Yes, apostates are whiners and No you do not speak the truth.
Well, why are you here then?
Hellrider
JoinedPosts by Hellrider
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25
Do You Think "Apostates" Are All A Bunch of Whiners?
by minimus inevery so often, you'll see a jw come onto these sites and bash us because we're only looking at the negatives regarding the witnesses.
i don't think we are unfair at all.
at least we speak the "truth".
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Hellrider
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28
Who's to say Jesus has "approved" the FDS and "appointed them..."
by Theocrat in"...over his belongings" ???.
i think the entire system of witness beliefs hinge on this issue: is the governing body the mouthpiece that jehovah is using to lead faithful ones on earth?.
it seems jw's just assume that jesus did inspect them and did appoint them over his belongings.
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Hellrider
Grissom:
Whose to say? Me. I say that the governing body is the elders of the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. The term "Faithful and discreet slave" has been bandied about so much by the right and the left that it has become a cliche. It does not matter. The governing body is the overseers of the worldwide congregation and its support staff. They do not need to be appointed by Jesus for people to be obedient to them because Heb 13:7,17 says to do so because they are the ones taking the lead among us.
What kind of circular argumentation is that? On the one hand, you say that that "the governing body is the elders of the congregation"...on the other, you say that "The governing body is the overseers of the worldwide congregation and its support staff. They do not need to be appointed by Jesus for people to be obedient to them because Heb 13:7,17 says to do so because they are the ones taking the lead among us."
...So, which is it? And by the way, who do you think is directing the the elders of the congregations? From where do you think they get their guidelines? From the GB in Brooklyn, right? And why is it that the GB in Brooklyn have the right to set guidelines for how the elders of the congregations are to act/behave? They themselves say that it is because they have been "appointed" by God himself, and are guided by the Holy Spirit! And really, if they had not been guided by the Holy Spirit, then they would have no right to expect obedience, as they then would be just regular men, no brighter than the rest of us! And hence, they would have no right to for example disfellowship people! No heavenly mandate, no right to ask anything of their members, or command them! Of course you would protest against this statement, and why is that? Because you believe they have a heavenly mandate, and are guided by the Holy Spirit (which is what they claim, and which is what is the content of the phrase "faithful and discreet slave")! What we have here, in your case, is a classic example of Jehovahs Witness doublethink! You have been trained into believing two conflicting things (that the GB is Spirit-directed, but at the same time, just regular, normal guys, capable of making mistakes), all at the same time, without seeing the lack of logic in the two conflicting ideas.
And by the way, any cult-leader(s) can use Hebrews 13 to justify power-abuse over their personal little flock.
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33
Did the elders ever blackmail you with dead loved ones?
by Fleshybirdfodder inthis is kind of a sensitive subject for me, but i had to get it off my chest.
when i was eighteen my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and i started drifting from depression.
i wasn't doing anything wrong, i was just in shock and started really questioning my beliefs.
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Hellrider
Not the elders, but grandma did. "What do you think your dad (died from cancer when I was 12) will think, when he is ressurected in the new system and he sees you`re not there?". Guilt trip, guilt trip. Well, if I`m not there, he can`t treat me like shit, can he! (that`s what I should have said...)
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184
Celebrated WT scholars? :)
by Augustin inprof lester l. grabbe on rolf furuli's "oslo chronology":.
"once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship" (jsot 28:5 [2004], p. 42).. ...celebrated wt scholars?
--augustin --
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Hellrider
LoL, that list was en excellent summary, Terry.
It reminds me of the mindset of the conspiracy theorists. When a group of people disagrees with them it is worn as a badge of honor and said to be "proof positive" the conspiracy exists.
The "holocaust revisionists" is another good example. They will say that "some historians say 10 million jews were killed, others that only 5.9 million jews were killed. They can`t make up their mind, and this is because the whole thing is a lie and a conspiracy. So the real number is just a couple of hundred thousands jews, and they all died from typhoid or malnutrition due to the allied bombing raids".
Scholars arguments work in the same way. "Because the secular historians can`t even make up their mind whether it was 587 or 586 (which is just a matter of a few months anyway!), clearly the correct year is 607". Great logic.
Scholar, we are still waiting for your full kingslist, by the way (you know, the "chronology").
Oh, and you should read this, Scholar, it`s a good summary and explanation to all your misconceptions :
http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/captivity.html
Oh, and...
Jeremiah 25:9-12 (NIV)
"I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the Lord, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. "But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt," declares the Lord, "and will make it desolate forever."
Jeremiah 29:10 (NIV)
This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place."
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This Past Sunday My Wife Took Me To The Elders!
by enlightenedcynic inearly sunday morning, around 1:30 a.m., my wife wakes me and says that she can't sleep and needs to talk with me.
i say ok and she proceeds to tell me that she wants a seperation.
i was hurt, but not shocked, because our relationship is not that close at this point after 14 yrs of marriage.
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Hellrider
EC:
As I started to look over them, I recognized that they were printouts of old watchtower articles, highlighted in certain paragraphs, newspaper articles that were not, shall we say, pro-WTS and a copy of the UN NGO letter that confirmed the WTS' status. Seems innocent enough right? Wrong! All that info was on my computer and she accessed it and printed it out so that she could show the brothers that I had doubts about the org and was viewing apostate literature!!
It`s important to realise that these are two different worlds. In JW-land, they have to follow the Bibles rules when it comes to having a divorce. A certain set of criteria has to be fulfilled, and as far as I can remember, having a "husband in doubt" isn`t grounds for divorce. Or am I wrong here? What about all the "sisters" with unbelieving husbands"? Or what about those that marries outside the religion? (Which isn`t common, but does occur).
In the real world, the situation is completely different. Many jws, and ex-jws too, live with the belief that also in the court/justice system you need "reasons for divorce". It`s not like that anymore, at least not in my country. Anyone can have a divorce, for no reason at all. And as far as I know, it`s been like that for a few decades now...
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"Theocratic Warfare" - An Apostate Strategy?
by slimboyfat inwho here had ever heard of this so-called 'doctrine' of "theocratic warfare" when you were a jehovah's witness?
who has not heard of the so-called doctrine now that you are an apostate?
so why have witnesses never heard of 'doctrine', yet apostates seem to promote it as the last word on witness standards of honesty, integrity and decency?
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Hellrider
SlimBoyFat:
THE PROOF that this "strategy" is alive and well in the minds of at least the older JWs, is that JWs and ex-JWs all over the world knows this expression, even in their own languages! In my language, it is called "teokratisk krigføring" (theocratic warfare). And when there is an equivalent expression (to the english) in the vocabulary of JWs around the world (in non-english countries), then that proves that the phrase was once in the WatchTower-litterature! I knew very well this phrase, as my mother often mentioned it/spoke about it. She became a JW in the early 70s (around -70, I think), and I was born in 1973. I heard her use that phrase many times, as I grew up, so the doctrine must have been very much alive in 1970. And the thing is, that even if this phrase (and its meaning) isn`t mentioned often in the newest JW-litterature, we both know that when the WTS says something/drills something into the heads of the JWs, it sticks there, untill it is explisitly taken back. Whenever the WTS says something, it is like when you throw a rock into a lake, the water starts moving in small vawes, and they continue to move for a long time. In the JW-world, an "old doctrine" can stay alive for decades, even when it`s not explicitly mentioned. But I think you`re on to something though, this doctrine may be on the way out, as it is not mentioned much anymore. The 15 - 16 - yearold JW-kids of today, will probably, in a couple of decades, deny that there ever was such a doctrine, and reject it is an "apostate lie". But I, for one, know it wasn`t a lie. I was there!
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Celebrated WT scholars? :)
by Augustin inprof lester l. grabbe on rolf furuli's "oslo chronology":.
"once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship" (jsot 28:5 [2004], p. 42).. ...celebrated wt scholars?
--augustin --
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Hellrider
Leolaia
Correct. You seem rather confused or amused by my remarks. Applegate certainly has provided a serious approach to Jeremiah which is devastating to the Jonsson hypothesis but his chronology is wobbly and shows inattention to this phase of the argument which shows that wordly wisdom is inferior to godly wisdom, a reminder that you should take to heart.
scholar JW
...and the translation from JW-ian: "Applegate certainly has provided us with some good passages we can carefully rip out of context and use for our own purposes, but his overall chronology doesn`t support our 607-view, so the rest of his work, we will simply ignore".
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Why God refuses to interfere
by greendawn inmany people ask why doesn't god interefere to help suffering mankind?
biblically the answer is very simple: mankind exercise their freedom of choice and in so doing chose to be slaves to sin or the demons if you like.
god respects that choice however foolish it may be.
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Hellrider
LT:
If you gave your adult child a house, to give them a start in life, at what point would you interfere if they appeared to be making a bit of a mess of things?
When they started killing eachother and destroying the house...I would interfere. In a gentle way at first, of course. Just kick the door open and yell "hey you little brats, get a grip on yourself right now or I`ll be back in a couple of days with a baseball bat!".
Something like that...
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Celebrated WT scholars? :)
by Augustin inprof lester l. grabbe on rolf furuli's "oslo chronology":.
"once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship" (jsot 28:5 [2004], p. 42).. ...celebrated wt scholars?
--augustin --
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Hellrider
Furuli on the other hand has had his work examined by his peers and that makes the difference between Furuli, the scholar and academic and Jonsson, a non-scholar and amateur.
scholar JW
The "peer reviews" on Furuli weren`t exactly flattering though,were they, lol. I believe some statements about Furulis "work" were quoted above, by Leolaia, among others. And just for the record, Furuli is a linguist, not a historian, and his JehoWatchtower-inspired "theories" about 607 have no more intelectual value than a piece of toilet paper. And by the way, not even in my own (and Furulis) country, have I ever seen any articles about, or by him, in scinece or history-magasines, and I read some of them on a regular basis. I suspect this is because he is an embarassment to the whole academic community here. A hero in Watchtower-land, an idiot in the real world.
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5
NEWS-Pedophiles In My Church? Can't Be
by DannyHaszard inon the news wire for jw/wt news
pedophiles in my church?
can't be
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Hellrider
Good article. More bad press for those bastards, I love it.
When I was around 6 or 7 years old, the CO visited our congregation. He probably did it lots of times, but this is the one that sticks to mind, because he stayed at our place, and had dinner with us. He was sooo nice and kind and loving to us kids, and payes attention primarily to us, not to my mom and dad, which I thought was kind of cool. Nothing much happened, he followed us to our bedrooms when mom put me and my little sister to bed, and he was all patting me on the head and stuff, suuuperkind. A few years later, we found out that he was arrested for child abuse. It turned out he liked little boys, and had been molesting kids for years, but it wasn`t until he molested some kids outside the religion, that he was caught (gee, I figure why). He was DFed, later reinstated, then did it again, and DFed again. He even showed up at our congregation after he was DFed, and sat the whole time in the back of the room with sunglasses on the whole meeting thru, either from shame over what he had done, or because he wanted to make it look like he was ashamed, or maybe both. My mom told me that the guy had given her a "bad feeling". I think he had been hinting at reading a bedtime story for me and my sis, but mom had gotten a bad feeling about the whole thing, and changed the subject, so he didn`t get to spend time with me alone. That was the best thing that woman ever did for me. She sure had good intuition, that woman. I feel so sorry for all the kids he (and other like him) molested.