Mad Sweeney

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Posts by Mad Sweeney

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  97

  Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

  by TheStumbler in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

  i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

  last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

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  Mad Sweeney

  So typical. They are taught how NOT to reason and they label it "reasoning from the scriptures" so they THINK they CAN reason. In short, itsacult.

  Have you read Steve Hassan's books, TheStumbler?
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  97

  Elder father sent me an email about Feb 2012 WT - my resposne

  by TheStumbler in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i'm not sure if any of you will remember but i posted on here six months ago about a correspondence i was having with my dad, an elder, about who would die in armageddon.

  i was asking some tough questions about children being killed in armageddon and i could tell he uncomfortable with the answers he was giving.. i drafted an email in resposne to his email but in the end i decided not to send it in the interest of maintaining friendly relations.. .

  last week, out of the blue, my dad sent an email link to the february 2012 watchtower article about armageddon and said it would answer some of my questions.. here is my response which is a critique of the feb 2012 wt article and some of the broader ethics concerning 'armageddon'.

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  Mad Sweeney

  I haven't read all the comments so apologies if this has been addressed already. Great letter TheStumbler. I feel like the point needs to be made to your dad that you are not criticizing Jehovah himself by making clear the Watchtower's position that he is a baby killer - you are showing that the Watchtower is misrepresenting the loving God they claim to worship and represent. If they're mistaken on fundamental points like this one, what else can they not be trusted about?
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  20

  Are you CONFRONTED by Elders? 7 points to practice

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  remember that old movie, the adventures of robin hood with erroll flynn?.

  there is a scene where robin wants to cross a creek by walking across a log used as a bridge.

  friar tuck is determined to stop him.. the are both standing on the log over the creek opposing each other with not-all-too-friendly banter.. somebody is going to end up in the water!.

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  Mad Sweeney

  marking
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  20

  Young People Ask . . . March 2012 Awake

  by sizemik in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i read very little wts propaganda these days, even on-line stuff .

  unless it's for a specific purpose.

  most of you will identify with that.. i perused this article while checking out something else and was disturbed by the manipulative reasoning directed at jw youths.

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  Mad Sweeney

  I really feel for the kids...sad.
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  15

  NEW YEAR STRATEGY: CHOOSE your BATTLEGROUND carefully!

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  abraham lincoln was once challenged to a duel to the death when he offended somebody.. as the one challenged, it was his right to pick the weapons and the place of battle.. lincoln's challenger was a short fellow and an expert marksman.

  don't fight in magic land.. .

  no, not their interpretation---the bible itself!.

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  Mad Sweeney
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  121

  WTS successfully refutes bogus UN conspiracy theory/hoax

  by trthskr in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://jehovahsjudgment.co.uk/watchtower-un-ngo/translatable.html.

  there will be more to come folks, when i'm allowed to start another topic.

  cheers.. to respond to the posting below (since i can't reply right now), it's because they weren't aware of the change until then..

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  Mad Sweeney

  It's no more insane than claiming that the "trumpet blasts" of Revelation are District Convention talks. LMAO at myself for EVER believing any of their crap.
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  23

  When did this "written review" idea get started?

  by james_woods in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for some reason, i simply cannot remember any written review being done and graded in all my jw time (1962 to about 1980).. have i completely forgotten this, or did it get started after i had left?.

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  Mad Sweeney

  I loved the written review. It actually gave us kids something to DO at the meeting besides sit still and shut up.
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  294

  Evil Spirits

  by LizLA in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  does anyone on this forum have knowledge about casting out demons or evil spirits?

  there's at least two of them that have been harrasing me even before i was a jw.

  i recently attended a deliverance church to find some help but it was apparent that the holy spirit was missing from that church.

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  Mad Sweeney

  Questions: Why don't spirits ever do anything useful, practical, or logical? And since all they ever seem to do is bother people in ridiculous and mundane ways, why insist on calling them things like intelligent and evil? They don't seem particularly bright or wicked to me, just stupid and annoying.
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  10

  Great POEMS that are meant to be READ ALOUD

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here is a favorite of mine by vachel lindsay.. i urge you to read it out loud and really give it a rhythmic beat!.

  general william booth enters into heavenby vachel lindsay.

  [bass drum beaten loudly].

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  Mad Sweeney

  A couple of my favorites below:

  Ulysses
  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  It little profits that an idle king,
  By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
  Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
  Unequal laws unto a savage race,
  That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
  
  I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
  Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
  Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
  That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
  Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
  Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
  For always roaming with a hungry heart
  Much have I seen and known; cities of men
  And manners, climates, councils, governments,
  Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
  And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
  Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
  I am part of all that I have met;
  Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
  Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
  For ever and for ever when I move.
  How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
  To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
  As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
  Were all to little, and of one to me
  Little remains: but every hour is saved
  From that eternal silence, something more,
  A bringer of new things; and vile it were
  For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
  And this gray spirit yearning in desire
  To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
  Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
  
  This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
  To whom I leave the scepter and the isle
  Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
  This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
  A rugged people, and through soft degrees
  Subdue them to the useful and the good.
  Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
  Of common duties, decent not to fail
  In offices of tenderness, and pay
  Meet adoration to my household gods,
  When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
  
  There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
  There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
  Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me
  That ever with a frolic welcome took
  The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
  Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;
  Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
  Death closes all: but something ere the end,
  Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
  Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
  'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
  Push off, and sitting well in order smite
  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
  Of all the western stars, until I die.
  It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
  It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
  And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
  Though much is taken, much abides; and though
  We are not now that strength which in the old days
  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
  One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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  10

  Great POEMS that are meant to be READ ALOUD

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here is a favorite of mine by vachel lindsay.. i urge you to read it out loud and really give it a rhythmic beat!.

  general william booth enters into heavenby vachel lindsay.

  [bass drum beaten loudly].

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  Mad Sweeney

  Invictus by William Ernest Henley:

  Out of the night that covers me,
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
  I thank whatever gods may be
  For my unconquerable soul.
  
  In the fell clutch of circumstance
  I have not winced nor cried aloud.
  Under the bludgeonings of chance
  My head is bloody, but unbowed.
  
  Beyond this place of wrath and tears
  Looms but the Horror of the shade,
  And yet the menace of the years
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
  
  It matters not how strait the gate,
  How charged with punishments the scroll.
  I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul