Posts by Cold Steel

40

Casting Out DEMONS

by Cold Steel in

if someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

i know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns?

do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders?

Just because people with psychotic issues report issues with demons proves nothing. Many people without psychotic personalities also claim to have had issues. It's like people who have had near death experiences and people who see UFOs. Certainly there are some fruitcakes out there, but there also are good, decent, honorable people who say they've had experiences with the paranormal. (Even psychotics have normal experiences, so just because some psychotics say they saw something they can't explain doesn't cover all the others.) People all over Phoenix, Arizona, saw UFOs (some as large as football fields) on March 13, 1997. How does one explain that?

Atheists have to discount the paranormal world of ghosts, spirits because of the implications. They thus keep their minds closed to the possibility that there's life after death, or beings of evil. I think atheists can be agnostics when it comes to the paranormal. The existence of life after death can be argued that there's a God, but it doesn't necessarily mean there is a God. Perhaps there's life after death but no God. Or perhaps we exist for a while, then cease to exist. But if God exists, and He doesn't write His name across the heavens to prove He exists, there's a chance that evil spirits aren't under the same restrictions. From what little is surmised from the existence of spirits, they don't seem to be anywhere near all powerful; they also apparently are not permitted or able to take human life unless people give their lives totally over to them.

Whatever the explanation, I think people are seeing and hearing something they can't explain. I don't believe all the videos and photographs are faked. People have had stories of hauntings in all cultures and times going back to ancient Greece and before. And the invention of cameras and film haven't seemed to have had any effect on the numbers of claimed hauntings. It leads me to wonder that if an atheist were to experience a haunting first hand, would it necessarily convert them to believing in a God?

Casting Out DEMONS

by Cold Steel in

if someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

i know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns?

do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders?

Cold Steel

If someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

I know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns? Do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders? Or is there someone else who handles these matters? And when they attempt to cast out demons, do they use the name of Jehovah or Jesus? Or both?

Does anyone have any first- or second-hand stories they can relate? Some time ago we discussed objects people had acquired from worldly people at garage or lawn sales that were thought to be possessed. In those cases the items were merely disposed of by throwing them away or giving them to another worldly person. I don't think any attempts were made to actually cast the demons out of, say, a Pink Floyd audio CD. (My grandma used to have hand fans from funeral parlors in the house, and our JW family members weren't happy to have them lying around! I don't know why...they worked just fine!)

22

How can a dead chicken atone for your sins?

by Fisherman in

jw
friends

the article says that the dead chickens are given to the poor but i was told that the chickens are thrown into the garbage.

(who could possibly eat a chicken full of sin?).

https://www.google.com/amp/abc7ny.com/amp/religion/exclusive-dead-chickens-in-cages-as-part-of-jewish-ritual/2457387/.

Cold Steel

Not me. Sinful Angus cows, medium rare? Yeah, but not chickens.

I don't want any problems with this guy:

https://youtu.be/FKss2pBYQ6Y

17

John's Two Witnesses...Who Are/Were They?

by Cold Steel in

do the scripture writers at hq allow for any scriptural exegesis that recognizes the state of israel as fulfillment of ancient prophecy?

isaiah, for example, 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.

Cold Steel

Waton » Cold Steel, why would the ancient books be proven to be true by 'prophecy' that can be understood in so many ways, when the same scrolls, volumes, are full of scientific inaccuracies from the outset?

I've never argued that the scriptures were free from error. There are actually quite a few errors in transmission. But when the scriptures say that the Jews were going to be scattered, then gathered, that they would reject their Messiah (Isaiah 53) or that they would see the wounds in his hands (Zechariah 12), and that when these things were fulfilled, I believe they will stand as testimonies to both the heathen and the Jews that these things occurred.

Then to see the miraculous victories handed to the nation of Israel when everyone expected them to perish against overwhelming odds. I can remember the six-day war in 1967 and how everyone except the fundamentalist Christians believed Israel faced total defeat. My dad believed the prophecies, but even he, being a Navy aviator and military man, had doubts that Israel would survive. My mother had more faith that they would.

If prophecy is correct, you may yet live to see the Turkish Caliphate revived. Fifteen years ago, I sat with my wife's aunt in her kitchen with her Turkish friends. She told me that the military in Turkey was strong and it would never, ever, allow a religious government to get in. I said nothing, but afterwards told my wife that biblical prophecy was against what they'd told me. Now we're seeing what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has done in office. If it continues to follow prophecy, the Turks will one day unite Islam in a jihad against Israel. Then Ezekiel 38-39 and Zechariah 12, 14 will be fulfilled.

If not, I'll be wrong.

40

Casting Out DEMONS

by Cold Steel in

if someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

i know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns?

do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders?

Cold Steel

Hmmm...I had a good friend in college who said he lived in a troubled house...419 "L" Street, Atchison, Kansas. He said he had a small study in his home where a middle-aged man was frequently seen in a chair. His family used to rent a room to foreign exchange students and one, from France, came to dinner one night. He was seen counting off the number of settings at the table and asked if the man in the study would be joining them. When he was told about the man, the fellow turned about and promptly returned to the study convinced he'd seen a man sitting there.

No one was there. The family had problems with footsteps at night, lights appearing on walls that appeared at first to be car headlights, but when they'd hold their hands up in front of it, there were no shadows. One night, his family came home and found my friend's brother, Matthew, with their father's gun. He thought Mark was upstairs because he heard the footsteps overhead...louder than he'd heard before. He called for Mark but no one answered. Moments later, he heard someone running above him, then heard a door shut. Moments later there was the sound of what sounded like a chest being pushed over. It was so loud he went upstairs expecting to see his brother, but no one was there. He checked his father's room and there was no one. So he found his father's pistol and rushed back downstairs. Nothing more happened until his parents returned. A few minutes later, Mark came home from work. The whole family searched the house, but there not only was no one there, they could find nothing to explain the noise of a chest being toppled.

Mark had a number of stories and his family backed him up. His mother said she was taking laundry downstairs and she tripped over something on the stairs. Someone caught her and she, thinking it was her husband who had come up behind her, turned and found no one there. She asked the rest of the family why an evil spirit would keep her from falling instead of letting her break her neck, so she said she didn't want help from the family's minister. The only bad experience happened when the French foreign exchange student brought in a Ouiji Board in to contact the "spirit" he saw in the study. Mark sat as the recorder and, when they attempted to speak to the spirit, even though he was sitting with all four legs of his chair down, he felt as though he were falling backwards. Matthew, the student, and two friends of the student, swore he'd gotten up and began swearing at them with every foul word he could utter. He began shoving one of them and was knocked down. He was getting up when he was knocked back down. It was at that time, he said, that he regained his faculties. He swears he had no memory of attacking them or being knocked down, though he said his face hurt where he'd been punched.

I knew another fellow, who's still a good friend (Mark's now dead). He had problems with something standing at the foot of his bed and staring at him. He'd wake up feeling as though someone was watching him. He said it was a tall man, just a silhouette, with a top hat, cane and eyes. He was one of my roommates in school. I've since learned this is a fairly common occurrence and many people have reported seeing exactly the same thing. Only there was no Internet back then, so I had no knowledge of it. I thought it was just him. I know this guy as well as I do my own brother, and there's no way he'd lie about this. (Do a search for "hat man shadow people.") He said the man appeared in different parts of the room, sometimes with the hat on and sometimes carrying the hat with the cane in the same hand. It was always accompanied by an intense cold and a feeling of evil. He finally stopped sleeping in the dark and kept a light on.

I concur that if these types of spirits can exist, then it must mean that God exists, else how can they be?

Hat Man Shadow Person

Hat Man Haunts

40

Casting Out DEMONS

by Cold Steel in

if someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

i know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns?

do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders?

Cold Steel

If someone believes they're being plagued with demons or they have problems with hauntings, things moving by themselves or hearing voices or footsteps, who they gonna call?

I know they take demons very seriously, so who in the congregation do they go to when they need to bring out the big guns? Do they try to handle it themselves or is this a job for the elders? Or is there someone else who handles these matters? And when they attempt to cast out demons, do they use the name of Jehovah or Jesus? Or both?

Does anyone have any first- or second-hand stories they can relate? Some time ago we discussed objects people had acquired from worldly people at garage or lawn sales that were thought to be possessed. In those cases the items were merely disposed of by throwing them away or giving them to another worldly person. I don't think any attempts were made to actually cast the demons out of, say, a Pink Floyd audio CD. (My grandma used to have hand fans from funeral parlors in the house, and our JW family members weren't happy to have them lying around! I don't know why...they worked just fine!)

17

John's Two Witnesses...Who Are/Were They?

by Cold Steel in

do the scripture writers at hq allow for any scriptural exegesis that recognizes the state of israel as fulfillment of ancient prophecy?

isaiah, for example, 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.

Cold Steel

Unless the ancient books are true.

Prophecy is one of those things in scripture that I believe is a hallmark of authenticity. In both Old and New Testaments the prophets said the Jews would be scattered to all the nations of the Earth.

They were scattered.

The prophets said that in the latter days, they would be gathered from the nations to which they’d been scattered.

They were gathered.

In the account of Armageddon, Ezekiel said that the warlord Gog would come upon Israel, “the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people” and “brought forth out of the nations.” And he said it would be in the “latter years” that this would happen. (38:8) The apostles taught that the Jews would be scattered because they had rejected their Messiah and killed him. Again, Ezekiel said Gog would come “as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days,” he tells us again. (38:16) The prophet also tells us the reason the Jews were scattered in the first place: “the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: because they trespassed against me, therefore hid I my face from them, and gave them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword.” (39:23) And this is what happened at the hands of the Romans. “According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.” (24)

But the Lord had promised Judah by the hand of his father Jacob that the scepter would not depart from his descendants until the coming of Shiloh, the Messiah. And the Jews were scattered at the time of Jesus, just as prophecy dictated. And, as Jacob prophesied, “unto him shall the gathering of his people be.” (Genesis 49:10)

In 1948 the nation of Israel was reestablished as per prophecy (Isaiah 11) and will remain again until the coming of Shiloh in the latter days. “After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid. When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.”

In those days, the Lord stated, “I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about…I [will] make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zechariah 12:2-3)

Not only is all the above finding fulfillment, the very nations that Ezekiel lists by their ancient names are all modern-day Islamic nations, nations that embrace a religion that has vowed to one day destroy Israel and the Jews, and make Israel an Islamic state.

The Jews won an incredible victory in June 1967 against Egypt. Six days later, Arab casualties were over 20,000. Israeli casualties were less than 1,000! In hindsight analysts say it was the element of surprise that caused the Arab defeat, but at the time, most said the Jews simply faced overwhelming odds—too overwhelming for them to succeed. And yet they did. Miraculously. The same can be said for the Israeli War of 1947. Israeli forces going in the wrong direction just happened to run into an Arab supply line and cut it off at the head. As one analyst put it, that war was “a big miracle composed of a series of little miracles.” As the Lord said some 2,500 years ago of Israel’s enemies: “Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” (Isaiah 41:12-13)

17

John's Two Witnesses...Who Are/Were They?

by Cold Steel in

do the scripture writers at hq allow for any scriptural exegesis that recognizes the state of israel as fulfillment of ancient prophecy?

isaiah, for example, 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.

Cold Steel

I don't think everyone who has abandoned the Watchtower Society has become atheistic (though I understand why those who do, do). If one wants to maintain a belief in Christ, one literally must start with a clean sheet of paper. Most Christians I've talked to lately are futurists--they believe prophecy spells out the restoration of the kingdom of Judah in preparation of the final assault on Jerusalem.

I believe the JWs buy into "replacement theology," in which theologians take prophecies regarding Israel and replace those prophecies with the church. Thus, they remove the references to Israel and Judah and replace those blessings and promises and apply them to the church. Charles T. Russell was apparently more fundamental, but Joseph Rutherford was strongly opposed to the literal exegesis.

The application of scripture in this case I think is pretty compelling, though. Prophecy states Judah will gather from the nations and it did come to pass. Self-fulfilling prophecy? I look at the 6-Day War and the other conflicts in which Israel was outgunned, outflanked and outmanned. In 1968, all the smart money was against the Jews. Yet the word of God was with Israel. "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:2-3) And "it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all nations that come against Jerusalem." (Zechariah 12:9)

I'm old enough to remember the 6-Day War. And I recall that the U.S. fully expected Israel to be creamed. Only it didn't. In the greatest military upset in centuries, Israel turned defeat into victory. So there's plenty of room for Christians to believe in prophecy.

17

John's Two Witnesses...Who Are/Were They?

by Cold Steel in

do the scripture writers at hq allow for any scriptural exegesis that recognizes the state of israel as fulfillment of ancient prophecy?

isaiah, for example, 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.

Cold Steel

Do the scripture writers at HQ allow for any scriptural exegesis that recognizes the state of Israel as fulfillment of ancient prophecy?

Isaiah, for example, 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. (Isaiah 11)

The Zionist movement began in the 1870s and is still going strong. The two prophets in Revelation 11 are specifically connected to the latter days in relation to the return of Jesus Christ and the city of Jerusalem:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. (Revelation 11:7-8)

Does anyone have a Bible commentary they can check these scriptures in? I'd like to know how the WTBTS interprets these scriptures and whether "where or Lord was crucified" means Jerusalem? Who are the two prophets, and has this been prophecy been fulfilled? And, if so, when? I don't recall reading anything about modern-day Israel in their writings.

Thanks!

17

Faded for almost 10 years and still getting random calls

by ctrwtf in

jw
friends

hi all, just wondering if anyone is in the same boat.

wifey and i dropped off the face of the jw planet almost a decade ago and still get 3 or 4 visits a year mostly when we are not dressed or expecting visitors.

it's really annoying because we are both wondering why they don't get the hint already.. we don't want to move because we really enjoy where we live and both have careers that keep us in the area.. i've asked politely that they stop calling but like the "godfather" they keep "pulling me in.".

Cold Steel

The trick is to not let them in. If you're getting ready to go somewhere, excuse yourselves. Most likely like many good people, you don't want to offend them, even if they are JWs. If you know it's them at the door, don't invite them in. "Hey, guys, this isn't a good time. We're out now and we've requested these visits stop. I don't want to be ungracious or rude, but we've talked this over and there's nothing to say. Please tell the Grand Poobah that we've chosen to take another path and that we're not interested in being handled."

It's up to you whether you choose to share your reasons...or not. Their goal is to come inside, sit down and talk things over. Whether you want to do this, again, is your choice. If not, don't let them in and if you have to, thank them and close the door.