those words have been spoken to me a bunch of times by bethelites.
some of you on here try to reason with jw's by showing us how our reasoning is wrong, i do the same thing.
what i forget is that whenever i used to hear a teaching or a decision that didn't make sense, it then became "holy spirit" working.
until you are the one that is burned....then you start to think.....
May these litigious Bethelites fully cooperate with the outworking of Holy Spirit as it stirs the minds and bank accounts of the GB and recalls to their hearts the decision of the superior authorities that slavery in the United States ended a looooooong time ago.
it seems to be generally assumed that the "original sin" was the act of disobedience.
so what's so bad about wanting to raise your intellect?
did our creators intend for us to just be like the dumb beasts?
THAT was the original sin- covetousness.
Brother Apostate: My take on cameo-d's question was that it referred to the "original sin" of Adam (and possibly Eve, if it was the same "original sin").
As far as covetousness being the *original* "original sin", while it may have preceeded Adamic sin, how can one be certain that it was the absolute original sin? Perhaps it is only the first sin that we, as humans, have heard about!
as my bio mentions, i grew up in a non-denominational setting and am very thankful for that.
however, there are still a few things that are held within this setting to be truth (will of god, biblical, or whatever else you care to call it) that i find very disconcerting.
i've tried, on various occassions, to discuss this with others within the 'brethren' but they are leery of such topics and tend to view me as cynical and jaded and a danger to the proper order of things .
A lot of my family were Brethren from the start of the movement, so I thought I'd look into what they believed. At first I was happy; I thought I'd found something good, but then I saw that they were just as man-made as the Watchtower so I lost interest entirely.
Why do you want to examine their beliefs when you already see that their basic premise is contradictory?
A.
i've read a lot of history on the home children, great depression..train kids...and so on and as i've heard politician after politician talk about a possible new depression era, i wonder if this is the beginning of another surge of abandonment.
there are already kids living in tent cities and cars and vans so i wonder if as the laws for the age of abandonment are increased, if we will see a surge in the coming years...sammieswife.. us shocked by spate of abandoned children 14 given up by parents under new nebraska law.
state to reconsider age limit of 19 after criticismed pilkington in new york the guardian, saturday october 4 2008 article historypress conference following eleven children having been left at hospitals in nebraska, sept 24 2008. photograph: nati harnik.
I don't think so. Abandonment just hasn't been in the news as regularly as some other issues.
I remember that in the 1980's it went by some popular term (which I have forgotten) when parents were moving away and literally leaving their teens behind. It happened a lot in California; I knew of several who were living in a city park in the very "good" neighborhood where their homes used to be.
My own mother did it twice, first to my sister and then to my brother. (Yes, I took them in each time.)
it seems to be generally assumed that the "original sin" was the act of disobedience.
so what's so bad about wanting to raise your intellect?
did our creators intend for us to just be like the dumb beasts?
It seems to be generally assumed that the "original sin" was the act of disobedience. But was it really?
It was knowledge that was offered.
Actually, it was Adam listening to Eve instead of to God:
Genesis 3: 17 And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and took to eating from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ ...".
Notice Genesis 2:9 regarding what trees were in the garden "Thus Jehovah God made to grow out of the ground every tree desirable to one’s sight and good for food and also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad."
There was no prohibition against eating from "the tree of life", only from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad: Genesis 2: 16 "And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it...".
It was only after Adam showed disloyalty to his Provider that God turned him out of the garden and away from the tree of life: Genesis 2:22 "And Jehovah God went on to say: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take [fruit] also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—” 23 With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of E´den to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of E´den the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life."
The original sin was disloyalty...by *man* (not "mankind" which would include women).
a prominent bethel elder shared this information with another elder: there are some bethel workers who have been invited to leave bethel, but are refusing to do so and are taking the society to court while still residing in brooklyn.
if this is true, this could be the reason behind the sale of brooklyn property.
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There are some Bethel workers who have been invited to leave Bethel, but are refusing to do so
My understanding is that persons who are "invited to leave" then fill out a "voluntary separation" application which the Society then graciously accepts, thus freeing themselves of any further obligation to the departees.
I've wondered if any of the Bethelites would see through this and be savvy enough to take action.
Of course, all WT would have to do to be rid of them is find some reason to DF them so that they couldn't stay, according to the terms of their volunteerism. "Bringing reproach upon Jehovah" is a useful catchall and legal action against the Society has been considered "bringing reproach" in the past.
i used to think that maybe it was just the people who were raised in the truth, especially from infancy.
they didn't know what life outside of the organization was so it was all they had to cling to.
but that's obviously wrong because many, many have left--happily--never to return.
Are these people just weak minded? Do they lack inherent ability to make their own decisions and depend on others to rule them (sheep)? Is there some other psychological issue there that makes them more likely for total commitment than others?
I suspect that prior abuse has something to do with it. Some are born into a culture of abuse and don't even realize that another way of life is possible.
If a person is taught by life experience that some human higher than themselves is always right, that to voice different thoughts is sure to be punished, that to act on one's own initiative means emotional and physical torture, then yes, such people will be much more easily controlled by WT policies if they should become JW's.
They're not weak-minded, not at all, nor do they lack inate abilities. They just haven't come up (yet) with a way to escape their current situation. It takes time and exposure to another life course before an abused person can make a successful transition to a more fulfilling way of life.
Never give up hope.
heard today that the nov 15 issue has two of its four study articles targeted at helping inactive ones.
get ready for the phone calls to start up.
has the scans of this been posted yet?.
If the angels are directing a sifting work why would JW's want to bring back people who have left? Maybe they've been sifted out!
has anybody seen the ads on the discovery health channel for the show autism times 6?
they have 6 children and apparently all 6 of the children have autism.
i was doing some reading about this family.. its very sad.
LDH
Still a Bitch Class
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
has anybody seen the ads on the discovery health channel for the show autism times 6?
they have 6 children and apparently all 6 of the children have autism.
i was doing some reading about this family.. its very sad.
Go to Hell.
You've already taken up all the space and you're wallowing in it.
Get a life.
