I think the economic crisis is proof that the end is further away. According to the WT interpretation of revelation, when religion (babylon) falls the economic system (the merchants)look on saying "too bad too bad". How can they say to bad if they fall before religion?
Gladring
JoinedPosts by Gladring
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WBTS foresees end of economic system (with help from finance experts)
by easyreader1970 indid your wife pick that article out for you?
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Question for former / current MS'es and Elders
by tresdecu ini know what you'll say now, but, back when you were 'in' mentally and/or phsically did you ever enjoy or look forward to the meeting with the co on friday nights??.
they are the worst!
(one coming up this month for me) (yes, i will have the flu!
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Gladring
I remember attending one as an MS. I was the only one in a cong. with about 7 elders. It was pretty much like any other meeting with scriptures read and a few comments asked for. We met in the POs house and sat around a big dining table. The CO would get us to read the scriptures that came up in the outline in turn. (At this point I should say I had a goatee beard. Things are a little more relaxed about that in Ireland - depends on the cong. But you still can't have one on the assembly, go figure!)
Anyhoo. The society seemed to want to clamp down on tattoos and there was about 10 minutes of his meeting devoted to the subject of what to do if someone in the congregations turns up with a tattoo. Anyway it was my turn to read the scripture. "Brother, would you mind reading Leviticus 19 verse 28?" said the CO. "Sure" I said, "So long as I can read the verse before it too!"
I think this went way over the heads of most of the old crusties at the table, but one elder who I used to be close to gave me a knowing look. Yeah I'm pretty sure he has a brain hiding there somewhere. Anyway, score one for me, I was such a rebel. (A bit of self parody here, but it was one of the few times when I felt like saying something and actually summoned up the courage to do so)
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The Flood
by chappy inhad a witness relative visit me yesterday and we got into a discussion about noahs flood.
i of course did my best to explain to her how it didn't happen and many of the reasons why.
one reason i gave was the perverbial lack of sufficiant water to cover the earth.
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Gladring
Here's a question that I had ( I'm being lazy and pasting it from another thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/162365/1.ashx ). I don't think that it's answerable from the JW perspective. It might help you. It helps if you pose these things as curious questions so they don't feel like you are attacking their beliefs. Don't let them fob you off with some half assed attempt though.
"Another thing that happened during the assembly was that, whilst bored during the sessions, I decided to start reading the bible all the way through starting with Genesis. I didn't get very far. I got stuck in Gen 1. Verses 6-8 describe God creating the expanse and calling it heaven. Later, in verse 17, it describes God putting the Sun and moon in the expanse. This made no sense to me. The WT view of the world then meant that God put the sun and the moon somewhere inbetween the earth and the water canopy where the flood waters came from! I could not believe this. It was one of many moments that I've had since when I realised that I didn't know the bible as well as I thought. You know I must have read that passage so many times and not seen this. Anyway, after poring over the cdrom again, I wrote a letter to Brooklyn with that simple question. After about 3 months of checking the post every day they eventually sent a letter not to me but to the PO telling the cong. to answer instead. In the meantime tho' I had sent another letter. "
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Life begins at conception?
by Gladring ini've been enjoying questioning long held beliefs lately.
one issue i've been pondering is the life of the unborn.
this has been brought on by a couple of things.. sam harris in end of faith and letter to a christian nation discusses the moral implications of stem cell research and this has been discussed in the media lately too.
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Gladring
>>>>>Exo 20:13 Thou shalt not kill.
>>>>>What more needs to be said from the bible?
Well if the god of the bible at times commands that people be killed (we really haven't got time to go into all the examples) and makes allowances and exceptions to this then it's clear that the command in exodus 20:13 has nothing to do with the life of the unborn. And if we are getting into it, that commandment is best understood as "Thou shalt not commit murder" as the Jews do.
Maybe I could put this differently - if the god of the bible says it's ok to kill in revenge for a murder/manslaughter or to keep the nation pure then maybe he would also make an exception if killing someone would prevent suffering.
So if we want to talk about life of the unborn I don't view Exo 20:13 as relevant at all.
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Economic Bandwagon
by Gladring ini've been thinking about all the talk of economic crisis in the media lately.
my jw elder dad is full of woe.
how long do you think it will be before the wt comes out with an economic headline using the fear to convince people of the time of the end.
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Life begins at conception?
by Gladring ini've been enjoying questioning long held beliefs lately.
one issue i've been pondering is the life of the unborn.
this has been brought on by a couple of things.. sam harris in end of faith and letter to a christian nation discusses the moral implications of stem cell research and this has been discussed in the media lately too.
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Gladring
Ok, thanks for the opening comments and I read that discussion. Reniaa - I'll think about that. I do have my own opinion on the whole issue which I'll keep to myself for now. To keep to my main question though, where in the bible does it state that life begins at conception. I see that LDH asked a similar question on that thread about autism but it was never answered. I'd like to know does this have a biblical foundation or is it just another doctrine that St. Augustine dreamed up?
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Life begins at conception?
by Gladring ini've been enjoying questioning long held beliefs lately.
one issue i've been pondering is the life of the unborn.
this has been brought on by a couple of things.. sam harris in end of faith and letter to a christian nation discusses the moral implications of stem cell research and this has been discussed in the media lately too.
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Gladring
I've been enjoying questioning long held beliefs lately. One issue I've been pondering is the life of the unborn. This has been brought on by a couple of things.
Sam Harris in End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation discusses the moral implications of stem cell research and this has been discussed in the media lately too. He makes the argument that morals and ethics are primarily to do with human suffering. He weighs the potential suffering of a human embryo at 14 days (a blastocyst, a group of undifferentiated cells) against that of someone with a spinal injury who cannot walk who could potentially benefit from stem cell therapy in the future. He makes the point that the embryo has no nervous system at this age and there are more cells in the brain of a fly.
I accept the logic of his arguments and yet there is still something distasteful about the distruction of human life. My own opinions on this subject have changed and I now see the issue being discussed and solved based on scientific knowledge rather than the Bible and religious belief.
All this is a long winded preamble to my question which is this...
...Where exactly in the Bible does it say that life begins at conception? (Or in the catholic language - that the soul enters the zygote at conception)
I am aware of the scriptures in psalms about the embryo and all the parts down in writing but that's not quite the same as saying that life begins at conception. Also, I wonder about the original word that the WTBTS have translated as embryo. I doubt that the ancients new much about blastocysts.
I am also aware of the rules in the Torah regarding two men fighting and hurting a pregnant woman but again this does not necessarily mean that life begins at conception.
Finally, I think that any discussion of this should at least acknowledge that a large percentage of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. To quote Sam Harris "God is the greatest abortionist of all" I know that the WT would view this as a consequence of sin and corruption but it is hardly fair that an unborn child, who has not drawn breath let alone sin, bear the sin of Adam. I think that any reasonable discussion of the subject should take this into account.
I'm interested to hear opinions on this, but I would like to know an answer to where, if at all, this is stated in the Bible.
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Economic Bandwagon
by Gladring ini've been thinking about all the talk of economic crisis in the media lately.
my jw elder dad is full of woe.
how long do you think it will be before the wt comes out with an economic headline using the fear to convince people of the time of the end.
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Gladring
I've been thinking about all the talk of economic crisis in the media lately. My JW Elder dad is full of woe. How long do you think it will be before the WT comes out with an economic headline using the fear to convince people of the time of the end. I'm no financial expert so i have no idea how all this will pan out but if we are facing hard times and people are looking for hope maybe this will see some increase for the JWs.
I went rooting around on the cd'rom to see what they were saying in the 80's about the economy. I think we can look forward to seeing some of this stuff being recycled. Does anyone have access to WT quotes from other periods of economic hardship? It would be interesting to trace economic history by WT quotes.
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g8112/22pp.26-27What’sWrongwiththeEconomy?***Economies have been in trouble before and recovered. Why can’t the present economy revive without going through drastic change?
A
MajorDifferenceThe world’s economic problems are not the same as those of a generation ago. A major difference is the interdependence of nations and their economies. Economic policy or action in one industrialized nation affects the others. Even the poorest of developing nations is interwoven in the global economy, affecting rich nations. Prosperity of the rich countries depends on the well-being of the poor countries, who not only sell vital raw materials to the rich but also import billions of dollars’ worth of goods, creating much-needed jobs in the industrialized nations.
Developing nations want a new international economic order that would give them a better share in the world economy. It is a call the rich nations cannot ignore. As Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau noted, it is "an element of global security."
To what extent, if any, the economy will revive and nations will move toward negotiating a new economic order, time will tell. But there is convincing proof that what’s really wrong with the economy is beyond cure.
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The fact is that 6,000 years have failed to produce a credible form of government from among mankind. Despite some gains, the crisis overall gets worse, not better. Is such a credible government possible, one that can remove the present inequitable economic order, driven by greed and its obsession for warfare?
Yes! The needed government is God’s heavenly kingdom. It will bring to this earth solutions far superior to anything dreamed of in economics textbooks and theories. That government’s principal textbook, the Holy Bible, long ago pinpointed the severe economic problems to be experienced in our day. (Rev. 6:6) But it goes beyond showing what’s wrong; it can lead you to experience the blessings of the only satisfying solution.
It will help you to appreciate why only God’s kingdom can guarantee full employment, no inflation, fair distribution of wealth and economic security. Even now it is changing personalities to eliminate greed and is turning productive efforts away from building armaments to peaceful pursuits and eventual economic security. (Mic. 4:1-4) Instead of simply creating a new economic order, soon it will remove the entire world system—including unjust economics—and replace it with a righteous new order. Only a superhuman government can accomplish such a superhuman feat!—Dan. 2:44.
Why not look into the Bible and find out for yourself what you need to do in order to benefit from that coming world change? Jehovah’s Witnesses stand ready to help you in your efforts to do so.
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new tract campaign next year for the memorial
by bereanbiblestudent injust heard that there will be another tract campaign next year to invite people for the memorial.
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Gladring
I keep on having a wicked thought. Could we mobilize the troops and get as many as possible to attend the memorial and partake? We'd have to attend other cong.s where we wouldn't be recognized. They'd have to count us though, right? Imagine 40,000 emblem partakers!
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The Witnesses are just too small
by free2beme ini honestly do not think, even if the bible were real and christianity was not a joke, that the witness are a big enough organization to represent any significant part of any prophesy.
i think that a sign of any good cult, is to try and make their small numbers actually seem like they matter.
when in reality, much of the world has no clue who they are and those who do, do not even care about them or see them as anything other then a group of nut cases.
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Gladring
I too came to this sad realisation.
A month or so back there was a discussion on a national radio station about the media reporting too much bad news. I sent in a text message (I'd never done this before) saying something along the lines of "One reason why the media should be balanced about reporting good/bad news is that some religious groups use the abundance of bad news to support their apocalyptic predictions."
Well I was over the moon when the presenter read out the message. It was the first one after the ad break. But then he just said "But who really cares about religious groups and their apocalyptic predictions?" And I realised, he is right. The issues we face as ex witnesses and trying to raise awareness of them are really not significant in the world at large. A lot don't understand. But I think most don't really care a whole lot. Most people are smart enough to realise that no one religion has all (if any) of the answers.
Anyway, that put me back in my place