Gopher

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Posts by Gopher

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  12

  Is anyone looking at me?

  by noidea in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there have been so many of these threads..i was just wondering if you were still falling for it

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  Gopher

  I have NO IDEA! Or do I?

  Blonde hair... blue eyes... hmmmmmm

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  41

  Canadian Pride

  by Kismet in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so, what do canadians have to be proud of?

  1. smarties .

  2. crispy crunch, coffee crisp .

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  Gopher

  Why does approximately 90% of the Canadien population live near the American border? They want to be close to greatness!!

  ... Still wondering if there is such a thing as "Canadian Cuisine"....

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  15

  GOD is watching us all

  by QUEENIE in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yep that is my belief so i gota mind my ps ad qs real good and behave myself 24/7 and ssooooo doooo you folks -- my opinion of course !!!!

  ((((((hugs)))))

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  Gopher

  This idea that we must "fear God" -- leads to the natural question, what is the consequence if we don't, or if we don't do it quite right?

  Do we need to live in fear that if we "don't behave 24/7" that we're going to suffer eternally or never be resurrected (or whatever the consequence would be)?

  And what does "behave" mean? Are we supposed to praise Jesus every waking hour and be a constant proclaimer of his goodness to everyone? Or are we supposed to live life best as we can?

  It seems to me that God is a rather "distant observer" of us individually. There's no clear evidence that he takes a hand in each of our lives, or even wants to.

  So why not just be the best we can be, with any abilities our Creator may have given us, rather than live in fear because he's some sort of "Big Brother" watching us over our shoulder?

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  11

  Scriptural Separation

  by Earnest in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  at the meeting this evening the co discussed the scriptural basis for separation between husband and wife.

  he said there were three grounds for separation :.

  1. the man refuses to support his family in a material way.

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  Gopher

  ...they actually usurp the God-given principle of headship in the family.

  This is so true. Extending it a bit farther, when one mate or the other is disfellowshipped, the WT's rules on the matter are: there is to be NO spiritual discourse between mates. In other words, the husband cannot direct his wife in a spiritual matter.

  So either the organization/congregation STEPS IN to fill the void left by the fact that the husband is not or cannot be directing his wife/family spiritually, or else nobody directs the family spiritually, and they go to ruin that way.

  In this sense, the disfellowshipping arrangement and its corollary rule about "no spiritual contact" is a direct assault on the marriage arrangement. (I know from personal experience, it led in part to the dissolution of my marriage.) It can be compared to a slow, steady castration of a man (in a spiritual sense).

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  24

  They Came Back!

  by jerome in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i just thought that i'd inform the board that they decided to come back after all.. right now i have to do something so i'll fill in the details later tonight.. the guy dident come back though.

  it was only the lady and her daughter.. let me tell you, it was absolutely pointless.

  except for one thing.. they were surprised about the un thing, but other than that nothing mattered.

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  Gopher

  For those of us who didn't know about the first part of your story, could you tell us who "THEY" are -- who came back? And what were the issues? Or perhaps a link to an earlier thread describing your original contact with "THEM" would help.

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  7

  Now there's trouble among the Lutherans

  by ChuckD in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  lutheran minister arrested on charges of boring young children.

  peru, il st. luke's lutheran church was rocked by scandal tuesday, when rev.

  bob tillich, the church's pastor of 12 years, was arrested on suspicion of boring as many as 23 children within the congregation.

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  Gopher

  American Midwestern Lutherans are SUPPOSED to be boring!! Doesn't anyone listen to Garrison Keillor on "The Prairie Home Companion" radio show?

  You've got your Scandinavian Lutherans who like their bland food, dull gossip, dull sex, etc., and who think lutefisk is a delicacy beyond compare! Their favorite rock song is by Huey Lewis, "Hip to be Square".

  This arrest was obviously engineered by a jealous minister from across town.

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  27

  This is my last post

  by rhett in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some people like having a large number of posts credited to them.

  myself, i think it just goes to show that various people have way too much free time on their hands.

  i thought that this is my 666th post i will now officially retire my username and start with a clean slate.

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  Gopher

  Obviously, elbobbo has double-posted here in a transparent attempt to raise his number of posts!!

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  8

  Cow gets key to the city

  by larc in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is old news to those in southwestern, ohio, but i don't know if this made the wire services.

  it seems that several weeks ago, 1,200 pound cow jumped a 6 foot fence and got way from the herd that was destined for the slaughter house.

  the cow escaped to a nearyby city park, and remained hidden for ten days, despite search parties with heat sensing devices looking for her.

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  Gopher

  A former pro-wrestler got elected to be governor of Minnesota in 1998! True story!! OK, he's not an animal, but I digress.

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  15

  she won't stop

  by apostate woman in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  where do i start?

  my mom and dad had gotten into the jw religion about 23 years ago.

  about 5 years ago, my mom fell away from the religon and then eventually ended up divorcing my dad.

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  Gopher

  Apostate woman,

  You are quite right to be angry. Like the Pharisees, the leaders of JW's invent rules, not based on the Bible, but rather based on the furtherance of their own agenda: which is mainly the wealth and health of their publishing society, and their influence and control over people. They will use scripture in an attempt to cloak their agenda.

  You are right on when you say they go beyond scriptures, in terms of harrassment to go to meetings, breaking up of families, and non-celebration of holidays.

  There is hardly any way to stop JW parents from believing and acting as they do -- they're following the program laid out for them. Hopefully over time the harrassment will diminish, and you can show them by leading a happy and productive life APART from the strict methodology of the JW's, that you don't need their "encouragement", and that you're doing just fine.

  It's hard to bear, though. There aren't easy answers. I hear you!

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.
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  21

  Congregations receive branch letter about UN

  by cyberguy in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i don't know if this has been posted on this site yet, but i came across something that indicates that congregations in germany were sent a letter of explanation (or rather, deception) about the societys un connection.. scroll to the end of page -- .

  http://www.quotes.jehovahswitnesses.com/united_nations.htm.

  can someone do a better translation from german to english?

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  Gopher

  Cyberguy and Gem,

  Thanks for the post and the translation into English.

  The Society said, in typical fashion:

  God's people were already being reviled in the first century, and it was especially foretold for the last days.

  Comments? A lot of people are reviled when they're shown to be bad/wrong/duplicitous. How dare you assume that it's for YOUR GODLINESS that you're being criticized here?

  The WT Society is the king of revilers. They revile any outside organization whenever possible (when it serves their purposes), and they also revile those former associates who have any philsophical disagreements. Beyond that, they attempt to isolate and denigrate such former associates from any friends and family they may have had. For them to speak of others reviling them (as if it came out of the blue) is laughable.

  And we're not in the 'last days'. Enough of that nonsense already!!

  But more to the point, why does the WT Society keep undermining its own principles? Examples: Blood is bad medicine. Taking a speck of it in any form is unholy conduct, and can lead to expulsion from the congregation. No, wait....certain fractions are Okay for hemophiliacs, and then for others. Wait.... now hemopure, an extract from cow's blood, is certainly acceptable for true Christians.

  How confusing is all that? Many JW's superstitiously avoid all blood, because of the initial principle layed down -- all blood is to be avoided!

  Then comes another principle -- the League of Nations and the United Nations are bad, bad, bad. They are Satan's substitutes on earth to distract attention from the Kingdom preaching message of Jehovah's Witnesses! They are the multi-headed image of the beast found in the Revelation.

  No wait, it's okay to affiliate as an NGO, and to write positive articles about what some of the main humanitarian agencies of the UN are trying to accomplish. After all, we want the UN to view our organization somewhat reasonably.

  How confusing to JW's who were taught that the UN is Satan's tool and that elements therein will attack Jehovah's Witnesses at the end after all other religion will have been destroyed.

  So again, the WT tries to have things BOTH ways, and tries to exalt itself while trying to bring pity on itself because it receives some well-aimed criticism!!

  -J.R.

  This post was not evaluated by any mental health professionals.
  Any opinions expressed are those of a fuzzy, cuddly rodent.