i am really really upset right now.
i just got off of the phone with my jw sister, who lives in seattle.. she just recently moved there last summer when she married her husband, tim.
lara, my sister, is a jw and her husband is not.
I also live in the Seattle area.
Amarie: If I can help give me a holler.
Dim: Ditto above when you move. I'm an accountant for a Real Estate syndicator, if you need help with finding a place I'd be happy to offer advice (I have no financial interest in this).
My email is [email protected]
does anyone know or heard if its true that alec baldwin has become a witness?
I'm still waiting for him to leave the country like he promised to do if Bush was elected President.
If he beat Kim Bassinger he's a bigger idiot than I thought.
ok bobsgirl got a bunch of advice, now i'd like to hear from the women.
our anniversary (27 years)is this weekend.
i've rented a place that has beach access and a hottub (on whidbey island for those in the seattle area).
Good suggestions from everyone. If you think of anything else I'll still be around until tomorrow.
ok bobsgirl got a bunch of advice, now i'd like to hear from the women.
our anniversary (27 years)is this weekend.
i've rented a place that has beach access and a hottub (on whidbey island for those in the seattle area).
Yes, I know what she likes, and yes I have a pretty good idea of the basics. I'm just looking for new ideas. Something that will leave going "Wow, how did he dream that up?"
ok bobsgirl got a bunch of advice, now i'd like to hear from the women.
our anniversary (27 years)is this weekend.
i've rented a place that has beach access and a hottub (on whidbey island for those in the seattle area).
Ok Bobsgirl got a bunch of advice, now I'd like to hear from the women. Our anniversary (27 years)is this weekend. I've rented a place that has beach access and a hottub (on Whidbey Island for those in the Seattle area). So any ideas for making it an extra special weekend?
i was raised a jw & left when i was 19. my husband went to a few different churches growing up (catholic, methodist etc) but he doesn't really consider himself a member of any particular denomination.
he considers himself a christian, although he isn't sure what he believes or if he believes in the bible as god's word.. i have run from any type of organized group that is controlling.
i don't know if i believe in god, or the bible as anything more than a series of stories with life lessons in them.
I go to a large independent (non-denominational) church. I feel very free to make up my own mind on any number of subjects.
If you want to take a look the website is www.occ.org.
can anyone recomend any info or essay asnwering this question?
friends ask me to tell them what other organization is the true religion.
i realize its not even a very good question in the first place.
Yes. I think all of us are brothers and sisters within the family of man. I'm not so arrogant to think that it is my way or the highway.
I was speaking strictly of a unity of belief within the Christian faith. My point, which may not have been as clear as I wanted was this: The Watchtower is fond of talking about all the diversity of groups within "Christendom" as an indication of disunity. They are totally off the mark on this.
can anyone recomend any info or essay asnwering this question?
friends ask me to tell them what other organization is the true religion.
i realize its not even a very good question in the first place.
I put the following on another board awhile back. It sums up how a feel about this issue. For the WTBS to apply to itself something that Jesus said about himself is the height of arrogance.
The nature and unity of the Church.
I was well into what I thought would be the first of my essays when I realized that there was another issue I had to address first. The Watchtower viewpoint contains a badly flawed understanding of the nature and role of the church, and holds assumptions about the mainstream churches that are factually wrong.
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society claims that all references to the church in the Bible, including allegorical ones, apply to themselves, and even more specifically to an anointed group of 144,000. As anyone who as spent any time reading JW literature can attest, references to “God’s Organization” are endless. One cannot understand the bible without “God’s Organization.” One cannot be spiritually or morally clean without “God’s Organization.” It is up to “God’s Organization” to insure the cleanliness of the Christian Congregation. All correct doctrine comes from “God’s Organization.” Everything outside “God’s Organization” is false religion, immorality, Satan worship, etc.
It is a common assumption among JW’s that the churches of Christendom are in total disarray and disunity. References to Christian disunity are frequently made in Watchtower publications. On numerous occasions I heard public speakers within the Watchtower organization make references to the churches fighting with each other over which one of them was the true religion. I remember one in particular that said if you looked up churches in the phone book you’d find pages and pages of all different kinds of churches, but there was only one kind of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is also axiomatic among witnesses to talk about how the members of “Christendom’s” churches fight each other in wars. This is taken as proof that they hate each other.
When I left the Watchtower I discovered what I had understood on these matters was plain wrong.
The Church is the worldwide body of all believers. It has been called “the blessed company of all faithful people.” {Zondervan Pictoral Encyclopedia of the Bible, Zondervan Corp. 1975 vol. 1 p 848} It is clear that in the early days of the church one became a member of the church by accepting Christ through a simple declaration of faith, “Jesus is Lord,” 1 Cor. 12:3. This declaration was sufficient to qualify one for water baptism. Note that one becomes a member of the church through the declaration of faith, baptism was simply a public expression of that membership.
This contrasts very sharply with the Watchtower’s six month home bible study program, really an indoctrination into Watchtower theology. When I became a witness one had to pass an eighty question test in order to be baptized. To the best of my knowledge something like this still exists. No where in the Bible do I find such a requirement.
The Watchtower’s massive and rigid organizational structure is not found in the Bible, indeed such an “Organization” would have been impossible in the first century. Today, all policy, procedure, doctrine and disciplinary matters have to be cleared through the Watchtower Society’s bureaucracy in Brooklyn, NY.
But the Christian community doesn’t think that way. If you’ve made a public confession of faith, you’re a Christian. You aren’t believing the wrong things if you haven’t read last weeks Watchtower yet. Most churches offer a short course on the basics beliefs of The Church, once you’ve done that you have most of what you need. Deeper study increases your knowledge of God, but it isn’t a requirement of salvation, and failure to keep up with every exact point won’t get you thrown out of church. In fact there is a diversity of thought on many subjects, but only on fine points not those that directly effect one’s salvation.
The Church, as all Christians know it, is much more unified than Witnesses believe. Among believers there is widespread agreement on the basic tenants of the Christian faith. There is a general acceptance that other professing Christians are spiritual siblings, even if they go to a different church. As a friend once put it to me “I can worship with anybody that acknowledges Jesus as Lord.”
The discovery that the Christian churches regarded themselves as unified as the Body of Christ hit me like an epiphany one day while I was doing some research shortly before we left the witnesses. I went home from a trip to the library and told my wife “It’s like all of the churches agree on all of the main points. They aren’t fighting each other, they are united on the things that really count.” This erased one of my biggest problems – and one that I think is common to those that leave the Watchtower but want to stay spiritual - we’ve all been taught that you have to find the one true church. The search becomes much easier when you’re not looking for a needle in haystack.
Unity does not require uniformity.
as long as i can remember even though we didn't vote as jw's i've always philosophically vascillated between being either a closet democrat or independent.
i still don't vote, but when things come up in the media, i find i do have some pretty straight-forward opinions on various items.
what parties views in your country do you seem to vibe with and why?
Free thinker.
If the Libertarians ever get their act together I'd go that way. I was a democrat. Voted for McGovern in '72. The next time I voted it was Dukakis in '88. In '92 I voted for Perot, just because I was iritated at the Republicrats. This last time around I voted mostly Republican. I like their economics, but not their social agenda.
lets play a game!.
let make beleive that this post is headed by elders from you know congregation, and they have heard rumors about you know apostasy, but before they can get a committee together the need solid facts that you know is truly an apostate.. the poster can play either the part of elders who are investigating, or that of a loyal jws bringing facts to the elders attention about this matter.. i think this could be fun, or i maybe totally wrong and nobody wants to play this game.. we might even get enough facts together to form a committee and disfellowship him (in our game).
i'll defend your right to say it, but it doesn't mean i beleive it.
Another sister told someone who told my wife that she saw somebody that looked a lot like You Know in a parked car late at night with Sister Loose Conduct. If he's been on the internet that means he's been looking at pornography too. This could lead to all sorts of trouble. One of us needs to find out what elese he's been looking at on the internet.
