanging their head over my toilet bowl. -
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The Bible With Sources Revealed - by Richard Elliott Friedman
by VM44 inthis shows the importance of knowing bible languages in order to understand the structure of the bible writings.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/139/story_13986.html.
the editorial team behind the bible .
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jwfacts
I have read his book 'who wrote the bible'. It was fantastic.
I loved the part on the splicing of the flood story. In the superficial skimming of the flood story that had always done as a JW I never noticed the inconsistencies even though I even gave the public talk about the flood. It is amazing that when you separate the two stories they both make sense own their own, more so than the one that is there.
For anyone that is not aware of the works of higher criticism of the bible, there is considerable evidence that someone joined together several stories to create Genesis. The name Jehovah is one thing that helps separate these writers. For instance; the first creation account in Genesis chapter one consistently uses the word God. The second creation account from Gen 2:4 lists the creative days in a different order and always uses 'Jehovah God" -
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In which countries are WT banned?
by IT Support ini've now been out a couple of years and so don't have this information.
(a) ... in which countries is the work of jws currently banned?
this would be extremely helpful for a little project i'm working on.
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jwfacts
in Indonesia the JW's are banned, but they turn a blind eye to it and allow them to witness and even let a bethel be built there in the 1990's