When my son got married recently at the Kingdom Hall, it became obvoius at the practice, that the congregation were not going to stand up when the bride entered. When I asked about it the Presiding Elder said 'well it's like worship isn't it. I was amazed that a simple act of respect could somehow be an act of worship. I kid you not.
Posts by alanv
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20Another bit of unexplainable hypocrisy
by Mad Sweeney inask a dub acquaintance this and see if they have anything resembling a rational answer:.
you: when you're at a public event and the announcer says, "please rise for the playing/singing of the national anthem," you refuse to stand because that would be considered an act of nationalistic worship, correct?.
dub: correct.. you: why then, when a jw is in a courtroom and the baliff says, "all rise for the honorable judge whatsherface, court is now in session," do jws stand up?
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"Behold, I am coming soon".
by Doug Mason inat its opening and at its end, the book of revelation addresses its message to seven specific churches in a well-defined region of asia:.
opening: to the seven churches in the province of asia.
1:4, all citations are from the niv).
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alanv
I always had a problem with the society quoting the 1000 years is as one day to God. The whole of the Greek scriptures gives the impression that everything Jesus spoke about would happen very soon.
Common sense should tells us that he was not talking about 2000 years in the future. If that means what he said did not take place then so be it!
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Why are the books of king Salamon still considered by JW's as inspired by god?
by dutchstef injust think about it...... if possible the wts tries to delete publications and songs written by former members of the slave as much as possible.. but king salomo also became involved with other religions at the and of his live....and it's one of the most quoted persons in the watchtower and other wts publications..
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alanv
I may be wrong but I believe Ray Franz ,ex governing body member wrote a lot of the book 'Aid to bible understanding' and that was superseded by 'Insight on the scriptures'
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The WTS needs members only for service,contributions,and passing the WTS beliefs to the next generation.
by RULES & REGULATIONS interry recently said in one of his posts:.
at the local kingdom hall you don't exist as a person with value, feelings and importance.
you represent a statistic for the "greater good" of others.
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alanv
I don't think things are as clear cut as that.
Just about everybody at the kingdom hall has been taken in by the WT society. They are all in the same boat.
They genuinly believe you need to be at the meetings or you may give in to Satan etc.
There are many genuine good people who are witnesses. Where they fall down is that they see no need to check what they have been told, and let's face it many of us were exactly the same. Let's have a bit of compassion for them.
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Do you miss God?
by wobble inif you are one of the posters on here who has got to the point where you do not believe in god to any great extent, do you miss "him".
i find that i rarely used to ask god for anything, or load him up with my problems, everybody elses were far more urgent, but i did used to feel moved to praise him when i saw the beauties of creation, a sunset etc.. i now feel an urge to still do that, but do not believe anyone is listening, do you get moments like that ?.
love.
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alanv
I used to pray for help on the field service and on meeting assignments and really believed I was receiving help. I now realize that if you believe something enough you will be able to carry it out by yourself. To this day I reckon I could get up on the platform and give a believable talk even though I don't believe a word of it.
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How do you cope with a zealous JW wife?
by eyesthatsee ini've been out for a little while now - fading was my chosen strategy.
before then, elder for around 20 years - all the usual stuff.. why leave?
(1) reading other material and thinking for yourself - never too late (2) couldn't stomach any more judicial committees where i had to preside over handing out edicts that were going to wreck peoples' lives (3) final realisation that i'm not going to let my children die because of the false 'blood' interpretation (4) nail in the coffin, which opened my eyes to the 'rotteness at the core' of the organisation, was the deliberate mis-quoting of scientists and others, to make a lie seem like truth.. anyway, my wife (both pioneered together) is as zealous as ever - more so now.
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alanv
My JW wife died several years ago and one of the things she said was she wouldn't have married me if she had known I was going to leave the org. In every other way we had a good close marriage and luckily our love for each other got us through it.
We all have to remember when dealing with close JW family members that they have been totally indoctrinated by the society just as we were for so long.
All you can do is be a loving husband and father and hopefully your wife will realize in time that she too has been misled. It is getting easier and easier to see the lies and hypocrisy of the society and I'm sure your wife will realize the same as you have in time.
Good luck
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JWs... You are not unique! take a look at this. My research
by Aussie Oz inin my research i have decided to go waaaay back.
so, one of the first things i did was look at the beginnings with regard to charles taze russell.. while this may be old news to many, this is indeed new to me.
and i want to tell this to the jws that are no doubt on here too.. you are an adventist sect.. without posting the expanded (very long) version of my research, i will post the basics that lead me to this conclusion.. how unique are jehovahs witnesses?
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alanv
Good post Oz. As you say many have a rough idea what happened back then but I must say I never new JWs had so much in common with the adventists. Good advice to get people to check it out not an 'apostate' site but with the WT CD rom and wiki pedia.
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The most frightening time in this Worlds History!
by wannabe indoes the bible supply us with any information, that might give us, at least, some idea when this frightening time period will begin?does it show us, in some way, just how frightening this time period will be, and just what is the main cause of it?
" [matthew 24:8 niv}.
what was it that actually marked the beginning of these birth pangs?
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alanv
Either way I'm sure Jesus was not talking about our day. As Harold Macmillon the British prime minister after the war said ,'You've never had it so good. I believe that is even truer now. People generally are healthier now which is why they are living longer. Gone are the days when babies and young children used to routinely die in the more advanced countries.
Although there is still much to be done, things are gradually getting better for many people. The terrible Haiti earthquake would have wiped out many more hundreds of thousands of people had it happened 100 years ago. There has been masive help from the world to ease their pain as much as possable. I could go on but suffice to say, I and many others are very glad we are living now at the start of the 21st century and not at any other time in human history.
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Please help me, I'm having a "discussion" with a JW in a chat room and. . .
by Ilovebirthdays ini need help remembering a scripture.
i'm sucessfully turning the conversation to the point where her answer is going to have to be something along the lines of the light keeps getting brighter and brighter, because we're discussing the "generation" teaching changing multiple times and why that is, and i want to bring out a scripture something along the lines of "you will know they are false teachers because their prophecies often fail that the jw's use against other religions", but not only do i not know what bible book, chapter and verse it is, i can't remember the correct wording to search it.. this site has already been a great help, because i've gotten her to flip flop her stance on the blood doctrine (first she told me fractions weren't allowed, and when i showed her they were, then she changed her tune, which caught the attention of others in there.
i was able to get her to the point where she is flustered and waffling over the "generation" teaching, which i was able to do thanks to the wonderful chart outlining all the flip flops that had been posted here, so thank you on those, but since i can't remember the scripture, i can't use the search function, because i can't remember what i'm talking about, as i've been out 13+ years, and didn't even keep my bible.. if you know what i'm talking about, could you please help me figure out what i'm talking about?.
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alanv
Ilovebirthdays it really does show what a great site this is where you can get questions answered and get ideas on how to speak to witnesses. Let us know how you get on, as I am sure we will all be interested.
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Help in finding a previous topic.
by moggy lover inat least a year or even two years ago, there was a fascinating post which listed the frequency of biblical chapters as used in watchtower literature.
i recall that matt 24 was given the pride of place with some 10-20 thousand citations, and next in descending order were other chapters.
some chapters such as john 2 and 3 were hardly referred to at all.. i know that i saved it to my hard drive but, in researching some material about the "generation" of matt 24, can not trace it.
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alanv
If you saved it to your hard drive you should be able to click start then search then files and folders. Then type in some of the words you used to save the info.
Failing that you may be able to download the Watchtower CD rom. You can then type in any scripture you want and see how often it is used. Good luck