Posts by Ingenuous

27

Naughty! Naughty!, who's selling the DUBS answers?

by fokyc in

last night my wife came home and told me that some of the dubs are buying their ministry school answers from the internet!!

this is the item in the km:.

question box km september 2006 for britain.

Ingenuous

I used to go to the same site as truth.ceeker. Also, there was similar KM material published in the US a while back - I guess it was "worse" here. Everyone was disappointed because those compilations made it so much easier to study for the meetings and make comments, given how much studying JWs have to do. While some said that we needed to research stuff on our own, no one mentioned that fact that, without such compiled information, some people wouldn't get a chance to study at all.

I wrote to the owner of the site at one point, suggesting a possible compromise: providing a list of scriptures from the meeting parts which could be cut-and-pasted into the CD search to at least compile a listing of scriptures for the Watchtower meeting and such. I never got a response.

25

Tyre shall never be rebuilt. Failed prophecy?

by GBSJG in

according to ezekiel 26:14 tyre will never be rebuilt after it is destroyed.

the society says that after nebuchadrezzar alexander the great came and finally destroyed tyre.

but in insight on the scriptures they also mention that tyre was rebuilt and later jesus and paul go to tyre.

Ingenuous

Here's an article that touches on the main problems with the prophecy - including the fact that the Bible tells on itself by admitting the prophecy failed - in the very same book in which the prophecy was given.

42

After you left JWs how did you work out what you believe now

by awol in

jw
friends

i left jws 10 yrs ago and have just considered myself drifted.

never df'd.

could never go back as i personally found it too hard to live up to.

Ingenuous

Howdy and Welcome!

It's been a year and a month since I left. I went through stages of belief - disagreements with the Org which lead to my leaving, finding another group that would accommodate my beliefs and seemed to have new ones in harmony with my thinking, eventually disagreeing and searching/thinking some more.

I plugged away at it hard, forcing myself to put into words what I believed and not stop challenging it until I was at a place of peace. It took being quiet long enough each day to learn to hear that little voice inside that was whispering, "But I don't like that/can't agree with that/feel there's some dishonesty here," etc.

It takes time, focus, and the most painful honesty. It takes the work of building a new community and - literally - blazing new trails in our brains.

It also takes learning to live with uncertainty - not begrudgingly, but peacefully. As JWs, we were used to having all the answers handed to us or a convenient shelf to put them on until it was the "right" time for "Jehovah" to publish a Watchtower with the answer in it. All we had to do was pop in a CD and BANG! there's every answer you could ever want to any question you could think of and quite a few that really weren't anyone else's business anyway.

Figuring out what you believe means spending a lot of time saying, "I don't know." It means learning how to live in the tension between what you want to know and understand and the not-knowing, not-understanding, not-having-a-place-to-find-all-the-answers.

I'm at a place now where - emotionally, spiritually - I can rest. I have found friends who are on the same quest and who support my search, even if what I find disagrees with their own discoveries.

It's hard. It's frightening. There will be times when you want to go back to the dysfunction just for the comfort of the illusion of knowing - times when you want to throw out your reason and intelligence and just decide to believe again for the sweet relief of imagined security. And, our imaginations being what they are, what we imagine can feel so real - especially if we want it badly enough.

The best answer for me was honesty, good friends, and time.

96

Secret Santa (Gift Exchange) 2006

by Angharad in

jw
friends

hope this hasnt been posted already, if it has someone tell me as i dont want to step on anyones toes !!.

well christimas will soon be here !!.

gadget did a great job of organising the forum gift exchange the last couple of years so i thought i would give him a break and volunteer to organise it this year.. for those that are new basically what it involves is that those who want to join in will post to this thread and then pm me their name and address.

Ingenuous

YES! I'M IN!!!

9

Can you recall when a householder placed a seed of doubt within you ?

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the seeds of doubt that were placed by householders in field service advertise the king and his kingdom,"advertise", "advertise", "advertise.

" those words still ring out loud.

this incident never left me either and.

Ingenuous

The most effective way householders put doubts into my mind was by simply going about their business.

Being good people who were simply happy with their lives - and I was supposed to judge them as evil for behaving better than half the "Friends" in the congregation?

Being too tired to talk because they worked nights or had little ones - and I was supposed to believe these people would die for not listening to my stumbling presentation?

Being too afraid of JWs to talk, though they clearly were sorry to turn me down - and I was supposed to "shake the dust from my feet" when they were acting like I likely would in the same circumstances?

Being more well-spoken than the Theocratic Ministry School Overseer - and I was supposed to invite them to my Hall where good grammar and tasteful illustrations were optional?

These weren't shocking, in-your-face types of things, and I often put my doubts "on the shelf" or "waited for Jehovah." But there were living examples that often haunted me and made me wonder.

71

Bizarre November 2006 KM

by yakata in

the insert is called "how do i view blood fractions and medical procedures involving my own blood?

" i will attempt to transcribe the more salient points for everyone here.. paragraph 1 (verbatim): the bible commands christians to "abstain ... from blood.

" (acts 15:20) thus, jehovah's witnesses do not accept transfusions of whole blood or the four primary components of blood-namely, red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma.

Ingenuous

I wonder how many JWs have died because they didn't know they could accept tagging...

And what effective alternatives to the Epidural Blood Patch are available to relieve a Post Dural Puncture Headache?

13

Comments You Will Not Hear at the10-1-06 WT Study (Job Endurance)

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 10-01-06 wt study (august 15, 2006, pages 25-29)(job endurance).

review comments will be in red.

wt material from today's wt will be in black.

Ingenuous

Thanks, Blondie - I now study the Watchtower more than I did when I was "in"!

What makes me angry is that the article is suggesting the answer to improving all physical/emotional/psychological is studying more and doing more for the Org (under the guise of doing more for God, of course). They don't even want to allow people the time to work out the anger and frustration that naturally comes with the grieving process involved in losing one's health and other abilities. It's all "do more, do more, do more, and don't break any of the rules and ruin your conscience because if guilt makes you sicker, it's all your fault."

17

Another Nail in the Coffin of Lies

by Amazing in

jw
friends

the use of 1914 as the start of the last generation and jesus 2nd presence prophecy has been the biggest lie ever told by the watchtower society.

they have perpetrated these false prophecies with malice of forethought, with the deliberate intent of misleading people.

if anyone has doubts, or wonders if maybe, just maybe the society might have been right about the last generation prophecy, one only has to read the newspapers everyday to see continuing evdience of the lie:.

Ingenuous

Yes, they did stoop to including babies (emphasis added):

***w84 5/15 pp.5-6 1914—The Generation That Will Not Pass Away***
The Greek word rendered "generation" in the Bible has been defined as, "Those born at the same time . . . Associated with this is the meaning: the body of one’s contemporaries, an age." (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology) "The sum total of those born at the same time, expanded to include all those living at a given time generation,contemporaries." (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament from Walter Bauer’s Fifth Edition, 1958) These definitions embrace both those born around the time of a historic event and all those alive at that time.
If Jesus used "generation" in that sense and we apply it to 1914, then the babies of that generation are now 70 years old or older. And others alive in 1914 are in their 80’s or 90’s, a few even having reached a hundred. There are still many millions of that generation alive. Some of them "will by no means pass away until all things occur."—Luke 21:32.
Since 1914 we have already lived through two world wars and many other major conflicts, along with famines, earthquakes, pestilences and the like. (Luke 21:10, 11) Yet Jesus said: "This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur." (Matthew 24:34) Therefore, you might ask: What other major events remain to be seen by the generation of 1914? And can these actually take place in the time period that remains for that generation?
What
Happens Next?
Especially since 1919 have Jehovah’s Witnesses been fulfilling on a remarkable scale and against earth-wide opposition Jesus’ prophecy: "This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come." (Matthew 24:14) Yes, this is the work that has to be completed to Jehovah’s satisfaction before the end comes.
What other events must take place in the period left for the generation of 1914? The Bible clearly points to certain major developments that will lead into and form a part of the "great tribulation" that culminates in Armageddon, "the war of the great day of God the Almighty." (Matthew 24:21; Revelation 16:14, 16) It is urgent that you know what these developments are and that you take necessary protective action before it is too late.—Zephaniah 2:3.

"It doesn't change the timetable."

That's code for "Only God knows." Since we don't know what God's plans are - and we assume they must be perfect - then God's plans (which we don't know) haven't changed, even though we (thought we knew but) got it wrong.

Somehow, no one notices that if we don't know - and never knew - then the Org is plainly a false prophet and have no idea what God wants/plans/will do.

3

FLUFF: EBAY ADDICTION

by jayhawk1 in

jw
friends

i've always loved auctions.

i've been to several and got some neat things from them.

mostly i go looking for tools.

Ingenuous

I loooooove sniping on eBay!

I hate shopping for clothes, so I often buy clothing lots so I can avoid stores & malls in realtime.

I just bought a goldfish - a red-cap oranda - on eBay. In honor of my addiction, I've named her Abey!

15

September 2006 KM Quote 1893 Zion's Watch Tower

by rassillon in

the article "witnessing from house to house", on page 8, in the first paragraph it quotes the july 1, 1893 zions watch tower as follows.

"those experienced in the various ways of spreading the truth will agree that the house to house canvass with millenial dawn is, in the present time, by far the most effective way of preaching the truth.".

i have bought the cds of reprint scans.

Ingenuous

Gary - I actually found this @ the end of the of the June 15, 1893 ZWT - R1546; page 194 - Maybe it was on the back of that Watch Tower?