Posts by GLTirebiter

76

Posters You Miss

by minimus in

jw
friends

anyone that you miss from this site, dead or alive??.

i miss farkel, blondie and a host of others!.

Grace Gough ( RIP ) left the JW cult in her 70s and went on to help 1000s to escape the cult

by Not_Culty in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7ilnoxvu4.

she helped me.

sent me my first copy of crisis of conscience (free) grace has been featured on many talk shows, including sally jesse raphael, raising awareness of support for cult abuse survivors.

On and off again JW girlfriend

by Crzysin in

hello everyone, i have an on and off again ex who is a jw.

each time her family gets involved and she's gone again.

i'm debating biting the bullet and doing the work to become baptized, so we can follow through with our engagement.

If you marry her, you also marry the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. Does that scenario appeal to you? If not, then do not get baptized in the name of the Society and cut off the relationship. You are doing neither her nor yourself a favor by pursuing a relationship with which you have serious reservations.

20

boyfriend ex jehovah witness please help

by whatisthis12 in

so i posted yesterday.

my boyfriend and i have been living together for a year, and he went to the memorial tonight (sorry if that’s not what it’s called).

i told him i was upset he didn’t invite me but wasn’t going to tell him not to go because he hasn’t talked to his family for over a year.

GLTirebiter

You marry him and ...

learn that "the New System is so close!" mind set and dedication to "Field Service" affect every family decision: choice of employment, where you live, financial decisions (little concern for long term planning), what you do on weekends and vacation, whether and when to have children: the Watchtower teachings will touch every aspect of your lives together whether or not you join ... and you will be pressured to join. Consider carefully whether this is the life you want.

32

Movie-goers can be fickle (great movies that should've enjoyed huge box-office success)

by LoveUniHateExams in

just thought i'd start a thread about this topic.. john carpenter's the thing (1982) was a great film, one of his best imo.

for me, it's right up there with alien (1979) as one of the greatest sci-fi horror films ever made.

and yet one film made anything between $100 - 200 million at the box office whereas the other made only $19 million.

GLTirebiter

The Star Wars prequel trilogy

Get rid of Jar Jar, and I'd agree.

25

My JW niece is getting married ... typical JW drama

by wannabefree in

we received an invitation in the mail yesterday for my jw niece's wedding.. i am posting this just to add for any lurkers to see typical jw practices.. 1st - and perfectly understandable for anybody who is or was a jw.

i'm not invited.

:) hey, i'm really not complaining about that.

GLTirebiter

I'm not invited. ... My wife is fully in and of course is invited

You are husband and wife. It is a package deal, a married couple invited to wedding is invited as "one flesh" just as the two being married are joining themselves into one. Any wedding invitation extended to one married partner must properly include the spouse. Any claim to the contrary is not just abominable etiquette, it is an insult to your marriage.

16

Did Ancient Jewish Worshipers Ever Make Changes to the "Holy' Scriptures?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

if you have the time and the means to visit israel right now, you can see something that few modern people have seen.. at the israel museum in jerusalem, a very special document will be on display.

the museum's website heading describes it as:.

genesis retold: an exceptional dead sea scroll.. .

GLTirebiter

There are questions we should ask. Was there ever a master copy of the OT? If so, where was it kept?

Since much of it (the Pentatuch) predates a written Hebrew language, the Master Copy was an oral tradition. It was transcribed after the fact. After that was done, the best candidate for the master copy would be those kept in the Ark of the Covenant, so it is long lost.

If you want word for word accuracy, sorry, it's no longer possible. Nor would it be possible when reading a translation, because there is not perfect agreement in vocabulary, grammar, etc. between languages (especially when there are multipel translations: ancient Hebrew, to Aramaic, to Latin, to the archaic English of the KJV, to the English we speak now.)

But if you want the meaning of the message, it is there. As the article noted, it extended the conventional text, it did not replace or contradict it.

41

Who deserves the title of king of apostasy ?

by Chook in

i think this would be a noble endeavour..

GLTirebiter

Henry VIII deserves consideration

21

Wives With Unbelieving Mates

by minimus in

jw
friends

i knew many witness wives with unbelieving mates who pretty much led a double life.

“my husband says i have to go the workplace christmas party.” or my mate tells me i have to make a thanksgiving dinnner.

or “ my mate insists i do things in the bedroom that i know the watchtower has talked against.

GLTirebiter

Yes it's a curious feature of JW rules that they have not outright banned JWs from marrying non-JWs.

If there were enough eligible JW brothers for all the sisters, they might try it. But with the slim pickings available at most Kingdom Halls, they would lose many sisters who, if forced to choose, would leave to wed their unbelieving beau instead of staying in the congregation as a Watchtower spinster.

39

a question after my first JW meeting

by bleak in

i attended my first jw meeting recently.

first, i would like to say what i agree with about the jehovah's witnesses beliefs and practices.. 1. they don't consider israeli's as "god's chosen people" and they don't worship israel as some holy land filled with righteous jews (although there are some there) as most so-called "christians" (christian zionists) erroneously believe they are instead of the "hypocrites" and "vipers" that it is actually filled with.. 2. they don't celebrate "holidays" like easter and christmas which are, in fact, remnants of earlier pagan practices.. 3. they don't put nation before god and christ.

they don't believe in war or going to war because of some crazy government/cia secret agenda.

GLTirebiter

They know their Bibles. I don't think anyone can dispute this.

They know their Watchtower magazines very well. They know the Bible proof-texts given in the Watchtower very well, and the specific assigned passages for daily reading. But they do not have as much comprehension of the whole Bible, taking all its books and viewing them in context. My impression is that they treat their Watchtowers as equal to the scriptures, sometimes as even more authoritative.

How they interpret different parts of the Bible is another matter.

How they made their own translation also is another matter. For the most part, it is a fairly literal word-for-word transliteration. But it loses the power of the original poetic language, which better translators try to preserve where possible (in Psalms, the Song of Songs, etc.). The way the ideas are expressed, the style, the majesty, the rhetorical impact, the word choices, the rhythms: all covey the teachings just as much as the plain words. The Bible is not a prosaic textbook!

The peculiarities unique to the NWT are unjustifiable: the Hebrew version of the holy name would never appear in New Testament works written in Greek, and reverent Jews (such as Jesus and the Evangelists) would not use that name so freely as it appears in the NWT.