Posts by Cold Steel

21

Anyone taking bets on the number of partakers this year?

by wha happened? in

even with the change to "just domestics", i can't see the number going down.

Cold Steel

What would the reaction be to someone partaking. If they're passing the emblems, certainly they should anticipate people partaking; otherwise, what's the point? If I were a believer, and a member, I suppose I'd partake. After all, I'd think being a heavenly creature would be a much better future than being stuck in a worldwide garden. If you've ever seen the Stargate series on TV, wouldn't existing as an "ascended" being have it all over having to live trillions and trillions of years as a terrestrial bound immortal? If you think about eternity and can even in a small way comprehend it, you would be able to count every grain of sand on every seashore of the earth billions of times and it would only be a fraction of a second in the long stretch of eternity that lies ahead.

As I understand the JW eschatology, only those of the 144,000 are supposed to partake. Even if one grants the bizarre interpretation the JWs have, who is to say that the number should be dwindling? The number is taken from the entire human race from the beginning of mankind to the end. And though it refers to the twelve tribes of Israel (12,000 from each tribe), we know that Abraham, Issac and Jacob will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 8:11). How is this possible seeing that they were not from any of the tribes of Israel? And doesn't someone living today have just as much of a chance of being one of the 144,000 as anyone else who's ever lived? It's shallow thinking to say people taking the sacrament today are just crazy old coots and wackos.

If someone passed the plate to the next person and that person partook, what would the people on either side of him/her think? Also, how much bread and wine are passed? I've never been to such a service, but if it's a meeting where everyone is acting suspiciously and watching who's taking it, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the ceremony?

Jesus' death and resurrection covered the sins of all men, not just the 144,000; so when the bread and wine are administered in remembrance of his death -- his body and blood -- shouldn't all partake?

18

What if you were DF'd for apostacy, but instead of the expected...

by respectful_observer in

this is a hypothethical, so i'm not looking for whether you would ever do this, or "why would you want to subject yourself to this...", but rather, what would happen if some did do this..... .................... you're half of a married jw couple, and you admit to doubts about certain wts teachings and it leads to an eventual disfellowshipping.

but instead of walking away from the kingdom hall forever, you stay put.

you faithfully go to every meeting with your spouse.

Cold Steel

Better, what would happen if a number of disfellowshiped people went to church and only spoke to themselves, laughed, joked and rounded up kids as though nothing was amiss. I know this is only hypothetical. Also, can one be disfellowshiped for talking to people who are disfellowshiped?

50

May 2013 Awake suggests screaming to thwart sexual assault

by ParadiseCircus in

they just can't let it go.... .

they also provide this tip to avoid being raped: "react quickly.

scream.

Cold Steel

Yes, by all means scream...then shoot him with your concealed .357 revolver!

Okay, here's one for the magazines: In 1976, a TV show starring Paul Sorvino looked at the question of what would happen if a woman raped a man. Actually, the woman does it for a lark. She kidnaps a guy, goes to a quiet spot, pulls a gun on him and has him strip. Then she motions him into the back of her Cadillac, has her way with him, then puts him out on the deserted road buck naked. He subsequently reports the incident, but when they get a look at this beautiful woman, they dismiss it. But then the woman accuses him of raping her. He loses his friends and family and is made a laughing stock. When the jury comes back with a guilty verdict, but before sentencing, the woman approaches the bench, fesses up and Sorvino's character is vindicated.

Now how would the JW magazines handle that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns3RLdXXCH4

9

Jehovah Got What It Takes To Spawn Mind Control Cults Run By Those Who Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder

by frankiespeakin in

just look at this deity: he's all powerful, he's jealous, he falls into rages over trifles, he punishes other for being cruel and unloveing but he himself gets off scott free when he is unloving cruel, challenging him is considered a sin, you cannot worship other dieties, he alway tells the truth(unchallenged), his word is alway truth(not to be challenged), obeying him leads to life disobeying him lead to death, he's blood thirsty but justified, and the list can get quite big.. this type of diety falls naturally in line with those who have narcissistic personality disorder as the diety has it and so he would have drawing power over those that suffer from this or those already worshipping this deity would start to think like him as they work into their thinking his justifications thus giving themselve a green light to entrench their thinking or align their thinking to his disorder.. .

Cold Steel

Glad you guys got it out of your system. The reality sets in when one begins looking at the details. The myth of a jealous, bloodthirsty, heartless, merciless war god is just the bitter manifestation of atheists and others who are critical of religion. I will concede one point, however. God is not content to live and let live. We didn't come to Earth to just live day-to-day lives and then die, but, rather, to be tested and tried. The monster isn't God, but man without God. Nations that ignore God invariably end up rotting from within. And it always entails men coming out in open rebellion against God.

Just my two cents.

25

Don't e-mail DF'd family members - Congregation Reaction (WT 1/15/2013)

by 00DAD in

do not look for excuses to associate with a disfellowshipped family member, for example, through e-mail.

- w2013 1/15, p. 16, para.

in the congregation i attend, no one--and i mean no one--commented on the directive to not communicate with df'd family members by email.

Cold Steel

As an outsider, I'm appalled by such a declaration. The Watchtower cited I Corinthians 5:11 as justification for their unbiblical policy of shunning. So we look up I Corinthians 5:11 and find what Paul's admonition actually was:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this worldwho are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? G od will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (Deuteronomy 13:5)

Now this is a general admonition to the church, and is not given by commandment. In fact, most church authorities would take issue with the first portion of Paul's statement and admonish Christians to not associate with sexually immoral people who might sidetrack them from the path of righteousness. But "associate" means to "keep company with" or casual interaction with people such as working with them, doing business with them and so forth. You can't avoid it unless you leave this world. But people who profess to be Christians and are morally impure also are spiritually impure. But what do you do when most people profess to be Christians? You can't avoid everyone.

Ah, but this means members of "the Truth." Okay, but nothing about shunning is mentioned. Paul simply states that Christians should not associate with believers (adelphos) which is translated "brother or sisters" who are sexually impure or who are greedy, swindlers or idolaters. Again, this does not mean shunning! It means that Christians shouldn't keep company with those who meet certain criteria. And to meet this criteria, one must be a believer who is a " whoremonger, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner." Paul says nothing about a believer who doesn't accept certain doctrines, or a believer who has been disfellowshiped because of "apostasy" (as determined by the "faithful and discreet slave," who, if it is the Watchtower Society's Governing Body, definitively say they don't receive revelation from God; merely "light."). Further, the WTS says members shouldn't associate with non-members, or members of other religions. But Paul writes:

If an unbeliever invites you to his house for dinner , and you wish to go, eat anything he serves you without letting your conscience trouble you. ( I Cor. 10:27 )

So it is okay to befriend unbelievers. It appears that the WTS is taking positions that are grossly unscriptural.

----------------------

BTW: If Paul advises believers who go to dinner with unbelievers to "eat anything he serves you," I wonder if that includes blood pie?

21

How God treated his own prophets

by Dismissing servant in

i came to think of thin when talking about ezekiel in another thread.

i recommeny you reading the chapters 3-4 in ezekiel.

but have a look at this from chapter 4 , it is just disguisting:.

Cold Steel

Ezekiel and Isaiah were not crazy, unhinged, demented or whako. The Lord uses similes to teach and symbols to instruct. Most people assume prophets didn't exist in the New Testament, but in the book of Acts, we read: “ And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. .. . ” (Acts 11) Also, in Acts 21: “ And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”

Apostles tend not to use similes, metaphors or analogies. They’re more forthright, even though they see visions, entertain angels and prophesy. But in the Old Testament, most of the time things that appear disgusting, like the instructions to Ezekiel, make more sense in the culture and the context of the times (read all of Ezekiel 4, not just a few verses). Everything he did was symbolic. What he ate was nutritious, and dung was frequently used for fires (though not human dung). Since he was doing God’s will, one must assume that anything he ate would not hurt him. And lying on his side for 390 days does not mean that he lay in one spot all day long. At any rate, when Ezekiel respectfully protested the dung command, the Lord said, “See, I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it.”

As for Isaiah, he didn’t walk around buck naked, wearing sandals only. The word “naked” meant “ without an upper garment, like a slave or exile.” Had the people of Jerusalem heeded his words and gone with Babylon over Egypt, they would have avoided the captivity. At any rate, Isaiah was one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament, and Jesus said, “Great are the words of Isaiah.”

26

Checklists for High-Control Groups/Cults

by Lady Lee in

checklist of characteristics.

deception lies at the core of mind-manipulating and high-demand ("cultic") groups and programs.

many members and supporters of these groups/movements are not fully aware of the extent to which they have been abused and exploited.

Cold Steel

"All the lists can be easily used to describe The Mormons, or Scientology or any fundamentalist group that takes away a member's freedom of choice."

Ummm...freedom of choice about what? Mormons don't try to take away anyone's freedom of choice about anything unless you're speaking of abortion. Like most religions, we have standards and commandments, covenants, just as the ancient churches did. The double standards employed by today's cult callers seem awfully incongruent when one considers they can be used against just about any ancient or modern religious movement.

45

A Mormon manages to awaken from mind control with a little help from Jehovah's Witnesses...

by cedars in

jw
friends

a brilliant, honest, well presented video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s4hqkiiz5a.

.

cedars.

Cold Steel

People have their own views and tend to convert to and from one religion to another for reasons that are important to them. There also are those who have lost faith in all religions, including ancient Christianity (which, by the way, was considered by both Jews and Romans to be a “cult.”)

The people who made the video of the Mormon who used the Jehovah's Witnesses to realize that his own church was essentially the same in its hierarchal structure, claims and expectations clearly have an agenda.

Qcmbr writes that “The common factor between all religions is faith. All that changes is the order the ingredients are mixed and the presentation of the final product.”

But there is more to it than that. The LDS faith puts family first. We don’t shun, nor do we try to dictate who our members associate with; we don’t dictate what our members read or don’t read, and we encourage education and learning. We have a top-down organization where people are called to positions from upper levels, as done in the ancient church. And while the JWs speak of “new light” revealed by Jehovah, they deny revelation via angels, visions, prophecy and other means. The problem is, “new light” is revelation, no matter how one looks at it.

Again, the issue is not the few superficial similarities between the LDS and JW sects, as the video purports. It’s the differences. No argument is made in the video on why the LDS faith exerts mind control, or how.

In short, the video was a puff piece. Slick, nice voice, music, script, editing and absolutely no substance or value other than to demean Mormonism.

Qcmbr also observed that “Mormonism and Witnesses are cut from the same cloth simply because they are a product of the same culture albeit separated by a few decades.” Even here the differences are overlooked. Certainly both originated in the U.S.; however, the JW and Adventist movements have more in common that the JW and LDS. The doctrines are closer, and even some of the same people were involved. But the greatest evidence backing up the LDS not only was the Book of Mormon, which no one has explained or debunked, but the many witnesses. Just as with Moses and the ancient Christian church, the LDS have many witnesses—people who not only witnessed the many miracles of the dead raised to life, the blind made to see, but the appearances of angels, like Moroni, but the conferral of keys of authority by Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist and Peter, James, John and others. It wasn’t just one guy making all sorts of fabulous claims in his time, but many other apostles and prophets—men who bore witness to the events of the Restoration.

You don't need to tell a forum of ex-JWs that their former religion is different to that of Mormons. ... What is the same, between both groups, is that vocal opponents are stigmatized as representing satanic persecution of the one true faith. Also, both groups use mind control techniques to varying degrees. If you can't see that, maybe you are under the influence of these techniques.

Okay, point one about the stigmatization of vocal opponents is true. In the early days of the church, vocal opposition always led to contention and contention always led to violence. Our people were driven from place to place, from state to state, often leaving their homes and wealth behind. We also had an extermination order issued against us by the state of Missouri. Our people were raped and murdered, including children. Even pets and livestock were brutally killed. I think applying the term “satanic” to these things isn’t over the top.

I suppose any religion can be accused of using mind control, even the ancient church. I’ve watched Darren Brown do incredible things, as well as the Amazing Kreskin, but I haven’t seen mind control used within the LDS faith.

45

A Mormon manages to awaken from mind control with a little help from Jehovah's Witnesses...

by cedars in

jw
friends

a brilliant, honest, well presented video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s4hqkiiz5a.

.

cedars.

Cold Steel

As a true believing Latter-day Saint, I found this production to be a slickly produced anti-Mormon video based on nothing but an extremely superficial straw man argument.

The differences between the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are far more different than they are similar, and charts and diagrams prove little.

The similarities, according to the video, basically center around the fact that both sects:

are hierarchal in structure
are led by men said to be chosen of God
claim that they are God’s true church on Earth
believe that apostasy is a serious sin

These points also are true of Catholicism and Christian Orthodoxy, and perhaps many other sects as well. In modern times, there’s a decided antipathy towards organized religions, and people who get out of one organized religion don’t usually notice the intricacies of another.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, has many aspects that are foreign to other faiths, including the JWs. For example, the LDS church differs in these critical areas, in which they believe in:

Restoration: Although both the JW and LDS faiths believe in an apostasy from the ancient church, only the LDS church believes in a restoration of the gospel, with all the gifts, powers and authority of the ancient church; further, that the initiative for this Restoration came not from Earth, but from Heaven.
Revelation: The JWs believe that all communication was done away with the passing of the ancient church, thus ending man’s ability to commune with God or with his angels; receive visions, prophesize, or to speak by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Authority: Many sects believe that the authority to act in God’s name is derived from the Bible. Latter-day Saints, however, believe that authority comes from God through others in authority. Jesus told his ancient apostles, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit....” (Jøhn 15:16) The apostles held the Keys of the Kingdom, or the authority to bind on Heaven and on Earth. These keys were given to govern the authority of others in the church and prevent interlopers from claiming authority they didn’t have.
Apostles: The JWs believe that no more apostles or prophets were needed or called and ordained after the ancient church fell. As the chief officers of the church, apostles are special witnesses of Christ who work to spread the Gospel to other nations, direct missionary work and tend to the affairs of the church at large.
Church Officers: Besides apostles, the LDS church believes other officers of the ancient church were restored. These include the Seventy, Elders, Deacons, Priests, Evangelists, Bishops, and so forth.
Canon of Scripture: Like many Christian sects, the JWs believe in a closed canon of scriptures, made up of the Holy Bible as the complete and inerrant word of God. Like the ancient church, the LDS have an open canon. Thus, if the Lord adds to man’s knowledge by restoring or revealing new doctrines, it can be added to that canon. The LDS church, in fact, is known for its belief in the Book of Mormon, a collection of scriptures written by prophets who lived in the Western Hemisphere. As followers of Christ were called “Christians” in the First Century, so believers in the Book of Mormon (published in 1830) were called “Mormons.” (The Book of Mormon is available free from the church, or may be downloaded free from Amazon Kindle and other formats.)

These are only a few of the differences between the two religions, and there are many additional foundational and doctrinal differences.

The LDS church views the Jehovah's Witnesses as manmade organizations and we’re frequently at a loss to understand them when they criticize other Christians (including us) as “manmade.”

18

Predicted Armageddon would come when?

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

predicted armageddon would come when?.

today i added a new article to my blog highlighting watchtowers play-toying with predictions of armageddon.

the organizations governing body apparently knows how to cry wolf!

Cold Steel

Yes, by what authority did the WTS conclude that Armageddon was the “antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom” when neither the Old or New Testament writers indicate this is the case? John writes, for example, of the temple the Jews will build in the latter days (Revelation 11), and the deaths of the two prophets the Lord will raise up to the Jewish people during the battle of Armageddon. “ And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,” he writes, “where also our Lord was crucified. ” (Rev. 11:8)

Here, Armageddon’s wrath isn’t aimed at Jerusalem. Jerusalem is merely the “modern antitype” of “Christendom.” But to the apostle John, the antitype of Jerusalem was “Sodom and Egypt.”

How, then, could Armageddon be “against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom”?

Amos wrote that the Lord God will do nothing save he reveal it to his servants the prophets. (3:7) The reason WTS founders did not apply the prophecies to Jerusalem is because they didn’t know the Lord was going to subsequently gather Judah back to the lands of their inheritance, even though the Lord revealed it centuries before. For example, Isaiah writes:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Isa. 11:11-12)

This is a literal prophecy that had a literal fulfillment, though it’s an ongoing one. To the prophets, they knew how things would end; however, for the blind leaders of the blind, one has to grasp the closest straw one can find!