the talk is called "the right religion demonstrates true faith in christ".
i have to help my fading gf give the talk.
if you have any subtle "apostate" ideas, i would appreciate them.. here is what i would like to say:.
There is nothing remotely subversive in the talk you have prepared. Do yourselves a favor and step just a little out of the JW box. The religion does not build faith in Christ--the religion crushes Christ.
Bomb on the talk if you must, but don't give the talk you outlined here. Have some conviction about it--you will feel better about yourselves.
the talk is called "the right religion demonstrates true faith in christ".
i have to help my fading gf give the talk.
if you have any subtle "apostate" ideas, i would appreciate them.. here is what i would like to say:.
Perhaps it would be tight and irreproachable to have the householder wonder: how, with so many religions claiming faith in Christ, we can know which religion demonstrates that faith?
Avoid the old canard about the "love" among the JWs shows faith in Christ--(it's a slogan too often used and not so true).
I would point out the many examples when Jesus commends the ones who step forward in faith. The woman with the issue of blood who violated the rules on cleaness, the father of the demonized boy and the man (un-named) who heals in Jesus' name who evidently had more faith than the apostles at that time (they had been unable to heal the demonized boy and Jesus reproved them for their lack of faith), the Roman soldier who had faith, the screwed up Legion who had the commission of trust to tell the truth of his healing, the syro-phonician woman, the Samaritan woman, the man healed of his blindness who is thrown out of the synagogue.
What is the take-away? A religion must teach these bible examples and allow that these examples of faith were highly individual and valuable to Jesus himself. And in whatever measure a religion permits the exercise of such faith within its members then it is doing right.
She won't get an "A" but if there is any negative feedback from her demo it would be interesting to hear. I am glad you are resisting feeding the Beast any more than you have to.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
so i've been going to doctors for years with chronic fatigue, a condition i managed ok but which took a drastic nose dive in late 2011 to 2012 to the point where i could barely function.
work was part of the problem, so at the end of that year i left that stressful environment.
but in the meantime, for the last few years i've been going to doctors, specialists, psychiatrists and psychologists and undergoing every sort of blood test you can imagine and seeing all sorts of medical people.
Classic, Julia. The crushing seems to go on and on, doesn't it?
Some food for thought at "Spontaneous Remission Project" and MIND OVER MEDICINE. Reputable physicians have noted outcomes that seem to fly in the face of negative prognoses. You may find information here that will encourage you. I have.
We will prove them wrong. MAYBE two years--not twenty. We shall overcome.
If it takes twenty years? ENJOY THEM! You are OUT!
Besides--I was bat-$#!+ crazy before the Witnesses got me so maybe I'm well and don't know it !
Maeve
as time goes forward people tend to change... expecially if you get out of a cult.
your brain for some reason gets de- and reprogrammed and you get other insights and new opinions.
you become a other human.. when reading back some of my previous posts (of about a year ago) i could not help but have a wtf-moment... i even felt a sudden way of "shame" of all the bullshit i was writing.. if you want to read some of mine just check my posts of about a year back.
I sure think of the discussions I've had here and how I have changed. Iknow my sense of how the world and my own being may or may not be part of some purposeful and even loving continuum is much more open. I don't have to re-read to remember vividly certain turns I have made in my thinking that were prompted by discussions on this board.
But experiences and readings and conversations off the board,too, have broadened and challenged me to be open. It has been frightening and also miserable to look at the horizen of life without the prospect of certain old slogans that I hoped were true (only the happy ones!) I don't think "WTF was I thinking?" because I can see why I went toward religious thinking as a sanctuary for faith. It was hard to hack a path away from that smooth cul-de-sac that the JW world led us down. That "narrow road" that I had believed would lead to life was certainly narrow but it certainly leads nowhere near the love and light it promised.
But I as I understand myself - I understand my posts. I try to use the forum to do honest searching and to support others to do the same. At times I embarass myself with answers or comments I make. But they are often the ones that are the most honest. That said it is hard to look at oneself fairly, I think, XJW or not.
Maeve
i just wanted to share a cute story about my 6 year old.
he has been asking me why i haven't been going to the meetings recently.
i couldn't avoid it any longer so i sat down with him and told him that mommy has learned some things from the bible that is different from what the meetings teach.
"albert" was 55 years old, and the fifth-born of seven children.
i am the second oldest and babysat him often while he was growing up --- and while i was still at home.. yesterday, albert was out taking his usual morning stroll around his small town, when he collapsed on the sidewalk.
the doctors said it was a heart attack.
I am so sorry, Satinka.
It struck me to read your words. I am the second of 9 kids and I have a brother, the 5th child. i diapered him and now that he is grown--he is my dear friend. To think of loosing him as you lost your brother---It hurts me to think of you not having your brother alive to talk to.
I am glad you remember him so beautifully. It is good to hear of your love for him and his for you--no shunning--real love. However things are when we die, love has a way of outliving our body. That much I know.
Take care, Maeve
peace to you!.
this thread is about false things (some) atheists think theists believe.
this is not a thread about false things that atheists think about theists.
If I reflect on the use Jesus is said to have made of the word "faith" or when he is said to use the word "believe", I believe he allows for a looser and broader term than any Christian orthodoxy ever allows.
How dare he give credit to the Syro-phoenician woman's faith?
How dare he let Legion go about his community to witness of the release of his madness at the hands of the man he so briefly knew?
How dare he wonder at the faith of a Roman soldier's untutored faith--faith greater than any he has seen in all Israel?
How are we to judge what faith is if these individuals--(and there others like them in the gospels)--were ignorant of doctrine/orthodoxy? Can faith really be so disparate, so unruly?
I certainly don't know.
But I hope so.
If Tammy's faith is unorthodox, well, so what?
has anyone here left jehovah's witnesses to join the churuch of jesus christ of latter-day saints?
what was your motivation for doing so and how has it worked out?.
if you haven't joined the lds or considered it, as an ex-jw, what is your general view of the lds faith?.
Never.
It was a comment made by a young LDS woman that struck me side-ways that helped me look closely at the way the WBTS ran the Truth around on us that helped me THINK.
I had pointed out that their succession of "prophets" frequently overturned older teachings of past prophets. To which she replied "Well, you all have a similar arrangement, don't you?"
And I had nothing to say in reply--I knew it was true at some level. I ended up looking at old teaching of both the LDS church and the old literature of the JW's. There were other things, but this was certainly made me think hard about True Religion.
confidential letter child abuse http://adf.ly/auxbu.
to all bodies of elders.
the congregation secretary should arrange for this letter to be retained in the congregation permanent file of policy letters.
The obvious reason the congregation elders do not first call the police is to maintain the first rule of being faithful: Do nothing that would let others believe that initiative is yours. Do NOTHING unless told to do it--even if it is right or legal--unless the BIG brothers say you should.
the 2013 edition of the new world translation renders 2 kings 17:1 as:.
in the 12th year of king ahaz of judah, hoshea the son of elah became king over israel in samaria; he ruled for nine years.. this is in fact a better rendering than the previous nwt, which stated:.
in the twelfth year of ahaz the king of judah, hoshea the son of elah became king in samaria over israel for nine years.. despite their improved rendering, the watch tower society still claims that hoshea's reign 'really' began in 758 bce, but that it was 'established' in the 12th year of ahaz.
Ignorance has no place in chronology and no place for would be amateurs. ---Scholar
How much a problem is that statement for JW apologists? Taking in knowledge, taking in knowledge, taking in knowledge--- We had to believe that translation to sell out to the brilliant head-benders.
No problem?
Gimme some more numbers, baby, and I will see God.