so, one of the things that is catching me off guard is that i have forgotten how to pray.. as a jw we were all told to pray, but when we really look at it, the prayers are just as structured and mind numbing as those of the catholic church reciting the rosary.
what caught my attention was stephen at act 7:59 where he calls on jesus (not jehovah) to receive him.
he prayed to jesus.. yet, as a jw, the prayers you always here begin like this: "jehovah god, our loving heavenly father..." and end in "in jesus name, amen".
Why not start with the words the Lord gave us (Matthew 6:9-13):
"This is how you are to pray:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil."
i suppose its a little late to ask this and i never got it even as a jw, but:.
can someone please explain what the whole 144,000 thing is about?
has god only saved a certain group of people?
In Rev. 7 there is not much language describing them, but it does say that they are from the tribes of Israel: 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes (though instead of "Dan" we read "Mannasseh"). When the caucasian leaders of a Biblical-literalist American religion claim to be among them, remember that the Book of Revelation clearly identifies the 144,000 as Middle-Eastern Jews!
For those who accept a non-literal interpretation (allowing non-Jews to be among the sealed!), consider this explanation (paraphrased from Asimov's Guide to the Bible): In the language of the time, 1000 was the largest named number. Twelve carries the connotation of sacredness, as in the twelve tribes and twelve months in a year. So 1000 times twelve times twelve again represents an unimaginably large number, the largest number they could speak of, doubly increased by a number with sacred significance: the countless resurrected souls eternally praising the "Holy of Holies". 144,000 is not a limit to the number of those who can be saved, only a limitation of human language to express the countless number of the saved, using a poetic description fitting for the magesty of the scene depicted in this passage of Revelation.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/sep/25/alleged-ponzi-scheme-leaves-lives-shattered/?prefetch=1.
funny how many of the dubs didn't want their names mentioned in the article.
lol.
With the average investor losing $200,000 it's clear they weren't targeting minimum-wage pioneers with this scam.
"The claw-back lawsuits filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court ... have drawn the ire of people who say they have had their retirement nest eggs zeroed out and college savings for children erased."
I wonder if the author appreciates the irony? Good Witnesses don't have retirement nest eggs because "the end is so near", nor do they send their kids to college because "they will have no chance to pursue a career in this system of things".
there is no scripture that ever said "thou shall not gamble.
" the bible never mentions gambling.
yet it's a disfellowshiping sin.
I never could figure out why buying a $1 lottery ticket was considered greedy or wrong.
Because that $1 could have gone toward The World-Wide Work, instead of supporting the Government who would spend it furthering their evil agenda, such as education!
i'm usually a cognac drinker.
i love armagnac too.
and i enjoy a martini i invented---mandarin vodka with a slight bit, usually about a capful of chambord served in an ice cold martini glass.. this saturday i'm mixing with my gf's friends and family in conn. with some affluent people and i might want to try something different.
Pale ale
huh?.
cern claims faster-than-light particle measuredgeneva (ap) -- a fundamental pillar of physics - that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - appears to be smashed by an oddball subatomic particle that has apparently made a giant end run around albert einstein's theories.. scientists at the world's largest physics lab said thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light.
that's something that according to einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity - the famous e (equals) mc2 equation - just doesn't happen.. "the feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said james gillies, a spokesman for the european organization for nuclear research, or cern, outside the swiss city of geneva.. gillies told the associated press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.. "they are inviting the broader physics community to look at what they've done and really scrutinize it in great detail, and ideally for someone elsewhere in the world to repeat the measurements," he said thursday.. scientists at the competing fermilab in chicago have promised to start such work immediately.. "it's a shock," said fermilab head theoretician stephen parke, who was not part of the research in geneva.
60 nsec early arrival on a 2.4 msec path? It doesn't take much experimental error to account for that.
faith california city fines couple for holding bible study in their homeposted on september 19, 2011 at 1:36am by madeleine morgensternphoto via flickr user erwin vogelaar.
a southern california couple has been fined $300 dollars for holding christian bible study sessions in their home, and could face another $500 for each additional gathering.. city officials in san juan capistrano, calif. say chuck and stephanie fromm are in violation of municipal code 9-3.301, which prohibits religious, fraternal or non-profit organizations in residential neighborhoods without a permit.
stephanie hosts a wednesday bible study that draws about 20 attendees, and chuck holds a sunday service that gets about 50.. the fromms appealed their citations but were denied and warned future sessions would carry heftier penalties.
Hmmm...
This happened in California, though a different city and county. One of my English Lit profesors liked to hold the weekly discussion sessions at his house, Wednesday evenings after dinner. This was a regular assembly of a dozen or so people, every week for entire term, in a residentially zoned area (off the college campus, so whatever exemption the college had would not apply).
If the city allows this, they could hardly forbid a home Bible study group of the same size.
in a 10 month investigation, sunday night infiltrates one of the worlds most worrying new cults.
but most chilling, this cult is australian, spreading and described as worse than waco.
we go inside the cults headquarters to meet the leaders and their followers who claim their lives have been changed forever.. http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/10276027/inside-australias-chilling-new-cult/.
Scary, Jim Jones scary!
Can't finish watching those videos, don't have the stomach for it.
i would like to think of myself as an academic.
im starting my second degree and i enjoy research.
when i see a statement backed up by references and support from a credible source, sometimes i get excited.
it made me want to rip up the magazine and throw it in the bin.
So, what are you waiting for? "Just do it!"
did any of you feel that mystical force telling you that you were of the anointed class?.
what did it feel like?
was it real?
What does the Bible mean when it says beware for those partaking unworthily though?
The word "hypocrite" sums it up nicely. See Matthew 23, especially verses 5-7 and 23-28. "All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’" "You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also be clean." Partaking to make a show of holiness without first converting your own heart and soul: that is what makes you unworthy!
