oppostate

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Posts by oppostate

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  65

  Higher Education and Disqualification for Privileges in the Congregation

  by 00DAD in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when i was still serving as an elder in the late summer of 2006 in a congregation of jws in socal we received a letter from the "christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses" (read: the governing body) directing that anyone pursuing a higher education would be disqualified from privileges of service: elder, servant, pioneer, etc.

  i remember this quite distinctly because i had just received by ba in education in june a few months before this.

  in 2002, i had decided to pursue a degree under the society's then current "it's a personal decision" policy and was quite shocked at their drastic policy change.

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  oppostate
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  70

  Were any of you anointed?

  by TimothyT in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  did any of you feel that mystical force telling you that you were of the anointed class?.

  what did it feel like?

  was it real?

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  oppostate

  Hi Tim,

  I partake. I feel the scriptures teach us Jesus words on the matter. He said "do this in memory of me".

  There are scriptures such as 1 John 5:1 that tell us we are children of God if we put faith in His Son.

  The word Christ means anointed and a Christian is a follower of Christ. Since he told his folllowers

  we should drink and eat of the emblems in his memory then all Christians should. The Holy Spirit is a

  helper that guides me, basically it reinforces things that were already there through my faith in Jesus

  as my Savior, my Mediator to our Heavenly Father.

  I'm opposed to the Watchtower's teaching that Jesus is only the mediator for 144000 persons ouf of

  mankind. I feel that he is a willing mediator for all humankind. His suffering on the cross was a sacrifice

  that bought faithful ones with a price, the great price of his life, for our lives.

  Therefore I partake... in memory of our Savior's great sacrifice for "all humankind".
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  10

  1977 to 1981 EMs-PDF!

  by Atlantis in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the ems are the elders manuals that were published from 1977 to 1981.. -.

  if you want these manuals send me a pm and i'll paste the download link in your pm page.

  you may need to copy and paste the link into your browser to get the link to work.

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  oppostate

  I seem to not be able to access the pm section.

  It throws an error every time. Even when refreshing or trying several times at different times of the day (or night)

  I'm using Chrome and Firefox.

  Please don't tell me that the forum only works right with IE9 or something like that.

  Any ideas?
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  41

  Was today's WT study an indictment of us who still attend the KH?

  by compound complex in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  given the interest shown in today's wt study, i got to thinking that the society knows many of us still attend meetings.

  the wording of today's lesson doesn't allude only to outsider's breaking in with their filthy apostate literature and tv interviews but also to satanic insider's working the faithful sheep in the pen.. we've discussed on other threads how jwn and like sites appear to be monitored.

  of course, the society's literature never clues the reader in on what exactly apostates teach nor how we infiltrators do our clandestine work of sabotaging the sheep's faith.. any thoughts?.

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  oppostate

  Hi CoCo,
  I opted to stay home and call in. But I was fuming whenever
  I heard a watchtarded comment from some of
  the friends I truly like and some I admire as good hearted
  people--the mind control is so obvious once you've "awakened".

  One little girl 4 years old commented "I love dragons and dinosaurs"
  and that just about had me in tears laughing.

  It was definitely not what the parents nor the conductor were expecting.
  I could hear a few giggles before the conductor after an awkward pause
  went on to say, "well, thank you for sharing that" then kept on going
  with the mind numbing Q&A.

  About your question...

  My favorite way to plant a thought is to raise questions matter of factly during
  service.

  Why do you think it says "print of the nails" when Thomas
  is talking about Jesus' hand wounds. How would his hands
  look having been nailed, if there were more than one nail?
  Not one hand on top of another, right?

  It's just a conversation starter whenever there's a picture of Jesus with one
  hand over the other and nailed with a single nail on an upright stake.

  I've also asked where does the Bible mention paradise is found.
  And then go to the account where Paul talks about his vision of third heaven.
  Another point I like to ask is how can we say that 144000 is a litteral number
  if the 12 tribes aren't the literal 12 tribes of Israel and the members aren't
  natural jews, but symbolic. Shouldn't the whole verse be symbolic including the number?
  One more point I've made with some friends is about where the Great Crowd is
  singing praises in Revelation. It's in heaven according to the verse.

  
  Of course if you look up these scriptures in the WTLib you'll notice a very drawn
  out and "evidently" made up explanation to make it agree with WT teachings.

  But I think it just may leave a question in someone's mind about what the Bible
  is actually saying, not what the WT explains it to mean.
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  10

  Apostate Organization?

  by Diest in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  is there any group that is not crazy(six screens) that puts up legitimate billboards or other advertising about jws.

  any group that deserves donations for really fighting the fine fight?

  i would donate if i knew they were really putting the money toward helping people get out of the borg..

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  oppostate

  You could help V make more videos, or help FreeMinds' website too.
• 
  41

  Thanks for your support JWN!!! Dad dies monday, JW family goes to convention on thursday

  by Coffee House Girl in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  coffee shop guy directed me to his thread...thank you so much everyone for your thoughts of support, it means a lot to have people who understand and show genuine sympathy.

  here's my experience so far.... my father dies monday night & my brother (nonjw) calls me to come home, when i arrive my father is still sitting on the couch- all the jw family is sitting in a semi-circle around him, my non jw brother is standing in the next room.

  no one is crying, no one is talking.

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  oppostate

  I'm very sorry to hear of your loss CHR, and I agree you and your brother showed a lot of affection and respect in a rememberance of your Dad that meant a lot to you both, as you say, and that's what he'd want, probably, to be next to you both and share a Stroh's and a hotdog and talk of happy memories.
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  7

  Will JW's flock to Google+?

  by HintOfLime in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it's like facebook... but unlikely to be specifically mentioned in any sermons for a while.... that makes it "ok", right?.

  - lime.

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  oppostate

  I'm there, it's like FB but not so similar. And... Thanks to a very active bro who invited me. And I'm inviting 12 more in return. Yup, it's a grand ol' JW love fest going on.
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  23

  THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

  by lepavoux in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in english we read from left to right, but in hebrew they read from right to left.. now the tetragrammaton yhwh (yahweh) we read god's name in the english from left to right,but is this correct?

  should we not be reading the name from right to left?

  if we did this the pronunciation would it not be in the opposite direction?

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  oppostate

  The pronunciation wasn't really lost. The Hebrew alphabet does use some of its consonants as helper vowels. Josephus says the tetragrammaton was written with four "vowels" not with any four letters or four consonants.

  Look at the word for Judah, which is Yehudah in Hebrew. It's spelled Yod-Heh-Waw-Dalet-Heh and the pronunciation sounds like Yay-hoo-DAH with the emphasis on the last syllable.

  If you take the letter Dalet out you're left with Yay-hoo-AH with emphasis on the last syllable. And if you take the Dalet out you have the letters Yod-Heh-Waw-Heh left which is the spelling of God's personal name.

  Now Yay-hoo-AH is very close to how it is pronounced in Arabic today, Ya-hoo-ah, and spelled with the same four letters in the Arabic alphabet which is derived from the same source as the Hebrew alphabet.

  Now the W letter has changed to V in many languages, and it did in Hebrew where David is no longer pronounced Da-weed, and in Arabic it's Daoud, but in Modern Hebrew David sounds like Da-veed, much like a Spanish pronunciation of David.

  So from Yah-hoo-AH to Yay-hov-AH as the change goes and in Latinized transliteration (from some medieval monk) you get IEHOVA, which came to English as Jehovah and Spanish as Jehová (Hay-oh-VAH).

  Okay, enough linguistics, but anyway that's my rationalization of it.
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  24

  WHY have District Conventions??

  by RagingBull in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  during sunday's program of the dc..."donations" came up and there was mention of using "debit and credit cards" wow!....

  so i started thinking... we have an assembly hall in our town?

  10 mins from where we have our conventions.

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  oppostate

  M.m. wrote: " Profit from renting hotel rooms?"

  I worked at the rooming dept. desk at several DCs and one of the perks of having a list of approved hotels is that the Society gets so many free rooms as part of the contract.

  Knowing this, however, if a single mother with children needed a place, we were to contact her local congregation elders and see if the congregation could help her with arrangements.

  Only the "creamy" top of the Society would get the free rooms, GB members, Bethel Speakers, foreign missionaries brought home, etc.
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  10

  Why do you think the list of Service Group members isn't posted at KH?

  by oppostate in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  why do you think the service group members list isn't posted on the kingdom hall announcement board anymore?

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  oppostate

  blondie wrote: " I forgto add that some people were elder groupies and would only go to groups with that elder presiding."

  I must admit that's the way my service group has always been. A very laid back, always taking a long break at a pastry shop kind of group. The main reason most JWs' kids like to go in service is the break time routine. Elders and Pioneers who insist on no breaks aren't very popular.