I'm starting to believe that its a mixture of both, they both want it in a dark fantasy sense and don't want it because you can never really know for sure... heres an email I received today from an elder in the congregation I grew up in entitled "weird dream" "Hello Friends, I am not one to write long notes, but I feel compelled with that one. I woke up this morning 2 hours earlier than usual, and couldn't fall back asleep, and all day today I have been thinking about this dream that woke me shivering and crying. I know Jehovah does not talk to us through dreams anymore, we have His Word The Bible for that and the discreet slave. But as a scientist, I know, we use dream to solve our problems and look into ourselves. So let me share a little bit of my psyche with you through this Epic dream. Hey, for all I know I have been reading too much in the revelation book . The time this dream encompasses is one day before Armageddon and one day post. One minute I was on stage during an assembly fixing the stage and the next minute I was running away from attackers with a group of friends in front of me, some lost their lives in the chase, as I am running someone is handing him a weapon to defend myself, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to take it. After a while we found ourselves in a little room like a hut really with no protection against the environment but even less against evil attackers. I got Captured and there were two bullies holding me down, while their leader is looking all around for the best way to attack the hut/house, as this man gave the word to get rid of me and the friends were about to put a piece of white cloth up, there was this blinding flash of light and it was as though all the attackers fell asleep, as I run toward the house, pursued by the leader of the band one of the brothers took a knife, to fight my pursuer and there was a tall man who said if you think you have more power than Jehovah go ahead use your knife. The brother dropped the knife, and all of the attackers were exterminated. It was not the attack that was the worst part of my dream but what happens afterward, after what I perceived to be Armageddon. There was this raging river flowing, and I find myself frantically looking for my parents... they were no where to be found, and I proceeded to look for some of the young ones or not so young as they are over 20...they were no where to be found either. As I continue in my search I found myself on the river banks with some of my friends from Connecticut, most of them was there, but they also was sad and started to cry as they talk their peers and family members who are in the truth missing. that's the point I wake up crying and shivering... My Take on this Dream Satan's system cannot give us any "weapon" to defend ourselves, pure and sample: they are the enemy. and besides, Only Jehovah arms us with what we need to protect ourselves namely the complete armor: Truth, Justice, Peace, Faith, Hope of salvation, His Word. The war is a spiritual one not physical. As much as I see other people this insight in myself: I must stay faithful to Jehovah, no matter what trickery or persecution Satan or his system of things may throw at me. I must remain faithful to see the day of salvation. Often when we think about Armageddon, or the day after we think about all of the rejoicing as truly the Kingdom has started to reign both in heaven and earth. Yet I find myself Horrified at the prospect of losing loved ones, as this is the death where there is no hope of Resurrection. In the course of our ministry, we spend a lot of time seeking those who are deserving, in the territory, but what about our personal territory: our household, our extended family, our Jobs? What about the young ones in the congregation that the world keeps trying to pull out of Jehovah's organization. In thinking about this ordeal today, and how disturbed I am, I realized that I don't talk to my mother and father and fleshly brothers enough about the Kingdom as the tool Jehovah is going to use to sanctify His wonderful Name. This a wake up call indeed for me as I can do something about it now, because once Armageddon comes "it's too late the horse has left the barn." Let us all continue to build and strengthen ourselves through regular Bible reading and study. Let us continue to reach out to those in the congregation, as well as our families so that they too can glorify the great name of our Father Jehovah God. Agape, Dan" Now, when I read this the first time around it seemed like a genuine concern for the people he cares about, but when I read it again, and then another time I noticed one thing that is consistent among devout JWs. in his dream he was in danger but God protected him from serious harm, and he felt that the some how had to play the hero to save the lost souls (i.e people who haven't been attending their meetings, active field service etc...)this is just another example of thier arrogance. Its one not to talk to you non-JW family members and realize thats not a healthy family relationship and decide to contact them, and its entirely another thing to wake up from a bad dream and decide to contact your non-JW fam to "save" them. I recall having this sort of dark fantasy when I was younger like being in class and some sort of supernatural thing was going on in the clouds and hearing a loud Go-like voice and being the only one in the class able to explain what was going on while everyone is perplexed and asking me questions about what they can do, and I'm like "it might be too late, because when I tried to preach to some of you about God's kingdom, you weren't interested..." pathetic, I know. but I'm sure many witness have these types of fantasies, and believe me their belief that armageddeon is close is as ripe as ever, if you noticed in the email he mentioned how their studying the Revelation book agian.
Fat Greg
JoinedPosts by Fat Greg
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Do JWs really want Armageddon?
by truman inrecently several threads have been under discussion concerning the possible change in the understanding of the jw this generation that will not pass away teaching.
since the change in the early 1990s that sought to disconnect the doctrine from its previous anchor date of 1914 and another change in 2007 to free it from 1935, it seems now that more alteration is in the works.
in the scotsmans thread, he says that as these new light understandings come out of the wts, most r & f jws will embrace this with both hands.
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Arrogance and Asinity I say!
by AK - Jeff inas i drove thru the countryside this morning at 0300 on my way back from work [i was supposed to report and found that i had been scheduled for another vacation day, so back home i went], i drove past the kingdom hall and began to meditate in the utter absurdity of what these poor souls believe about themselves.
they arrogantly are duped to accept that the devil, the ultimate evil in all the universe, has selected them as target.
i drove past tens of thousands of people in that short drive, yet this small cluster of people believes that they alone are worthy of his attack.
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Fat Greg
their arrogance is still as thick as ever, I don't know if I notice it more now than I did before while I was still under the WT spell, but I remember clearly that any time someone in the congregation lost a loved one the first question most brothers would ask is "was he baptised" or "was she studying" as if that is the person's only chance of being acceptable to God. so before they even attempt to console the bereaved they have to determine weather the lost one is "worth resurrecting". if the deceased was not interested in studying theres always an awkward silence and then a reference to God resurrecting both the righteous and unrighteous "so you never know". this was always painfully sickening to me even as a child when I was gung ho about "the truth". their arrogance leads to their paranoia too, I was always told that because I'm a JW that the world automatically hates me, every one that knew me at school never made any fun of me because of my religion (now that I think about it I don't think they could have cared any less) on the contrary a times they would ask question out of curiosity but that was the end of it. I think many of the young JWs with poor social skills use this idea that they are hated by the world to explain why people don't like being around them, I personally didn't have a problem getting along with people in or outside of the organization but I knew many who did. I blame this on that arrogant sometimes unspoken JW belief that they are God's chosen people and then combine that with the constant unworthy feeling they can't avoid because there's no human who can live up to WT standards.
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Borg Cost cutting measures...can you think of others?
by SnakesInTheTower ini was reflecting on the other thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/11/135961/2.ashx) about the new koolaid watchtower....and thinking about this being more of an overall cost cutting measure than any kind of old light repackaged as special lite.......can you think of any other examples?
a few examples: no more subscriptions (no more yellow envelopes, no more yellow, blue, green, pink forms).
no more postages sending individual magazines.. kingdom ministry now sent in same box as magazines rather than separate roll of kms to po house.
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Fat Greg
I know of 2 bethelites from my congregation who went home after the WT downsize. one of them was over 50 years old (I didn't his exact age but he served for over 24 years and moved from BK to Paterson and eventually to wallkill where they sent him home from)this might be a little off topic but, besides the fact that he's over 50 he had no marketable skills coming out of bethel service.....I wonder what he has to do now to make ends meet. take note that plans to bring in the new printing press were around for years, they had all the bethelites working overtime sometimes double time to welcome the new press, and a few months after its up and running and all the troubleshooting is worked out they start letting people go under the premise that "more brothers and sisters are needed in the field because the end is near" rubbish!
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What do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?
by 5go inwhat do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?.
you know the jan 15th, 2008 apostate proof edition..
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Fat Greg
you know what? this organization gets more and more ridiculous by the year. they've made some dumb moves in the past, but at least from a corporate stand point you could see the purpose in why they did what they did. but what do they really intend to accomplish with a publisher version of the WT mag?? they're clearly acting out of frustration. my experience with this org is still fresh so I don't know if anyone else in here has noticed but their WT studies are getting more and more defensive each week. I wonder why.... they might be going through this board before writing the articles now...
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What do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?
by 5go inwhat do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?.
you know the jan 15th, 2008 apostate proof edition..
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Fat Greg
if this doesn't raise red flags within the organizations members I don't know what else will. its always been the WT's purpose to preach the word to the public. coming with some 'elite' version of the WT mag IMO will just defeat the purpose of going door to door. once a person starts a study they're soon after encouraged to attend meetings. whats the window of time between when a 'worldly' person is worthy of participating in the WT study. seriously if they're gonna set restrictions on who can read the publisher version then they'll have to start setting restrictions on who is allowed to attend...
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What do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?
by 5go inwhat do you think the first secret watchtower is going to be about?.
you know the jan 15th, 2008 apostate proof edition..
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Fat Greg
I think she means your niece was being lied to by the WT. I was there when they made the announcement and remember them saying that the difference between the public version and the publisher version would be the questions and some WT specific language that most 'worldly' people wouldn't understand without a lengthy explanation.
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What is the scriptural basis to deny baptism?
by MinisterAmos inhow many baptized witnesses were told that they could not be baptized until they had served for a time as unbaptized publishers?
is there an actual scriptural basis for this, or is just another law made up by the org?
why are some not asked to serve as unbaptized publishers before baptism?
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Fat Greg
Thats an interesting question MinisterAmos. I had a knew a couple personally who petitioned to be baptized and were denied. one of them asked on three occasions and was denied each time, eventually he gave up and concluded that he wasn't "worthy of serving". I never thought about a scriptural basis for denying someone baptism... come to think of it, none of the multitudes of people being baptized by the apostles had any rigorous study program to go through, actually many were baptized right on the spot once they acknowledged Christ as their savior. Hmm... I wonder now if the elders are trained to detect if someone has the pliable qualities it takes to go along with what the WT teaches without questioning it. because both of the people I'm referring to were raised in this organization and apparently would know how to answer the questions.