BurnTheShips

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Posts by BurnTheShips

• 
  61

  New Watchtower Jan,15 2008

  by Batty in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2192/1543592646_fecb073ad7.jpg

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  BurnTheShips

  Here is my attempt at a translation for the benefit of all:
  
  
  Watchtower Study Edition
  
  Study articled for the weeks of:
  
  11-17 of February
  "Be Careful to complete the Ministry that you received from the Lord"
  Page 4 Songs 193, 151
  
  18-24 of February
  "Pay attention to your 'Ability to Teach'"
  Page 8 Songs 6, 123
  
  25 of February-2 of March
  "The "correctly disposed" are accepting the Good News"
  Page 13 Songs 156, 133
  
  3-9 of March
  "Counted as worthy of receiving the Kingdom"
  Page 20 Songs 195, 60
  
  10-16 of February
  "Counted as worthy of being guided to springs of life giving waters"
  Page 24 Songs 99, 187
• 
  9

  2 Thess 2:11

  by Dawn in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  because of this, god sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

  growing up as a jw i believed that this scripture applied point blank to apostates - those that decided not to believe in jehovah.

  because of this one scripture i was terrified to really look into my doubts and ask too many questions - i was afriad that god might decide to just "let me believe a lie" and write me off.. it took me a long time to get over that fear - the one scripture that finally resonated with me one day was mathew 7:7 "ask and it will be given to you".

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  BurnTheShips

  It should be noted that this is a private peice of mail, (now stolen and placed in the "bible") that Paul of Tarsus (some guy) wrote to a specific group of people in a specific place at a specific time.
  
  Stolen? How do you know it was stolen?
  
  Anyone have a modern day way to use this? Anybody going to fetch Paul's coat that he somehow forgot and left in Troas? How does a spirit filled inspired writer forget a coat? This is supposed to be God's message to mankind? "All" of it?
  
  How do you know he forgot his coat?
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  10

  The Subtle, Lethal Poison of Religion

  by nvrgnbk in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the subtle, lethal poison of religion.

  on sunday the new york times reported on the recrudescence of "faith-based" teaching in russian public schools:.

  a teacher named irina donshina set aside her textbooks, strode before her second-graders and, as if speaking from a pulpit, posed a simple question: .

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  BurnTheShips

  A Response to Hitchens' "God Is Not Great"
  
  Father Cantalamessa Analyzes Attack on Religion
  
  ROME, SEPT. 24, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of a commentary written by Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the
  Pontifical Household, in response to an essay on religion and evolution written by Christopher Hitchens.
  
  * * *
  
  CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND THE END OF EVOLUTION
  
  A few weeks ago an anonymous benefactor saw to it that I received a free Italian edition of an essay by the Anglo-American journalist
  Christopher Hitchens, titled "God Is Not Great," subtitled "How Religion Poisons Everything" (Giulio Einaudi, Turin/New York 2007).
  
  I'm quite sure his aim was not to provoke me, but to help me out of the deception I find myself in as a believer and as a TV commentator
  on the Gospel.
  
  Let me say at once that I'm grateful to my unknown friend. Many of the author's reproaches against believers of all religions -- the book
  treats Islam no better than Christianity, which shows considerable courage on the part of the author -- are well founded, and
  must be taken seriously so that the same errors of the past are not repeated in the future. The Second Vatican Council states that the
  Christian faith can and should benefit even from the criticisms of its attackers, and this is certainly one of those cases.
  
  But Hitchens, in my view, makes a mountain out of every molehill. He claims to follow the Gospel principle of judging the tree by its
  fruits, but as for the tree of religion, he only considers the rotten fruits, never the good ones. The saints, the geniuses and
  benefactors given to humanity by the faith or nourished by it, count for nothing.
  
  Using the same principles -- I mean, by considering only the dark side of an institution -- one could write a "black book" about any of
  the great human realities: the family; medicine (just think what it was used for at Auschwitz); politics and science, and about the
  author's own profession, journalism (how many times has it been, and still is, in the service of tyrants and serving the interests of
  powerful groups!).
  
  No one is exempt from his criticisms. Francis of Assisi? "A mammal who was said to have preached to birds!"
  
  Mother Teresa of Calcutta? "An ambitious Albanian nun" made famous by the book "Something Beautiful for God," written about her by Malcolm
  Muggeridge. In other words, Mother Teresa is just one of many products of the media age!
  
  Pascal concludes his account of his discovery of the living God with the words: "Joy, joy, tears of joy." And C.S. Lewis describes his
  conversion as being "surprised by joy," but for Hitchens "there is something dreary and absurd" in these two authors, as in all
  believers: a fundamental absence of happiness. ("Why does such a belief not make its adherents happy?")
  
  Dostoyevsky is one of the main witnesses for religion, but the arguments put into the mouth of the rebel atheist Ivan are given more
  attention than those of the pious Alysosha who, as is well known, reflects much more closely the thought of the author himself.
  
  Tertullian becomes a "church father" so that his "credo quia absurdum" -- I believe because it is absurd -- can be interpreted as the
  thought of Christianity as a whole, whereas it is well known that when he wrote these words (here interpreted outside of their proper
  context and in an inexact way) the Church considered Tertullian a heretic.
  
  Strange that the author should criticize Tertullian, because if there is one apologist he resembles, like a reversed reflection in a
  mirror, it is precisely the African: The same energetic style, the same will to triumph over his adversary by burying him under a mass
  of apparently -- but only apparently -- insuperable arguments: quantity replacing quality of argument.
  
  An English reviewer (J. Cornwell of The Tablet) has compared the author of this book to "a tired old prizefighter throwing weary punches
  at an inert punching-bag while the true champ he'd like to duff up is absent from the gym."
  
  He does not demolish the true faith, but a caricature of it. Reading the book, I was reminded of the sport of clay pigeon shooting: The
  ready-made targets are hurled into the air, and the marksman, aiming his shots with fine precision, blasts them to bits effortlessly.
  
  Hitchens attacks the various religious fundamentalisms with an opposite kind of fundamentalism. In the Italian secular newspaper La
  Repubblica, Renzo Guolo wrote: "Hitchens' work looks like the militant manifesto of a world that appears polarized between the
  disturbing champions of fundamentalism, with their crazy projects for new, totalitarian ethical states, and the supporters of an
  integral neo-secularism which undervalues the search for meaning on which many are engaged in this age of the 'end of the
  narratives.'"
  
  Hitchens shows signs of another kind of fundamentalism too: Although with the opposite intention, he reads Scripture, especially the Old
  Testament, in exactly the same way as certain biblical fundamentalists of the American evangelical variety -- literally, without any
  effort to contextualize or interpret the text historically. This enables him to speak of "the nightmare of the New Testament."
  
  But Christopher Hitchens is an intelligent man. He foresees that religion will survive even his attack, just as it has survived countless
  others before it, and he goes to the trouble of providing an explanation for this embarrassing fact.
  
  "Religious faith," he writes, "precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, is ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not
  until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other."
  
  Religion is only a provisional, intermediate state, connected with the situation of man as "an evolving being." Thus the author tacitly
  assumes the role of one who has single-handedly broken through this barrier, anticipating the end of evolution and "returning" to
  earth, like Nietzsche's Zarathustra, to enlighten poor mortals about the way things really are.
  
  I repeat: One cannot fail to acknowledge the author's extraordinary erudition and the relevance of some of his criticisms. The pity is, by
  trying to win the argument hands down, he fails to convince.
  
  
  http://www.zenit.org/article-20578?l=english
• 
  108

  Hello everyone, first post.

  by Frjprice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello, i just wanted to introduce myself to everyone here - as i will be posting here.. i grew up a jw and pioneered, was a ministerial servant, ect, i was in the organization for 17 years.

  i left and naturally my family did as they were told and cut off all communication with me.

  this left a horrible taste in my mouth for not just jw's, but any religion for that matter.

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  BurnTheShips

  Eeesh. I just figured this is not real Catholic.
• 
  108

  Hello everyone, first post.

  by Frjprice in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello, i just wanted to introduce myself to everyone here - as i will be posting here.. i grew up a jw and pioneered, was a ministerial servant, ect, i was in the organization for 17 years.

  i left and naturally my family did as they were told and cut off all communication with me.

  this left a horrible taste in my mouth for not just jw's, but any religion for that matter.

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  BurnTheShips

  Welcome Father Price! My brother is also ex-JW (as I am). He is 23 and currently in the Seminary for the priesthood. I am also moving towards Catholicism. We look forward to communicting with you! BurnTheShips
• 
  25

  What You Gonna Do With All That Junk ...

  by snowbird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  that you've accumulated over the years during your involvement with the wts?.

  i look back over mine and i don't feel anything.

  it's as if the past 34 years were ???.

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  BurnTheShips

  I have heard that it burns poorly
  OH NOOOOOO.... DEMONS!!!
  
  You joke, but let me tell you, I felt like there WERE demons in the "basement" of my place where I had all of this stuff stashed.
  
  I started fading last year when I turned in my privs and I put everything downstairs out of our living area and I swear I felt a "presence" down there. I would even get panic attacks. Either it was demonized or I was just having trouble transitioning. And there was SO MUCH. It is amazing how much stuff you accumulate-and you never notice the sheer volume until you "detox". If this isn't a book-peddlers cult of idolatry I do not know what is! One night I said ENOUGH and lit it all up in the yard.
  Someone called the fire department
  I had to put it out so I hosed it for a looong time. Guess what, the next afternoon I was down there, I looked out the window, and the damn half burned pile of WT stuff spontaneously lit up again!!!
  
  Too bizarre for me.
• 
  3

  Possible Cure for Cancer uses.....gasp.....Blood!?!

  by BurnTheShips in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if this one works, one wonders how the jw's are going to allow this "fraction".. .

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/19/ncancer219.xml.

  cancer cure 'may be available in two years'.

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  BurnTheShips

  If this one works, one wonders how the JW's are going to allow this "fraction".
  
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/19/ncancer219.xml
  
  

  Cancer cure 'may be available in two years'

  
  By Nic Fleming Science Correspondent
  Last Updated: 2:08am BST 20/09/2007

  Cancer sufferers could be cured with injections of immune cells from other people within two years, scientists say.

  B
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  51

  Prove to me Jesus existed...............

  by passive suicide in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here's a thought guys......prove that jesus existed at all..using anything besides the bible....or the writings of josephus (which have been proven tampered with by the early christian church).

  you are all arguing a moot point...not only has the 'organization' been deceiving you.....but the bible itself is a made up, bit of pap, used to enslave man to his own dismay....prove me wrong.

  use historical accuracy.....i'm waiting......

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  BurnTheShips

  Source please?
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  79

  There's something happening here.

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey watchtower!

  can you feel it?

  that cold, hard knot in your stomach?

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  BurnTheShips

  I am in too!
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  35

  Coming to terms with your death - immortality options

  by Crumpet in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i must say its terribly hard to dredge up any enthusiasm for today or even this week at work, but i dont feel depressed.

  the weather has been so undecided these last few weeks, a little sun, but mostly pregnant clouds breaking water over our heads several times a day.

  its also quite warm and clammy as if we are in a limbo land between seasons and there is little in terms of beauty to redeem it.

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  BurnTheShips

  So familiar and overwhelmingly warm
  This one, this form I hold now.
  Embracing you, this reality here,
  This one, this form I hold now, so
  Wide eyed and hopeful.
  Wide eyed and hopefully wild.
  
  We barely remember what came before this precious moment,
  Choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside...
  This body holding me, reminding me that I am not alone in
  This body makes me feel eternal. All this pain is an illusion.
  
  We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment,
  We are choosing to be here right now. Hold on, stay inside
  This holy reality, this holy experience.
  Choosing to be here in
  This body. This body holding me. Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
  This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal
  All this pain is an illusion.
  
  Alive, I
  
  In this holy reality, in this holy experience.
  
  Twirling round with this familiar parable.
  Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
  Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.
  
  This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
  Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal.
  All this pain is an illusion.