Posts by onesong

so, i decided that when i have get a study i would research all the questions as i go along so as to prove everything in the truth... i got 4 studies in about 2 months.

all was fine, until i reached i think chapter 6 in the bible teach book about the resurrection.

onesong

Welcome Cognac from a nearby neighbor to your north!

It was being an elder that lead me to start questioning things. I was extremely uncomfortable on the couple of judicial committees I served on.

I knew deep within that there was something fundamentally wrong with judging people---especially when we had to form a judicial committee for a young sister that tried to commit suicide. It wasn't about love and compassion, it was about trying to discern rules and enforce them.

I got tearful reading your posts because it brought back so much of what I experienced a few years ago, my whole world turned upside down.

As difficult as it was though I'm sooo thankful my eyes were opened.

As you work thru this my advice would be to trust yourself, truth is in your heart.

Peace and Love,

Onesong

22

A first for me today--I voted!

by onesong in

jw
friends

i'm not into politics and don't put much stock in the government having anything to do with my happiness, but i decided it would be a new experience and why not.. i have to admit it felt good.

seeing democracy in action was great and as small as my 1 little vote is, it feels empowering to have a say..

onesong

Thanks for posting that article Dismembered--methinks that there are very few Witnesses that aware it is indeed a conscience matter!

Cognac, when the doors open it's amazing how many things you can do that are truly meaningful and beautiful. Just a couple of small things off the top of my head that I enjoy: Yoga, toasting, (it adds much to a social gathering to raise your glass in a hearty "cheers!") , blessing people when they sneeze...

22

A first for me today--I voted!

by onesong in

jw
friends

i'm not into politics and don't put much stock in the government having anything to do with my happiness, but i decided it would be a new experience and why not.. i have to admit it felt good.

seeing democracy in action was great and as small as my 1 little vote is, it feels empowering to have a say..

onesong

Hey S4, I'm over in Milford just outside of Nashua, not to far from you.

Anyone know what is the Society's official stance right now regarding voting?

I remember as I was leaving during the 2004 campaign someone dug up a recent Question's From Readers that actually left it open to your conscience. I remember sharing this with my family and other close friends and they were shocked--it had quietly slipped by them.

22

A first for me today--I voted!

by onesong in

jw
friends

i'm not into politics and don't put much stock in the government having anything to do with my happiness, but i decided it would be a new experience and why not.. i have to admit it felt good.

seeing democracy in action was great and as small as my 1 little vote is, it feels empowering to have a say..

onesong

I'm not into politics and don't put much stock in the government having anything to do with my happiness, but I decided it would be a new experience and why not.

I have to admit it felt good. Seeing democracy in action was great and as small as my 1 little vote is, it feels empowering to have a say.

11

New England Patriots

by XJW4EVR in

ok, now that this team has gone 16-0, the pressure is going to be turned up an infinite amount of notches.

good luck.

as for the surviving 1972 miami dolphins, guess you have to keep that champagne on ice a little while longer.

onesong

It's been an unbelievable run being a Boston sports fan here!!! The Red Sox, Patriots and even the Celtics now.

Hats off to the Giants--they had nothing to gain and played a great game.

There is indeed a lot of pressure on the Patriots but they are a veteran, professional team that can handle it.

The biggest concern is the defense, they're aging and have given up a lot of points recently. This week off will be a big help.

9

"The American Religion"

by onesong in

jw
friends

i posted this a while ago, thought i'd repost as some newbies might find it interesting.. .

"the american religion" by harold bloom.

he reviews and critiques american born religions and has a chapter on jw's.

onesong

I posted this a while ago, thought I'd repost as some newbies might find it interesting.

"The American Religion" by Harold Bloom. He reviews and critiques American born religions and has a chapter on Jw's.

Here's some quotes:

Opening sentence of chapter- " Every national faith is bound to call forth it's antitype, and ours has produced it's anthithesis in the pecularily stark phenomenon of the Jehovah's Witnesses."

"And though Jehovah is the universal father, to us as to Jesus, he is not a particularily loving father. Power , not love, is his true attribute always."

"The power of Jehovah is the obsessive concern of the Witnesses. So intense is this exaltation of power in the Witnesses' writings that I must catergorize it as pathological."

" The writings of Russell and Rutherford offend anyone's sense of human dignity, provided such a sense exists. They propose a theocratic Fascism that is not mitigated by assigning the dictatorship to a tyrant they call Jehovah."

"What makes Jehovah's Witnesses different is not their expectation of destruction, but their violent hatred of what will be destroyed, which is to say:our country, our world, our common planet...There are no positive elements in existence the Witnesses seek to salvage:they wish to see all of us vanish, and as quickly as possible."

He quotes DH. Lawrence "The Apocalypse does not worship power. It wants to murder the powerful, to seize power itself,the weakling." Bloom-"There, in my own judgement, is the heart of the aspiration of the Jehovah's Witnesses...Intellectually weak, spiritually empty, Jehovah's Witnesses dreams of seizing power itself, so as to share in the majesty of the great Theocrat, Jehovah."

" But no one, including the major theocrats of the Watchtower Society, ever fully understands the Witnesses' chronology. Chronology has followed chronolgy, and will be followed by more. It is not the dates or even the patterns of chronology that seem to matter, but rather the idea of chronology itself."

"No other sect has so abounded in the mystical mathematics of the city of heaven, or has so gratified the American appetite for supposed fact. That there are no immutable dates, or even unchanging doctrines, does not seem to bother the majority of Witnesses.There is something not unimaginative, even if a touch zany, about the movements capacity for absorbing changes in doctrine."

"Yet what a superb imaginative achievement they would be if they were American fiction rather than American fact. Even our most apocalyptic writers could not have conceived Russell, Rutherford and their followers.If the entire movement had been created in the writings of Herman Melville or Nathaniel West...we would find no grander invention in those dark visionaries of our culture."

He goes on to give a factual and hilarious rendition of the end of the world as Witnesses see it.( To long to post right now. )

And concludes:

"I have omitted a mass of details, but they do little to alter this pattern.What can most of us do with such a narrative? Lurid and cruel, it contrasts poorly with the apocalyptic elements in early Mormonism or even with the eschatological longings of Seventhday Adventism. Though there are a number of rather savage apocalytptic scenerios current among the American Fundamentalists, I am aware of none quite so inhumane as the Jehovah's Witnesses account of the End of our Time. There is something peculiarly childish in these Watchtower yearnings: they remind me of why very small children cannot be left alone with wounded and suffering household pets."

Anyway, the chapter is a great read as you can imagine. Bloom's new book " Jesus and Yahweh , the Names Divine" is excellent as well.