I remember it. Isn't it from the Revelation Climax book? I at least remember the image. As far as I recall, 'bad people' then will look like hippies wearing headbands/bandanas.
Awakened07
JoinedPosts by Awakened07
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Does anyone remember the pic about the apostates at end of 1000 yrs.....
by chrisjoel init was a picture about those who would take a final stand against the new world order like a camp outside of the true worshippers.
so satan would be let loose for a little period and then anyone who agrees with satan ...ends up looking like keith richards with earings and is deserving of death.. anyone remember the pic?.
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Ex-JW Youtube videos (am I the only one who dislikes them?)
by Burger Time ini dislike them almost as much as i dislike pro jw videos.
i know this will start a huge overblown thing but seriously i am just stating my opinion.. they are always the same:.
1.cheap fonts and googled images.
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Awakened07
I've seen one or two of the kind you mention (for instance an older guy with a beard droning on and on about... something), plus a few that I personally think overemphasize the 'evil baby-eating cult' thing, but for the most part, the videos I've found have been good.
For instance, apart from the ones you mention, other good videos I've seen are the ones from hopefulatheist and Truthbookblues (I'm a little unsure about that one, because I seem to remember that account going by the name TruthBookBlue, but I may be wrong. Seems like it's the same videos at least). Not every video or video maker can be a winner. After all, most YouTubers are amateurs.
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People who make the truth EXCITING!
by slimboyfat ini have been fading for years now and attend meetings very rarely these days.
but something happened recently to make me think about going regularly again.
a couple have returned to my congregation who used to be special pioneers here twenty years ago.
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Awakened07
I'm still not sure if what you're writing is authentically your own experience or if you're trying to get a point across by pretending to be the one who struggles with these issues so that we can provide good replies to them for whoever is lurking.
However, I'm going to reply as if you are the one struggling:
They have been through a lot in their lives (I won't go into details) and they feel Jehovah has helped them through it.
Since you have so many books, you must have read Crisis of Conscience, in which you'll see Raymond Franz and his wife (and others) endured quite a lot as well for "the truth". Jehovah didn't bless them in the end.
I told him I have not been on the ministry much for quite a while, but he is not put off by that.
It makes you the prodigal son he can help back into the fold. So, for now, they won't be put off by it.
But it is hard for me having been exposed to so much apostate propaganda to go along and believe what the Witnesses teach again.
This is most likely just a slip up, but I don't think you've been exposed to apostate propaganda, and I don't think you think so either. It's the JW in you talking without you realizing it.
Plus one thing I really hate about Witnesses coming over is that they tend to scrutinize my books. We have about 8000 books in our small flat and it is impractical to hide them all. The best I can do is hide the obviously apostate ones and hope none of the others offend too much.
This gets to me. They are books. Why should we live in a world where we are afraid of what books we have in our library?? What books we're allowed to read? Having to hide books from our best friends? If you've read something that doesn't agree with the 'truth', the 'truth' should easily be able to counter any argument found in any book. And where does it end? Probably at 'only literature provided by and condoned by the WBTS'. Quite a bonfire you've got there.
But the weird thing is he never said anything to me about it. He just acted like it was no big deal and continued to be very friendly for the next two hours or so
Prodigal son again.
They acted a bit funny about having been to university saying "this is not something we tell all the brothers here because some brothers frown on it you know".
-Do I even need to comment?
I wish I could join him in the ministry and start the meetings regular again, but it would require a real change in mental attitude. Plus my health does not always allow me to do all the things I want to anyway.
Mental attitude? Mental deep clean and rinse, more like it. Out with the old, in with the new. Out with the old books, in with the bound WT volumes. Plus your health would give you a bad conscience, just like anything that hinders 100% full time service will.
And then maybe for the brother finding that book has marked me out as a spiritual danger from day one.
Prodigal son. They'll cut you some slack for now.
If I did not know better I would think Jehovah directed the brother straight to that book so as to warn him about me that I am not a good Witness.
But you do know better.
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why i disbelieve
by inkling inthe following is a response to a jw friend who still occasionally tries to save my soul, or at least understand it.. his questions are in italics.. i have not yet sent this email.. ========================= what exactly is it that makes you disbelieve there's a god, or makes you unsure he exists?
i think a more sensical question is what makes you so sure he does?
when debating the existence of something invisible, the burden ofproof rests solidly on the shoulders of the believer.
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Awakened07
Good post/thread, inkling. It should be thought provoking.
I view the OT as a history book of sorts. It also shows us, especially those of us that aren't Jewish, what Christ has saved us from. No longer are we subject to the Law and all that that entailed.
Since Jesus apparently is the same God as in the OT, He saved us from the very law He himself originally had devised. -There is also a tendency to nonchalantly forget all the people who did live under that harsh law over centuries.
In the OT, God communicated directly with people on earth and performed miracles day in and day out for them.
So it claims. We who live today have no way of verifying that claim, and it is not part of our common experience. We have to just 'take it on faith'; that is to say choose to believe it's true. The Watchtower recently wrote that we don't need miracles today, because we can read about them in the Bible. Does that sound rational and reasonable?
Well, God said that even if He did give you a sign, you still wouldn't believe. (Mark 8:11, Luke 11:29, Matthew 16:1, Matthew 12:38)
Which is very convenient. The Bible writers may have been many things; outright stupid was not one of them. And; they did not write what they wrote in a vacuum. They were surrounded by some skeptics and people who relied on intelligent, rational thought and philosophy back then too, so what better way to caution would-be followers against such thought than to say that 'seeing would not equal believing', and that God had 'hidden' the truth from the intelligent and revealed it to those who were as children.
So, if there IS a God, would it be fair to assume that we should take His Word over yours?
Perhaps, if.
Of course, we have to make two assumptions: that there is a God, and that the Bible is His Word.
Exactly - you make those assumptions first.
- If for instance you make the initial assumption that there really is a wealthy Nigerian tribal king who needs your help getting his enormous fortune to another country, then the rest of his story and its factual details seem compelling and true. Everything checks out; you get addresses and phone numbers, you can call him and his lawyer and talk to them, you can see what banks and accounts they plan on using, have daily e-mail contact... And you'll be a rich man yourself soon. Just one catch. It all rests on the premise, the presupposition that the Nigerian king is who he claims to be. In real life, one just can't make decisions like that. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Facts come first, and after careful study/analysis, then one can reach a conclusion. One does not first conclude, and then try to find facts to fit that conclusion.
You make the general and, quite honestly, cliche, argument that all the crap that happens in the world is in direct correlation with the lack of a loving, caring God.
It's not just the 'crap' that humans do, it's the 'crap' that's been going on from long before humans emerged, and 'crap' that humans have no control over, like natural disasters and diseases in animals. The entire universe seems to be in a 'fallen state', not just mankind who 'sinned'. There is absolutely no reason why there should be asteroids, comets and meteoroids flying around out there, posing a threat to mankind, flora and fauna. It's 100 years ago tomorrow that a large meteoroid hit Tunguska, Russia, estimated to around a 1000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped over Hiroshima. There are over a thousand large objects on various orbits flying past earth, just 'waiting' for a 'nudge' by the gravity of Venus for instance, to change trajectory enough to hit earth. This kind of 'crap' (+ many other things) was not caused by mankind.
(He is also Holy and Righteous, people so love to 4get those two things in forming their opinion of God, JWs in particular).
Since you've mentioned this a couple of times, it would be nice if you could elaborate on this, preferably in its own thread. How does God being Holy (define it first) and Righteous (explain) change anything? Why do JWs in particular forget this?
However, if you actually study what Jesus taught while He was here on earth, you would see that not once does He advocate violence (aka. Koran) or anything else that would be detrimental to society (His people).
When you have already determined in advance that he is God, is good, peaceful etc., then of course you would not see any such verses even if you found them. I'm not going to generally attack the Jesus of the Bible, because generally he comes off as a decent, peaceful, emancipating guy, but he had his moments. I'm not going to go into detail, because I know the apologetics for them, but "key words" would be: physically (in anger) ridding the temple area of traders instead of intelligently convincing them to leave, demanding more love for himself than for own family, being inconsiderate of his parent's feelings, allowing his disciples to take and eat grain on the sabbath with the only justification being that he's the son of God therefore calling the shots, cursing a fig tree for not blooming out of season... As I said, I know the apologetics for all of those, but they're not convincing to me. They are only convincing if you've already decided how you want him to be, or how he has to be as God.
(Btw, as a side note, He also didn't forbid others to preach and heal in His name even if they weren't "with" Him...it's quite interesting, and sad, how many "religions" seem to ignore that little detail)
-But did also say 'if you are not with me, you are against me'.
Can you not see that if everybody actually followed the example Jesus set how much better the world would be?
Yes, as long as we're talking of the golden rule, which was not a genuinely new thought at the time. It's a rather self-evident rule for sustaining a well functioning society.
And as we see each and everyday, there are those have chosen to believe in God and try to follow the example that Jesus set (it's not easy at times, trust me), and there are those that follow their own will (while this is a lot easier, we can see how much pain and suffering it has caused in the world).
There are bad and good people among all religions and among those who lack a religion. There are intelligent and stupid people among all of them too. Many atheists live a life that closely follows the ethics in the major religions, not because they have derived them from those, but because they have intelligently thought it over and found that society and their own and their family's life will be better for following certain rules/ethics.
Since atheists and agnostics are among a very small minority in the vast majority of nations, wouldn't the pain and suffering in the world rather - statistically - be the doing of people who profess to follow a religion/God? Or are they excused, because they just 'fall short'. Non-believers may fall short too sometimes, even to their own ethics. -But - by all means - there are many religious people who lead a good life, helping others etc. But those kind of people aren't exclusively religious.
Now, you can also argue about all those religious wars and the pain and suffering they have caused? That's true, but that's man taking things into his control (thanks to free will) and doing what he wants, using God as an excuse; aka muslims and other radical offshoots of countless "religions". But you say, what about the OT, God was constantly having His people destroy those that worshipped false gods. Ahh, but that was the OT while the Law was still in effect, and while God only had his chosen people, the Jews. As soon as Christ came to earth and the dispensation of Grace began, do you see the need for God to advocate such tactics? No, because now everybody, not just the Jews, are His people, and what would be the point of destroying His own?
The wars in the OT, decreed or even sometimes allegedly fought by God, were just as distressful, painful, and devastating as the wars caused by 'men taking things into their own hands and blaming it on God' since then. Quite a few people lived through them (well, or died in them). - Not our pain, suffering or loss of loved ones though, so let's just forget that... As long as we can be racist and say that the Creator of the universe chose one small tribe over all others, we may as well say we shouldn't care about their lives, since they were 'bad people'. Some of them evidently were, but the Israelites who were chosen weren't exactly saints either. Why did God choose one small tribe at first, and then later extend that grace to all?
True, we don't know what was going on before God created the universe. However, we don't know that the Big Bang happened either (it's only a theory), so why did you state that like it was fact?
Everything in the natural sciences are 'only theories', but they are the models that currently best fit the largest amount of pieces of fact/evidence. Theories predict that certain things should be true if the theory is true, and the big bang theory has been shown to have good predictive power. This does not mean that we have found the Ultimate Final Truth, which for some reason especially Christians demand we should find in science (probably because it would have to fully substitute the simple 'God did it'), but we have found an explanation that best fits the currently available facts.
One common answer I've heard (and find quite humorous) is that God was creating Hell for those who seeked to meddle in things beyond their comprehension. (A little comic-relief never hurt anybody, right? )
As I think you are a believer in the mentioned Hell, threatening people who dare to inquire into the mysteries of the universe we live in and try to find answers using their senses and powers of deduction with such a place, is not what I would call comic relief. If mankind had always been content not 'meddling' in such things (or afraid to do so), we would have had no progress. Most things we know today were once beyond people's comprehension.
Sorry I have to make the assumption that there is a God and that the Bible is His Word. But isn't that what logic is? Making assumptions and logically reasoning why those assumptions are true?
No, you don't start out by making assumptions, unless they are experiences we all share in common and can therefore say are self-evident.
I can make the initial assumption that there's an invisible, huge troll outside my house. But why would I do that? However, if there were large footprints out there that seemed to come from no where, I would have reason to believe some large animal had made them. From there I could inquire further. It would be incredibly lazy of me to instead simply postulate that they had to come from an invisible troll. If I did some research and hid in the bushes while filming the place at night, I would probably find that the footprints were caused by a large animal, a bear for instance. Now - If I hid in the bushes with my camera and I could actually see those footprints form in the mud out of thin air, I would have a piece of evidence that would lead me to believe such a troll did indeed exist. That is to say - I had only postulated that it had to be a troll, so I would also have to find out if this invisible creature was indeed a troll. The problem with God, angels and demons is that they are not part of our common experience. We can find things in nature that at first glance are "footprints" of an invisible God, but on further investigation, those "footprints" have been shown to have natural origins again and again.
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Human Rights For Apes?
by hamilcarr inanother hot topic in contemporary legislation: should human rights be extended to include non-human species?.
the spanish parliament answered in the affirmative to this question.. .
world briefing | europe.
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"This system just cannot get any worse"
by JimmyPage inthat's what my dad has said at various times over many years.
i think it helps encourage him that the end must be very near and the paradise will be here soon.
my thought has always been "oh yes it can get a lot worse.
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Awakened07
Awakened, dude, you totally don't get what I posted.
Just to clarify, I wasn't thinking of you personally when I talked about 'religious zealots hurling bombs'. I just think it's a dangerous thing that many charismatic Christians and others have this doom and gloom expectancy, and I do fear for what they might do.
Short term, I have no trouble seeing that things may hit a low, economically for instance. It's happened before though; we usually bounce back (always actually, so far, otherwise we wouldn't sit here talking about it).
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"This system just cannot get any worse"
by JimmyPage inthat's what my dad has said at various times over many years.
i think it helps encourage him that the end must be very near and the paradise will be here soon.
my thought has always been "oh yes it can get a lot worse.
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Awakened07
"This system just cannot get any worse"
It is going to, near term.
Fasten your safety belts.
Lol - I can see it now; mankind actually manages to 'grow' and work together to improve conditions world wide, and then religious zealots start yammering "This is not God's will! Things are supposed to get worse!" and then start hurling bombs. If we all have the attitude that things will get worse - heck, are supposed to get worse even, well, then that's exactly what we'll get. Things have actually improved overall, so much so that we've seen an incredible population growth in the last 50 years. Ironically, that growth also poses a challenge, but first of all it shows that overall, life expectancy is higher, people live longer and better etc.
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Leaving the Organization but not the teachings
by donny inwhen i left the witnesses in 1992 after ten years in the orgainzation, i got as far away from the teachings and mindest as i could.
however some, like my former brother-in-law, also left, but are intent on finding ways to reform the society from within since he believes in the society as being of god, but that it has become misguided and is slowly drifting to "christendom" status.
one of the things he cites as evidence is the wtbts become aligned with the united nations.
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Awakened07
I think it's a dash of "where else would we go?", a drop of nostalgia, a spoonful of indoctrination, a cup of time invested, a pinch of 'need of eternal life', a grain of "fulfilled" prophecy, and a bag of 'fear of losing the community with (certain) brothers'.
Stir profusely, and what you get is a very dazzled, dizzy, dazed and confused ex-Witness, wanting to go back but unable to.
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A grave contradiction?
by dark angle innotion: .
all mankind has sinned because our greatx4 grand father adam sinned.
sin is passed through generation.
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Awakened07
Deuteronomy 24:16 (KJV):"The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."
Numbers 14:18 (KJV): "The LORD [is] longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation]."
No contradiction there (of course! It's the Bible!).
- God simply both punishes the next generation for their fathers' sins - - - and doesn't.
He's God, after all, and can do everything.
And, at the same time, not do everything. He can have his pie and eat it too.
Or not eat it, while eating it.
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Society to start laminating paper backed publications
by Lady Zombie inat the wednesday night ministry school meeting, a letter from the society was read announcing that wtbts paperbacked publications will begin to be laminated.
according to the letter, this "will save approximately 2 million dollars per year," "lengthen the life of the publications," and "increase the attractiveness" of the publications.. so there's that.. .
also, will someone please explain to me why 85% of the congregation started smiling and nodding at this.. i sometimes think that headquarters could send the congregations boxes of turds and the jws would act like it was the best thing ever..
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Awakened07
"I am Dyslexic of borg. Your ass will be laminated."