Gordy

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Posts by Gordy

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  21

  When British District Conventions?

  by Gordy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  have the dates for the district conventions in britain been announced yet?.

  if they have can anyone let me know the dates and places.. thanks .

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  Gordy

  Have the dates for the District Conventions in Britain been announced yet?

  If they have can anyone let me know the dates and places.

  Thanks
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  26

  Question: Can the end come before a witness is given in China, etc.?

  by Olin Moyles Ghost in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have enjoyed reading this board off-and-on over the past several months.

  the collective knowledge on this board is impressive.

  anyway, to my question...

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  Gordy

  About 5 years ago I read an article in National Geographic that missionaries (NOT JW) were working to translate the last unknown language into scripture. It was some small island like the one described in the above passage.

  About 2-3 years ago we had a husband and wife visit our church. They were Bible translators for I think the International Bible Society.

  They were based in Papua/New Guinea. They said that were were about 800 languages/dialects in the country. Each tribe could speak a different language. You could go to one tribe in a valley, then go to next valley and the tribe there would speak a different language.

  Also many tribes did not even have a written language. Also that they did not even have words for some concepts or things, because they have never had to deal with or have such things.

  It was also believed that there are still many other tribes who have not even had contact with "outsiders".
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  152

  What has happened to your human decency?

  by multifarious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am new here and i have been reading a lot of stuff on this board.

  my parent's are both jws, i am still active and still believe i have the truth.

  i consider myself a moral person.

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  Gordy

  What has happened to your human decency?

  You mean the "human decency" that because I decided that I could no longer accept the teachings of the Watchtower. . That I was forced out of my family home because I was considered a "spiritual danger" to my family. That my JW wife and two daughter have not spoken or had contact with me for the last six years. That people I had known for nearly 30 years will now cross the road if they see me coming.

  Is that "human decency"?

  And you wonder why so many "hate" that religion!!!
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  45

  JWs came to my door

  by Victorian sky in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the boy was about 7 years old.

  ' he looked at his son and didn't answer.

  'can you shun this boy?

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  Gordy

  Victorian Sky

  That was great.

  I think that would do more good than quote all the other things you could about the Watchtower to him.

  It was something that he would take away and it will play on his mind. Everytime he looks at his son he will recall what you said.

  Then maybe the light will go on and he will realise what an organisation he is in really is.
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  7

  How I survived being starved, beaten and tortured by my Jehovah's Witness…

  by CPiolo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  how i survived being starved, beaten and tortured by my jehovah's witness foster mother.

  by alloma gilbert.

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=510457&in_page_id=1879.

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  Gordy

  The article also appeared in todays Daily Mail news paper (26th Jan,08) and is being serialised over the coming week.
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  12

  Blood question

  by civicsi00 in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  i just had a thought about something... does anyone remember the text where jesus cured someone on the day of the sabbath and the pharisees got mad at him for doing that, on the day that no one is supposed to do anything?

  because, if i remember correctly, jesus then corrected them and stated that it was better to help save a life than to obey every letter of the law.

  where i'm going with this is, can't this scripture apply to the watchtower when denying someone a blood transfusion?

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  Gordy

  I found this on www.jwfacts.com.

  A blood transfusion is not the same as eating blood. For one, blood transfusions do not involve digesting blood. Secondly, the command given to Noah at Genesis 9:4 was that the blood was to be poured out of a slaughtered animal. Blood transfusions do not result in the death of the donor.

  It is pertinent to note that Jew’s are allowed to have blood transfusions. (Likewise, Muslims are forbidden to drink blood but allowed transfusions as a life saving procedure.) Strict Orthodox Jews go as far as to soak meat in water, then salt it, then drain it, in order to draw out all the blood. Yet no Jewish groups forbid blood transfusions. There are several reasons for this. Most importantly is that Jewish kosher probation’s are waived in regards to life saving medical use. Christians should follow this same line of reasoning. Jesus used David as an example to show that that acts of mercy, such as saving a life, are more important than the strict adherence of regulation.

  Watchtower 1952 September 15 p.575 “Matthew 12:1-4, NW: “At that season Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath. His disciples got hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. At seeing this the Pharisees said to him: ‘Look! your disciples are doing what it is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them: ‘Have you not read what David did when he and the men with him got hungry? How he entered into the house of God and they ate the loaves of presentation, food it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests only?’” In these verses and in the ones following Jesus was calling attention to acts of mercy on the sabbath day, that it was perfectly legitimate to render a show of mercy to one who is in need even though it was the sabbath, and that there is, in effect, no violation of the sabbath by such course of action. He had no rebuke for David’s course.”

  A similar situation at is described at Luke 6:7-10

  “The scribes and the Pharisees were now watching him closely to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, in order to find some way to accuse him. 8 He, however, knew their reasonings, yet he said to the man with the withered hand: “Get up and stand in the center.” And he rose and took his stand. 9 Then Jesus said to them: “I ask YOU men, Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do injury, to save or to destroy a soul?” 10 And after looking around at them all, he said to the man: “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored.”

  It both these situations Jesus invoked the rabbinic principle of pikuach nefesh; that the obligation to save life supersedes Jewish law.

  “According to pikuach nefesh a person must do everything in their power to save the life of another, even donate bodily organs. Ovaday Yosef, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled that one may donate an organ to a person in critical need, so long as it does not put the donor’s life at risk. It is also permissible to travel on Shabbat to save a person’s life. Maimonides declared that a Jew should take the individual, even if a gentile is present, in order to encourage “compassion, loving-kindness and peace in the world” (Mishneh Torah, 2:3). The laws of the Sabbath may be suspended to provide any necessary medical care to a critically ill individual or to an individual in the likelihood of danger to life.” Pikuach Nefesh, Ariel Scheib (April 22 2007) (<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/pikuach_nefesh.html>)

  Forbidding blood transfusions is an example of legalistic Western minds formulating doctrine without an understanding of the native spirit behind these ancient Eastern texts.
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  12

  Blood question

  by civicsi00 in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  i just had a thought about something... does anyone remember the text where jesus cured someone on the day of the sabbath and the pharisees got mad at him for doing that, on the day that no one is supposed to do anything?

  because, if i remember correctly, jesus then corrected them and stated that it was better to help save a life than to obey every letter of the law.

  where i'm going with this is, can't this scripture apply to the watchtower when denying someone a blood transfusion?

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  Gordy

  Civics

  I'm sure this point about Jesus healing on Sabbath and connecting it with blood, has been mentioned before. I've been trying to find where.
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  24

  Do You Remember The Last Time

  by journey-on in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  long time faders and those who have been out for a while....do you remember your last day in field service or your last meeting?.

  my last day in field service was a "million" years ago.

  but, i remember it vividly.

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  Gordy

  I remember my last meeting. 24th. August 1999 - Tuesday evening - School and Service meeting

  I'd spent just over 2 years researching the Watchtower.

  Watching and listen to a brother dealing with an item. Hearing the same words I'd heard for years, watching him do all the "correct" gestures.

  It all suddenly hit me - "I no longer believed it all" I realised what the Watchtower reallly was. A controlling man-made organisation. That only cared about itself and not its members.

  That night I left, after 28 years of meetings, field service, assemblies, conventions.

  I disassociated in September 2001, bringing it to and end after 30 years of association with the Watchtower.
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  11

  What is the general response to the preaching work of the Witnesses today?

  by RULES & REGULATIONS in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the last time i went out in service was 8 years ago.

  i hated field service.

  i made my short presentation of the watchtower or awake magazine.

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  Gordy

  It has been said before and I have now found this to be true: Witnesses have an over-inflated view of their significance in society.

  Likewise I agree with the above statement.

  Since the first Watchtower magazine in 1879, nearly 130 years have passed. Think of the millions, maybe billions, of pieces of literature have been printed, magazines, books, brochures, tracts etc. Then add to that the billions of hours of preaching, door-to-door, assemblies, conventions etc.

  Most people know of "Jehovah's Witnesses" because they have been called on. Or they have been in the news, usually for the wrong reasons lately, someone dying because of the blood issue or pedophiles.

  Yet you ask anyone what they know of JW's and you usually get the following basics.

  They knock on doors. They don't have blood. They don't celebrate Christmas or birthdays.

  I've asked people "Do you know what JW's believe?" I usually get blanks looks.

  The other thing the JW's go on about is that the clergy of Christendom are frightened of them.

  Again having spoken to various clergymen, even some of them have about as much idea what JW's teach as anybody else.

  Those that do know anything, usually see the JW's as misguided people, led away from Christ.

  The clergy of many churches have enough to worry about than JW's.

  Yet the JW's seem to think that everyone is talking about them. That they are always in the thoughts of the clergy.

  Unless some article appears in the media, 9 out of 10 people never give them a thought.
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  50

  I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO GROW UP IN THIS "SYSTEM"

  by rache31 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  oh, how many of us heard that we wouldn't make it to graduation or get married in this system?

  i thought i wouldn't grow up.

  no one talked about preparing for the future.

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  Gordy

  Not so much myself but my own children.

  We married 1974. Our first child was due to be born in October 1975!!! (good time )

  Some JW's would say "Fancy having a child now." "The time will be terrible when he is born."

  Of course "the date" came and went. Then it became "he will never go to school in this system"

  Then it became "The end will be here by time he finishes school"

  Then "The end will be here before he gets married."

  He is now 32 and married.