"you know Jehovah wants you to attend"
If Jehovah wants me to go to the convention THAT badly, then maybe he should tell me in person.
so without giving too much info away so that someone might id me, i have to travel a long distance to get to any dc.
so i'm making plans to take a trip to the states to spend time with family, and my mother asks me about attending the dc.
i said, look, i have limited time when i take a trip there and you want me to spend three days sitting on my ass listening to the same ole bullshit?
"you know Jehovah wants you to attend"
If Jehovah wants me to go to the convention THAT badly, then maybe he should tell me in person.
i did not think it was possible to grieve for someone you have never met.
but i feel such an overwhelming sadness at the loss of ray.
i did receive kind replies to two emails that i sent him, but i never had the pleasure to meet the man.
I don't think anyone can ever top what Mr. Franz did. He was the first person to write about the organization who had experienced it at the very highest levels. He was privy to far more information than even most Bethelites are. You may be at the headquarters when you're a Bethelite, but you still don't actually get to see the machine work. I don't think Crisis of Conscience could be equaled in that respect.
some of you who still go to meetings or are around jw's.......what have you heard them say about the death of ray franz?.
.
think about it .
I agree. I heard about Ray Franz from my older brother who was just a kid at the time it all went down. That's where I heard about "the book." My parents didn't like to talk about it, just that there had been "apostates" who had infiltrated bethel in the early 80s.
now, having been on the other side of the fence, so to speak, and having had hoa's run me out of their subdivision, the shoe is on the other foot.
as i said in my come back post yesterday, i have become very active in my local community.
i am the president of our home owner's association.
Here's the thing about ordinances and freedom of speech: to what extent do you allow someone to preach at you? Should they be allowed to enter your home, stand in your living room, and refuse to leave until you accept literature? Should they be allowed to stand in your kitchen? Bathroom? Bedroom? Your driveway and porch are just as much your property as the inside of your house, so why are the rules any different? They're not on public property, so the first amendment doesn't apply. It is just as against the law for someone to walk in your yard when you don't want them to (trespassing) as it is for them to enter your home without permission. The penalties might be different, but both are illegal. Essentially what the HOA has done is informed that JWs that they are not welcome in the subdivision, and any such entry is illegal trespassing.
what is munchausen by proxy syndrome?.
one of the most harmful forms of child abuse, munchausen by proxy syndrome was named after baron von munchausen, an eighteenth-century german dignitary known for telling outlandish stories.
a parent will induce illness or injury in their own child and then take the victim in to the hospital to be seen as the heroic savior.. typically, the perpetrator feels satisfied when he or she has the attention and sympathy of doctors, nurses, and others who come into contact with him or her and the child.. because the parent or caregiver appears to be so caring and attentive, often no one suspects any wrongdoing.. .
Wouldn't you agree that either there were an Adam and Eve or else we evolved?
Actually, no. According to the latest information, there was a female homo sapiens in which we all are descendants of. Likewise there is also a male we all descend from. The only difference is that this male and female probably didn't live at the same time. Anthropology is an interesting field. For example, it's utterly meaningless to trace your ancestry back more than 900 years or so. Why? Because you are actually related to every single person in the world who lived back then. You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, 32 great-great-great grandparents, and so on. At the 30 generation mark (assuming an average generation of 30 years, so 30 x 30 = 900 years), that's over 1 billion great^29 grandparents, more than the total population of the earth back then. That's why I chuckle at shows like "Who do you think you are?" when they trace ancestry back that far. Like when Brooke Shields was shown to be a descendant of the ancient Kings of France. So f'ing what? That's far enough back to where almost EVERYBODY can claim such a thing.
what is munchausen by proxy syndrome?.
one of the most harmful forms of child abuse, munchausen by proxy syndrome was named after baron von munchausen, an eighteenth-century german dignitary known for telling outlandish stories.
a parent will induce illness or injury in their own child and then take the victim in to the hospital to be seen as the heroic savior.. typically, the perpetrator feels satisfied when he or she has the attention and sympathy of doctors, nurses, and others who come into contact with him or her and the child.. because the parent or caregiver appears to be so caring and attentive, often no one suspects any wrongdoing.. .
Not sure if this is related, but there is a sister in my old hall who we all suspected had Munchausen syndrome. Her kids...all of them...were chronically ill all the time. They were all alarmingly underweight, had poor color, and seemed spaced out all the time. The story is that there is some blood factor the parents both have that will cause health problems in their kids. One of the youngest is fed through a feeding tube that goes directly into her stomach. The doctors told them that she only needed it for the first six months or something but it's been years and they still use it. They're incredibly selective in what they listen to doctors about. But yeah the kids (except one) are all listless and weak all the time. Very suspicious.
after publishing her best seller book,outofthecocoon, brenda lee is back again, this time with a powerful, eye-catchting youtube video on wts.
what is your reaction after viewing it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfdirpdbqgw&feature=related.
This is about as realistic as the Thursday-night demonstrations at the Kingdom Hall. I've never been a huge fan of Brenda Lee. Her book title rubs me the wrong way, calling herself a "courageous woman" specifically. I'm sure she is, but if you are it's the kind of thing you let other people say about you. Calling yourself "courageous" just makes you look pompous.
what the hell is up with the "ban" on facial hair outside of a mustache in the wt?.
i see nothing about it in the bible, and i remember i did some research and nothing came up in the jw publications.. did i miss something?.
oh wait, is this another way to get people to conform without scriptural basis.... i want a goatee :(.... actually i'm thinking of growing one and then people would get the idea that i'm not doing so hot in "the truth"..
Rutherford hated beards.
the other day i casually mentioned to my wife how weird the new generation teaching sounds.
she at first had no idea what i'm talking about.
she read the article, yet she noticed no doctrine change (sidenote: way to go gb!
I've found that in most debates with JWs, you first have to inform them of what their organization actually teaches.
this is the very end of a compelling debate.
if it grabs you go back and watch the whole thing.. .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzxkqz8xx1e&feature=related.
Limitations of inerrancy
Many who believe in the Inspiration of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant. Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may contain errors. Those who believe in inerrancy hold that the scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be interpreted in the light of its phenomenological nature, not just with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical narratives. [3]
Proponents of biblical inerrancy generally do not teach that the Bible was dictated directly by God, but that God used the "distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers" of scripture and that God's inspiration guided them to flawlessly project his message through their own language and personality. [30]
Infallibility and inerrancy refer to the original texts of the Bible. And while conservative scholars acknowledge the potential for human error in transmission and translation, modern translations are considered to "faithfully represent the originals". [31]
So essentially, the Bible is absolutely right (infallible) in matters of "faith" and the supernatural where it cannot be tested, but is not inerrant in matters where it can be tested. How very convenient.