mindmelda

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Posts by mindmelda

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  14

  Strange Words in an Old Book

  by cameo-d in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from an old wt book entitled enemies by rutherford, p. 293. .

  'peace and safety; we have silenced all opponents.'.

  i guess i never realized that "we have silenced all opponents" was their definition of "peace and safety".. i wonder what they have in mind to accomplish that?.

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  mindmelda

  It's a wonder the man stopped drinking long enough to write anything at all.
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  30

  On the watchtower.org site: Can a Pagan Holiday Be Made Christian?

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.watchtower.org/e/20071215/article_01.htm.

  do you find it acceptable that a religious leader would give a seemingly christian meaning to events and symbols whose roots go back to ancient paganism?

  as to the proper course, the scriptures admonish true christians: what fellowship do righteousness and lawlessness have?

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  mindmelda

  Does it ever occur to anyone that many things are pagan because Paganism (or "earth magic" or animism or whatever) was around before Judaism and Christianity? It's the oldest form of religion/belief system as far as anthropologists can determine. Man worshipped nature or more accurately, the seeming power behind it a long time before the Judeo-Christian belief systems came about. Judaism started in the Bronze Age, which isn't really that long ago in the history of the human race.

  Yeah, I know, many believe that humans haven't been around that long, but hey...that's THEIR problem if they reject science, isn't it?

  Also, even the Jews had harvest festivals (the festival of booths), an observance of the spring equinox (Passover) , a winter solstice observance...humans can't escape the fact that the turning of the seasons and the phases of the moon are significant and tend to observe them in some way. The Jews and now Christians borrowing from both Jewish and Pagan observances seem to be evidence of that.

  The origins of the European Pagan Yule are actually quite lovely and worthy of being observed in some surviving form as we do now, even if you don't share the faith of the people it originated with. It was a time to go out and see if your neighbors had enough food to get them through the harsh winters in that part of the world. You brought gifts, food, booze and sat around the fire and sang, and blessed the gods of nature that provided enough for you to get through the winter. Since these folks didn't know the Jewish or Christian God at all, what did you expect them to do? Not have religion or feel blessed because was not the kind that was in a Bible that extols a god they never heard of?
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  22

  Deep thoughts: conditional love

  by greenie in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so, i know people talk a lot on here about how love is conditional for jws (ex.

  as soon as you're not one, you've often lost jw family and friends).

  in my own situation, many of you have counseled me to get out of my relationship (for those that don't know, i'm not a jw, my partner is).

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  mindmelda

  It also depends on how you define love. Some people define it as an objective or ideal, some subjectively and emotionally. There's room for all definitions of love, from the erotic to the platonic, from the practical to the more sublime and esoteric definitions.

  English is an emotionally awkward language, there's only one word for the many kinds of love that exist.

  Myself, I believe that in the end, the love of God, which defines ultimate love for me, is probably as close to unconditional as love gets.

  It's people that make love difficult or complicated, but since God is love, his defining quality or essence, then there is no such difficulty with God.

  That doesn't mean I think God forgives everything, but certainly most things, and much more easily than humans do. God has nothing to lose by being loving, but humans sometimes feel that they do.

  And even if you define God as an ideal, or even a necessary or unnecessary fiction, then God still represents the idealization of love.

  For me, that's why we need God, even if there isn't one.

  Did that make any sense at all? I haven't had enough coffee yet. LOL
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  12

  THE WITCHTOWER 11/2009: Who is the King of the North?

  by processor in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the november 2009 issue of the witchtower is available for download now.. .

  who is the king of the north?

  who is the king from daniel's prophecy, and how does he affect our lifes?.

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  mindmelda

  Santa Claus! Everyone knows that!
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  28

  Assembly Survival Techniques

  by KingAgag in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i told my wife some time back that i would fade, and i compronised that i'd still attend the memorials and assemblies (at least for now).

  november 1st is the 'special' assembly day.

  she said she doesn't care if i listen or not, it is more to help her with the baby.

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  mindmelda

  I used to draw, sneak books to read inside my Bible, and sleep during assemblies. I swear, no one becomes better at sleeping sitting up than JWs at assemblies.

  I once read this thing about Puritans, that they deliberately made their meetings long, boring and uncomfortable because they felt it was a type of penance that was good for the soul.

  I think that JWs often have that same mind set to make you sit for hours on uncomfortable stadium seats designed for watching a 2 hour sporting event where you're allowed to stand up and move at will.

  There's no possible way to assimilate hours and hours of information, our attention span is at best 20 minutes long, and we retain only about 20% of what we hear.

  On top of the fact that 6 hours of rah rah bullshit are totally sleep inducing, my doctor told me if you sit or lie still longer than an hour, the blood pressure lowers to signal it's time to sleep, because that's one of the signals the brain takes as "It's nap time!"
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  16

  Abortions are evil since Jehovah "see's even the embryo" yet killing worldly babies at Armagedon is okay!

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  yes the bible says "jehovah see's the embryo and all it's parts are down in writting..." so abortion is evil and murder according to the watchtower.

  how is this different to the gret jehovah killing millions of babies at armagedon because their parents said "not interested" to brothers during witnessing?

  those babies are not yet "self aware.

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  mindmelda

  A lady quit studying with my JW mom because of this very point. She said, "I can't believe God will kill innocent children just because of their parent's behavior at Armageddon when he says life is so precious to him."

  I thought at the time it was a pretty good point, but I was 13 at the time and didn't say it out loud. But, it put another item on my list of "JW teachings that don't make any sense to me".
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  22

  Describe What Type Of Person You Are

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the truth---good and bad points, positives and negatives.. i'll start.. i'm pretty much a positive person.

  i generally am a very good judge of character and can usually see easily the positives and negatives of a situation or a person.

  i'm a bit impatient when dealing with a person who doesn't listen to facts.

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  mindmelda

  I come out as ENFP on the Myers Briggs personality type test. Which means I have a low tolerance for bureaucracy, being ordered around and mindless routine.

  No wonder I made a lousy Witness! LOL
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  22

  Deep thoughts: conditional love

  by greenie in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so, i know people talk a lot on here about how love is conditional for jws (ex.

  as soon as you're not one, you've often lost jw family and friends).

  in my own situation, many of you have counseled me to get out of my relationship (for those that don't know, i'm not a jw, my partner is).

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  mindmelda

  Hm...I once told my JW mom that I loved my children unconditionally, that's why I didn't force them to be Witnesses, as had been done to me.

  She said, "The Bible says love is conditional...it's conditional on our obedience to Jehovah."

  I find that most Witnesses I've talked to don't believe God loves anyone unconditionally, so they don't have to display that either.
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  21

  Did you ever feel dissatisfied by the quality of 'proof' from the FDS?

  by bohm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey!.

  i have tried to debate evolution/ark a couple of times with witnesses.

  two of these were elders, and one had the benefit of conversing with me over mail; he also showed an interest and knowledge on some scientific subjects that told me he had studied it a bit by himself.

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  mindmelda

  If God made dinosaurs to make petroleum for humans to use, then why the hell did he put most of it in one place? Sounds like he was playing favorites to me!

  P.S. Does this mean God doesn't love America best? LOL
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  21

  Did you ever feel dissatisfied by the quality of 'proof' from the FDS?

  by bohm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey!.

  i have tried to debate evolution/ark a couple of times with witnesses.

  two of these were elders, and one had the benefit of conversing with me over mail; he also showed an interest and knowledge on some scientific subjects that told me he had studied it a bit by himself.

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  mindmelda

  Over the years, I've heard many elders use public talks to further their personal views on many subjects, diet, education, child rearing, sex, work, etc.

  We had an elder that thought kids SHOULD go to college, at least long enough to get a good job, (because he had one and he made a good living, duh!) and during a talk he said. "Hey, you don't want to clean toilets and flip burgers all your life, do you?"

  Actually, I agree with this because it's realistic, of course, but he was forced by all the other elders to retract that comment at the next meeting because it wasn't in line with the FDS!

  Finally, someone says something intelligent from the platform and he's censored...go figure!LOL

  But, where the WTS lost me was when they tried to convince me that a bunch of old guys running a corporation who live in New York are the only people who know the will of God and are his voice on earth, the only source of "truth".

  Come on...how does that claim make them any different than any other religion that has it's saints, prophets, gurus, and messiahs or those who write their own "bibles" or insist they interpret the Bible for you?

  I can read...I don't need anyone to interpret the Bible or any other religious works for me, tell me how and what to think about God (who is accessible to all in many forms in many ways), and pretend to be some modern version of the 12 apostles or the Aaronic priesthood or whatever they're trying to play at, thanks anyway.