Posts by M*A*S*H

42

Have I been red flagged?

by searching4? in

i find it very weird that in 13 years, not one jw has come knocking on my door.

i don't live in my home town and have had no contact with witnesses ( besides my mom) since i was disfellowshipped in 1992. is it possible that my mom ( still a witness) has alerted the local kingdom hall and had me placed on the " do not call" list?

or maybe i just live in the area of slacker witnesses?

MAS*H

The answer is obvious... the holy spirit guides them away from your door...

37

What Decisions Did You Make Only Because You Were A Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i believe that most jws are deep down inside angry over the fact that they went along with the status quo and the majority just to be accepted.

some witnesses would like to have a tattoo, a mustache, a shaved head, a beard, a new red sportscar, etc.

but they don't because they would be viewed as "immature".

MAS*H

I stopped believing in God.

48

SIGN OF JONAH REVEALED BY: The King of "New Jerusalem" upon the earth

by EliJah in

to all that love g_d, jah, allah

i am a messenger of jah in our modern day with the task of leading the flock of jah under authority of jesus christ reigning from the heavens above.

the prophets of old were put into place as testimony of the authentication of the word of jah.

MAS*H

Hi Elijah

Wow. That's amazing... you certainly must feel proud of your divine assignment! It certainly looks like our time is up... things are definately about to happen.

I love the way you cut through all the crap and concentrate purely on the lord's words, as directed. It's wonderful...

Surely you must have a web site? I think such divine inspired words of wisdom must be in place online for all to share? Don't you think?

M*A*S*H

58

Did Noahs Ark drift about aimlessly in the Great Flood?

by EliJah in

no where does it mention that noah traveled around the world in his big boat.

in fact, is says that the ark was floating "high above the earth".

also, what does matthew mean about "just like in the days of noah?

MAS*H

Low-Key Lysmith: Where did all the water go? What a silly question... after being on the ark all that time, all the animals would be thirsty! The rest of the water is still in circulation today, order a glass of the 'house' wine in any pub!

As for the build up of manure, that wouldn't be a problem - it's a well known fact that it's virtually impossible to do a 'number two' in front of a stranger... so basically they held it in. Proof of this is easy to find - as most animals can cross their legs.

Many wonder how Noah got all the insects on board - well that's easy. Most were captured the night before the flood, as he accidentally left a light on in the ark, the remaining insects were collected during the heat of the next day by leaving a small strawberry cheesecake on the roof of the ark.

It seems also you guys don't understand how the ark 'got about'... come chaps, use your heads! Basically Noah glued all the birds feet to the roof of the ark, a special opening on the North, East, South and West would of been created just big enough for a Giraffe holding a bag of chips to put his head through - the birds would try to fly to get the chips, thus giving directional control.

If I've missed anything, just let me know... I'm here to help.

56

Earthquake in the Middle East (Urgent)

by EliJah in

19 and the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and babylon the great was remembered in the sight of god, to give her the cup of the wine of the anger of his wrath.

20 also, every island fled, and mountains were not found.

21 and a great hail with every stone about the weight of a talent descended out of heaven upon the men, and the men blasphemed god due to the plague of hail, because the plague of it was unusually great.. meaning: the nations are of the twelve tribes of israel in the middle east.

MAS*H

Wow... thanks Elijah... was that first bit a review of that Hidalgo film? You know the one with all the horses?

You truly are a modern day profit! You're "cut and pasting" for the good of mankind, on behalf of our saviour Jesus Christ.

Keep up the good work - reading your posts keeps me going, keep using the sword of the spirit to cut through their 'worldly' logic. I hope and pray that our lord's holy spirit deletes all the consonants from the heritics posts.

27

No good news to report

by gringojj in

jw
friends

well friends things had bad going very well for my wife recently.

she had been looking a the wts critically for quite some time now.

we would have daily discussions on how so many things didnt make sense.

MAS*H

Hi Miss G

I'm kind of envious, it seems you have people climbing over themselves to help! It just goes to show the Internet can be a wonderful thing.

It was nice to see your last post, but it also worried me a little... I think (if I understood correctly) that you are not currently baptized, but are thinking of taking that step? In my experience, from within the organization, baptism is seen as a wonderful and all important step in your 'spiritual growth'. I expect that your mother is also encouraging this move to baptism, from her point of view as believer, such a move could potentially save your life. Her insistence is understandable.

It's important to remember being baptized as a JW means dedicating yourself to the organization as well as God. Once baptized if you choose to leave the organization voluntarily or are ever disfellowshipped (DFS), all ties will be severed. Your mother (and other Witness family and friends) will have to sever ties with you. My family is currently in this situation, I can't stress enough how heart-breaking it is. My sister is DFS, every week she drops her children around to see our mother (still a witness)... every week she gets upset because she never makes it past the garden gate. She gets even more upset because she can't help our mother as age and ill health catch up with her. It's truly terrible.

Going back a bit... I really feel for you at this time, it truly can be scary. It must be even more intense for you, as your decision is also your children's. With time I found that my fears, those that lurked in the back my mind, disagreed with my more rational thought. When ever I got scared, I desperately tried to rationalize what I was scared of... sometimes it worked, sometimes I'd lay awake for hours worrying. All that's changed now is it 'works' 99% of the time. :)

I hope you, your husband and children all enjoy the family holiday. I think the scariest thing on Halloween, is how much I enjoyed myself - especially dressing up as a grebly and scaring my nieces and nephews! There's much to see and do...

32

Ever wonder why...........

by knot4me in

jw's never get dfed for being fat?

please don't take this offensively if you are overweight, i'm a little chubby myself.

i'm not judging.

MAS*H

So are you saying 'self harm' is socially acceptable, as long as those around are not affected? In my experience often a smoker is encouraged to quit or challenged, not because of second hand smoke, but a genuine concern for the persons health. If you knew someone who was a smoker, who always smoked outside, would that make their habit socially acceptable?

Going back to the silly example of the dinner table, even if someone got up to go outside for a 'puff'... it's still socially acceptable for someone to say "You know Johnny you should quit, you're not doing yourself any favors". Isn't that so?

In my original post I didn't have a "thin person" ordering "three pieces of cream cake"... but OK, lets think about that. If I were at the dinner table, and my "thin" friend ordered "three pieces of cream cake", IMHO it perhaps might be acceptable for me to say something like "blimey xxxx, are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?", or "Wow, a third piece? You're really going for it". In fact that kind of behavior happens a lot in my experience - I get a similar reaction from my friends every time we go to KFC. "Two fillet burgers and popcorn chicken?" they ask.. :-0

Again I must stress I'm not trying to be offensive or confrontational. I really was commenting on how our society, in the developed world, doesn't tackle obesity at a social level, the way perhaps other issues are. I understand that this is primarily because peoples feelings can be hurt greatly by this issue especially. Personally I feel the problem of obesity must eventually be tackled at a social level, weight and diet related complications are causing more and more deaths in the developed world year on year. Perhaps if the risks of extra "cream cake" were better understood things might start to change.

I feel it's more important to have all forms of social confrontation in the open rather than festing underneath our social graces, as that is how social stigmatization and descrimination arises.

Please, please don't not confuse, or even suggest I am confusing a fat person with an obese person... they are NOT necessarily the same. The dinner table is not the place to tackle socially someone who you consider 'massively overweight'.

Respectfully

PS. There's a very interesting article here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/your_weight/whatis_facts.shtml (Title quote "Obesity is increasing worldwide and is becoming the world's biggest health problem. Recent reports suggest that it may soon overtake cigarette smoking as a serious health risk")

27

No good news to report

by gringojj in

jw
friends

well friends things had bad going very well for my wife recently.

she had been looking a the wts critically for quite some time now.

we would have daily discussions on how so many things didnt make sense.

MAS*H

Hi gringojj

Although I can't really understand what you are personally are going through, I do perhaps have some understanding of what it's like to grow up a JW and then leave.

Your wife has been indoctrinated from the point she was able to understand. She probably knows intellectually that the religion makes little sense...which is why she is having doubts. Unfortunately powerful indoctrination can override any and all intelligent thought at times. For a while, even once I left, the fact is, sometimes I got scared - scared Amegeddon was coming, scared I'd made the wrong choice, scared even of demons. Demons I tell you - a grown man scared of demons - I watched a horror film one evening and actually thought perhaps a demon was watching me and laughing at me because I'd left the religion! Intellectually of course, I knew it was all rubbish, but that matters little.

It's always important to ask searching questions, especially when encouraging a loved one to leave the religion - but sometimes it's important to understand and talk about their fears. Continously knocking away at someone's foundation in life forces them to sure up the defences, we must strive to change the foundation, not destroy it.

I really hope your wife can overcome her fears and that you find the strength in each other to face the world.

PS. Imagine you entered a race, the prize was a £100,000,000 (or everlasting life, whichever)...in fact you win the prize just for finishing the race...the only catch is no one has told you how many laps you need to do...but you're pretty sure it's only a couple more laps...in fact everyone racing with you has told you "not long now, just a couple more laps"...In fact you remember someone told you when you entered "there are some clues when the race is about to finish, heavy breathing, thirst and tiredness"...you're certainly feeling that! So there you are running along, wondering how to spend the cash, and from the side lines someone you trust shouts 'There is no prize, you're running for nothing!'... how many more laps would you do?

32

Ever wonder why...........

by knot4me in

jw's never get dfed for being fat?

please don't take this offensively if you are overweight, i'm a little chubby myself.

i'm not judging.

MAS*H

I think Cygnus was heading us on the right path. Obesity perhaps could be just one symptom of gluttony. Gluttony is more to do with the idea of wasting food, for example you "ate all the pies" because... (a) Pies turn you on [Addiction] (b) You just like eating pies [Overindulgence] (c) You didn't want to give them to the starving homeless person sat outside BK [You're a tight a*se].

It's also more subjective that it first appears... perhaps someone in the developed world may eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper - plus the odd snack! That of course doesn't make you a glutton. If that person was picked up, placed in the middle of a starving country and didn't change their eating habits, perhaps you'd have grounds to call them a glutton.

Despite this, I kind of understand why these things seem a little odd and IMHO I think social change almost upon us - certainly in a bigger sense than the JW issue. To get things in perspective, the vast majority of obesity is caused by poor eating habits coupled with a lack of exercise, I don't mean to be provocative but, most overweight people could with the correct motivation and support achieve their ideal weight.

Why is obesity socially acceptable? Smoking at a dinner table is now about as socially acceptable as picking your nose. If you see an obese person ordering 'another cream cake' at the dinner table would you dare say a word???

PS. I do not mean to offend in anyway.

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

MAS*H

Sorry for being new, but I'm having trouble 'fixing' some of you guys down. Firstly I must say, I'm really enjoying reading the friendly banter on acient grammar, it's been a long time for me. Personally I gave up debating on such matters the moment I began to believe the bible was not in any way 'inspired of god'. It seemed ultimately fruitless to me to ponder such things if, as I believe, it's a collection of books written by men. With that view in mind, I felt I was debating what the writer's view of his God was, not a divine picture of God.

As I've recently joined the forum, I've been reading a lot of posts, names are becoming more familiar and I'm starting to understand peoples viewpoints. So my real question is, hands up if you believe the Bible is actually inspired and if so, how important an exact understanding of the bible line by line is in your belief system?

I know it's a cheeky request.. but I get frustrated when I can't formulate a clear picture in my mind of what's what!

Sorry for attempting a subject hijack. If you've not heard though, I'm a bit of a troll... and us trolls do this kind of thing.

Ug!