ADCMS, Thanks for putting out the WT literature that shows the corruption isn't in all our minds--
The WT braided the ropes that bound members but ultimately made the noose that hangs them now.
Take note, lurkers.
humbled
JoinedPosts by humbled
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How NON-VIOLENT is the Watchtower really?
by Fernando inlooking only skin deep, and at outward appearances, the watchtower does indeed seem to be non-violent.. however it is what one is at heart that really counts.. the watchtower tricks their followers into going to jail to parade themselves as "non-violent" "religious objectors" (instead of genuine "conscientious objectors").. however as jesus said our hidden disposition will be revealed by our fruits.. behind the well-crafted facade i personally find the watchtower to be deeply and maliciously violent, vindictive and venomous at heart.. anyone who dares question or expose them is speedily killed, albeit declared spiritually dead to friends and family.. these same friends and family are:.
taken spiritually captive and held hostage (can't leave with honour and credibility intact)spiritually starved (and fed badly tainted "food")spiritually, psychologically, and mentally tortured (cognitive dissonance whilst kept voiceless)spiritually raped (seduced into prostitution with the god of religion, and into snubbing the god of abraham and his message the liberating, unabridged, explicit and naked gospel or "good news")regardless of how valid their case may be, detractors are routinely undermined, discredited, labelled, misrepresented and slandered.. how do you see the watchtower's supremacist parading of their supposed non-violence?.
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'American Pickers' Star and her Jehovah's Witness upbringing
by jwleaks indanielle colby went from jehovah's witnesses to burlesque dancer to vintage decor goddess.
dallas news | by joy tipping.
january 30, 2014. .
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humbled
"One man's junk is another man's treasure"?
---are you talking about the male stripper in Vegas?
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I know a young sister who left, stripped for a while then quit it and went to college. She's a great person.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
"The only solution is to improve the quality of life for everyone" is what we ought to do but the unfortunate side-effect of christian theism is to provide that benefit only to those who deserve it: those of our own faith.
Ironically, material benefit is for only those who have a hope beyond this life. and the only thing a JW offers an un-believer is --a free home bible study!
I am aware that other denominations do charitable work--but this often is what aims to produce "rice" Christians with varying degrees of genuine faith.
So what's to be done?
I agree that whatever comfort people can derive from the anguish of life is to be left to them.
"A smoking wick he will not extinguish" is a sweet scripture for that reason. A hope beyond the decimation of your home and family? Take what you can find, of course!
But there is this: that scripture alludes to faith in God. and what threatens that flame if not the loss of hope and purpose? (It is for want of hope and purpose that some seek religion to begin with) So faith finds itself necessarily attached to hope and love as well--look at 1 Cor. 13. That is why faith dies so often when stripped of hope and love. (That three cord strand...)
But when there be others nearby working, who for love of others, who know we are all brothers and sisters and mothers here on the earth---OF WHAT EVER FAITH OR OF NO FAITH--helping and healing those who need it--all without a promise of recompense in the afterlife--then there a flame that burns in every moment.
That thought kinda lights my fire.
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The Literature Trolley Has Arrived in My Little Town
by cofty ini think the time has come for another letter to the local paper to alert the nice people of berwick what its all about.. my last letter went down well.... .
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humbled
Cantleave,
Ouch! not surprised at the branch supplying the stand. Does that trigger memories...
I had noticed over the years that there was the need to "regularize" and avoid anything that looked improvised or home-made.
The idea behind that I can understand to an extent--but the subliminal message to the R&F is to denigrate anything from suit to bookbage that is "irregular".
I remember a pioneer sister who wanted to "encourage" me and my youngest son (only 6 years old at the time) by taking us out in field service. She noticed his tidy but "irregular" satchel/bag and quickly supplied him with another saying "Here is an official bookbag."
I marked her comment with misgiving at the time and knew that my bright son would feel both elevated and ashamed by her intervention.
Awful that it took me so long to see the conformity that pervaded and crushed the spirit in so many ways--
-Just as cofty alluded to in the swift raising of the uniform KHs.
Thorough-going conformity in thought,word,deed and bookbag.
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Imagine A World Where Being "Gay" The Norm & Being "Straight" Would Be The Minority!
by Dis-Member inimagine a world where being "gay" the norm & being "straight" would be the minority!
[short film].. .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnojgdw0gpi.
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humbled
Good morning, RubbyDubby!
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3 years of study, Just found out!
by impala63rag inhello friends, .
i would like some advice from those that are inpartial, and are familiar with the teachings of jw.
i studied with a wonderful jw couple weekly for 3 years.
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humbled
You will not have a close relationship with God in this religion.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
Apog,
I t is obvious from this and other threads of the past that no one not even God can tell a Christian how to be a Christian. History bears this out as well.
Your comments about the varied ways to understand bible verses underscores the fact that the bible- God hung us out to dry by the inscrutability of holy scriptures. Or perhaps the text that tells us about God was intended to be a rorschach test?
If the scriptures are meant to be that subjective then Tammy's view of them is equal to St. Thomas Aquinas.
If that is true, then whether the scriptures exist or not hardly figure. (Which is only fair considering the number of Christians throughout history who could not read a bible if they could get one.)
If Jesus the carpenter lived and taught the poor the good news about the love of God "who made the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous" it is small wonder that he called out finally: "My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?"
If I try to live according to the precepts Jesus taught, I will say along with him "My God why have you foresaken us" what is wrong with that?
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
But how just and loving is the bible god to see people savaged by nature or man, people who have never heard of his New Deal of Salvation through Jesus? A grave problem for me in believing in the bible God, Apog, is that salvation-as-taught-in-the-churches renders ignorant sufferers as the damned. And they suffer so much.
This economy of salvation is not just or loving.
The words are lovely in Isaiah 55--if applied to the gritty love that Jesus is said to have taught as the "higher way". But as a call to excuse what is ongoing carnage on the earth? Then I do not believe the bible is the word of a god of love.
The complaint I have is as much with the scriptures themselves as the idea of a powerful, loving god.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
If the thread has helped me, it has been in this way:
It forced me to critically examine thoughts that had long been submerged in my mind:
What will happen if I question the Bible God?
Will I have to then deny the benefits I have received from the teachings of Jesus?
Does it mean that I must deny any thing/principle/force that may exist if I do not believe the God of Christian Theism exists?
The answers are mine to deal with. There is mystery. I do not believe the God I was told of exists.
What is the loss? What can I do about it?
The loss of the Bible god and the retaining of Jesus loses me nothing. I and everyone else will die some day. The only change is I do not have to tell others they are subject to doom if they are not saved. But then I do not have to tell others they have a heaven to receive them and wipe their tears away. However, no one is the loser if I am wrong, for then they will have a pleasant surprise.
The benefit of having only love and justice as the best of Jesus' teachings, is the need to implement these in more practical ways. And really that is and was the most important thing anyway.
This thread will continue to reverberate for me. I almost would say it has been life changing. Not because I had not ever thought of these things. I just would not let myself openly deal with them. There has been healing from a corrupt religion and exploration of what remains to guide my steps going forward.
A Post script:
As for how cofty has moderated his thread--Though he is some years my junior he has reminded me of my father. My father came up through the ranks starting in WWII as a private, a sargeant in the Korean conflict and then went to officer candidate school. He became disillusioned with army politics and the callous abuse of young men in the ranks during Vietnam. I heard a soldier say of him."Capt. Dolan is tough but he's fair."
Cofty's trajectory through the JWs and Church (seems to have) put him through some of the same. He comes off as a bit crusty. But in my estimation also: cofty is tough but fair.
And I say it even though I have winced at his rough handling of fellow posters. I was one of my father's 9 children and we were a wild lot at times. He didn't often flatter our feelings with long explanations when he had to deal with us. We had to think about it. But he wasn't above conceding an honest point when it came up.
And it's been a hard thing to press our thoughts --not our feelings or what we were taught--- from the question the thread opened with. It's natural to take up a defensive stance after a hard hit. But the topic is a hard one. Smack smack smack! a lot of loosely held beliefs shattered (for me) that had cracks in them anyway.
No matter where our journey of faith ends, after participating in this discussion, we'll know that we walked through some fire to get there. And that's never bad.
Maeve
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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humbled
Edited:
NO SCORE, Flamegrilled!
What are you really about?
Cofty made that reasonable comment on another thread on prayer.
I saluted that.