this is the 4th study article, to be studied christmas week as it happens.
title - "maintaining friendships in a loveless world".
para 2 "today, what a pleasure it is to be associated with a worldwide organization whose members follow the pattern set by first century christians.
Damn the WT is bold. This article will only push faded or "spiritually weak" friends or family further away from indoctrinated JW's. I hate to see articles like these. The WT is so unloving and uncompassionate. You would think that the WT would reach out to "weaker" JW's but instead they make them feel even more worthless.
What sort of JW would question her own faith after seeing someone else leave the WT?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534804,00.html?test=latestnews.
britain's last living world war i veteran dies at 111. .
how's that watchower prophecy working out?.
I was going to put the following in a separate thread, but this one seems appropriate:
I was speaking to my sister this weekend about "the end". She tells me that she feels "the end" is real close. I asked her why and she stated that it was because "the generation of the anointed, the ones that saw 1914, are almost all dead, but some will still be here when the end comes. I heard some sisters talking about it in the restroom, and they kept saying the end was really close, too, because of this."
I sat there, shocked.
I said, "You know, that's not what it means. It's not the generation of anointed that saw the events of 1914. Now that text in Matthew 24:34 means any anointed from 1914 forward. So the end could come anytime, whether it be another 100 years or 1000 years. It's not connected to 1914 anymore. They disconnected it in 1995."
She said, "Are you sure? Is this how you interpret it, or how the magazines state it?" (She knows I no longer attend the KH, and that something is going on with me because I refuse to attend. I can't come out and tell her, "It's all fake!")
I said, "That's how the magazines state it, and I can show you."
Well then something else came up and we got distracted. But the fundamental problem I see is that some JW's in her congo are misinterpreting what the WT is teaching (this is happening in one Spanish congregation. An elder also confirmed what she said). This is creating in them a fear that the end is getting closer and closer... even though "the generation" and "1914" are no longer attached at the hip! It's crazy, but sad. I'm still working on my sister, but if I can get through to her about this, then I know it will open up her closed mind.
for those of you in other countries - how many times have you seen thousands of your own countrymen lying outside in a field waiting for health care?
sammieswife.. whistleblower tells of america's hidden nightmare for its sick poorwhen an insurance firm boss saw a field hospital for the poor in virginia, he knew he had to speak out.
here, he tells paul harris of his fears for obama's bid to bring about radical change.
It's sad, but true. The healthcare system in America is driven by greed for money, instead of desire to help heal people. When I first saw the movie Sicko earlier this year, I was stunned to find out how some of the rest of the world have universal healthcare. I spoke to an aunt in Canada, and even though the system is not perfect, it's much better than the one we have in the US. I hope to see some kind of change in the near future, but the way it's going here, I don't think it's gonna happen.
Not only this, but the food industry has come under attack as well. A very well made documentary is currently in theatres called Food, Inc. It exposes the food industry, revealing that most food nowadays come from animals that are not fed proper food among other things. I HIGHLY recommend it!
petting baby animals in paradise, or the fiery rain of armegeddon?.
i can tell you which one i thought about every single day.
armegeddon absolutely terrified me.
The Big A. Not knowing if I was going to survive, what else could I think about?
i was in service one day and the sister i was working with said," i will start to enjoy life once the new system comes".
sirens went off in my head.
basically, she was saying she was miserable but would wait till the new system to have any happiness.
Even after the lack of love, the bad influences, the contradictory people I found in many of the congregations I attended, I still believed.
What shook me was finding out about the UN deal. That shook me right down to the core. Then I slowly started peeling back the slices of "truth" and found a core of evil, lying,malicious group of men controlling the whole deal. When I found the Quotes websites, I devoured all of the information I could find. Then I found Freeminds and that helped ease the pain and started to learn that true Christianity never disappeared (or that Russell revived it). When I finally read CofC, I felt at ease with my Creator, knowing that I could have a personal relationship with God and Jesus.
if you cut yourself, will it heal instantly or will it heal at a normal rate?
will it hurt?
what if you cut yourself too deeply and you begin to lose too much blood?.
I never really heard anyone discuss this. I had thought about it, and I just figured whatever was broken would heal itself pretty quick.
Seems to me that accidents are just that: accidents. They're bound to happen. I don't think they're 100% preventable.
how many of you have heard this one, or words to that effect?.
I've heard statements to that effect. It always seemed to me that if someone was "too smart" to be in the Truth, then maybe, just maybe something could be wrong with the Watchtower. After all, if the wisdom of the world was truly evil, and the message of the Watchtower was truly good, then wouldn't someone obviously pick the good message? Apparently not...
i was reading the thread about hoboken's jc meeting and started thinking about the rule prohibiting recording devices in such meetings.
has anyone on the board tried to challenge this rule?.
on its face, the rule is absurd.
Wow, recording a conversation like this would be priceless! My JC is coming up sometime in the next few months (they're already starting to hound me), so I'm going to try this.
yes, it sounds crazy doesn't yet.
if a religion went around preaching that today no one would take them seriously, and yet that is what the watchtower used to preach.
"the "time of the end," a period of one hundred and fifteen (115) years, from a.d. 1799 to a.d. 1914, is particularly marked in the scriptures.
They can't drop 1914 without detaching all other significant (albeit invisible) events that define the Watchtower religion. Simply put, 1914 IS the religion. Unless another Freddie Franz comes along to come up with some new and exciting [false] prophecies, this religion is as good as dead. I believe there's no life left in it, and it has exhausted all of its false prophetic power.
This may be way out of line, but:
What if another religion comes along, is similar enough to the JW's, predicts that something will happen in a particular year, something does happen, and then all the JW's defect to that religion? Is that plausible?
in the sept. wt, it mentions.
144,000 brothers and "other sheep".
now, since the sheep are not referred to as brothers also, could this mean they are :.
cameo-d - Unless I missed it somewhere, you haven't answered the question: How long were you a Witness? Or were you a Witness at all?
The answer to the question you posed is easily known by most people who have ever been associated with the Watchtower (especially baptized JW's). There are a LOT of statements made in the Study versions of the WT magazine that no longer require further explanation. They simply are "truth" to every Witness. It's as simple as that.
