Perhaps from the perspective of an infinite, eternal being he was!
No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of Jehovah's Witnesses
Francois
JoinedPosts by Francois
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47
Satan...Why wasn't he destroyed right AWAY??
by pomegranate inthat was my first question to god.. why?.
does anybody have any understanding on this question?.
pomegranate
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The Bible: same now as then?
by agent2863 ina few reasons we can know that we have the same bible that was used by early christians are as follows: in 1611 king james ordered that the bible be put into the language of the people.
the earliest manuscripts they had at the time were, for the old testament about 8th century ad, and for the new testament, about 11th century ad.
in 1947 in the caves in qumran above the dead sea, there were discovered over 200 clay jars in over 200 caves, scrolls, which made up the entire old testament.
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Francois
Sorry, but the Dead Sea Scrolls to which you refer, are not copies of the Old Testament. Neither have they all been examined. They were kept in virtual isolation for decades and only a very few of them have ever been opened - due to their incredible fragility - much less examined.
This accuracy rate you talk about is made up of smoke and mirrors.
You must have gotten this information from a JW or other Fundy.
Nice try, though.
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12
THOUGHT PROVOKING QUESTIONS !!!!!!!!!!!!
by d0rkyd00d ini printed these questions from a website long ago, and loved them to death cuz they freed me from that god-forsaken religion.
i challenge any witness to answer all of them in their entirety, since the true religion stands against all falsehood.
please note that these are from scriptures in the new world translation, used by jehovah's witnesses.
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Francois
Thought provoking, yes. And you wanna know why the JWs fool around with translation of the scriptures?
TO MAKE 'EM COMPORT MORE PRECISELY WITH THEIR PRE-CONCEIVED TEACHINGS!
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7
intro?
by cecil inmy name is cecil.
as you can imagine i am not posting with my real name.
call it what you want but i am not yet ready to 'jump out of the closet', as we put in my mother-tongue.
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Francois
My Dear Cecil:
We are brothers, you and I, and not in the JW sense of the word. But in our experiences in both the marriage/divorce arena, and also in the intellectual integrity department as well.
You ask: "Could 3, 4, 5 or 6 million JW's be wrong?" Hmmmmmm. How 'bout nine hundred million Catholics; how 'bout over a billion Buddhists; and over a billion Hindus? Several hundred million Muslims? Hell, how 'bout even a paltry 12 million Southern Baptists?
My friend, truth is truth if you are a minority of ONE.
Consider that while the religions of authority, like the JWs, may impart a feeling of settled security, you pay for such a transient satisfaction the price of the loss of your spiritual freedom and religious liberty. God does not require of you as the price of entering the kingdom of heaven that you should force yourself to subscribe to a belief in things which are spiritually repugnant, unholy, and untruthful. It is not required of you that your own sense of mercy, justice, and truth should be outraged by submission to an outworn system of religious beliefs, forms, or ceremonies. The religion of the spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge--perhaps this spirit may have something to impart to you which the entire organization has refused to hear?
Follow the leadings of your own spirit, friend Cecil. You're on the right track.
Francoise
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11
Describe JW/ A mind altering cult/ Dangerous Cult
by nojw86 ini am sort of interested to your responces if someone might ask a ?
about the jw how might you describe the jw?
would they to your personal opinion be a mind altering cult or a dangerous cult?
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Francois
So glad you asked. I'm repeating myself, but I did a lot of research to come up with the following analysis, so here it is:
Is the WTB&TS is a cult: If it walks, looks, quacks, and swims like a duck...well, you know. Let's look at the definition of what constitutes a cult and see if the JWs meet the definition.
There is an infallible leader or set of leaders. Check. The WTB&TS claims to speak for God, and their pronouncements are to be regarded as the very word of God.
The cult holds out an extravagant hope. Check. Life everlasting on a paradise earth. Soon.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent in a cult are discouraged or even punished. Double Check. How many articles have you seen in the WT, Awake, etc., discouraging in the most strident terms, independent thinking? How many of you have had your thinking "adjusted" because of your independant thinking?
The cult is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself and its leaders. Check. JWs are God's chosen people, and the governing body is the "only channel of communication" that God is using today.
The cult has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict or isolation with the wider society. Check. It's the JWs against everybody else, all of whom are caught up in the "world empire of false religion."
The cult adopts special terminology designed to give its members a feeling of settled, advanced insight when use of its meaningless phrases actually stifle real knowledge - subsituting sloganeering for thinking. Check. "World emplire of false religion," and "Babylon the Great," for instance.
The cult's leaders are not accountable to any authorities. Check. The WTB&TS does not file even the "informational" income tax return, for example. Its finances are totally secret. Where DOES all that money go? And who decides where it goes? And do you agree with where it goes? How do you like your million-dollar light fixture? Can YOU think of any authority the JWs are subservient to? (Don't say Jehovah. We know what a joke that is.)
The cult teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group. Check. The WTB&TS has said in print that lying is an acceptable technique in their "spiritual war."
The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them. Check. I remember entire study articles in the WT dealing with how great guilt feelings are, zeroing in especially on one of the Psalms in which David states that his "sin is constantly before" him, and holding that up as an example for good little JWs.
Members' subservience to the cult causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. Check. No illumination here is even needed.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group. Check.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. Check.
Check. Check. Check. And double-dog check.
I could go on further with this, but why bother? The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses is, and has always been, a cult. BY DEFINITION. It is also a false prophet. Remember Deut. 18:20-22 and its comments about false prophets and what would happen to them?
So I hope I've answered your question about whether or not JWs constitute a cult. They are. And there's no denying it.
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Is It Really Jehovah?
by Francois ini remember going from door-to-door using a standard canned presentation.
this particular one included the line that we worshipped a god who had a name.
this was before my own critical thinking facilities progressed beyond the germinal stage.
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Francois
I remember going from door-to-door using a standard canned presentation. This particular one included the line that we worshipped a God who had a name. This was before my own critical thinking facilities progressed beyond the germinal stage. Thinking about it today, it's really a dumb argument. After all, Baal is a name, Chemosh is a name, Vishnu is a name, Buddha is a name. And each name describes a god whose characteristics are well-known. In fact, these characteristics so define the God that the God wouldn't be the same dude if additional characteristics were added to the description.
Similarly, any name is just like that if you think about it (please bear with me here as I sneak up on my point). If an object is called a cup, immediately pops into your mind the image of all that is known about the object that goes with the name. You know what a cup is, and thus you also know what a cup is not. If I said it's flat, you'd know that "cup" is the wrong word to use. Thus, a name constitutes a limit. The name sums up all the characteristics about the thing named. It can't be more.
Same is true with the name Jehovah. Once you've said Jehovah, you know the nature and character of the God you're speaking of. And in that lurks the problem. For if a name, a lable is a limit, as demonstrated above, then a god with a name cannot be god - for a limited god is not god at all.
So when you say Jehovah, you're not speaking of the existential god of the universe of universes; the god of love, the father of us all. You may be speaking of the god of the Hebrews or of the Hittites, a five-thousand year-old conceptualization of the nature and character of god, never updated to reflect new realizations and insight about him; subtracting what is obviously not true about god, and adding new elements of character unknown to us previously.
Developing a grasp of this concept has been very important in my recovery from the clutches of a cultic religion. But realizing that the true God that lives and rules in the Center of all Things and Beings is not that angry judge-accountant who speaks from a fulminating volcano issuing edits like he thinks he's the federal government has been the most important discovery in my new life of the discovery of many, many releasing truths.
The witnesses want their Jehovah? They can have him. For me, the god that can be named is not the eternal god.
Think about it.
Francoise
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Francois
RR, people like the person you describe who've been out for 30 years have obviously been hurt vastly much more than you; more than you can apparently imagine. It frequently happens like that.
I know people who've been out a long time, but the people whom they most loved in this life still do not talk to them; they have children who have stopped speaking to the; they have grandchildren whom they've never seen; friends with whom they spent the best years of their life who now are busy proving they were never friends. Betrayal is extraordinarily hard for some people to deal with, especially if the fall out continues to rub against a raw nerve day in and day out for years and years. My heart goes out to these lost souls. It's a high price to pay for spiritual freedom, for moral integrity. But they've paid it.
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93
What did you do?
by StiLLinTruth into all those who have in some way left the organization (be it disfellowshipping, disassociating, dis-whatever):.
come now, i know the amount of people who "realized that wt doctrine was in serious error" and politely handed in their letter of resignation has to be very small.
the level of bitterness and hostility towards the closest-to-what's-biblical organization has to develop some other way.. what did you do?
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Francois
This "still" guy is a textbook example of the type personality described in "The True Believer." Most likely he was raised in a dysfunctional family dominated by a tyrannical, drunken father, or perhaps it was his mother that was the drunk or junk head. This personality type needs, requires, what he feels is absolute truth, an infallible leader, an extravagant hope. In order for this personality type to ever feel good about himself, he must push all he considers not part of the "in group" down. In order for this to happen, he must despise all who are not part of the "in group." I've seen his type over and over and over in my cult de-programming sessions. Next year, he could be a moonie, or a scientologist, or a holy roller. Any cult that pushes his buttons will do. But he isn't a candidate for a normal, loving, caring spiritual community. And as much as he wishes to believe he's a part of a logical religion of the mind, this is a highly emotional association for him. Thus, he's resistant to actual truth, to real love, to the genuine call of the spirit. It's a waste of time attempting to use logic and love with a person like "Still" until he's had a considerable amount of therapy.
Best to move on to a normally minded person.
Francoise
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93
What did you do?
by StiLLinTruth into all those who have in some way left the organization (be it disfellowshipping, disassociating, dis-whatever):.
come now, i know the amount of people who "realized that wt doctrine was in serious error" and politely handed in their letter of resignation has to be very small.
the level of bitterness and hostility towards the closest-to-what's-biblical organization has to develop some other way.. what did you do?
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Francois
Well mainly, Mr. StiLLinTruth, for me it was the inescapeable truth that the truth was not in the organization of JWs. Not there. Completely missing. And that is a truth that is proveable.
I'd venture to guess that you don't know much about the details of the history of Jehoavah's Witnesses. I know because I was around in the period 1955-1977 - long before the organization began to encourage congregations to pare down their libraries. Kinda get rid of the evidence.
But you've asked an honest question, and I'd like to provide honest answers. If you'll stick around here, I'll be happy to have you pick my brain all you like. And I will treat you with the same respect with which you treat me.
Actually, what I really would recommend is that you read Ray Franz book "Crisis of Conscience." If you don't mind rubbing "minds" with the so-called apostates on this site, then you shouldn't mind reading Ray's book. If you have a sincere desire to know the truth as you have indicated, you should have no problem with this.
True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. Intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of your beliefs. No one is at any time disturbed by anyone else's attitude and beliefs when he has perfect confidence in the truth of what he believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing honesty about those things which you professes to believe. You should be unafraid of the critical examination of your true convictions and ideals. I'm not. Are you?
Francoise
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after so long....
by 30years inthis is my first post in any network such as this.
i have been "lurking" around the "apostate" sites for the last year or so.
i am glad i have!
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Francois
I like a man with the courage of his convictions. I concur with all the other folks who have recommended you take it slowly. I was in the Jay Dubs for 30 years as well, and unfortunately, being the journalist I am, said what I thought and lost my family. I didn't need to do that. I could have just faded away instead of formally disassociating.
But, you know, people who are your friends and who love you; your family if they love you too, will continue to do so, df-ed or not. The people who really cared about me are still my friends and still my family. Only the fair-weather people are gone, and who needs them anyway?
However, if you go slow, you can evaluate this as you go.
Francoise