Posts by Cold Steel

27

Does fear of death equate to need for God?

by Monsieur in

read a very interesting opinion article on cnn last night.

"why i raise my kids without god".. .

the writer aluded to the fear of the possibility of one's life ending forever (along with our beloved children's).

Cold Steel

Every religion has its problems, even atheism. But yes, death does play a decisive role...at least I think.

Several years ago, I was sitting in a waiting room of a physical therapist. I suddenly became aware of an elderly woman sitting nearby, and she was sobbing loudly. An Asian therapist sat next to her and though I couldn't hear her, I heard her. She kept repeating, "I don't want to die!" It startled me how someone could fear death so much. Having read a number of near death experiences in my time, I thought to myself, when it happens, you won't have a thing to say about it...and it will happen so naturally and quickly that (once it happens) you'll wonder what all the fuss was about!

One of the greatest fears those who pass through the veil have is whether they will face judgment and hell. Some people are good, decent, honorable people who just had no time or interest in religion. For many, their passing will suddenly be fraught with fear and doubt. I've wondered what Jehovah's Witnesses and other "adventists" will think once they pass. For most of their lives they've believed in that abomnible soul sleeping doctrine, and I wonder what their thoughts will be when they see their own bodies nearby and realize that they're not sleeping?

My grandmother feared death, mostly because one of her daughters was a Jehovah's Witness and kept sending her articles about when you die you become bug food. I suppose my aunt was trying to scare her into the "Truth," but it didn't work. My grandmother was too old and she was bound that she was going to share her late husband's fate, whatever that might be. But she feared death because it meant not existing. Fortunately, I was there to offer a more positive message, and when she died, my only regret was that the last person she saw in life was Dan Rather! She died while watching the news.

Do atheists have a greater fear of dying that those who are religious? Who knows? Often what they and what they actually feel can be quite different, especially at the end. (I rather enjoyed the story of the monster Stalin shaking his fist above him and screaming in terror just before he went to his just reward.) But what about JWs? As they approach death, do they suddenly fear the gaping grave and cold dirt waiting to receive them? And as discussed elsewhere, even if they're right, God may recreate a person, but is it the person or is it Memorex?

The Watchtower articles tout the soul sleeping doctrine as something that should be of immense comfort to those facing death, but why? Once they cease to exist, what the hell difference does it make whether they're revived or not? It's like the attitude of a real cynic, who put on his gravestone: "I was not. I was. I am not. I care not." Ouch!

23

Have YOU Had a SUPERNATURAL Experience?

by Cold Steel in

regardless of your religious background, how many of you have had any type of a paranormal or supernatural experience, good or bad?.

i've known a number of people who have tried ouija boards.

most had just creepy feelings, but one had a nasty experience.

Cold Steel

Ever watch those paranormal shows on cable?

One method they use to talk to the spirits is to take several Inova LED flashlights and twist the backs until the light turns on, then they back it off until the light just turns off. You can then shake the light and it will stay off. But these guys put the flashlights on a table or a bed, then ask the spirits questions. And more often than not, the damn things work! Spirits can flash once for no and twice for yes.

Like I said, I have a number of lights just like the ones they use (I'm a flashaholic). I've prepared my lights like they do theirs and I don't ask questions; I just sit and watch. And they can stay like that until judgment day and not go on and off. They don't even flicker! The camera on the show shows the entire flashlight, so I know someone's not messing with it from the rear. But I can't replicate their results. If I back off on the switch until exact moment the light goes out, it doesn't come back on until I twist it again. So it is impressive.

I don't recommend that anyone try communicating with spirits, but the light thing is spooky. They now have a device they can use that's a bit more sophisticated. It has a limited vocabulary of words and the results always seem to be intelligent. The thing that amazes me is that these guys believe everything a spirit tells them. These same guys who most likely wouldn't cash my check will believe a spirit pawning itself off as a child trapped by a more powerful spirit who had abused it in mortality. Anyone who believes in a God would be able to figure out that such a scenario is impossible. Once an innocent dies in mortality, it is beyond the other spirit's power forever.

15

THE SLAVE WHO LIVED TO SEE THE SIGN !!!!!!

by DATA-DOG in

chapter 17 " god's kingdom has approached " 1973 .

highlights and ( domestics ) added.

21 although raising the question about the "faithful and discreet slave," jesus was in no doubt about who this "slave" was.

Cold Steel

There's the literal Israel and then there's the spiritual Israel. The Jehovah's Witnesses are the "spiritual" Israel. So..........

Anytime you see a prophecy that refers to "Judah" or "Jerusalem" or "Israel," think "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "New York," particularly as they pertain to Armageddon. The "beast" in Revelation -- the one who's supposed to come down on Judah and Jerusalem in the battle of Armegeddon (see Zechariah 12-14) -- is actually going to be attacking the JWs and New York.

But what of the real Jerusalem and the real Jews, and the actual place name Armageddon? Mere spiritual representations! God cast off his people long ago. Now they may as well be Swedes or Chinese. Besides, Israel wasn't formed until 1947, and by then the whole spiritual representation thing had been established. It would have been embarrassing to declare "new light" and toss the ball to the Jews.

Now when Jehovah returns and his feet in that day will stand upon the Mount of Olives, which will split in twain, that will probably be the Empire State Building or maybe even the HQ building itself. If you interpreted it to be the literal Mount of Olives...well, that's why you're not allowed to interpret scripture. The slave sees all, knows all.

One thing puzzles me, though. The GB says it doesn't receive revelation, but it does claim to be a "spirit-led" organization. Once the spirit begins to lead you, though, isn't that revelation?

Yankees!

22

The term: To disfellowship in spanish congregations...

by suavojr in

in the english congregations they used to announce that brother x has been disfellowshipped.

but in the spanish congregations the announcement was made using the word expulsado (spanish)= expel in english.

when i look up the word disfellowship, this is what i found:.

Cold Steel

Is it true that if you're disfellowshiped (excommunicated) south of the Equator, then move to north of the Equator, that you're back in full faith and fellowship and vice versa?

23

Have YOU Had a SUPERNATURAL Experience?

by Cold Steel in

regardless of your religious background, how many of you have had any type of a paranormal or supernatural experience, good or bad?.

i've known a number of people who have tried ouija boards.

most had just creepy feelings, but one had a nasty experience.

Cold Steel

He's black with a natural.

What d'ya mean "he," pale face?

23

Have YOU Had a SUPERNATURAL Experience?

by Cold Steel in

regardless of your religious background, how many of you have had any type of a paranormal or supernatural experience, good or bad?.

i've known a number of people who have tried ouija boards.

most had just creepy feelings, but one had a nasty experience.

Cold Steel

There are people who don't believe who become believers, but why? And some who are believers for some reason stop. The human mind is incredibly susceptible to suggestion, and people like Derren Brown and the Amazing Kreskin have convinced many that they are psychics. I love the series, The Mentalist, and as those of you who watch the show know, Patrick Jane, a guy who knows how to manipulate and read people, is the biggest cynic in the show. Conversely, the most open minded person in the show is Red John, Jane's nemesis and a serial killer who murdered Jane's wife and young daughter. One of the threads in the show is how Red John wants Patrick to join him, and he, unlike most serial killers, has a vast and varied following.

Kreskin once had a little chat with his audience, then he took them outside to look at the night sky. As he spoke, he used a "key" word and, incredibly, the people began seeing flying saucers. And they were so convinced that what they were looking at was real, than one guy took off and was trying to flag down a cop. Kreskin asked these people to describe what they were seeing, and some saw green UFOs, some red, others blue and orange. (You can get many of Kreskin's best episodes for ten bucks from Amazon.com. For the price it's a steal.) He made people think their chairs were red hot, while others couldn't get up. And yet he admits that he has no magic or psychic powers. All he does is manipulate people by suggestion, and some of his critics complain that he a little too slow to admit that he has no psychic powers. He frequently leaves people wondering.

How much religion is the result of suggestion I don't know. I find it amazing how easy it is for some Muslims to kill members of their own family and friends over a religion they've spent little time thinking about. When people are raised in a superstitious religion that discourages education and fears demons in the dark and steers people away from the scriptures to articles about the scriptures. Members believe that people "sleep" when they die , even though there's substantial evidence that first century Christians believed no such doctrine. So I'm a big believer in James 1:5.

16

JW,s are told to investigate this site or similar sites to overcome objections.

by jam in

how many would remain as jw,s in fact how many would continue to.

believe in god?

i estimate 75% would leave the cult and.

Cold Steel

It took me a good 6 months as an apologist for things to finally sink in. I would come to this and other sites to strengthen my faith. I think it depends on a few factors, - stubbornness is one I had to over come to wake up.

Well, it's never a good idea to read one's critics if you want to maintain one's beliefs.

Jesus talked about planting faith in good soil for it to grow. If one sows doubt, one may very well reap disbelief. That doesn't mean one should close one's eyes to critics; but there are problems with all religions, including atheism. I had a professor who was an atheist, and he intellectually abused Christians and Jews. And he convinced a few evangelicals to abandon their beliefs. He had us read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. (He didn't tell us that Camus renounced his atheism shortly before his death and even contemplated becoming a Catholic priest.)

Even though JWs can accept that their religion is false, many have it drilled into their heads that if the WTBTS isn't true, then nothing is. So they abandon all religion, which is regrettable. It's best to start out with a clean sheet of paper and putting all the BAD doctrine that the JWs teach behind you. If you study the various prophecies without any help from the Governing Body and the Watchtower editors, you'll find that a whole new world opens up, and you'll be amazed at how accurate the prophecies are, and how bad the scriptural exegesis the JWs teach is.

23

Have YOU Had a SUPERNATURAL Experience?

by Cold Steel in

regardless of your religious background, how many of you have had any type of a paranormal or supernatural experience, good or bad?.

i've known a number of people who have tried ouija boards.

most had just creepy feelings, but one had a nasty experience.

Cold Steel

Regardless of your religious background, how many of you have had any type of a paranormal or supernatural experience, good or bad?

I've known a number of people who have tried Ouija boards. Most had just creepy feelings, but one had a nasty experience. Mark had always lived in a house that wasn't quite right. There were apparitions of people (one who sat in a small study and wore glasses). And there were footsteps and lights that appeared to be caused by a car backing out of the driveway...only there weren't any cars, nor were there shadows when you held your hand up to see where it was coming from. Mark's mother fell on the stairs one day while carrying a load of laundry. She turned, thinking it was her husband, but alas, no one was there.

Mark's experience with a Ouija came when a French foreign exchange student saw the man in the study. When he got to the dinner table, he seemed to count the places that were set. When he asked if the man in the study was going to be joining them, Mark's family told him it was just an apparition. The student went back to check and returned white as a sheet. A few days later he produced the Ouija board and a small group of Mark's friends and the student attempted to use it. As they were engaged in it, Mark said, he suddenly felt very light headed. Then he felt as though he were falling backward. When he came to, the table was turned on its sides, the chairs toppled and his face hurt.

According to his friends, he leapt up, began to scream obscenities and turned the table over. The others tried to restrain him, but he lit into them and one of his friends hit him in the jaw and then shoved him in the chest, knocking him down. He tried to get up twice, but was pushed back down by the others. Then whatever it was was gone. Mark never used a board after that, but he still had paranormal experiences in the house. After he got back from school, he came in one night from his job delivering pizzas. He found his brother in an agitated state and carrying their dad's .38-caliber revolver. According to his brother, he heard someone running around upstairs and thought it was Mark. The noise continued and Mark's brother went upstairs and, to his amazement, no one was there. But he felt the hair standing up on his neck, so he got his dad's revolver and went downstairs. While he was telling Mark about this, they suddenly heard someone run across the upstairs hallway and then there was a loud crashing sound, as though someone had overturned a dresser. They felt a coldness around them, and at some point they decided to stay put. About a half hour later their dad got there. Telling him the story, they went upstairs and looked around, but there was no overturned dresser or any piece of furniture out of place. Mark's dad took the gun back, but didn't get after the teenager. They were all a little spooked.

This was in Atchison, Kansas. When Mark moved into this big old house, his junior high school teacher told him one of her students had lived in that house. His name was George Dygle, or Digal, and he spent much of his time in the attic, where he played and read. He was a solitary person, the teacher said, and he committed suicide in the attic...by hanging. It sounds like something out of a bad movie, but Mark said he found knife marks in the wood where someone wrote, "G.D." in a number of places. He died a young teenager with no friends. And even though the apparition in the study was an older man with glasses, they nicknamed him "George."

I found Mark to be a credible guy, and the fact that the rest of his family shared some of his experiences added to that credibility. He's dead now, so it's possible he now knows what it's all about. He got more religious as he got older, and he refused to have anything to do with the paranormal world. He told me he just viewed it as a question mark. He couldn't explain why an "evil" spirit would catch his mother on the stairs, but didn't know why a good spirit would still be roaming around an old house.

Any other stories??

I understand the Jehovah's Witnesses have a lot of stock stories. What do you think of the paranormal? Are you more or less inclined to believe in it if you are a former JW?

81

Would Elders You Knew Have Ordered Stonings If They Could Have?

by Cold Steel in

for those of you who used to be jws, or who are active, if the society was in charge of the earth, how many people do you think you would have seen stoned during your lifetimes?

i realize some elders can be zealous about their work, but if they'd actually had administrative authority to have kh members stoned to death, how many elders did you know who would have been zealous enough to really order them?.

did you know any elders who would have ordered stonings, even if the condemned people had been willing to repent?.

Cold Steel

The JW have a very distorted view on life. They thrive with expectation of billions to be killed, just to be in paradise themselves. They like the stories about the Egyptians killed in the Red Sea or how Samson killed the Philistines and read them to their kids. They put a mass-murderer (David) as an example.

David only was charged with the murder of Uriah. He was not regarded as a “mass murderer” by the Lord as far as I know.

My own religion has some grisly prophecies about the future, but the prophecies have always been couched in an understanding that no matter how wicked a people are, when you see to what extent they are suffering, your hearts will go out to them. Says one: “For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand. And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds. And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men's hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people.”

When that great tsunami hit in 2004, no one in my faith celebrated the loss of life or property. The same thing with the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, and with Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, Sandy and others, though many have seen the stark increase in natural disasters as fulfillment of scripture. And we’re quick to send relief to such areas when possible.

The Muslim faith and the Jehovah’s Witnesses have always looked at the suffering of unbelievers with a certain amount of glee and self-righteousness. Muslims see the afterlife as being men being serviced by beautiful women while having a view of hellfire, so they can look down and see the suffering and pain of the infidels and give glory to God. And the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that cleaning up the bodies of the wicked will be one of the chores they’ll do before getting down to an eternity of picnics and family reunions. The Westminister Baptist Church and other whackos also look forward to death and destruction.

The trouble with a "Theocracy" is that they all think that this is what they have got - they and nobody else. Once convinced of that, it is then just a short step to being able to justify such atrocities as stoning to death, burning at the stake and similar.

I hope not, though hearing about the anger expressed by some authorities I wonder how much longer the Jehovah's Witnesses can last before people get tired of waiting. According to prophecy, so many things remain to happen that I believe it will be years before the return of Jesus. If we were living in the 25th Century, I would find it tough to remain a Christian. I believe by then we'll be well into the Millennium, but if we get there and Jesus hasn't come, I would have to rethink my eschatology! The JWs have lost so much credibility that they've got precious little left. But for the rest of Christianity, we've got quite a while to go before the scriptures become a dead letter.

81

Would Elders You Knew Have Ordered Stonings If They Could Have?

by Cold Steel in

for those of you who used to be jws, or who are active, if the society was in charge of the earth, how many people do you think you would have seen stoned during your lifetimes?

i realize some elders can be zealous about their work, but if they'd actually had administrative authority to have kh members stoned to death, how many elders did you know who would have been zealous enough to really order them?.

did you know any elders who would have ordered stonings, even if the condemned people had been willing to repent?.

Cold Steel

“Good people will do good things, and bad people will carry out bad things. However, if you want to get good people to do bad things, just introduce the G.O.D. word into the equation!”

But what if a society that really is a theocracy such as the one led by Moses, and subsequently passed on to Joshua? The Jehovah's Witnesses admittedly have no revelation or inspired writings that reach scripture status. When the Lord took people in death, such as Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), Achan (Joshua 7), Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) and others, there was always a prophet involved who used the gift of discernment in the judgment of the people. Actually, when there’s an absence of GOD and his inspiration does the risk of unjustified capital punishment become an issue. Recall also the case of the woman accused of adultery, whom Jesus saved by telling her to go her way, but to sin no more.

One of the most blatant examples of the great apostasy that showed that Christ’s ancient church had fled into the wilderness was the Catholic church’s use of bizarre, grotesque and appallingly cruel instruments of torture. While the Lord had authorized whipping under the Law of Moses, the instant blood was drawn, the whipping had to stop, regardless of what the count was he had been sentenced to. During the Inquisition, the drawing of blood was a sign the torturers were just getting started.

This story is a confirmed fact: During one official closed meeting, [an] elder said seriously: “...yes, and we did not kill enough of you...,” almost shaking with anger. With high probability the shaking would have caused the first stone to miss.

I’ve gone to a number of churches over the years and attended meetings of many sects, but I never saw any anger displayed. It makes me wonder what kind of a meeting this was and who his anger was directed at?