in 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?:.
As I think of it, it reminds me of Leon Festinger's book 'When Prophecy Fails'. He talks about Millerites too, and the cognitive dissonance resulting from failed predictions, which then leads them to engage in some activity (such as proselytizing) to reduce the dissonance. The rationale is, if I can get a lot of other people to believe in my faith, I can feel better about the facts not really being on my side.
--sd-7
the 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!
It's getting harder and harder to discipline myself not to hate these men.
Especially after they recognize our humanity in this year's convention talk, "Human Apostates". I mean, how loving, how Christlike, is the faithful and discreet slave? Are not our hearts moved with deep appreciation for how much they truly love us, seeing us as human beings and not as dirt beneath their feet as the Pharisees might? How refreshing it is to know that these men care so much about our spiritual well-being that they have the courage and faith to discipline God's people!
--sd-7
think of all the anxious souls who barely escaped the end of 6,000 years of human existence in 1975. they were saved!.
saved from.... what?.
who were trying to save them?
Come with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear......
By this point, I wanted to laugh and applaud...well done!
--sd-7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-vjlssg3xi.
Perhaps the title should be "From a Prison of the Body to a Prison of the Mind".
--sd-7
an official jw.org youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/jehovahswitnessesen/videos,
Then I guess at least that means we makers-of-spiritually-poisonous-brew have home field advantage. Should be fun.
--sd-7
the 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!
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
an official jw.org youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/jehovahswitnessesen/videos,
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
something 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.
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
in 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?:.
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
something 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.
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
