scout, I sayed about those which I know! And I know not too much christians who have turned away. And actually to say for sure that they have turned away you have to look what is happening at the very end of their lives. Actually I guess each christian has "empty" period in their lives, sometimes people return sometime no. Why exactly... there is no common answer for each case.
Sometimes people devote themselves to Pastors, Churches (as organization), people to something what is RESULT of Christianity, not it's source. What is happening really, who can tell...??? I just can tell my own... I feel that I can loose everything, but if I have Christ, I don't loose anything. But if I will lose Christ, I will lose everything else. Without him the life looses meaning. With him each breath becomes meaningfull for me. And it is not about rituals, churches, pastors, apologetic, good works or whatever... it is all about realizing that God himself died for me. He was not forced to do so, it was his own choice, and only explanation to this is that He loves me. May be I don't love him, but I can't denie that he loves me. And this love keeps me ticking in this world. I wish that each one could realize that God does not requires from us anything as only permission to be our Father and our expressed will to be His children, everything else he has done for us and has given life which humanity have thrown away.
Shazard
JoinedPosts by Shazard
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8
"Shouldn't they have known better?"
by scout575 in"over the years i have come to know and know of many ex-christians, most of whom were well-churched, their numbers including former ministers, apologists, missionaries, theologians etc.
why should such people leave christianity?
these people are the best versed in christianity and yet leave despite so much personal and professional investment in their religion, enjoyment of their time as believing christians and social pressures to stay.
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Shazard
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"Shouldn't they have known better?"
by scout575 in"over the years i have come to know and know of many ex-christians, most of whom were well-churched, their numbers including former ministers, apologists, missionaries, theologians etc.
why should such people leave christianity?
these people are the best versed in christianity and yet leave despite so much personal and professional investment in their religion, enjoyment of their time as believing christians and social pressures to stay.
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Shazard
I agree... there is no common reason. And in theology this is mistery, how one can turn away. But... you never know what is happening with them on the frontier of their lives at the very end. Those which I have known, they turned away coz they at some point loosed the focus on person of Christ. If you loose the Son in Christianity, you loose faith no matter how good theologican you are. Ecumenical views sometimes goes too far away, and they loose Christ in this mess... Loosing focus on Christ is dangerous. Christianity is nothing more as personal relationship with Christ. All ethics, politics etc. around christianity, all that is only working if you have Christ, if you don't you loose the meaning of it!
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JW interpretation of bible
by osmosis insay, for example, you ask a jw about the book of genesis, and about the seven days, we all know what they say, that it's in "god time" which means 1 day = 7000 years, by their reckoning.
does this particular argument have any validity?
to me it seems like an "escape hatch", a tool to explain away what one could call certain "irregularities" in the bible.. they seem to think they can cross-reference any one part of the bible with any other as serves their ideological agenda.
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Shazard
When you are debating with them, you will notice, that on top of bible there is WT doctrine. And they mix and twist bible to fit this interpretation. Feature is that for basis of their "exegesis" they take such books as Proverbs 8, Revelation, Book of Daniel, Ezekiel etc. which are obviously not so clear and not very bright way to start interpretate Bible. But otherwise they can't. If they would take the base for Interpretation for example Gospel of John, they will never come to the conclusions they have. But this is exact rule of exegesis, you take very clear passages and apply them to not so clear with [b]SIMILAR[/b] context. JW does exactly oposite, they take some unclear passages (Proverbs 8) then they "make them clear" by applying some meanings of words from VERY different context, and wholala, you get your false base for false teaching. Typical example is interpretating John 1:1-18 using false analogies with Moses being "like god" to Pharaon. Contexts VERY different, Moses context is unclear compared to John 1:1-18. Actually John 1:1-18 is one of the cleares contexts which can be used to explain other regarding Christ's divinity. John itself says that his gospel is enough to get to know Jesus and come to faith and recieve everlasting life (John 20:30-31). 2 Cor 3 tells us about interperetation hierarchy. Old testament is UNDER New Testament interpretation. So real meaning you seek in New Testament and by this meaning you explain Old Testament. And that is wise, coz Old Testament speaks in riddles and unclear prophecies, but now when we know what exactly they were talking about we see them in new light - in light of Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ is key for interpretation, not WT teaching
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Moving Congregations. Am I Allowed To Read The Letter The Elders Write?
by Diogenes ini've just moved congregations (it's the easiest way to keep people off your back!
) and the elders have received the letter written about me.. i've asked to read it to make sure there are no inaccuracies but the elders have refused point blank saying i'm not allowed.. i'm certain that under the data protection act i am allowed.. does anybody have any thoughts on this?
could you point me to anything the society have said?
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Shazard
In general letter is from one person to other. And by protection of correspondence law owner of the letter decides if he want to show you. Even the whole letter is about you.
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Since Moses shares same titles with Jehovah and Jesus does it make him God?
by booker-t ini am saying this as a joke towards trinitarian reasoning but if a person acts on trinitarian assumption the bible could be used to prove moses is jehovah god of the old testaments.
one of the things that i notice with trinitarians is that they are constantly using "circular" reasoning in their attempts to prove jesus is jehovah.
they seem to rely heavily on if a certain title is used for jehovah and is again used for jesus then that is proof positive that jesus is jehovah.
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Shazard
And why JW thinks that "God" is title but not name of nature? Word "dog" can be title and can be description of nature!
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Re: Trinity confusing ?
by A Paduan ini have seen and read various pieces of wt work stating how christendom's "trinity" is a thoroughly confusing vague mathematically impossible unattainable concept of illusion.
it's a very basic concept.
like asking "how can one person have the authority of the governing body if they aren't the governing body all at the same time ?
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Shazard
fjtoth what I meant is I explained how something one can be three and still be one. Ofcourse nature of God is not possible to explain in terms of human mind. But dubs are not able to accept even illustration of trinity (which I told clear) if it suggests that dubs are wrong. Their usual answer is "my mind can't understand it, and God is not God of confusion, so it can't be".
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Re: Trinity confusing ?
by A Paduan ini have seen and read various pieces of wt work stating how christendom's "trinity" is a thoroughly confusing vague mathematically impossible unattainable concept of illusion.
it's a very basic concept.
like asking "how can one person have the authority of the governing body if they aren't the governing body all at the same time ?
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Shazard
That is usual JW tactics. Asking questions and then answering, or asking questions requiring answer in some specific form. Once one JW Elder (are they all so stupud?) asked me to explain trinity using family example. I answered him that trinity is not understood in terms of our people family but in terms of Godhead. He didn't liked answer. Coz I explained trinity very clearly. He was not able to refute examples that something one can be something three at the same time and still be one. (Water, Space, Time, Different translations of the same book etc.) They represent trinity as straw man and what they do all the time is refuting their own understanding of trinity which has nothing to do with real Trinity. So what they are doing is - fighting air.
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Interesting email from a 13 year old.
by jwfacts inon my website jwfacts.com i ask two questions on the front page.
today i received an email from a 13yo attempting to answer them, which i thought was very sweet.
> cross and actually have it on the watchtower back in the day.
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Shazard
OUH and Yes... it means that active JW actually read the site, so message is going out!
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Interesting email from a 13 year old.
by jwfacts inon my website jwfacts.com i ask two questions on the front page.
today i received an email from a 13yo attempting to answer them, which i thought was very sweet.
> cross and actually have it on the watchtower back in the day.
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Shazard
JWFacts your answer is good. It does not possess hate and it do not make the reader miserable. I can see care and love in your response. BTW I like your site, just that "truth about truth in 15 minutes" definetly is not 15 minutes :)
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The Bible seems to show that Jehovah chooses bad leaders
by free2beme ini was watching this history channel production, and it was talking about israel and their kings.
it mentioned how saul was a bad king, how david was a king who let lust and greed take him over.
plus, we know moses made a big enough mistake to not be allowed into the promise land and then we also see jesus bad taste in followers with the judas incident.
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Shazard
What do I see is that Bible is one unique book which shows that God is with those who are not brightest of this world. Bible shows, that God is with "minority". So I wander why Bible is not very popular today as today "minority" is everything. Each "minority" declares their own rights and requires majority to provide them. So I guess bible would be very good reason today for minorities, but they just don't see the oportunity and stays minority without God. But minority with God would rule the world!