Posts by Awen

10

Better to live the JW "life" or live the christian life, die, and be resurrected?

by stillstuckcruz in

this is a question i've been wanting to ask.

i'm not sure if i understand their whole "resurrection" teaching totally.

but it appears that to any jw's who may not want to be, or any others for that matter, dont have to be baptized in the borg at all.

Awen

In my opinion it would be better to live a Christian life outside of the Borg. This is because the Borg is part of Babylon The Great. By staying in the Borg one is actually serving Satan in opposition to YHWH.

We are told by Jesus to "get out of her my people if you do not want to share with her in her sins...and to quit touching the unclean thing."

Ancient Israel though being God's chosen people turned to Apostacy on more than one occasion. Being God's people did not exempt them from judgement. In fact it made them even more culpable. The same can be said of modern day spiritual Israel. Identifying one's self as "the only true religion" puts an enormous responsibility upon the JW's, not just the Governing Body. The rank and file identify with the words and actions of the GB and so are judged right along with them. True some have been deceived by the GB but enough evidence has surfaced in recent years to prove that something isn't quite right, yet the rank and file JW's continue their service to the GB.

It reminds me of the occasion when Jesus said that those who were unwilling to leave their mothers, brothers and sisters were unworthy of him. This is the main thing that keep many JW's in the Borg and not a real love of Christ which would cause them to flee from it's midst.

Speaking on the resurrection. If you recall in the Exodus many Egyptians were saved because they exercised faith in YHWH. They fled right along with Israel and were counted worthy by YHWH of warranting salvation. This vast mixed company looked at what had been happening around them and took action. Surely they also left behind friends, family and all that they had known but they could not deny what they had seen and or experienced during the 10 Plagues. Likewise today JW's will have no excuse for staying in the Borg. The evidence is undeniable. So if they choose to stay they are showing a lack of faith and also showing where their loyalties truly lie, not with God, but with a man-made organization. So why would these ones warrant a resurrection? They're not being deceived, they can clearly see what happening within the Org, yet fear of man (and not God) is what causes them to stay put.

Jesus makes the point that in the last days there will be "the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens". Something will happen that will make it completely clear that Jesus has returned and therefore the choice will be put upon the entire inhabited Earth of who the people should or should not worship. This might be a physical or a spiritual sign. I think this applies mostly to those who are looking for the "sign". Just as in the days before Jesus' birth in ancient Israel the priests were aware that the time was right for the Messiah to be born, so today people can discern by the "times and seasons" and the "budding of the fig leaves that spring (Christ's presence) is near." Ample evidence and hence no excuse just like the Priests and Pharisees who experienced Jesus directly and who still chose to turn away for fear of losing what they had. Why would God give these ones a resurrection? Like the Pharisees of old they (the JW's) are given ample evidence which is in stark contrast to those upon the Earth who have no knowledge of the Bible and hence by their ignorance would warrant a resurrection.

So in essence it's a fear of man (losing friends, relatives) that keep many in the Org when in fact it's love for God and Christ which should cause them to flee even though Jesus pointed out that they would receive these very same things a hundredfold in the system to come. So it is therefore better to flee and take your chances with God and Christ than to stay and risk destruction because of a fear of losing these things.

269

The Hubble, Yahweh, the Bible, and faith.

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

there have been several threads in which the views of the universe provided by the hubble space telescope have been discussed.

i guess this will be another one.

there's a new series being broadcast here in canada on the oasis hd nature channel entitled hubble's canvas.

Awen

I'm gonna jump back into this thread.

On the topic of the blind not being able to "see" a sunset. Yes true they cannot see a sunset with their eyes. But they can still perceive it's effects on the world around them and thus know that it's occuring. When I was a child I had an accident which took my sight from me for a time. I was completely blind and I recall it quite vividly. Also in my life I have been blessed enough to have friends who were deaf and or blind. When asking them how they perceive the world I received many different answers (based upon whther they were blind or deaf). For a blind person although they cannot see a sunset, it's presence can be discerned by it's effect upon the environment. Birds often become quieter near sunset. The sun's heat isn't as intense at sunset as it is, say at noontime. It's cooler (heat wise) after sunset. So while they may not be able to literally see the sunset, they can discern that's it's happening (or has happened) based upon other sensory information.

This is what's called personal experience. Neither Shelby, Tammy nor myself can tell you that God exists. We can share personal experiences but that doesn't mean a hill of beans to you unless you experience it yourself. Same as a sunset for a blind person. We both experience God (a sunset) in our own way. I think this is why people refer to the act of coming to "know" Christ as "accepting Jesus as your personal Savior." It's based upon YOUR experiences and not that of others. It's not the experiences of people in the Bible, on this forum or whomever.

@ Nickolas

You say it's hard to believe in evidence you cannot perceive. I say good for you. God doesn't want followers who blindly follow Him. He wants people to know that He exists based upon personal experience. The Bible is just a road sign pointing the way to the destination but you still have to make your way there and not give up. This is where Paul talked about running the race to it's completion and not tiring out. At one time my faith was completely gone and I felt like a ship without a sail or rudder, drifting aimlessly on a vast sea of despair.

But I kept looking, I kept knocking and eventually I found my way again. I realized I couldn't put faith in the words of others but had to rely on my own experiences. Likewise this is why I have such a huge problem with modern science. How am I to know these people are being truthful? How am I to know they have MY best interests at heart? How am I to know they know what they're talking about? Now replace the word "science" with "religion" and you see MY dilemma. For the most part it seems to be a mass consensus or acknowledgement of a body of people who all agree on the same theories, facts, arguments or what have you that forms a conclusion.

In other words you and so many others have FAITH that what has been printed in these scientific journal are true, because you lack the knowledge, skill or equipment to test these theories yourself. To my knowledge none of what you hold to be true is based upon personal research/testing.

How is this in any way different than what people who do believe in God have done?

24

KH = Private Property (No Trespassing sign)... wtf?

by Scully in

.

do other churches have "no trespassing" signs on the grounds?.

i don't recall ever seeing "private property - no trespassing" signs on other churches, especially ones that have a priest or minister available at all hours, or ones that offer space for community services or other kinds of events.. i wonder whether there is some kind of legal expectation of a charitable organization that pays no taxes to offer access for community services in order to maintain their tax free status.. anyone else ever see signs like this on kh property?.

Awen

This might be a way to keep Apostates from attending the Memorial or regular meetings. The J-dubs can cite private property laws and have them prosecuted. This might also affect KH's who might try to secede from the WTBTS (like Menlo Park). The WTBTS can cite private property law and have the dissedents expelled from the property, keeping them from obtaining important documents from the KH files.

Seems a likely scenario.

15

Does your conscience ever hurt you for........

by journey-on in

jw
friends

.....bringing someone into the organization of jehovah's witnesses?

personally, i had several bible studies, but thankfully, never got any of them all the way to baptism.

my conscience is clear..

Awen

I never had a Bible study. I would offer them and people would accept but I would always pass them along to the Pioneers. The non-Pioneers were actually encouraged to do this from the platform then later on sneered at by the Pioneers for not having Bible studies. O.o

269

The Hubble, Yahweh, the Bible, and faith.

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

there have been several threads in which the views of the universe provided by the hubble space telescope have been discussed.

i guess this will be another one.

there's a new series being broadcast here in canada on the oasis hd nature channel entitled hubble's canvas.

Awen

I think I will bow out of this topic. It's far beyond my limited education and some of the jargon I don't quite comprehend. I gave my point of view on what I think and that's all I can really do. Anything added to this thread by me would be pure speculation I think.

Awen

46

Would you go back if you thought there were one in a million chances you were wrong?

by Paul Duda in

jw
friends

often i wake up in a cold sweat wondering if i'm wrong.

life is short.

i have only a brief time to make a decision.

Awen

No and Yes.

No, because I know they're 100% wrong on most everything. There would have to be an admittance of guilt on the part of the Governing Body for misleading millions of people and causing the deaths of thousands due to their erroneous teachings on blood, the destruction of marriages because of their teachings on marriage and immediately recognizing that protecting pedophiles shames God's name more than revealing them and throwing them out of the organization.

Yes. Only if Yeshua asked me to for reasons other than the ones cited above.

11

Circuit Overseers What do they do?

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

circuit overseers what do they do?

today i uploaded to my blog an article showing documents circuit overseers send to each congregation in preparation for their upcoming inspection.

quite a few have never seen these, and they go a long way toward understanding the place and operation of these watchtower appointees within the organizations structure.

Awen

Oh please let them come to my house for a shepherding call. Please, please, please. I always have such fun with CO's and elders.

11

Circuit Overseers What do they do?

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

circuit overseers what do they do?

today i uploaded to my blog an article showing documents circuit overseers send to each congregation in preparation for their upcoming inspection.

quite a few have never seen these, and they go a long way toward understanding the place and operation of these watchtower appointees within the organizations structure.

Awen

Oh please let them come to my house for a shepherding call. Please, please, please. I always have such fun with CO's and elders.

10

Is there anyone sick among YOU? Let him call the older men!

by TimothyT in

i was reading the letter of james before and i came across a verse which a brother on my judicial comittee shown me:.

14 is there anyone sickamong you?

let him call the older men of the congregation to [him], and let them pray over him, greasing [him] with oil in the name of jehovah.

Awen

Also the name Jehovah doesn't actually occur in the Greek text of the Letter of James. It's Jesus' name, but that would contradict WT teaching and so Freddy Franz replaced the name with Jehovah when he "translated" the NWT.

I give you the letter of James in Greek with the English translation next to it as evidence.

http://www.bookofjames.info/greek.html

Note that in James 1:1 Jesus is referred to as "The Lord". So it's safe to conclude that any further references to "the Lord" is in fact a reference to Jesus and not Jehovah.

Also I think you are correct when this scripture is speaking of physical ailments and not spiritual ones. The reason the WTS says otherwise is because their reasoning is flawed.

269

The Hubble, Yahweh, the Bible, and faith.

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

there have been several threads in which the views of the universe provided by the hubble space telescope have been discussed.

i guess this will be another one.

there's a new series being broadcast here in canada on the oasis hd nature channel entitled hubble's canvas.

Awen

Project against this context the image of Yahweh as depicted in the OT. Against the incomprehensible magnificence of what He is alleged to have created, He appears very, very, very, very tiny and insignificant. Against the reality of tens of billions of years and billions of trillions of planets, the context of the past 4-5,000 years and the central story presented in the Bible is almost immeasurably diminished. Add to that the context provided by other branches of science, genetics not the least of them, and any semblance of credibility in Yahweh and the Bible vaporises. All that is left is faith.
This is a sincere question posed to sincere people. How does one go on believing in Yahweh and the Bible when the evidence against the legitimacy of either is so astonishingly overwhelming and relentless? Is it just cognitive dissonance, or is there something more to it? How is it possible for you to go on believing what you believe?

@ Nickolas. Firstly I have nothing but the greatest of respect for you. You've always been kind to me (even when we've disagreed) and are always polite, which to me makes any discourse with you enjoyable.

Secondly I am somewhat perplexed as to why you see YHWH as being diminished. I can only speculate that you're speaking of the YHWH that is only revealed in the 66 books of the Bible, not the other 550 or so books that have been written, hidden, destroyed, covered up, etc. There is so much that was written and is now lost, forgotten or even not accepted because they're not part of the "official" canon.

The Gospel of St Thomas is one of my favorites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

In the Thomas gospel, Jesus is presented as a spiritual guide whose words (when properly understood) bring eternal life (Saying 1). Readers of these sayings are advised to continue seeking until they find what will enable them to become rulers of their own lives (Saying 2) and thus to know themselves (Saying 3) and their legacy of being the children of "the living Father" (Saying 3). These goals are presented in the image of "entering the Kingdom" by the methodology of insight that goes beyond duality. (Saying 22). The Gospel of Thomas shows little or no concern for orthodox religious concepts and doctrines. Scholars have traditionally understood the Gospel of Thomas as a Gnostic text because it was found amongst other gnostic texts, it was understood as being prone to a Gnostic interpretation by the early Church, and the emphasis on knowledge as the key to salvation, particularly in Saying 1. However this view has recently come under some criticism by suggesting that while it is possible to interpret the text in a way that aligns with Gnosticism there is nothing inherently Gnostic about the text itself.
The Gospel of Thomas emphasizes direct and unmediated experience. In Thomas saying 108, Jesus says, "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him." Furthermore, salvation is personal and found through spiritual (psychological) introspection. In Thomas saying 70, Jesus says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not bring it forth, what you do not have within you will kill you." As such, this form of salvation is idiosyncratic and without literal explanation unless read from a psychological perspective related to Self vs. ego. In Thomas saying 3, Jesus says,
...the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.

It must be also recalled that many people on this forum discount the accuracy of the OT and is for the most part intermingled with older myths and legends. It's only as we progress further forward (speaking in measurements of time) do we gain a clearer picture of YHWH than what is depicted in Genesis. Psalm 139:16 seems to speak of the genetic code as David related how God was able to see his innermost being and establish his traits before he was even born.

On a side note I think the Deluge is a myth or at best a localized flood. One must also take into account who was writing the account and what their worldview was at the time. As far as most people were concerned, at the time the "world" constituted what they could see up to the next village or the limits of their travels. So when they said the entire world was flooded they were saying this from the point of view of what the viewed the "world" to actually be. Quite small actually as history has shown us. It took thousands of years for humans to discover the true size of the earth. It's only been a few centuries since Galileo first gazed through his telescope into the void. I mention the Deluge as a speaking point on the relevancy of Genesis as a whole. While there is valuable information in the text I do think it may have been tampered with, especially concerning the six creative days. I think there might have been an understanding (at the time it was written or even an annotation in the text, but there isn't one in modern translations) that it wasn't literally six 24 hour increments of time but rather a simple explanation of a very complex measurement of time. It had to be simple as higher mathematics hadn't been invented at this time. It was written with the primitive man in mind and we're conveniently forgetting that.

As far as I can tell genetics hasn't disproved the Bible, quite the opposite in fact. Genesis states that life was created according to it's kind or what we call a "Genus" Evolution shows us that life cannot evolve outside of it's Genus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

If you click the hyperlink for Hominids you'll see that Apes are in the same Genus as Humans (of course you know this already). I'm merely pointing out that we're related inside the same Genus and didn't evolve independently of them. Genesis says God created man directly, but as I've suggested before this could be a tampering with the text because evolution shows us something quite different. The point about not evolving outside of our "kinds" or Genus shows an undestanding of the genetic evolutionary process that was thousands of years beyond primitive man.

So how did they know?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor#Science_and_the_scientific_method