obviously at some point you stopped believing the witnesses had the truth or else you wouldn’t be here.
.
but for the most part, were you a true believer or were you typically a rebel or a doubter?
Yup I thought the Cedar point Ohio thing was laughable.
For the life of me I just couldn't see being gay as wrong. I had a lot of heated discussions around that topic! I thought it cruel to condemn a person who was born that way and I was aware animals were far from all hetero. I was told that was just a consequence of imperfection getting worse over generations ...🙄
big news from israel, some previously undiscovered dead sea scrolls have been found with portions of the ot in greek.
it says the name of god is included in hebrew letters within the greek text.. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/middleeast/dead-sea-scrolls.html.
"the new fragments contain verses from zechariah 8:16-17, including part of the name of god written in ancient hebrew, and verses from nahum 1:5-6, both from the biblical book of the twelve minor prophets.".
Ding Actually, this is an argument against the Watchtower position.
On balance I tend to agree. Of course we'll never know for sure, unless we find some first century manuscripts.
Of course if the early Christians believed Jesus was God, that would explain their use of 'The Lord' rather than the tetragramaton. This papyrus certainly proves it was known and used by the Greek speaking scribes.
for pimi pimo persons: give us one text that says those aspiring to everlasting life should not partake of the bread and wine.
in the article, the whole proposition of refusing the emblems is based on the personal experience of one brother in the 1930s.!
all jws partook.
That's a very good point waton, and one I'd never considered. That just because you don't aspire to be of the 144000 or to go to heaven, why should you still not partake?
Watchtower truly doesn't have one single scripture from the Bible that justifies their position on who gets to partake!
do humans have the right to live on this planet?
we have, in much less than a century, managed to fill the earth with so much plastic waste that tiny fragments of plastic have been found on the highest mountains and the deepest ocean depths.
not satisfied with doing that, we stupidly continue to do it.
Is a dramatic reduction in human fertility a cause for concern?
More like a cause for celebration. Earth will do just fine without us.
As if this wasn’t terrifying enough, Swan’s research finds that these chemicals aren’t just dramatically reducing semen quality, they are also shrinking penis size and volume of the testes. This is nothing short of a full-scale emergency for humanity.
A dramatic reduction in male penis sizes?
For god's sake, ladies, call the UN!!!!!!😜😜😜
*(Thanks for the post FTS it's very interesting)
jehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
While it is not a popular opinion here, becoming a JW is a voluntary association.
The point was made in court that a large number of Jehovah’s witnesses are baptised while still minors. They are pressurising kids of 7 and 8 to do so currently. So no, it is not voluntary in many, if not most, cases.
Joe134CD it will bankrupt watchtower
Joe just out of interest, the EXJWs involved in this just requested one dollar compensation. They didn’t want watchtower to claim they did this for the money. Very sensible.
jehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
I believe that an appeal will overturn the current verdict on the basis of freedom of association rights.
VANDER the case centres on hate speech. Shunning comes into play because they used examples of it to prove that watchtowers hate speech toward those of others faiths or beliefs has damaging, even violent, results, namely cruelty and shunning. It’s not not shunning they are legislating against. Not freedom of association.
To respond to your statement they may play it smart and not appeal. As others have said if it goes all the way to Strasbourg and the ECHR, the rest of the world will sit up and take notice and any ruling would be seen as persuasive or strong precedent in other States.
I would have thought you of all people would see that prejudice against a person because of their faith/beliefs/lack thereof, is wrong.
jehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
https://bitterwinter.org/editorial-board/ have a look at their editorial board folks!
VIENNE Without even looking I knew exactly who was behind that link you posted. Massimo Introveign is a well known cult apologist (whom watchtower recently dropped when they discovered his association with satanism 🤪)I suggest you put his name into the JWdotnet search engine and see what comes up.
It was He and Another crony who supported watchtower in this, Prof. Folkes, a women who had the audacity to defend watchtowers right to keep their peadophile database private.
jehovah's witnesses in belgium have to pay €12k fine for shunning policy.
news.
you have probably heard of the trial going on in belgium about the shunning policy of jws.
would not like my choice of associates to be regulated by law. Is disfellowshipping painful? I see that it is. Do I want to be forced to speak to a disfellowshiped pedophile because a judge says I must? No. Not now. Not ever. One's choice of associates, no matter what drives it, should be beyond a judge's purview.
VIENNE Firstly, they have not been prosecuted shunning specifically, but rather for hate speech and discrimination. The result of which is egregious in the extreme and does indeed involve shunning. The Ghent public prosecutor’s office summoned the Jehovah’s Witnesses for four charges: incitement to discrimination on the basis of religious belief against a person, and against a group, as well as incitement to hatred or violence against a person, and against a group.
If you have ever read the sort of rhetoric watchtower uses when describing apostates, you will absolutely understand why.
It is absolutely not about being made to associate with someone, but rather about an organisation forcing its members NOT to associate with loved ones who have changed their beliefs.
i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?
please reflect on why you think the question was asked.
(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).
together with the latest scrolls they found a beautiful basket dated as > 10 000 years old, so the 6 000 year limit for human consciousness, is a basket case.
Waton 😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?
please reflect on why you think the question was asked.
(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).
Yes. Human artefacts going back many thousands of years, for one. Such as the kind of “Venus” found at Hohle fels caves and the “lion man” of Swabia, Germany, nearly 40,000 years old both. We also have bone flutes of a similar age and skull beads found in Israel over 100,000 years old.
watchtower claims dating methods are off but their information around that is extremely dated to say the least. A rudimentary check will flood a truly interested party with information on how long man has existed. Trouble is most witnesses are not truly interested.
