Why can you stand for the pledge of allegiance?
Has something changed? I was always told we could stand for the pledge; we could not, however, place our hand over our heart. Every JW I knew, including me, stood for the pledge.
neverendingjourney
JoinedPosts by neverendingjourney
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35
Why Is Toasting Wrong? Why Can't You Stand For The National Anthem?...
by minimus inwhy can you stand for the pledge of allegiance?.
why is "whole" blood bad but "blood fractions" permissable?.
why is eating a bird on thanksgiving day a sin?.
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neverendingjourney
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End of an era: The original members of the Governing Body have all died
by truthseeker inthe reported death of governing body member bro.
barr marks the end of an era.
many of the original members of the governing body were around during the days of president rutherford.
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neverendingjourney
The original members of the Governing Body have all died
Not to quibble with details, but I don't think this it technically true. Barr, I believe was appointed to the GB in 1977. The GB was established in 1971, despite what faithful JWs believe. Therefore, the last of the "original" members to die was Ray Franz, who passed away a few months ago.
Nevertheless, I get your point. The longest-serving member on the GB was appointed in 1994. The link to the old Rutherford days is gone.
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Pyramidology after 1919?
by drewcoul inis there any wt publications that endorse pyramidology after 1919 when christ chose the wtb&ts as his congregation?.
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neverendingjourney
Yes. William Van Amburgh wrote a lengthy thesis on this in the Golden Age a few years before Rutherford dropped the teaching.
http://www.lulu.com/product/item/a-bible-for-the-scientist/6256473
FYI: I purchased the e-book, but you can't print it.
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WHAT IF YOU HAD NEVER LEFT !!!
by warmasasunned ini am sure that this question as been asked before.
when i think of my life now,a lovely kind beautiful wife, two happy healthy kids, good job, nice home, real friends.
yes since i left the jws almost twenty years ago i can honestly say i have lived my life.. when i eventually left the death by bordem cult ... i had nothing, a loveless marraige i only stayed in because of the jws, no friends, no home to call my own, in debt, i had a wife who was so depressed she shooped to make herself happy.
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neverendingjourney
In many ways I wish I could have remained in the blissfull ignorance of my early JW days, just prior to my baptism. It was probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. The "truth" was as real as the ground I was walking on. I hadn't been in it long enough to realize how the propaganda didn't match up with what really went on in the Kingdom Hall. Everyone saw me as a potential recruit and put on their best face when I was around. I'd also not been around long enough to learn of various wacky beliefs they generally try to keep under the rug. Most importantly, a flood of mental doubts had not developed in my mind that required extreme discipline to hold back. Sure it was happiness based on a mirage, but haven't we all had dreams we wish we would have never woken up from?
But freezing time is impossible. I eventually got baptized and realized my elder-mentor was a two-faced hyprocrite. I realized the "happy" pioneers were heavily medicated and viewed field service as a social process, an opportunity to get together and gossip about the "friends." Most of them were putting in "phantom hours." I had run-ins with householders who showed me that the name "Jehovah" did not appear in the original manuscripts in the New Testament. I grew tired of being unable to prove my beliefs to householders who actually knew a thing or two about the Bible.
Like OTWO, I would have been miserable. You can't unlearn what you already know. You can't unsee what you've witnessed with your own eyes. You can't reverse the course of logical thinking that led you to understand that there were gaping holes in the WT theology. All of the recent, aimless "adjustments" to doctrine would have made it even harder. A tide was building and it was only a matter of time before the dam burst.
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Update on Jamiebowers - not sure what to think...
by sd-7 ini just got a call from jamie this afternoon, saying she found her husband in the bathroom, not breathing.
i've not had the chance to speak to her, she left me a voice mail.
but i'm very worried.
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neverendingjourney
Jamie, I hope your husband is doing better. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
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Tower of Babel built by Babies!
by Billy the Ex-Bethelite inthe weekly tms bible reading assignment is not read, or not carefully read, by most of the sheeples.
it doesn't really matter, because the consideration of the bible reading material is one of the shortest parts on the meeting with a limited number of comments, and those comments are restricted to less than 30 seconds or you will get counselled.
over and over, the dubs are told to read the bible, yet the organization gives no real encouragement to read the bible by keeping everyone busy in the recruiting work and using relatively few scriptures in their "talks".. why?
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neverendingjourney
This conservative number would be ample to fit the circumstances relating to the tower construction and the dispersal of the peoples
How is assuming that "each post-flood male parent ath the age of 30 were to begin fathering children at the rate of one child every three years, iwth an average of one male child every six years, and continued up until the age of 90" being conservative?
By the way, I've seen Christians defend the 600,000 Jewish men at the time of the Exodus (probably around 2,000,000 total) story with similar arguments. I haven't really given it a whole lot of though, but there's gotta be something they're leaving out.
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To Current Elders or Former Elders I have a question ?
by Pitchess Co-Gen inin the new elder's manuel they said that if you molested someone or been molested than you can't be an elder or a ministerial sevant even if it was before bastism .
i find that to be wrong because i thought when you got basptised than all your sins are forgivin, but thats the case here i guess..
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neverendingjourney
Hi, Jamie. "Unbecoming" is a polite way of putting it...haha.
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To Current Elders or Former Elders I have a question ?
by Pitchess Co-Gen inin the new elder's manuel they said that if you molested someone or been molested than you can't be an elder or a ministerial sevant even if it was before bastism .
i find that to be wrong because i thought when you got basptised than all your sins are forgivin, but thats the case here i guess..
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neverendingjourney
As to your original question, my understanding is that whether or not a man may serve as an MS or elder turns on whether he's a "known" child molester.
Basically, if it happened a long time ago and it's not widely known in the community, and MS or elder can continue serving. However, if it becomes known, then he must be removed. There were secret letters outlining instructions along these lines that are on the board somewhere. The impression you get from reading WT literature is that no molester may serve, but the use of the word "known" opens up a big loop hole, the details of which escape me right now. I'm sure you can find all the info you want by doing a search. Only "known" molesters are banned. Who exactly is an "unknown" molester? That's the key question that's handled at the highest levels of the WT bureaucracy.
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To Current Elders or Former Elders I have a question ?
by Pitchess Co-Gen inin the new elder's manuel they said that if you molested someone or been molested than you can't be an elder or a ministerial sevant even if it was before bastism .
i find that to be wrong because i thought when you got basptised than all your sins are forgivin, but thats the case here i guess..
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neverendingjourney
I find that to be wrong because I thought when you got basptised than all your sins are forgivin, but thats the case here I guess.
It's a long story, but this line of questioning served to open my eyes. From a purely Biblical perspective, I think you're right. Nowhere in the Bible does it say men who have abused children (or who are "known" child abusers) are to be prevented from holding positions of responsibility in the congregation. The Bible DOES say that we are washed from our sins. So, from a Biblical perspective, there should be no reason why such a sin should disqualify a man from serving as MS, or elder. When the WT changed their official policy, it made me realize they were responding to political/legal pressure. They were afraid they were going to get hit with a series of lawsuits similar to the Catholic Church and decided to adjust their doctrine accordingly.
If the WT was God's handpicked religion on Earth, why would it cave to human pressure and legal concerns? It seemed unbecoming of a God's people. Of course, from a practical, non-indoctrinated perspective, it makes complete sense to protect children from people who have demonstrated a perverted tendency to take advantage of them. But common sense didn't matter to me when I was a JW; what the Bible said was ALL that mattered. Jehovah wiping out children in the flood made no sense to me, but it must have been just because that's what God wanted. If God didn't tell us that child molesters were to be permanently banned from serving in the congregations, then men had no place imposing their judgment for the will of God.
That was my thinking at the time. I'm glad I no longer hold those views. Once the indoctrination wore off, I could see the many, many flaws in the organization.
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Challenges Facing the Watchtower Org
by eric356 inive been thinking about the future of the watchtower organization and the challenges it faces in coming decades.
its difficult to address the issue without allowing personal feelings affect the analysis.
many people seem to think that the society will collapse fairly soon, based mostly on the fact that the person dislikes the leadership or cant understand how others can believe the doctrine.
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neverendingjourney
If the GB is truly still in expectation of Jehovah's lifeboat, why the building plans extending to at least 2014?
This is what I was getting at when I was talking about mixed signals coming from WT leadership. Maybe there are 2 or 3 delusional GB members who would stop long-term planning, another 2 or 3 who feel we're in it for the long term and another 2 or 3 who aren't quite sure. On any given matter, the long-term faction might convince the undecideds to go their way, and on another occasion the end-is-near faction wins their support. The bottom line is that we don't know for sure, but policy-decisions have definitely been inconsistent.
We can point to long-term expansion projects and say, "See, the GB is full of money-hungry, evil-geniuses, cynically manipulating JW membership for their own benefit. They don't believe a word of what they're saying." But, if this is true, why does the WT continue to discourage higher education? Why does it encourage its members to work in low-paying jobs? Why doesn't the WT require tithing?
Before somone says it's because they need to have an uneducated membership in order to preserve their power, look at the Mormon Church. Their members are on average more educated than the general US population and they run their own universities. Education has not caused a decline in membership, and it can be argued that their beliefs are more easily disproved that the Watchtowers.