The whole sheep/goats thing was impossible for me to deal with even as a kid (no pun intended.) Even back then I knew that goats were totally awesome. I mean they would climb fences and small outbuildings, they would eat tin cans and women's underwear, and then there was all the headbutting.
Sheep on the other hand just eat, poop, and make wool for sweaters. Yes this is useful, but no it is not cool.
Then later I realized that they had really taken that sheep and goats parable in Matthew and just RAN with it, man, totally just RAN with it. I mean, it didn't even say "goats" originally, the literal translation was "little kids." Jesus obviously didn't indend for his latter-day organization to be extrapolating out this huge morality lesson about how goats act, and how sheep act, and how he didn't want people who acted like goats and so on, it was just this common agrarian illustration his listeners would have automatically understood.
under_believer
JoinedPosts by under_believer
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15
Things JW's Say: "Yes I'm Brainwashed... And Proud Of It!"
by under_believer inthat last post about the "college education" was so successful i decided to post another.
has anybody ever heard witnesse say the above?
they'll say that, and then they'll follow up with "my brain is washed of evil thoughts, immoral sexual impulses, independent, goatlike thinking, demonism, etc..." this is something i have heard in conversation, comments at the meeting, and from the platform in the congregation, though never at a higher level than that.
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under_believer
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Things JW's Say: "Yes I'm Brainwashed... And Proud Of It!"
by under_believer inthat last post about the "college education" was so successful i decided to post another.
has anybody ever heard witnesse say the above?
they'll say that, and then they'll follow up with "my brain is washed of evil thoughts, immoral sexual impulses, independent, goatlike thinking, demonism, etc..." this is something i have heard in conversation, comments at the meeting, and from the platform in the congregation, though never at a higher level than that.
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under_believer
Wow, I had no idea it was such an official meme. I always thought it was of R&F apologist manufacture. Thanks, all, for the experiences and input.
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How does the HLC find out so fast?
by carla inhow does the hlc find out someone is in the hospital so fast?
does a family member call?
does the hospital see the 'no blood' in their records and call?
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under_believer
The new Advance Medical Directive specifically includes a clause that your medical records are to be freely shared with the elders in your hall. I don't remember the exact wording but it's in there. This means that all bets are off if you have executed one of those dealies.
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Should you apologize????
by jw inyes, a person should never be too proud to swallow his pride, apologize, and seek forgiveness.
abigail, a wise woman in ancient israel, provides an example of the power of an apology, although her apology was for a wrong that her husband had committed.
while dwelling in the wilderness, david, who later became king of israel, together with his men protected the flock that belonged to abigail's husband, nabal.
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under_believer
Thread source: http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/2002/11/1/article_02.htm
You will find that jw's main thing is to cut-and-paste stuff in here. As you can see from his/her subsequent posts, he/she is no great shakes on their own, and frequently petty and small when thinking for him/herself. -
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Do you think a JW childhood is abusive?
by Konrad West ini had a long discussion the other day with my new flatmate, who it turns out has studied with jws and thinks they're wonderful, about my view that being raised a jw is psychologically abusive.
being indoctrinated with the concept of jehovah killing people who don't do what he says and being scared of losing your friends and family if disobedient is, in my view, a very unhealthy thing for a child.
any thoughts?
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under_believer
PS: How do you use firefox and get paragraphs? Anyone?
You have three options.
- Check the "Automatic Cr/Lf" option before posting. This will put an HTML paragraph break into your post for each line break you make. Be sure to start each paragraph on the very next line from the last one, or your post will have far too much whitespace between paragraphs.
- Put the HTML in yourself. Type "<br>" (without the quotes) each time you want a paragraph break.
- Use the IE Tab Firefox extension. This actually uses IE inside of Firefox. This is the option I use, that way you can use the full HTML editing component.
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I don't believe in Bible chronology. I believe in love.
by under_believer ini think so-called "bible chronology" is ridiculous.
i think that the concept that god left all these hidden messages that require all kinds of mathematics, symbolic time periods, coded references, antitypicals, classes of people, lesser and greater fulfillments, and so forth, really stretches credibility.. why would god do that?
why would he make it so complicated and confusing to serve him in true worship?
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under_believer
I think so-called "Bible Chronology" is ridiculous. I think that the concept that God left all these hidden messages that require all kinds of mathematics, symbolic time periods, coded references, antitypicals, classes of people, lesser and greater fulfillments, and so forth, really stretches credibility.
Why would God do that? Why would he make it so complicated and confusing to serve him in true worship? Why would these things be so squishy, so interpretive, so fragile, that his own "spirit-directed organization" would interpret them incorrectly and have to reexamine them so many times in a row? Why would repeated tests of faith be necessary?
Does any of that seem logical? Make sense? Or, alternatively, why can't we just adopt Occam's Razor for Bible interpretation?
There is this perennial tendency to argue 607 this, 587 that, 1914 this, 1919 that, and every time I crack one of those arguments open, I get halfway through the post (whether for or against) and my brain just starts to boggle. Perhaps I'm just not in tune with the "deep things of God," but I simply can't imagine that God really wanted people to try and apply every single word in that Bible of his to themselves, everyone they know, and the current political climate of whenever they lived. I mean, isn't the Bible iconic enough, and full of enough archetypes, that it really could probably apply to any given time period?
If the Bible means anything (something I'm still trying to decide,) I think it probably most likely means what was neatly summarized by Jesus at Matthew 22:34-40 (NIV):Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
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JWs and the lack of high emotional states
by Lady Lee injws and the lack of high emotional states
the wts capitalizes on a couple of mood states.
the biggest is fear.
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under_believer
Here's part of the emotion-suppression propaganda:***w93 8/15 p. 22 par. 19 Let Your Self-Control Exist and Overflow ***
We have dealt primarily with one aspect of self-control, controlling our emotions. And that is a key area because failure to control our emotions can lead to losing control of our tongue, our sexual impulses, our eating habits, and many others aspects of life where we must display self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:8, 9; James 3:5-10) Take courage, though, for you can improve in maintaining self-control.
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Things JW's Say: "Yes I'm Brainwashed... And Proud Of It!"
by under_believer inthat last post about the "college education" was so successful i decided to post another.
has anybody ever heard witnesse say the above?
they'll say that, and then they'll follow up with "my brain is washed of evil thoughts, immoral sexual impulses, independent, goatlike thinking, demonism, etc..." this is something i have heard in conversation, comments at the meeting, and from the platform in the congregation, though never at a higher level than that.
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under_believer
That last post about the "college education" was so successful I decided to post another. Has anybody ever heard Witnesse say the above? They'll say that, and then they'll follow up with "My brain is washed of evil thoughts, immoral sexual impulses, independent, goatlike thinking, demonism, etc..." This is something I have heard in conversation, comments at the meeting, and from the platform in the congregation, though never at a higher level than that. It makes me want to barf.
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WatchTower Library and unix
by Lehtiveli inhave you managed to get wt library to run on unix?.
i have mac osx computer and i would to get library running on my computer smootly.
i have tried using qemu windows emulator but it's slow as hell.. any tips?.
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under_believer
There is a Wine implementation for OS X, you could try that... http://darwine.opendarwin.org/.
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WatchTower Library and unix
by Lehtiveli inhave you managed to get wt library to run on unix?.
i have mac osx computer and i would to get library running on my computer smootly.
i have tried using qemu windows emulator but it's slow as hell.. any tips?.
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under_believer
You're running unix? On a Mac? Are you sure about that?