Posts by reneeisorym

after loubelle's exercise thread, i thought it would be a fun idea to keep a log here and check in with everyone.. i walked 30 minutes yesterday plus after walked to the police station and the witch store about 3 miles away from the y.. food: .

breakfast: 2 pieces of toast: one with pb and the other with honey, coffee.

lunch: hardboiled egg, ham, cheese stick.

reneeisorym

I've got to get started again. I started dieting/exercise in February and I have lost 30 pounds. This past week I have been naughty (Lots of social events and visitors) I have actually gained 2 pounds this week! I must get busy ASAP!

12

From Know It All Religon to a simple Know It All?

by AllTimeJeff in

jw
friends

i was just curious for those of you who have left for at least a little time if you look back on yourself when you first left the borg and had this happen; because you were suddenly free to think, you thought you were right about most things soon after you left........ my jw experience groomed in me a disposition that i was always right.

that personality trait didn't leave just because i left jw's.

i realized one day last year that i thought in much the same ways i did as a jw, that is, i never questioned my own assumptions.. we were told that jw's were "the most educated people on earth".

reneeisorym

Leaving had the opposite affect on me. I realized that I didn't know near as much as I thought. The more I know, the more I realize I don't know.

36

Unrealized hopes and dreams - crappy reality of life

by tartarus in

i am thankful to jehovah's witnesses who taught me the bible.

i still believe it is the word of god.

i have studied other spiritual traditions and have compared different teachings and haven't found one that gives such a positive outlook on the future.

reneeisorym

I'm a prodestant (more specifically Presbyterian) -- I have hope for the future (in the form of heaven) without the control.

45

What are you doing to save money on groceries and gas?

by milligal in

jw
friends

i'm looking for tips.

i usually shop at a commissary on a military post, the other day i went to a civillian store and found eggs for $3/dozen, milk $5/gallon and bread $3/loaf!

well even on post it's still expensive.

reneeisorym

>>>>>She recommended giving up that practice and only going when you actually need something, and buying only those things. I am finding I spend about half as much for food and grocery items. She also said to use what you have in the cupboards and see how long you can go without shopping.

I tried that -- I would end up eating out because I was missing an ingredient here and there and didn't want to go to the store. I just make a menu and buy stuff to make those menu items. It saves me money because I already have meals to pick and I'm more likely to cook instead of ordering out. (Everything in the planet is available for delivery where I live!)

50

Do You Still Believe In Anything JWs Taught You?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are there any beliefs that you learned from the witnesses that you still believe in?

reneeisorym

Well sorry Minimus ... I won't post on your threads again. j/k

63

You know, I've yet to meet a JW who can explain this

by Lady Zombie in

i know that has probably been covered ad infinitum on jwd.

so...... if jehovah is omnipotent, then there is nothing he can't do and nothing he doesn't know.. and, according to jws (as well as most other religions), god is love.

therefore he had to have known, even before creating all of creation, what would happen.

reneeisorym

You are absolutely right in all of your conclusions. The free will theory can't be.

I wrote this a little while back with the help of books -- I'm not claiming the thoughts to be my own at all ....

It also must be said that the Bible says that God is the author of both Evil and Good -- What makes Him good is that the evil he ordains will result in good. It's like if you let your daughter learn to ride a bike. It's bad that she will probably fall off but the greater good is that she will learn to ride the bike.

Why does Suffering and Evil Exist?

Is it possible that God just knows better than us? If God is truly God, isn’t it true that He would know better than we do? A God that doesn’t know more than we do is hardly worth believing in. So is it at least a possibility that God knows the long-term benefits of suffering will be beneficial to us somehow?

The older I get, the more I understand that I don’t know it all. In fact, I’ve discovered that I can’t predict the future very well. Sometimes I can predict the consequences of my actions, but when it comes to pain, I often lack the ability to see how it will ever benefit me. Perhaps it is hard for us to predict good coming from pain because our pain blinds us. We would never choose pain, so maybe God has to choose it for our own good sometimes.

Think about our dealings with our own children. We are much more wise than our children. Wouldn’t God’s intelligence be even greater than the difference between our children and us? Consider this: Sometimes we may decide not to help our children out of a bind for their own good. They may be struggling with their homework but we decide to allow them to struggle on their own so they can learn independence. A friend of mine told me about a great example of this. Her parents kicked her brother out of the house because he was doing drugs in their home after being warned. They did not want to enable him further and decided that making him find his own way was the only way to help. Again, isn’t it possible that God knows more than we do and is allowing us to suffer for the greater good?

We have a superb example of evil being used for good in the death of Christ. I am sure that the devil thought he had won when Jesus was nailed to a cross. Satan began to attempt an attack on God by hurting His people. Satan thought he had persecuted God’s own prophets. Then he orchestrated the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Instead, a great thing happened. Even the disciples had a hard time understanding how this could be good, but God’s good purposes were accomplished. The way to heaven was opened up to humans by the sacrifice of Jesus.

I read this quote from Lee Strobel’s “Case for Faith”: “Let’s face it: we learn from the mistakes we make and the suffering they bring. The universe is a soul – making machine, and part of the process is learning, maturing, and growing through difficult and challenging and painful experiences. The point of our lives in this world isn’t comfort, but training and preparation for eternity. Scripture tells us that even Jesus ‘learned obedience through suffering’ –and if that was true for him, why wouldn’t it even be more true for us?”

Are children who are given every comfort of life at a moment’s notice better for it? Aren’t most people thankful for a difficult upbringing? My boss often tells me about a certain spoiled young man, “If money can do that to a person, I’m glad I grew up poor.” What would be become if we had every comfort given to us when on earth? Would we be spoiled brats?

Imgaine a world without evil. Every time God would take away evil, he would limit freedom. We would loose the ability to choose God and love. How would we feel when we got to heaven? “Oh I can have everything I want here? I could have that on earth.”

So why doesn’t God stop at least some of the pain? Maybe he is limiting suffering. But even still, that is a problematic question. Where would we draw the line? Is it ok to believe in God if he only allows a man to suffer for 3 years instead of 4? I trust that God in his infinite wisdom is allowing to happen what needs to happen for His good purposes.

Let’s consider some possible benefits to suffering. One is that it leads to repentance. Only after suffering did Isreal turn to God. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. … I have not called the righteous but the sinners.” So why do we continue in pain even after we have received eternal life? We must remember that we are still not “good” even after accepting Christ. Isaiah says, “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Each time my life is going well, I drift away from talking to God. When times are hard, God fills me with His love. When times are hard, I reach out and beg for God’s hand on me. I am thankful for hard times so I can feel God in my life again.

A friend of mine visited a poor small town in Nicaragua. She was amazed at how happy they were. People who work with the handicapped often become so blessed by the spirits of their clients. I feel blessed through my own story of pain; I was a wife to an abusive husband for five years.

Scottish theologian James S. Stewart said, “It is the spectators, the people who are outside, looking at the tragedy, from whose ranks the skeptics come; it is not those who are actually in the arena and who know suffering from the inside. Indeed, the fact is that it is the world’s greatest sufferers who have produced the most shining examples of unconquerable faith.” Some day we will thank God for all the suffering we have endured. Our time on earth will seem but a moment compared to eternity in heaven.

Besides, who says suffering is evil if you don’t believe in God? Who says what is good and what is evil? If there is no God to set a moral standard, your feeling of right and wrong is nothing more than a feeling. It is not written anywhere what constitutes morality. If you don’t believe in God, suffering is subjective. Getting rid of your belief of God doesn’t help you deal with the problem of evil and suffering. I suspect that such philosophy does answer this question satisfactorily to many who have experienced suffering and are in search of answers.

Contrary to the sermons by many famous TV evangelists, God does not promise a life without suffering. He promises a life of suffering. Instead what he promises is to walk with us through it. In Daniel chapter 3 three men are thrown into the fiery furnace as punishment for not bowing to a false god. Then Nebuchadnezzar sees four men in the furnace and the forth looks like a son of God. Who was the forth person? Isaiah gives us a promise: “Fear not, I have redeemed you. When you pass through the waters, I will be there. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Neither shall the fire kindle upon you.” WHEN you experience suffering, you will feel Him walking with you. The suffering will give you splendor and faith. That is the promise.

I’ve heard people say before, “God made a perfect world and we are the ones who messed it up.” I reject the idea that God sat back and blamed all the evil on us because we couldn’t love a God who didn’t care. But God didn’t just sit back; he took all the sins of the world on him at the cross. Not until you get into heaven will you know how far God went to be with us in our affliction. Christ bore all of our sins for our behalf.

Christ knows our suffering. The Jews went to concentration camps you say? Jesus has been beaten and hung. Have you lost a child? God lost His only son. Have you felt alone and abandoned? Jesus called out, “Why have you forsaken me?”

It just can’t be that God doesn’t love us. We may not understand the answer of why He allows suffering, but we know He loves us because He suffered for us. That is how you know He is with you through suffering and there is a loving God who cares.

42

announcement at service meeting

by heathen in

jw
friends

i actually went to the service meeting last night and low and behold the announcement was about the wtbts not charging interest on the loans on kingdom halls anymore but they still had to pay back the principle balance , i never knew they charged interest but think that it was a very dishonest thing for them to do to begin with .

you have to borrow money to pay for a building that the wtbts owns?

to charge interest is a very worldly practice since it was against mosaic law to do so and clearly jesus would never have asked anything of the sort .

reneeisorym

In my nearly 60 years around the WTS I have never known of them to send relief to anyone. I know the 'brothers' went to areas hit by Katrina and rebuilt some homes & Kingdom Halls for the JWs. My relatives went down and worked. They paid their own way. I question how much $$$ the WTS actually spent on that. They were even telling people not to write on their donations that it was for Katrina. They could get in trouble for not spending the donations they received for the specific purpose it was sent.
From what I heard, those people assisted were expected to turn over their insurance money to the WTS. Someone here on JWD just recently said she was asked for the insurance money after they had worked on her home.

The workers paid their own way and then we were asked to refund the society for the materials used plus make an extra contribution. So the Soceity actually PROFITED from the work done after Katrina. I had to give my FEMA money to the Society.

We were asked before they did the work if we had the means to repay them for the supplies. They got our insurance information and our FEMA amounts. There was a form to fill out with all our financial information on it before we could get work done on our houses. I was rejected the first time because my home was part of an estate (of whom ALL owners were witnesses). My family had to argue with the Society about it before they agreed to help. They did do the work cheaper than it would have cost. So it was nice to get that break. But it was because of the PEOPLE that it was cheaper -- the WTSociety was only a leech.

50

Do You Still Believe In Anything JWs Taught You?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are there any beliefs that you learned from the witnesses that you still believe in?

reneeisorym

Even the things I believe the same now (Like that the Bible is the Word of God), I believe with a twist (Their translation wasn't inspired by God)