FM - Congrats on the decision. I can tell you that anyone who has been in your position can totally relate to what you went through. I know it felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders when I finally resigned. Brace yourself on being treated much differently by members of the local congregation. Your wife may be treated differently as well. I never believed that would be the case until I went through it myself.
Doubting Bro
JoinedPosts by Doubting Bro
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50
Resigned
by Franklin Massey ini finally resigned as an elder.
my conscience wouldn't allow me to continue.
i've battled for years trying to reconcile the fallacies of the wt society with my own personal beliefs.
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DC 2011 Strange omission from the releases
by JWFreak inthere are 3 really basic releases for the dc this year.
revised vol 1 of young people ask.................hmmm lot of work in that one.
new brochure.
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Doubting Bro
JWF - Great to see you posting again. Hope all is well. We really appreciate your contributions!!!
I agree that it's very odd that they had a book written but couldn't get final sign off and that the GB is fairly split. I wonder if that's why they haven't put any more on yet? If there's that big of a split between them, they likely wouldn't be able to agree on additional members.
Do you have any idea as to who is allied with whom? I know Loshe is hard core but really not sure as to the others. Any insight you can share?
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Is May 21st the Judgement Day?
by witnessofjesus inwhat you need to know about date setting by dr. h.l.
willmington .
no doubt one of the most anticipated day thus far in this century was friday, april 29, when william and kate were married at westminster abbey in london.
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Doubting Bro
I will say this, Camping got his insane message out to the masses much better than the WT has!! Ironically many JWs that I've spoken to about this have made fun of Camping and his group. Sort of like Lars above.
Uh, pot meet kettle
BTW - love the list of unfulfilled predictions!! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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How Do I 'Come Out' To My Kids?
by headisspinning inthose of you who have been following my story know that i just 'came out' to my family about being finished with the religion.. does anyone have advice on how to explain this to the kids?
their ages are 9 & 14 and they are very smart and fully grasp all the issues.. they are living with their father who has brainwashed them.
so this is very touchy.. should i just keep being a good mom and just lay low?
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Doubting Bro
Scully - That may be the best written piece of advice I've ever seen. Headisspinning, I also think forcing your ex to abide by what the courts have mandated is your biggest issue at the moment.
Kids at those ages certainly grasp what's going on. I think the indirect method of questioning and getting them to think for themselves is probably the best course. Obviously if they ask directly what your stance is you can tell them the truth, that you used to believe that way but after you really investigated the religion, you now think differently. Maybe give them one example and then drop it for the time being. The older one you could likely have a more indepth conversation with but remember how you reacted the first time the blinders came off. They could react the same way.
Whatever you do, don't flood them with everything at once. If they really believe, they likely can't handle it.
Of course, if one of my parents told me that I didn't have to go to meetings, etc at 14, I would have jumped for joy. I didn't really start beliving hard core until later.
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Couple of questions for the Christians here - CO's talk mentioned some things that I want to understand
by Doubting Bro inthis is a question for all the christians on the board.
i sat through the first co talk last night which was basically a plea to not give up preaching.
one of his main points was that no one else had "the truth" and every other person that claims to be christian is in error.
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Doubting Bro
jgnat - Thanks for the links. It's interesting because it sounds like the CO was somewhat right in that there is one group that teaches Adams motivation for eating the fruit was to go to heaven. Leave it to a religion with a similar background as JWs to come up with this one. The answer???
Mormonism
Mormonism believes that The Fall was part of a plan thought up by God so that His children could get into Heaven.
Mormons say that when Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge it was not wrong, but was just a "demotion", like going from one good job to another, less good job. Before eating the fruit, Adam could never die. Because he could never die, he could never go to heaven. Eating the fruit made it so that Adam could die, so that later he could go to heaven. It also made it so that Adam and Eve could have children, so that everyone would have a chance to live, die, and go to heaven. Mormons say that if one follows the Plan of Salvation, that person can go to heaven.
Now, the fact that many don't accept LDS as being mainstream Christianity and I know there are those that say they're not Christian at all makes this even better. Talk about a broad brush!! I can't wait to use this!!
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Couple of questions for the Christians here - CO's talk mentioned some things that I want to understand
by Doubting Bro inthis is a question for all the christians on the board.
i sat through the first co talk last night which was basically a plea to not give up preaching.
one of his main points was that no one else had "the truth" and every other person that claims to be christian is in error.
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Doubting Bro
jgant - you're dead on with your assessment that to the WT sin=imperfection. So let me ask, is the thought that Adam had no idea that he could choose to be separate from God and that the tree (whether symbolic or literal) gave him the knowledge that he could decide he didn't need God any longer? I believe the WTS doesn't really get into details on why the tree was named this way but rather focuses on the act of defying God's specific instructions. In other words, there wasn't necessarily anything special about the tree, it was the fact they disobeyed.
I appreciate your other responses as well!
james woods - yeah, it was wacky. I think what he was really saying is that in essence, that's what the churches teach. Not that they have a specific creed that spells it out. In thinking about it, I believe he was using WT "logic" to show how "far from the truth" mainstream Christians are.
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Couple of questions for the Christians here - CO's talk mentioned some things that I want to understand
by Doubting Bro inthis is a question for all the christians on the board.
i sat through the first co talk last night which was basically a plea to not give up preaching.
one of his main points was that no one else had "the truth" and every other person that claims to be christian is in error.
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Doubting Bro
Terry - I believe you've misread my questions. I'm specifically asking what mainstream Christians teach on a particular subject because I believe the CO to have misrepresented their views. I wasn't arguing the validity of such beliefs. I want to understand so that I can point out to my wife that the CO is misrepresenting other's beliefs which I'm hoping will spark discussions on other things that the WTS and its reps misrepresent.
My presupposition is that the CO is either lying out right or being disingenious when speaking on the subject of what others believe.
tenyearsafter - exactly. using half truths to support a position is their MO.
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Couple of questions for the Christians here - CO's talk mentioned some things that I want to understand
by Doubting Bro inthis is a question for all the christians on the board.
i sat through the first co talk last night which was basically a plea to not give up preaching.
one of his main points was that no one else had "the truth" and every other person that claims to be christian is in error.
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Doubting Bro
This is a question for all the Christians on the board. I sat through the first CO talk last night which was basically a plea to not give up preaching. One of his main points was that no one else had "the truth" and every other person that claims to be Christian is in error. Typical bashing of others that one expects. Well, he was relating a story about an encounter he had with a lady in service and I want your opinions regarding whether he was accurately relaying the mainstream view on Jesus sacrifice.
He said that he usually avoids talking about the Trinity when in service and instead focuses on Jesus ransom sacrifice. He said that if a person believes Jesus died to offset Adam's sin and thus mankind's sin, then they can't believe in the deity of Christ.
So my question is:
1) What is the mainstream Christian view of why Jesus came to earth and why he had to die?
2) What was Adam's motivation to rebel? The CO says that Christianity teaches that he wanted to go to heaven and the only way he could do this was to sin and die. Obviously this makes no sense and I sat there thinking there's no way this could be true.
3) I think his point about the deity of Christ is that if he were god (or divine which I understand is different - ie same nature as the Father but not the Father), then the sacrifice would have been too much. I really can't see why that would matter but he apparently thinks its a big deal. He never directly said why he believed this to be the case as if it was so clear that no explaination was necessary.
He also said that Christians don't commerate his death only his resurrection. I looked at my wife and said "what about Good Friday"? Isn't that the holiest day on the Christian calander? " No doubt that the Easter celebration has incorporated "pagan" influences but understanding how that came about makes sense to me that it would. And, to a person that never celebrated Easter, it seems to me that Easter would be a happy time to celebrate the resurrection (that God made good on his promise) as opposed to a more reflective, somber rememberance that Good Friday would involve (I guess, I've never been to a service so I could be way off base).
This CO, like many, is a skilled speaker and everyone was eating up what he was saying. I believe his arguments to be either disingenuous or outright lies when representing what other faiths teach. However, I didn't want my bias towards thinking everything out of a WT speakers mouth to be dishonest to cloud my judgement.
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Why the Memorial Is Held on the Wrong Day
by Leolaia intonight on the evening of april 18, 2011, observant jews worldwide will celebrate passover seder, a night "different from all other nights".
the watchtower society annually schedules the memorial for jehovah's witnesses on a date that is supposed to coincide with the jewish observance of passover, as it would have been reckoned during second temple times (in particular, in the first century ad during the life of jesus).
this year the memorial was observed last night, the evening of april 17. the two religious observances are thus a day out of synth, at least this year.
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Doubting Bro
Great info!
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Doubting Bro
Steve - I agree with you that apathy is the WTS worst enemy. Today's JW is much different than the previous generation. They aren't nearly as committed. It's really become a more social club or tradition based belief system as opposed to a doctrinal driven passionate sort of commitment.
It's my opinion that the higher ups are well aware of the apathy. There's no way they couldn't be aware of it and that's the reason for the frequent tract campaigns, lowering of pioneer hours over the years, the special 30 aux pioneer for April, etc.
I believe that they're wrong about the causes of the apathy. They believe that college or apostates must be the ones that are causing it. What they fail to realize is that they are the cause of it. Just like the boy who cried wolf, the WTS has had generations of JWs living at the edge for so long that the born-ins under 40 that should be the backbone of growth just don't pay attention any longer.
There doesn't appear to be anyone in a position of power that is willing to look in the mirror, take responsibility and make changes. Given the tone of the 7-15 WT, I can't see any changes or any reform.