Posts by garyneal

46

You should meet Brother Smart Engineer

by garyneal in

jw
friends

my wife, who now thinks i am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that i could really benefit from discussing matters of the bible with this nasa engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall.

apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines.

at least according to her as i never actually spoken with the man at length but i do know that he is an elder.

garyneal

Okay, excellent comments from everyone. I'll try to sum up the comments here as there is so much to respond to but I must start with a little bit about myself as it seems I keep forgetting that some people leave and new ones come on to this board.

I don't consider myself a Bible scholar by any stretch, I am nowhere near what Laia or Narkesos are in terms of their biblical and historical understanding but I have been learning as much as I can whereever I can. That said, there was a time when I was really religious. In fact, if you look at my original postings on here you will see that I was very religious. I was an engineering student in a university back in the 1990s and I was very involved in religion back then. Like most 'smart' believers, I could easily make evidence fit my conclusions regarding God and His place in the universe. However, I found that a) a lot of my justifications for my beliefs had little basis in the Bible, b) I REALLY did not know the Bible, and c) for a long time I would not allow myself to be challenged in my thinking. Once I began really looking for evidence the scales began to fall.

My wife says that I am 'such a smart man to not understand things' which drives home the point that was made in this thread in that Jehovah's Witnesses tend to think of all outsiders as mislead or deluded and therefore not worth listening to. If I had done that, I would've been a much 'stronger Christian' and a seriously deluded individual. I am thankful for my doubts and my uncertainty now but it was a hard path to take as so much of my beliefs were at stake. I can understand and appreciate why others, like my wife, would not want to follow that path.

To answer a hair splitting question that was posed, engineers are not scientist in very strict sense. It is easy to see why an engineer can see the complexity of things in the world. I even remember making the point to my physics instructor that the second law of thermodynamics contradicts the evolution theory. Of course, I forgot that little thing known as the SUN that without it, life on Earth would not exist.

Now, regarding Bro Smart Engineer, I really don't know my wife's motives but she tells me quite frequently that he sounds a lot like me when he discusses Bible things. So I am guessing that she thinks he could maybe convince me or at least make me think on some things that she cannot answer. However, I think she is trying to set us both up and I do not want him to feel obligated to speak with me in anyway. Besides, if he was really that interested, I think he would've already done so. Some other things I know that may affect his thinking is that the elders at her hall know I associate with apostates (by posting here). Also, a pioneer brother attempted to have a Bible study with me sometime ago, not to mention the six years I spent studying with them from 2003 to 2009. So I can imagine that if this guy is an elder and is aware of all of this, he very likely wishes to keep his distance.

26

Father denies children inheritance unless they quit Jehovah's Witnesses

by Tiktaalik in

jw
friends

an article in the sydney morning herald:.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/father-denies-children-inheritance-unless-they-quit-jehovahs-witnesses-and-become-catholics-20140810-102egl.html#ixzz39yziuuvf.

"from beyond the grave, father-of-four patrick carroll continued a five-decade crusade to steer his children away from being active jehovah's witnesses and into catholicism.. mr carroll wrote into his will that his adult children were not to receive any inheritance unless they met two conditions: attend his funeral and become catholics within three months of his death.. mr carroll died in april 2012. his children attended the funeral but they did not become catholics and challenged the condition in the nsw supreme court in a bid to still receive their share of his estate.. but justice francois kunc last week ruled that mr carroll was entitled to place such conditions on his will.. the court heard that mr carroll's motivation was not so much about imposing his own beliefs but rather the fact he never approved of his children becoming jehovah's witness.. the court heard that mr carroll did not raise his children as catholics, neither he or they had attended church services when they were young and he did not enroll them in catholic schools.. but when he split from their mother lillian in 1959 she became a jehovah's witness and over the next decade the couple's four children, robyn, paulene, anthony and susan, were baptised as jehovah's witnesses.. mr carroll never approved of "their adherence to that faith", the court heard.. "[lillian's] conversion to that faith enraged mr carroll, who for the rest of his life continued to express his very strong objections to lillian's and the children's member of that faith," justice kunc said in his judgement.. the court was told that all four of his children remain active members of their congregation.. in his will, written in december 2011, four months before he died, mr carroll left more than a third of his estate to his four children "dependent upon them becoming baptised into the catholic church within a period of three months from the date of my death and such gifts are also subject to and dependent my children attending my funeral.".

garyneal

Well as others said, this feeds the persecution complex and makes them rockstars at the conventions.

46

You should meet Brother Smart Engineer

by garyneal in

jw
friends

my wife, who now thinks i am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that i could really benefit from discussing matters of the bible with this nasa engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall.

apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines.

at least according to her as i never actually spoken with the man at length but i do know that he is an elder.

garyneal

Well, I am not pulling in either direction. He is a witness and evidentally a faithful one unless he secretly does not believe in the religion but is putting on a facade. I understand a good number of NASA engineers attend services at the Universalist Unitarian church in our city.

46

You should meet Brother Smart Engineer

by garyneal in

jw
friends

my wife, who now thinks i am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that i could really benefit from discussing matters of the bible with this nasa engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall.

apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines.

at least according to her as i never actually spoken with the man at length but i do know that he is an elder.

garyneal

My wife, who now thinks I am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that I could really benefit from discussing matters of the Bible with this NASA engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall. Apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the Bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines. At least according to her as I never actually spoken with the man at length but I do know that he is an elder. She told me a few days ago that while she was out in field service she asked him if he were willing to come to our house and speak with me and asked if I was okay with it.

My response, (paraphrasing) “If he is willing to come over and have a friendly discussion about whatever subjects we may have of mutual interest, sure. If he is willing to even have an open discussion about the Bible, sharing what we know, sure. If he is coming to try to teach, preach, or proselytize I’d rather not.” As we all know, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not good at listening and when in a discussion about religion they tend to look for ways to respond to your statements rather than listening to them. This is a flaw that I too am trying to correct in myself and I am evidently making progress since even my wife has stated that I tend to listen more and be more ‘open minded’ (her words) than I used to.

Personally, though, I can’t help but think that this brother is probably not really interested in speaking with me and may even feel a little obligated since the only reason he is even considering it is because my wife is asking it of him. I don’t know if she feels that there is some glimmer of hope that I might come around or if she just feels that Brother Smart Engineer would be a more suitable person to share the things I am learning about the Bible with. Somehow, I doubt he knows anything about the Bible beyond what the Watchtower publications tell him. Things such as no original copies of the writings, differences in biblical canons between various religions, the anonymous authorship of the gospels, or even the approximate years in which the various books are written are probably unknown to him as they are to most Christians.

I just told my wife that while I appreciate the gesture I can’t help but question the motivation of this visit and helped her to relate by asking how she would’ve felt if during the time I was attending church I invited someone from the church that she barely knows to come to our house to speak with her. I think she got the message and told me that she understood but I made it clear that if he still wanted to come over to get to know me, he was welcomed. I also suggested that we could meet in a more neutral location if it would help. She also suggested that she would’ve like to eventually be able to host get-togethers at our house for her witness buddies, no doubt in an attempt to be more a part of the group. This, I am sure is also part of the motivation behind her wanting me to meet Brother Smart Engineer.

Has anyone in the group ever had this experience either as the person that your loved one wants to ‘help’ or as the elder, publisher, etc. that was asked upon to meet with such a person like myself? If so, how did you feel about it? If you were the publisher, did you follow through? If so, how did it go? All comments are welcomed.

13

VAT4956 Flip-Flop

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

major flip-flop on vat4956:.

in the 1970's it was demonized:.

*** g72 5/8 p. 28 when did babylon desolate jerusalem?

garyneal

Where's scholar?

11

JW NWT AND OTHER BIBLE TRANSLATIONS ARE FALSE!

by ADJUSTMENTS in

to begin, i'm not trying to stir up any "conspiracy theories" or promote them but with the recent release of the nwt and "world government" convention tracts it's opened up the of door to the so called "conspiracy theories" for many.. so if your the type that's already turned of by the word "conspiracy theory" i suggest you leave this page and please don't comment, for those of us who can use your brain to reason and think, take a look at a couple videos and sites that makes you go hmm... and connect the dots.. the first video actually goes into depth and mentions the many falsehoods of the jw nwt at 13:50 and 1:04:25. for some reason it is not directly linking it is entitled new world order bible versions (full version ) about nine videos down.. .

https://m.youtube.com/results?q=new+world+order&sm=1.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r8c1sc8lljm.

garyneal

Adjustments, are you an Independent (Fundamental) Baptist?

83

Do You Support Illegal Aliens Coming Into The USA As They Have This Past Year?

by minimus in

i think it's hurting the country..

garyneal

A few solutions:

Help the Mexican government stabilize their society. It may require sending troops to help deal with the cartels. We did it for Iraq, why not Mexico.

Help rebuild their country and infrastructure. We did it before in other nations.

People who think the children should stay should put them up in their own homes.

If immigrants take jobs no one else wants to do, then why do we have jobs no one wants to do. I can think of of able bodied welfare and food stamp recipients that should be given those jobs. You want your benefits, do these jobs. Maybe that will motivate them to find better work but at the very least we will have a source of labor for these so called jobs that no one wants to do.

You could also take a stict libertarian approach and get the government out of everything. Leave it to the states to police their borders since the kids will be going to the schools at the states' expense, for example.

42

Does anyone live by any Bible stuff?

by punkofnice in

this is not meant to be a slag off the bible thread.. i had a question asked me the other day and it was: 'do you live by anything from the bible?'.

i had to think about that one because i was force grown in the filthy, disgusting cult of the paedophile loving watchtower(r).. you know what?

i really don't know if i just naturally am a great bloke or if any 'nice' bits in the bible influenced me......or has western culture been influenced by the bible for good and bad?.

garyneal

This one...

It's odd, I was far more dishonest when i was a uber dub bible believing "christian" than I am now as an atheist.

I find odd about myself too in that when I was an uber bible believing, praying to almighty God on a regular basis Christian I was more dishonest with people and living a double life. Of course, I was also single and in my 20s back then and now I am a married man in my 40s with two kids so that may also have something to do with it. I also never actually READ the Bible back then as much as I have now.

Noone really 'follows' the Bible as most just take the bits and pieces that they like and dismiss the rest as 'the old law.' For many of them, a habitual liar has a better shot at grace than a homosexual in spite of this verse:

Revelation 21:8

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

68

The problems Bible believers have with Atheists is the burden of proof is on the Believer and we just do not have enough proof.

by booker-t in

i recently posted a post telling this board my athesit coworker stumped me with questions about the validity of the ark story and i just cannot stop talking to her.

i love hearing her side and point of view which in the past i would have dismissed as "satanic" thinking.

she has some very good questions and i am having a hard time answering them.

garyneal

"Why does Jehovah and Jesus" always talk about forgiveness and loving your enemies when Jehovah will never forgive people he destroyed in the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah. Couldn't Jehovah just tell himself they did not know any better they died before Christ came to earth so I will give them another chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Sdh239AII

52

This new JW video is so stupid that it has to be a troll

by Pacopoolio in

jw
friends

recently, my mother, who had stopped talking to me because i was 'apostate,' started speaking to me again.. (note that i successfully faded as opposed to ever being disfellowshipped due to dodging every elder question with "i'm not sure, i'm still searching and trying to find the answers.").

the reason why?

at the international convention this year, they receieved a new video called something or other.

garyneal

It all seems to nonsensical when you consider that we have multiple sects of Christianity all trying to discredit science to support their worldview while simultaneously discrediting each other.