with our latest and final run in with the elders, the wife and i had a very long talk about what's next in our life.
do we try to help others see the light as it were concerning watchtower or do we just let it go and move on with our life?
we have made it perfectly clear that we will never go back to watchtower and we are finally happy.
Darkknight said: After a long talk the wife and I agreed that it serves no purpose to have those idiots over
Bingo! Darkknight, you and your wife are 100% correct, spot on here. And I completely agree with cofty.
It is not wrong to want to move on, to move as far away from something that drains all of your energy. You owe them nothing. If you stay, you will only become ill. Love yourself and your wife. Get the hell away from this cancer.
before addressing the topic, i would like you to keep in mind the following statement coming from the society’s governing body:
· 'the golden age' january 18th, 1933 page 252.
· "if the message the jehovah's witnesses are bringing to the people is true, then it is of greatest importance to mankind.
God's natural language is silence. All others are bad translations.
as i've been reading the book "what did africa contribute to the origins of religion" by robin walker, i've been fascinated with walker's work and it's led me to something i never thought i'd want to read.
the egyptian book of the dead.. i got a copy of e.a.
wallis budge's 19th century translation of the papyrus of ani from barnes and noble, so i'm sure everyone here can procure a copy or find it free online.
schnell, "The Book of the Dead" is a good choice.
As children raised in any faith, we are indoctrinated from birth to only the agenda of the authorities of that faith. It is only as we get older, and we begin to apply logic, reason, mathematics, and a number of other different disciplines, including researching previous belief systems to the one we've been raised in, that we come to realize we have been manipulated, lied to, and for many in the Christian faith, maneuvered through the Bible to suit a religious agenda.
Christianity adopted much of the previous belief systems. I figure it was partly due to people not wanting to give up their traditions and also partly to attract people to the new cult. There are many similar themes found in Christianity that are in the Egyptian "Book of the Dead". Knowing that this book was written before the Bible is important too as, at least for me, I was led to believe that Christianity was unique, and THE only solution and way to live.
Xanthippe said: I've always thought it odd that they revered the dung beetle.
Manure has many beneficial uses and was used extensively in ancient times for various applications. Even today, as an example, paper is made from elephant dung, due to it's high plant fiber content.
The dung beetle was associated with the divine manifestation of the early morning sun, Khepri, whose name was written with the scarab hieroglyph and was believed to roll the disk of the morning sun over the eastern horizon at daybreak. Since the scarab hieroglyph, Kheper, refers variously to the ideas of existence, manifestation, development, growth, and effectiveness, the beetle itself was a favourite form used for amulets in all periods of Egyptian history. In later parts of the period, they symbolically represented the heart and were placed in the bandages of mummies of the deceased. A winged scarab might also be placed on the breast of the mummy, and later a number of other scarabs were placed about the body.
i can still remember the day.
sitting in a theater watching the new star trek flick.. they were searching for god and found him...or did they?.
when this part played before my eyes i literally felt my heart fall.. still powerful after all these years.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnxvkjav5ik.
This resonated for me too NikL. Also, the ending of that movie where Kirk said "Maybe God isn't out there. Maybe he's right here, in the human heart." and points to his chest.
this place is great and it helped me.
for anyone i used to interact with, i think about you often.
i just wanted to read and catch up..
Hi Dinah! Hope you are doing well. Did you know that wearing tight pants and coloured socks do not make Jehovah happy?
I wore my leggings today and some black socks with orange heels and toes. I guess I won't survive Armageddon or get a resurrection into Paradise Earth. Particularly since my socks also represent Hallowe'en colours, a double wammy there. Isn't Jehovah such a wonderful god?
jws like to think they have found the one true religion.
but like so many other religious people, it's usually the religion they were born into, the only religion they know because it's the first one they found or, at the most, one of two or three (typically the second one after they left their first / born-in faith).. the trouble is, there simply isn't enough time to explore and investigate each and everyone of the many thousands of belief systems, religions and sects around the world.. think of it this way: which is the best neighbourhood to live in where you would be most happy and most successful?
not just in the city or even the country you are in, but the entire world.. how would you ever know?
Simon, you keep applying logic and reason to the realm of religion. That just doesn't work.
Any organization based on fantasy and mythology is not 'true' in the sense that it is based on factual evidence.
I think the ancients who worshipped real things such as the Sun and the Earth as being life givers and divine were more sane than the big 3 we have today, worshipping Gods that kill people for not believing whatever warped interpretation of ancient scribes' superstitious writings less ancient people chose as some sort of 'bible'.
this always baffled me.
either pork is unclean and wrong to eat forever, or it was a load of bull to begin with..
One of my Jewish colleagues a number of years ago told me they'd also prohibited broccoli. Apparently they felt it was not able to be cleaned enough to consume.
can jws read publications by other churches?
or by atheists?
i've always heard these are apostate materials.
Heaven » My Father looked very suspiciously at my Hobby Farms Home magazine....
Cold Steel said: As he should have, you demonic apostate!
You need inspirational works like Watchtower, Awake and Guns & Ammo.
Haha! Well I am not a fan of the Borg's formulaic writing style for one. Their articles are predictive, ending in "Jehovah is the answer to everything" meanwhile, in the real world, Jehovah fixes nothing.
Perhaps it was the article about "Plan A Girlfriend Getaway On Your Farm" he had issue with. This implies you wouldn't be out in the Field Serve-Us or attending any indoctrination sessions (aka 'meetings' at the Kindumb Hell) but having a good time with good friends doing some fun things.
i wish i had read this back when i was 18. it's an amazing take down of religious beliefs, the bible, and religion in general.
) a "reason"-able manner.take this quote, from near the beginning:.
when also i am told that a woman, called the virgin mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, joseph, said that an angel told him so, i have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither joseph nor mary wrote any such matter themselves.
steve2 said: Paine's work was on the reading list of one of the undergraduate papers I took in Sociology.
You can see why the Borg doesn't want people attending higher education. I should add Paine's work to my reading list.
I do agree that it is a very good idea to research pre-Jewish/pre-Christian beliefs. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, written before the Bible, contains many of the same themes/beliefs Christians hold with their own adaptation of these. An example: instead of celebrating "Yule and the Winter Solstice" - where pagans celebrate the birth of the sun, Christians celebrate "Christmas", the birth of the son. What better way to attract new members to your cult? Offer up comfort and some familiarity saying "Look, we celebrate very similar things that you do! Come on over and join up."
As Christopher Hitchens once said "Ask yourself what is more likely. That the laws of nature are suspended... OR that an unmarried Jewish girl told a fib."
Edited to add: Interestingly, this being Thu Dec 8, 2016, my calendar states this is "Immaculate Conception" day.
can jws read publications by other churches?
or by atheists?
i've always heard these are apostate materials.
Anything not produced by the Borg is suspect. My Father looked very suspiciously at my Hobby Farms Home magazine as if the demunz were about to ooze right out of it:
My Father also called the Dictionary 'worldly' with a tone of disdain.
