an old friend who knew i had always been "searching for truth" told me to read chapter 111 if nothing else , i did , and i dont know if im more scared than when i was in the cult or feel better for reading it (the latter, i think ) he said i should read the davinci code ,angels and demons , then the lost symbol but i feel guilty for reading stuff like that (you can take the girl out the truth but not the truth out the girl ) has anyone else read these books or knows about chapter 111 when it talks of revalation in the bible ?.
I only read the Da Vinci code, so I can't discuss those views, but I see Dan Brown as a pulp fiction writer, nothing more. I find his allusions that his stories have more to them than simple fiction a distasteful sensationalist way of promotion.
If you have a mind set on conspiracies, read Umberto Eco's Foucault Pendulum, it's a slap on the wrist for all conspiracy-theorists out there. And it's a pretty good read too.
not sure if this question was addressed yet, but does anyone know what the next book is that will be studied at the congregation bible study?.
i'm pretty sure we're close to the end of keep yourselves in god's love, or maybe it's finished already, so if anyone knows what the new study aid will be please let me know.. .
thanks-dig.
"Book Study" sounded too cultish, so they changed it to "Bible Study". You can guess that the Bible is just as used as at any other "Bible study"... that is to say hardly at all. "Book study" at least was the proper name.
hi everyone ,.
there are many new folk joining here everyday , and i thought it may be interesting and fun to just see how many people have left the congregation that you have attended in the past 5 years .
i dont mean of course people who are active jw's moving to another cong , but people that have left the wt religion , faded , da'd or df'd .. so , i will start off with my own cong .there have been 9 leave , 8 completely gone , myself hardly ever there and ' inactive ' .. leo999.
bulgogiboy: not sure if that was the reason, it was just a rumor. He was DFd not long after I came to the cong, so I didn't even know him that much, but I think the boy was never baptized, so it was not a case of supporting a DFd person. The rumor said something about actively defending his son's deed - which also I don't know what it was, I even heard he killed someone, but I doubt it, I've met with him not that long ago, and he's free. The whole rumor might be the product of imagination, given the two events happened close to one another.
yknot lol your congregation is visibly falling apart.
hi everyone ,.
there are many new folk joining here everyday , and i thought it may be interesting and fun to just see how many people have left the congregation that you have attended in the past 5 years .
i dont mean of course people who are active jw's moving to another cong , but people that have left the wt religion , faded , da'd or df'd .. so , i will start off with my own cong .there have been 9 leave , 8 completely gone , myself hardly ever there and ' inactive ' .. leo999.
In my 10 active years I've seen 6 DF in the congregation, and an additional 4 who I presume are DFd, and I missed the announcement (never was too close to them, that's why I don't know details). One of the DF was our old PO... rumor has it that he chose to support his son, who was put in jail at the time. And there's also me, so that's 11
Also I have seen a grand total of 1 person (not from the above 10) "returning to Jehovah's loving care", or whatchamacallit.
Edited to add the numbers: 9 + 11
TOTAL: 20 so far.
hello everyone, i have been reading the different topics and haven't seen this discussed..... i was raised in the 'truth' and decided when i was 19 this was not for me...but unfortunately it took years after that to finally make the clean break.
during that time and up until about a year ago, i was having strange and disturbing nightmares..it finally came to a head when i dreamed that i cussed out the elders in the congregation i had left.,..woke up in a sweat but felt great!
has anyone else experienced this?
I rarely remember having any dreams, and thank God I can't remember the last time I had a nightmare (at least 5-6 years ago, and totally not religion related, I would remember that).
However I remember a funny dream I had while still in, that I was at a movie theatre, and a hot love scene comes up. Then a guy in the row behind me leans over and asks: "are you going to watch that?" And as I turn around I notice it's the uber-elder from my congregation, and the whole body of elders were sitting in the back row, watching what will I do now.
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for those of you who started studying with the watchtower society as an adult (not born in)......did a friend or family member ever try to dissuade you from joining?
if so, what did you think of that person at the time?.
My parents tried to warn me... but not too hard. They didn't want me to suffer because of their disaproval.
As some of you mentioned it's set up so that persecution enforces indoctrination. It's just one more win-win situation for the WT - if my family were wholeheartedly supporting my conversion, I would have seen that as a good sign too. Once you're in their claws, outsiders can't really do much except pray that you'll open your eyes.
so in an argument we get to the point that the wts has problems.
so what, says her, if you got a meter (or yardstick if you prefer) and one centimeter is missing, are you going to throw it all away?
the same, if from the truth are missing only some pieces, is it not the truth?
There's an illustration in one of the more recent WT publications - I think it was last year's book? can't tell, I stopped reading them, I just saw the picture once - , with a lollypop dropped on the floor signifying the "false religion". Maybe the writer got inspiration from Outlaw?
question, if this is true, in the book of enoch chapter 10:11-12, "all the sons of men shall not perish in consequence of every secret, by which the watchers have destroyed, and which they have taught, their offspring.12all the earth has been corrupted by the effects of the teaching of azazyel.
to him therefore ascribe the whole crime.
if that is god's truth, and your only accountable for your own wickedness and actions, would you feel guilty for your accusations against god?
EOM I still think you who don't understand atheists. If one says "if God's real" then he's not atheist, he's agnostic. If an atheist talks about God being bloodthirsty etc., they're only talking about God, as they understand the Bible depicts him, not about a real person, but a fiction. They simply don't care that they misunderstood, because they just don't believe in a God be that good or bad.
I think I understand what you're asking, but you shouldn't be asking the atheists. You should be asking WTWizard He's one of the few who belives in God, but think he's evil.
i was talking with a witness the other day (mistake number 1) and i brought up a quote from the 80's.
the friggin 1980's and he said "that was old light we don't believe that anymore...".
i mean at what point can they start throwing out these quotes?
From my heuristic experience I would say anything older than 5 years is looked at with suspicion, and the longer it's been published, the more sure they are it's old light.
I was going to insert a pun here, that the Bible was published almost 2000 years ago, it would be time for the GB to revise it and publish a new light on that, but I realized they actually did that already! It's called New World Translation.
while making unprofitable use of my time i found this wt quote-.
''for example, in all good faith one might ask,.
what was jehovah doing before he created jesus, by whom he made all other things?.
Some things have changed a whole lot since then haven't they? Today they would not dare to publish such thought provoking questions.
Profitable Bible study = reading what the Watchtower says. No independent thinking! No change in that area.
In what year will Armageddon begin?
Don't speculate on this, because we will speculate on it in a few years (WT from '62, just a few years before the '75 rush started), and then you will have to obey to our conclusion anyway.
