this is my first post and i suppose something like this has been posted before but i would love to get your thoughts on it.
really do you ever think that the society will fall apart?
or will it always be propped up by die hard members?will it see 2020 i wonder with the growth it has seen?.
Of course it will. It's a religion, afterall. It's mindboggling what survives in the name of religion - and the WT cannot even make the top 1000 among the wierdest - and they have all survived!
And it's really not a bad thing for the WT to survive, albeit with some transformation. The Message of the Kingdom can sometimes be soporific.
i found it amazing being raised in the witnesses to see exactly who got appointed sometimes as an elder.
it seemed that the criteria in my opinion had more to do with getting 10 hours a month in field service, answering at meetings, carrying microphones as a ministerial servant, or handling the magazine or literature counter !
in doing these " functions " and attending meetings on a regular basis - a man was thought to be considered " spiritually strong " and qualify to be an elder and serve on judicial committees judging people's personal problems.
Holy Spirit's got little or nothing to do with it. Field service report does. Giving long-winded talks does. Pretending you're holier than the friends does. Keeping a tight lid on your family to the point of crushing every desire for anything but JWdom does. Wearing a plastic smile and looking unusually stern when commenting during WT study does. Criticising the "spiritually weak" and condemning "worldliness" does.
It's a little bit of the "theocratic" game. Play it right, and you're on your way to the top in no time.
Been there, done that.
the more a person does in jw busy work, the weaker spirit they must actually have.
many times, they are simply overcompensating or trying to fill.
a void in themselves.
Spirituality is self-growth. You don't brag about it because it is actually humbling just how little you know, and how very little you will continue to know. Spirituality is not parroting a couple of scriptures, or discussing "prophecy" or trying to read into some kind of crystal ball to know what the seven horns or Nebuchadnezer represent today. Spirituality is what your life portrays as you imbibe inspiration from scripture.
In short, spirituality manifests itself by its fruits. Paul said so, and I agree fully.
N&T
critique on a scholarly level began around the 1700s by f.c.
baur a theologian in germany followed by deissman and reitzenstein.
some felt he was really a gnostic, others felt that he may have been the writer luke, or a plato schooled mystic.
Paul is lovely. Paul is what I wish I could be: bold, choleric, humourous, serious, down to earth, assertive. Paul is what makes the NT believable. He gives the NT a very human face. Who is this man who turned from killing believers to believing, and not only did but confessed? Who is this man who wore his garb of Judaism when he needed to (women should learn in silence and if they have questions, ask their hubbies) but was bold enough to proclaim that in Christ there is neither male or female, freeborn or slave, Jew or Gentile?
Without Paul, there would either have been no Christianity or one of a different and paler shade.
That said, we all know (don't we?) that he did not write "the Letter to the Hebrews".
But I do love Paul, in all his glorious contradictions.
You can't attend that number of meetings and go out that much in field service and do all the family study and personal study and prayer and meditation and circuit assembly and district assembly and special day assembly and talks and demonstrations, and not feel tired.
You can't be browbeaten at every meeting and told you are no good and only exist because of God's loving kindness and that Christ didn't die for you but the Little Flock and you must contribute to the Worldwide work with your "first fruits" and the "fat of the flock" and flee the Internet and worldly company, and not feel tired.
You cannot have your thoughts screened every second and your actions judged every minute and told you are a condemned sinner in search of redemption and an inch from God's fiery judgment in soon-to-come Harmageddon, and not feel tired.
You cannot wait for so long to see the promise, give so many talks on the promise, live in hope of the promise, age without the promise and are near death not knowing what was promised, and not feel tired.
You cannot belong to the most happy people on earth, and not feel tired.
i have noted many who are ex jw but now are 'born again' or have found the 'lord' telling how wonderful life is now.... i mean no disrespect to those who claim this, and are happy, i can understand i guess, leaving the wt but still wanting to serve 'god' but i just can't come at it.
we all know the story... life sucked, left the watchtower, found jesus, lifes great again.... what about my life?
some of you already know i am not christian and in fact are more anti god/religion than ever.. i was depressed, couldn't live up to the rules, faded out fast, left wife, lost kids, lost every single friend of 30 years, lost every material thing save the clothes on my back, lonely hermit for two years, adultery, disfellowshipped, crazy girl friend, one night stands... you might say life went down the toilet and i needed saving from myself.. wrong!.
Worked for you. Might not work for others. Once you decide what's best for you and have the will/support to pursue it, and succeed (relatively speaking, of course) in that pursuit, then that's what works for you.
Someone else may need Jesus, marijuana, sex, rock and roll, sport, Buddha, evolution, food, wine, just about anything that works for them. Or perhaps nothing at all, just to be left alone in their void.
Thing is, we pursue individual paths. And contentment is personal.
i scream out sometimes.
am i angry at a 'being' that i don't think exists?
or the embedded concept?.
There are as many arguments for God's existence as there are against. It's like shopping for tomato; you take your pick. If you don't believe or used to but don't anymore, move on. It does not make you a bad guy, except where advertently you go against acceptable human behaviour (there again, depending on your social milieu). Discussions of this sort are in the end sterile and of little gain.
I do believe, and pray. I have had answers to my prayers, but not all of them. I do not expect to be answered for all of them - I don't buy my kids candy every minute. But that's me, not JeffT.
Yet the more I read this Board, the more I think most here are closet believers, limping from much injury but still clinging on. It's true even for Jeff, although he may want to banish the thought.....
god may as well forgive short people for a lack of height as to forgive them for their sin!.
god's "superior" standards are merely the difference between his nature and how he made humans!.
deliberately creating inferior creatures and then burdening them with infinitely superior standards of thought and conduct.
You miss the whole point. Without imperfection, you would not be asking these deep questions. Imperfection is a necessary path to discoverying the nature of truth. There is nothing wrong with perfect justice slipping in a banana peel of injustice just to make you slip, and having slipped, to think about why you slipped and taking measures not to slip again. Creating creation ends up in creating imperfection - from a certain angle. Stars gobble up stars to form black holes, but who knows what lies in the heart thereof? Even the act of gobbling is creative and might end up throwing out a spectacle that we may love to watch, O! the spectacle of light of exploding energy in deep space. Perfect? Imperfect? It's all a conundrum, isn't it? And what says a shorter leg on a man or one eye on a face, or any of such appearances is imperfect? Perfection is a combination of many imperfections.
in ezekiel the 4th chapter one of the most ludicrous passages in the bible tells us god commanded his prophet ezekiel to lie on his left side in a mock seige against a.....brick!
for how long?
390 days!.
Nothing wrong with that. Ezekiel believed God spoke to him, hence acted as ordered. People - for instance Greek philosophers - did far "worse" things but were not thought to be ludicrous. Even today, we do too - like get on all those "reality" shows or go to the moon, or bungy-jump, or just lie in bed depressed. Anyway.
a. do you try to "witness" to current jw's as much as possible?.
.
b. do you just let them find out for themselves on the internet?.
You don't need to witness to Witnesses. What's the point? If you are an xWitness, then go on your jolly way, be happy and contented at your new life, but don't witness to Witnesses.
The Internet only works for those who want it to work for them. I say, let those who believe believe, and let those who once believed but no longer do, not believe any longer.
Or as Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their dead".
