I've heard that the Society changes some entries on the CD versus how they appeared in the original, printed text. Has anyone noticed any differences between the versions of the CDs?
IsaacJ22
JoinedPosts by IsaacJ22
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Old "Watchtower Library" (2007, 2005, 2004, English)
by possible-san inold "watchtower library" (2007, 2005, 2004, english).
although i do not know whether you need this information, i would post here anyway.. 2007:.
http://71.164.194.224/qwotes/files/software/watchtowerlibrary2007.zip.
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Can science allow one to extend life or live indefinitely now?
by EndofMysteries ini just had some weird thoughts.
right now we have the technology, artifical hearts, limbs, etc.
recent news articles i've read about how the technology now on reading thoughts, already people can think of turning on tv, electrical things and it happening with a chip implanted.
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IsaacJ22
AFAIK, there has been some serious progress on this front. They have successfully reduced the physical affects of age on mice and at least one dog. :-) I know that, with the mice, all the "symptoms" of aging were reversed. Even in the brain.
This is harder to do in humans, but it proves the principle behind the concept. That's without even taking artificial organs or nanotechnology into account.
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IsaacJ22
People who become megachurch pastors can't be genuine converts from atheism? Read his story for yourself. Contact him through his website if you want to assess his motives.
....
C.S. Lewis described himself as "the most reluctant convert" to theism of anyone in history. He was an Oxford don who became one of the greatest Christian writers and apologists of the 20th century. Flew was a celebrated debater favoring atheism until his conversion to theism, which he said was based on the findings of science regarding the complexity of life.
Read or listen to their own accounts and draw your own conclusions.
Let me say that I'm sure there are plenty of people who go from theism to atheism for reasons many of us would consider totally legit. Anyone can have a change of heart and I think we're all entitled to that. All XJWs should certainly know that one.
But there are also evangelical people who make this claim and who seem...disingenuine at times. At least to atheists. Many atheists have been confronted by an evangelist or two who seemed determined to make converts by any means necessary. Even lying. Sometimes they say things like, "Yeah, I used to be an atheist. My life was a horrible lie and I was terrible person. Just like you. Then I accepted God into my heart and now everything is just skippy. Maybe you should give it a try instead of wallowing in your shallow misery. Jesus loves you, you know, and so do I."
????
It's hard not to roll your eyes at people who say crap like this. Its not only offensive, it's also clear just how clueless such a person is.
Experiences like these make atheists a little suspicious when we hear people make the "I was an athesit too" claim. I think most atheists, like myself, know that such conversions can happen. It's not as if we're all too proud to conceive of such a thing. It's just that people making the claim often do so dishonestly. Not always, but often. So as soon as someone tells us this, some of us start paying close attention to see if their claim appears genuine.
In other words, I hope you won't take it too personally when an atheist treats these claims with suspicion. Especially if there's a good reason to do so.
With regard to C.S. Lewis and Anthony Flew, there are good reasons to think that Anony Mous's claims about each of them have at least som merit. C.S. Lewis seems far too clueless about atheists or atheism to have ever been much of a nonbeliever. His writing seems ill informed and even deliberately offensive to athests at times. He is the classic "I was an atheist too but then I became a good person" kinda guy. His writing about atheists seems more like pandering to fundamentalists who dislike us. Kinda like the Watchtower's writing on atheists has often been.
Several of Anthony Flew's friends have gone public and said he's going senile. I even read a few interviews at the time where the ones doing the interview were saddened by what they perceived as his slipping mental state. I have no idea if those writers were atheists with an axe to grind or not. These claims about Flew might be false, but they are out there. BTW, many made a big deal out of his conversion to deism (not theism AFAIK, but to deism, which is different) at the time as if it was a huge blow to atheists. Yet many of us had never even heard of Anthony Flew before this story went out. I certainly hadn't. His time was long before my time. So most us just kinda shrugged at the whole thing.
I know nothing about Strobel. But I don't think it's unreasonable to raise eyebrows at a guy who went from atheist to mega-church creator. That doesn't mean it can't happen and be genuine. But I think we can all admit that his story is a tiny bit fishy. I think most people would want to hear more before they took his claims at face value. Or at least I'd say that based on what I just read here.
None of this means that conversion from atheism can't happen. I'm sure it can. But I certainly don't believe every story I hear either.
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What's your view on who REALLY are the "mentally diseased" apostates?
by Fernando inreligion allows us to know the "god of religion".. .
the unabridged gospel/bissar/injeel allows us to know the "god of abraham".. .
know = be intimate with (spiritual union or intercourse).
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IsaacJ22
The fact that the Society's writing committee let the "mentally diseased" phrase through its filters without realizing the wording might seem...a tad evil, bigoted, or inflammatory...says something too, I think. They're so used to saying evil BS about us that no one's alarms went off even to their own benefit.
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Porn for Women: The Twilight Saga
by MeanMrMustard inthis article expresses in words what i have felt for some time.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/porn-for-women-the-twilight-saga/?singlepage=true.
lol.
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IsaacJ22
It seems the books are just as bad. I found this web site to be very fun:
http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/
The creator posts scans of the pages from the Twilight novels and pokes fun at them. You actually learn about good writing in the process, too.
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Do you get constant "digs" by JWs that still talk with you?
by skeeter1 inmy personal story: i grew up as a jw, left, went to college, and have a career.
i have a spouse, married for many moons, wonderful kids, normal house, cute dog, and newer cars.
the "american dream".
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IsaacJ22
The digs I used to get were usually different. Less about material things, more about spiritual things. Some used to come to my place of work--people I never met but who know my wife--to chat with me about my wife. Then they would make smart comments OVER THEIR SHOULDER as they were leaving about how they were going to make it through Armageddon and I was going to be sorry.
When I asked them to repeat their comments, they'd just run away as if I hadn't said anything.
Part of the problem is that my wife used to go to them to vent about me, and when you combine this with the "worldly husband" stereotype, I was already a bad buy no matter how nice I was to them in person. Note that my wife has had some psychological problems and wouldn't take her medication. :-( She is doing better with this now.
These days, most the digs I get are online, like on Facebook or G+. Thankfully, I no longer work in a job that forces me to deal with the public where any JW with a chip on their shoulder can come find me.
You could try simply asking them, "What would Jesus think if he heard you say that? Oh yeah, he just did."
I'm an atheist. But maybe this will make them more self conscious of their actions. They're setting a bad example to the "worldly" public as well.
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Read S. Hassan's Book: Do JW's really fit the cult mold?
by simon17 infirst time i got a chance to read his book, "combatting cult mind control" and was interested to see if jw's fell into the cult mold.
my opinion after carefully reading and having left the witnesses after almost 30 years is... no, they don't.
however, i would add that they wish they were but are simply too big and unwieldy to really pull it off.
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IsaacJ22
Or yeah, pretty much what LostGeneration said. :)
BTW, while it's more or less true that most religions consider their beliefs to be "the truth," they don't impose this concept on their members to equal degrees. I know many Christians who go to various churches and who are more or less nondemoninational in their beliefs. Yet they suffer no consequences for this. JWs certainly would suffer consequences if they visited other churches or made any disagreement with accepted teachings very public.
I always try to keep in mind the fact that people have funny ideas about religions they're not really a part of. You can't really understand a religion very well by reading about it. You have to try living it for a while. With that in mind, I'm not sure that all of your comparisons to other religions are very fair or realistic. I'm not sure I see your comparison here to Islam, either. (?) Not that you're trying to start something with Islam. I just feel like you're missing part of the picture when you made those references in support of your view that the WTS isn't a cult.
To me, it's less about what they teach than it is about how they act, what sort of attitudes and behaviors they encourage in their members, and so forth.
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Read S. Hassan's Book: Do JW's really fit the cult mold?
by simon17 infirst time i got a chance to read his book, "combatting cult mind control" and was interested to see if jw's fell into the cult mold.
my opinion after carefully reading and having left the witnesses after almost 30 years is... no, they don't.
however, i would add that they wish they were but are simply too big and unwieldy to really pull it off.
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IsaacJ22
Simon, I think it depends on how high a bar you set for a cult. I suggest you be a bit careful when talking about this issue as people have different opinions and some hold to their opinions very passionately. Words like "cult" are tricky, because they're basically bad things, yet the meaning of the word is a little hard to pin down. It's hard to put an exact definition on the word "religion," for instance. As far as I know, some experts agree with you, some do not.
You feel that physical control of members is necessary to consider a group to be a cult. Many of us don't think that's the necessarily the case, and this is one of those areas where people will debate over what a cult really is. I would agree that the Society probably isn't as bad as a cult that does assert physical control over its members.
Emotional control, for me, is an adequate substitute for physical control. So for me, the bar is a bit lower than it is for you.
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The WATCHTOWER isn't DECEITFUL , they are just IMPERFECT
by Minimommi ini recently started questioning my beliefs and i am not happy with what i found out.
i am married to a born in who admits that wtbs has some problems.
one of his favorite scriptures to quote is psalms 146:3 to "not put your trust in nobles", including the so called fds.
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IsaacJ22
My position has always been that the GB and other WT leaders are, at best, really incompetent. They probably aren't doing a lot of the harm they do knowingly, they just don't know what the heck they're doing and aren't interested in improving. All kinds of evil can come from a combination of traits like that.
Of course, none of that excuses the evil they do.
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Those of us who left the WT for less than noble reasons
by Aussie Oz insometimes i feel like a second class apostate...not that anyone has ever said anything to make me feel that way, i just do, you know what i mean?.
i left the jws because i just couldn't fight my flesh anymore.
the battle inside was going to kill me literally.
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IsaacJ22
Aussie, it sounds like leaving was good for you. You learned about yourself and became better for it. The end result, at least, was noble.
Personally, I think the Society puts the idea in our heads that getting out because you're dissatisfied is bad. Is it really? Sounds like the WTS wasn't enough, or wasn't right, for you. End of story there. The only way I can see leaving as wrong is if you assume the WTS has "the truth." I stopped making that assumption like 15 years. So how was leaving wrong for either of us?