Then I guess at least that means we makers-of-spiritually-poisonous-brew have home field advantage. Should be fun.
--sd-7
Posts by sd-7
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77An official Jw.org YouTube channel.
by His Excellency inan official jw.org youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/jehovahswitnessesen/videos,
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32
EVERYTHING you always wanted to know about shunning, excommunication and disfellowship practice
by Terry inthe policy set by pastor russell concerning disfellowship procedure wasn't changed until 1944?.
what was disfellowship policy?.
russell had recommended in a 1904 publication that each separate congregation (remember there was no organization back then!
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sd-7
I asked him how it could be a "god approved" practice now when the WT saw it as pagan and demonic in 1947?
The same way the Great Pyramid of Giza was "God's stone witness" and is now a tool of Satan. How about a magic trick? I'm going to make this doctrine disappear...
It's gone...
--sd-7
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77
An official Jw.org YouTube channel.
by His Excellency inan official jw.org youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/jehovahswitnessesen/videos,
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sd-7
Wow, I guess it really is the real deal. Even allowing for comments? Is that right? No way, man--they can't have created their own YouTube channel. That's too public a forum--they'd want to limit the external input. I would assume they'd at least disable comments for all their videos.
--sd-7
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22
The BRAIN is awakening! Don't ignore it!
by Tech49 insomething happened recently, and i thought i would share a few comments.
first, lets set the stage..... if anyone is familiar with current events in the pacific northwest, you may have heard of the death of a beautiful young lady, whitney heichel, a short while ago.
in short, whitney was a young sister that was kidnapped and killed by a "congregation" friend.
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sd-7
It definitely sounded like the interview was scripted--her responses seemed scripted. I may be wrong. But it felt like she was holding back a whole lot of emotion there, and I can imagine people were crying from this interview. But aren't all the JW convention interviews scripted this way, more or less? Clearly this was positioned for the maximum emotional effect on the audience, but, well, Oubliette you said it:
The "brother" interviewing her was only to happy to exploit her incredible misfortune to reinforce the cult's mindset on those in attendance with this gratuitiously emotional experience. To play with people's emotions that way just to advance your own agenda is so wrong on many levels. He should be ashamed of himself, but I'm sure he is not. It's okay, I'm ashamed of him.
I'll just second those statements.
--sd-7
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How the WATCHTOWER has "borrowed" its NEW LIGHT....
by Terry inin the 18th century a book appeared:.
a faithful narrative of the surprising work of god (1737), jonathan edwards.
this book detailed elements of the so-called great awakening.. what was the great awakening?:.
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sd-7
Certainly the WT seems to boast about its beliefs as if it received them directly from above rather than directly from Adventists. They are very fond of asking the ordinary JWs "Who taught you the truth?", yet they themselves had to learn it from others and even sometimes from reading Christendom's literature/commentaries.
Of course, to paraphrase the Reasoning book out of context, what JWs teach is not new. It's just sad that they feel people actually owe them something on account of their teachings. That in itself further highlights how the GB puts itself in place of God--by expecting gratitude and loyalty that should not be given to any human for being a so-called steward of God's things.
--sd-7
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22
The BRAIN is awakening! Don't ignore it!
by Tech49 insomething happened recently, and i thought i would share a few comments.
first, lets set the stage..... if anyone is familiar with current events in the pacific northwest, you may have heard of the death of a beautiful young lady, whitney heichel, a short while ago.
in short, whitney was a young sister that was kidnapped and killed by a "congregation" friend.
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sd-7
It finally got to the point that I realized if we were going to stay married we were going to have a very superficial relationship. This is exactly what happened. We grew further and further apart although we remained married for several more years. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore and ended the marriage.
Well, I hope you're not actually me from the future. But this definitely sounds like a possible future for me, though I suppose I had a chance at ending it and just couldn't keep my finger on the button. It's not easy to be close with a person with the belief systems being so opposed to each other. It does often feel like you're pretending all the time. From jokes and personal opinions on the news or what you read, all of it becomes impossible to be open about.
It can be really hard to feel unable to tell your spouse everything. It actually reminds me of a discussion my wife and I were having a couple of days ago, about how Hitler was able to do what he did. What was it that made these folks turn off their conscience? I asked her. I was telling her about that movie 'The Wave' where the teacher does a social experiment on dictatorship. It got to a point where she didn't want to talk about it. I wondered if cognitive dissonance was at play there, too. In this case, for once, I was careful to avoid involving religion in any way, but the point was there in a subtle way. (Sneaky wolf-like kidnapper apostate that I am, I've got to be subtle! )
But it's interesting to see people telling stories like this. How come I crashed and burned so badly? Oh, right. Kurtbethel's sage advice to me nearly 4 years ago was foolishly ignored:
One important bit of advice. Stay away from those melodramatic women or those whose life is a train wreck. It will bring you way down.
...Wow, was he ever right...
--sd-7
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100 things I learned from watching "The Prodigal Son" DVD
by Perversion of a truth inthese are things that were said or insinuated, i start with the first 15.
enjoy!!.
1. working for a corporation in the city makes you fall out of the truth.. 2. if you become inactive or leave jehovah you will make your whole family sad and ruin everything.. 3. all worldly people cheat.. 4. all worldly people curse.. 5.
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sd-7
I trusted too much, had no idea how to handle money or people. It took me years to learn lessons that were kept from me with my sheltered JW upbringing.
Definitely know that feeling. Still got plenty to learn there...a real shame to have lost most of my 20s without having learned those lessons.
I couldn't help thinking that our dark hero, the Prodigal, kinda looks like who they'd cast if they wanted to do a young Will Ferrell. Is that just me?
--sd-7
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New book "Imitate their faith" aka fantasy bible stories
by Sapphy inthanks atlantis for posting a link to download the new book - i had a quick browse.... .
the book starts off with the now traditional 'letter from the governing body', it goes through the usual stuff re how wonderful the magazines are, how countless people write in to praise the articles etc etc, but it signs off: "with much love and every good wish...".
good wishes eh?
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sd-7
The whole book would be better positioned as Bible flavoured stories.
CONTAINS 3% BIBLE. INGREDIENTS: SPECULATION, INVENTION, PICTURES, PARAGRAPHS, QUESTIONS, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF: BIBLE, SOLID ARGUMENTATION, ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
--sd-7
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84
100 things I learned from watching "The Prodigal Son" DVD
by Perversion of a truth inthese are things that were said or insinuated, i start with the first 15.
enjoy!!.
1. working for a corporation in the city makes you fall out of the truth.. 2. if you become inactive or leave jehovah you will make your whole family sad and ruin everything.. 3. all worldly people cheat.. 4. all worldly people curse.. 5.
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sd-7
Just watched the first 14 minutes of this video. Wow. Just the utterly implausible instant hiring of someone who has no experience at all blew the entire thing out of the water. But yes, that guy--he has Ace Ventura's hair and his voice kinda reminds me of Christian Bale for some reason. The ladies were indeed quite lovely, but there's not a lot of reason to think that young woman would start immediately liking this person she just met. We also immediately establish that Ace Ventura is downloading inappropriate stuff [I guess we're supposed to assume porn?] at work and is known as the office flirt. These are both things that generally do not result in success in a real office, but rather in people not liking you very much and sometimes getting a report filed on you, computer audit, and then firing...I assume all that happens at the end? Conveniently, he also says, "I'm always right--it's a gift I have!", which of course has to be the greatest evil of all; thinking you might be right about stuff that isn't in the paragraph could be veeeery dangerous...
The guy's older brother seems like a real jerk. Also, it seems like this is some kind of bizarre family cult. A guy who is very clearly an adult has to check in with his older brother and his dad about a job he plans to interview for? Sure, they work together in the family business, but [head explodes] it's an INTERVIEW! NOBODY WITH NO EXPERIENCE is going to get hired THE SAME DAY for any real job in an office so that he wouldn't be able to talk about it with his dad anyway!! And don't they get days off sometimes? Gosh! It's like these guys have never experienced Planet Earth before! Unless he's just going to answer the phone, there's no way, NONE, that this guy gets hired in the face of everybody else who applied. Couldn't they have come up with a more plausible opening to this story? That employer might have noticed this guy spoke well, but if he's got no experience, there's no reason to hire him. Maybe they're suggesting the JW lifestyle has a lot in common with marketing and therefore this guy was well equipped to market himself? Well, it was there all along and I missed it for years: "ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE, ADVERTISE"!
The older brother describing someone as a 'spiritual loser' is actually quite typical of how the WT itself says things--really, if we looked at the parable of the prodigal son, the Watchtower is the other brother who doesn't want to forgive anybody and is tooting its own horn about how righteous it is. Hey, they make sure nobody is allowed to rejoice over repentant ones, that's for sure. You get the stink eye from everybody for awhile...
Anyway, I have a feeling one can learn more than 100 things from this movie. The level of detail and quality there...who's paying for all this? I couldn't help wondering...nobody out on the street seemed to be dressed like non-JWs, so...how'd they film that scene when they're out there? Did they block off the street somehow? Hmm. They also had to design the office space...I would assume they must've used their own offices and redesigned the doors or something. Or rented an office space for the sake of filming? I wonder.
Of course, as is the trend in the outside world these days, while the picture quality has improved, the screenplay still sucks badly...
--sd-7
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Jehovah's HALF-WITnesses and the BOOKS of DEPTH (gone forever)
by Terry inwhere are all those meaty books with deep thoughts from years gone by?.
you know which ones i mean if you're familiar with the previous decades of jehovah's half-witnesses.. from c.t.russell's early era of international bible students.
judge rutherford's books.
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sd-7
I have to say, that's a great thread title. It seems like it could be the name of a '50s pulp serial story. But you're right--the Isaiah books and the Daniel book actually kinda pale in comparison to the old school books, but I would think those would be a sort of last hurrah in terms of attempting books of depth. Or not. Probably they were rehashing stuff from the Revelation book on some level anyway, right?
--sd-7
