i've been lurking here off and on for a few years, figured i would introduce myself and share the clif notes version of my story.. i'm in my late 30's and was born in.
mom was a jw, dad wasn't.
got baptized in my teens and started dating my eventual wife.
Welcome Ben!
What Rufus T. Firefly said: "Personally, I've learned that people only pay attention to what they discover for themselves."
Over the years, others too have observed, that simple well crafted questions work best.
Telling others what to believe is a big no-no, most especially those who have not yet figured out they are trapped in a cult. It seems there is no point in ruining perfectly good relationships in this way.
Greetings
Fernando
1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.
2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.
3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.
Heaven forbid BluePill2!
Judeo-Christian-Muslim scriptures do not speak of faithS, but rather "one faith".
Religionists having stolen our faith, seek to hide this by conflating faith with religion, whereas the two are opposite and incompatible.
Religion is established by killing (in one way or another) the competitors unless they convert. This is the sordid history of thousands of years.
On the other hand, faith, which emanates from the God of Abraham, unites Christians, Jews and Muslims. This is the future.
This is not achieved by converting to one of these so-called "Abrahamic religions".
Faith simply and powerfully destroys the sectarian walls that divide (and conquer) us.
the subject of jw.org and its tentacles reaching everywhere has already been discussed at length; however, jw kith and kin are going gangbusters on social media.
i lost it when i saw da vinci's most famous lady wearing a jw.org button as a brooch.
in hand, she had a tract, which i assumed had not yet been perused (she was distracted, apparently, while posing for the real master).. my dear and otherwise studious jws -- many very good at preaching and in human relations -- are obeying wt directives and just handing out the tracts in service and advertising up a storm on the internet.
has anyone ever met any members of this group?.
i met a lovely lady who was telling me all about it.. apparently everything in the bible is literal, and it rather disconcerted me just how much i rememberd if it all.. everytime i asked do you mean that everything is literally true, apparently it is so..... she is a genuineky sincere, well meaning lady, and had a lovely time telling me all about it!.
Whilst I do not know the "Torah Keepers" their name suggests they believe keeping the Law is a means of pleasing God and earning his favour.
Well, how did that work out for the Pharisees that did this meticulously, even building an additional fence around the Law?
(Matthew 23:23, 24) . . .“Woe to YOU, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because YOU give the tenth of the mint and the dill and the cumin, but YOU have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These things it was binding to do, yet not to disregard the other things. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!
*** w80 5/1 p. 5 Learning from an Experiment That Failed *** (Possibly by Ray Franz)
THROUGHOUT history there have been numerous attempts to influence people toward a more righteous way of life. One such experiment was made by the Pharisees, a group that receives considerable attention in the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures. Their experiment failed.
question:.
how did a proven "fake," "phony" arrangement [like "governing body" arrangement]...become the "faithful & discreet slave" arrangement???.
so then if it can be proven, the "governing body" term and arrangement is a farce, a fake, a made-up nonscriptural arrangement itself, (made up and concocted by nathan knorr & frederick franz in 1944) then how can this fake arrangement now suddenly become the "faithful & discreet slave" that jesus spoke of?
Actually, if you will allow, I might suggest that the GB is not a phony arrangement, but a duplicate of the Sanhedrin, and under the same evil power and authority.
What is false, is claiming that the apostles in Jerusalem operated a GB, and that the WBTS GB is based thereon.
In the case of the circumcision issue, those in Jerusalem, were not the solution, but the problem (at least initially).
even the mennonites won't be left behind in having an out of date and hard to use website!
this announcement was 2 months ago but still is rather interesting.
"we are pleased to announce that a new mennonite church usa website will be launched over the weekend of july 5-6!
"Salvation by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone has a very long history. It is a history that could have saved us all a lot of trouble and kept us out of a cult had we been aware of it."
1- pray to god (whomever you may imagine him to be) asking for understanding.
2- study the background about the bible (from non-religious sources) to see where it came from.
3- discard (or at least set aside) chuyrch claims and dogma.. 4- read it, looking up archaeological/historical sources about the places and peoples referred to.
Although I might have chosen a more positive title for the OP, in my experience this is indeed a viable recipe for those that are inclined to pursue faith (a higher level of consciousness and intelligence).
Faith (which emanates from God is not the same as belief which emanates from man, and) is a free gift which is granted to anyone who sets aside religion and instead relentlessly pursues the liberating and transformative gospel message hidden in plain sight throughout scripture.
"Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." (Rom 10:17, NIV)
One good sign of having received this unmerited free gift, I believe, is being personally able to read, understand, summarise and explain Romans and Galatians from the heart.
And possibly eventually being able to link this with summaries of the "5 solas", "law vs grace", "faith vs works", "imputed righteousness", "imputed holiness", and "religion vs the gospel".
the powers that funded isis would be the next logical leaders to topple if they are not stopped.
syria learned the hard way, syria gave weapons to fight against the west's (cia sponsored muslims) screwed up anti-syria's government troops.
isis in return started to march towards allepo killing men, women and children that refused to convert to their animalistic cult.
Hey Designs!
For me it is not so much about the books themselves, but rather about the liberating gospel message hidden in plain sight throughout, and which is lost when we use the books to advance religion instead.
BTW I have read three of the (four extant) Muslim Holy books, and so have you: Tawrat, Zabur and Injil or Injeel.
some day far in the future, will we be looked upon as suffragettes who abolished cults with tenacity, courage and outspokenness?.
will future generations shudder at the backwardness of cultures that permitted cults to flourish, and not comprehend how this could have happened?.
will they be grateful for being spared death and suffering at the hands of cults because of what we are doing to expose them and reduce their growth?.
Retweeting:
"I think JWN will be remembered as the cannon that kept firing balls of truth, bombarding the Watchtower with truth until all it's holes were obvious to any thinking person."
question du jour - how many of god's servants in the bible had no beard?.
legit question..
Thank you for sharing those interesting observations objectivetruths.
Just when one thinks one is close to unlearning all Watchtower error...
It is becoming increasingly embarrasing to admit we ever believed and followed these men and ate their never ending mounds of rotten and poisonous "food".
