Posts by mindmelda

25

Jehovah Witnesses- True Christians?

by rich5678 in

what do you say to people outside the religion that say jehovah witnesses are the only true christians and they are the only group that follow the bible as opposed to other reilgions?

i see these comments on youtube about videos that addressed the issue with the policy jws follow today.

i am not bitter but i thought if you think that jehovah witnesses are true christians and follow the bible, why not join the group?

mindmelda

Following the Bible as a whole and following Christ are two different things. The first part of the Bible was the law and history of the Jews, so I've never figured out why Christians feel so obliged to adopt it or honor it? I don't see a lot of rabbis on TV explaining the New Testament for Jews, but somehow, Christians just feel this need to interpret the OT for Christian application. Does that make any sense?

See, to me, this is a huge area where the JWs screw things up. They're so into getting Yahweh, that ancient Jewish way of looking at God (which probably was more or less appropriate for people of that time and place), into modern Christianity that they forget things like Oh...Christ said he fulfilled that, for instance?

They're always trying to shoehorn the WTS into the OT prophecies about the Jews. I used to sit there at those book studies about Daniel and Isaiah and listen to these ridiculous conclusions with absolutely no logical progression of "Well, obviously, Isaiah was foretelling the modern day organization" and my brain was just exploding from the STUPID.

No, Isaiah wasn't foretelling anything about the WTS, at least, not that I could see. It was just because they SAID SO, and that's why that's the first meeting I quit going to.

Christ is pretty simple, really, and actually nothing that many other religious innovators have come up with, which shows that they're good and workable ideas because so many people see the usefulness of them.

The necessity fundamentalists and literalists seem to have of making every sentence or word of the Bible fit into their lives and intepretations of reality astound me. I don't get it, never will. How does that make you more RIGHT than other religions?

It's not more RIGHT to be more literal in interpretation of ANYTHING. I don't understand how those two things overlap and serve to convince people of their RIGHTNESS. They don't even have the same definition!

35

What I hate most about missing the meetings...

by gutted in

...is when people ask why i wasn't there.

usually i tell them, that i was sick, or not feeling well, which for the most part is true.

what is irritating is when someone presses it, especially someone you are closer with in the congregation.

mindmelda

To be fair, I used to hate being asked that so much, that I just quit going to get rid of the annoyance. *G*

Sometimes, towards the end of my irregular meeting attendance days, I just used to look sad and say in my best downtrodden weak Witness manner, "Well, you know how weak I am since the brothers never seem to want to encourage me." *heavy sigh*

That shuts em up really quickly.

I have some acting chops, so be sure you have some if you're going to use that sort of thing. LOL

124

Stephen Hawking knows more about heaven than Jesus did.

by moshe in

i have been watching the discovery channel's, 'into the universe with stephen hawking' and it occurred to me that professor hawking knows more about heaven (which is just part of entire universe) than jesus did.

maybe jesus knew about black holes, alien life, other worlds, the origin of the universe, etc.

jesus could have told us something so remarkable about our universe that it would have taken us 2000 years to confirm jesus' divine knowledge and prove he was the son of g-d, but he instead decided to tell us that heaven "has many rooms"- whoop-dee-doo.. i don't think jesus had a clue that there was anything out the in the physical universe beyond what he could see with his own eyes.

mindmelda

I think you're confusing me with an Evangelical Christian or something similar? I'm not really a card carrying Christian (I tend towards UU,which is more humanist than anything, but I don't attend a church) and would never even try to make the argument that Christ was a deity, although I have nothing against people believing that as long as it's not practiced in a harmful or totalitarian manner.

I don't believe that Christ was any more divine than Buddha or any other religious innovator. Or do you just jump on anything or anyone you think might be Christian? I'm more into myth as it pertains to psychology than anything, which is why I study it, including Christian myth. And yes, I believe it's myth, although I believe myth is too powerful to society and to the individual to be dismissed lightly.

I'm just asking how could a Jewish man of that time period, who if he was indeed a real individual, seems to have been more bent to metaphysics and philosophy than anything, could have access to the kind of advanced knowledge you think he should have taught people? He wasn't a scientist, nor particularly scientifically minded, nor a deity from what I can tell.

35

What I hate most about missing the meetings...

by gutted in

...is when people ask why i wasn't there.

usually i tell them, that i was sick, or not feeling well, which for the most part is true.

what is irritating is when someone presses it, especially someone you are closer with in the congregation.

mindmelda

Not going for 3 years and regularly for about 7 seems to have solved that problem for me.

Of course, I moved where no one here even knows I'm a JW and they never will, so I never get asked that question anyway.

9

LOOK AT YOURSELF AFTER WATCHING THIS

by whereami in

jw
friends

no words needed.

just watch.. i love the human sprit.. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc4hgqhgefe.

mindmelda

Looks to me as if he has all the important parts.

7

" ...a time and times and half a time..."

by Yan Bibiyan in

nudged by mentallyfree31's thread on 607/587 (original thread here) , i have wondered lately if another angle can be used in deconstructing the 1914 cornerstone year.

the 607 year is only important because it gives a starting point to the 2,520 years calculated from neb's dream.

the "calculation" hinges, among other houses of cards, on the 3 1/2 component, derived from the dan 7:25 and rev 14:14 " ...a time and times and half a time..." now, this adds up to 3 1/2 only if "times" means "2 times".

mindmelda

I used to feel sort of badly that I could never do all that pseudo mathematical hopscotch to get to 1914, but then I realized there was a reason for that. Because its crap.

Witnesses are fed so much crap that they basically just keep thinking crap is food instead of crap, but the "math" you do to get to it is crap math, crap thinking and crap logic.

Still 607 is the weakest link...I'd always use that first. There's just NOTHING that supports it historically anywhere. It's a number they pulled out of their collective ass to get to a date that works well for the WTS's own history, that date actually being 1919, when they all got unjustly persecuted by the evil system of things, which proves they're the real Christians.

Because no other Christian groups have suffered NEARLY as much as they have.

17

JW views on Mental Health & Counseling

by Confuzzled in

i am considering getting couples counseling for the jw boyfriend and i. he's open to it.

he got help himself for an issue recently, but it was in the short term, and it went well for him.

i want to know if we started going regularly, and his mentor got wind of it, what are the jw views on mental health help?

mindmelda

The thinking I heard a lot is that they will counsel right out of "the Truth" although theoretically it's a matter of conscience, which is Witness speak for "you can do it but we don't like it or recommend it".

32

THINGS I did....I wasn't supposed to do....as an active JW

by Terry in

on freeminds.org, randy w wrote this about himself:.

even as a strict jehovahs witness for eight years, i never once shunned or failed to speak to a disfellowshipped person.

it is simply cruel.

mindmelda

I've never shunned DF'd or DA'd people, including my brother. I even said "hi" to them at the KH and had someone tell me, "Oh, don't talk to them, they're DF." and I just play dumb about it. I knew. (Note: Easier to accomplish when you're blond, which I am.)

I always watched, read and listened to whatever I wanted. I bought my kids Harry Potter books and other childrens books about magic, fantasy and witches. I watched porn. I wrote porn. I wrote fiction about worldly people doing worldly (normal) things. I cuss when necessary. I lie when socially necessary. I did naughty fun things with my own husband in bed you're not supposed to do, but how is anyone supposed to find out, except by looking through your window or if you're dumb enough to confess?

I lied about reporting time because I felt pressured to put more down than I did to keep the elders and elderettes off my back. (I always wondered how valid the time reporting really is if other people exaggerate too?)

I got drunk, I smoked some weed, I didn't ram the WTS teaching down my kids throats when they got old enough to even understand it. I let them do holidays and birthdays at school.

Thank God I was such a lousy Witness. I suffered a lot of guilt for it, but I just couldn't do all that crap. Nice to be free of the guilt.

19

Cousin Lenny and a pinch of Neanderthal DNA

by designs in

researchers at princeton have found evidence of neanderthal genes in humans where they were once thought not to have bred.. its all a little different than what we were taught in science class or a bible study.

any thoughts on the origins of us.. .

.

mindmelda

I"ve always thought that Neanderthals were assimilated, not wiped out. It's typical of human behavior throughout history to conquer through both war AND assimilation.

Besides, you can see people walking around today who could easily be Neanderthals. That stronger stocky body type is an advantage in certain climates.

265

Satans tools, Satans fools.

by Weeping in

jw
friends

there is a satanic game being played now on the internet called, "world of warcraft".

it is a role playing game (dungeons and dragons on steroids!).

it is so captivating and bewitching that children and teenagers are getting hooked.

mindmelda

I see people die all the time as I take care of the elderly and sick. I could (and have) play WoW all day long and still not believe I'm deathless or a god or that it has anything to do with reality.

I'm always curious as to how people who believe that all fantasy and mythology is Satanic explain the fact that non Christian people who have no concept of the Devil have myths similar to what is found in WoW?

If they don't even know of Satan or Christianity, where did all these myths come from? How can he influence people who don't even know of him and isn't it uncompassionate of God to let people go for thousands of years without warning them about Satan if he's leading them astray? Only Judeo Christian belief has the concept at all, and yet there are and have been millions of Buddhists and Hindus who haven't a clue about Satan.