i overheard a conversation from my family, jw's are shunning me, but the best part is i am not a jw, never been bathtised, just a born in who woke up in his early thirties.
the reasoning behind it was something i did, it wasn't fornication because im still a virgen, it wasn't stealing, killing or praying to false gods, drinking or anything that the bible defines as sin, im not even the going out type, i dont have many friends, never been reprove or did anything to set a bad example (i was your typical jw) no no no, it was a book, it was sending an email to a family member who happens to be jw with the shephearding the flock ppf.. this book was a huge shock to the person, eventually it raised questions and spread around, eventually this went full circle back at me, my parents already concerned for some time has asked brothers to see if they can fix my reasoning so i can be brainwashed again and give them money to some rich guys in brooklyn who dont have any ethical responsibilities towards others.
i wanted my parents to do this, i want them to see what the brothers will do and say about me, thinking and hopping, that some day they will wake up from their long sleep.
What book is this, and where can I download it?
Here is [link deleted]. It's scanned and converted to a searchable pdf. I used OCR software, so it's probably not 100% accurate for the search feature, but it's copies of the actual pages so it reads accurately.
like the question is jehovah witness the true religion?
is all others false, what do yall think?.
i am confuse and just wanting to know others thoughts??
@JonathanH
Your premise is flawed. Perhaps you need to take a course in statistics. You're assigning all choices with equal or similar likelihood. If you play the lottery every day for eternity, you'll eventually win. Repeatedly, even. That has nothing to do with what you're talking about, though. By your logic, given eternity, everything will happen: A tree will sprout puppies, a rock will speak Portuguese, someone will think of a joke so funny that hearing it is instantly fatal.
Satan's rebellion misled all the humans (granted, only 2) and "a third" of the angels. This was not an isolated individual sinning and being dealt with individually. The angels existed for untold eons before they fell, yet most of them did not, even with a destructive influence to push things in that direction. That influence was successful enough that God allowed it to continue, since Satan had presented a large body of evidence. He was not ignored as a crackpot by everyone else and thus eliminated immediately by God.
The rest of this ridiculous rant is so full of straw men, they're not worth addressing. You're arguing with yourself and a theology that only exists in your head. You've obviously already chosen the side you're on and any statement which supports it - no matter how ridiculous - is a valid point, in your opinion. Some people are a waste of time to argue with: Rabid atheists, rabid fundies, rabid conspiracy theorist, rabid leftists, rabid rightists, etc. If someone else wants to run with the baton you're handing off, I'll let them take it from here.
The thinking may do you some good.
And arrogant. Nice. I think I understand why nobody wanted to argue with you and it's not because they were stupified by your awesome intellect.
like the question is jehovah witness the true religion?
is all others false, what do yall think?.
i am confuse and just wanting to know others thoughts??
@bohm
Repeatedly, you imply and outright say "If you eat from the tree i will kill you." That is not what happened. If you read the account in Genesis, the Tree of Life is mentioned. Jehovah supplied the Tree of Life to sustain Adam and Eve. Adam was not told God would kill him, but that he (Adam) would die. These are two very different concepts.
Just like a parent might tell an adult child "As long as you live under my roof, you live by my rules", God had the right to revoke the sustenance he provided, namely life. Notice, it took over 900 years for Adam to die. He was not executed, as you insist, but allowed to follow a natural course if no divine intervention was supplied, via the Tree of Life.
Also, keep in mind, Adam was perfect - not prone to sin. We are imperfect, thus we can be forgiven. Perfection does not fail to be sinless; it willfully sins. There was no forgiveness possible for Adam, Satan, or the Angels who joined him because they hadn't made a mistake; they'd made a conscious decision to disobey. Nowhere is it even suggested that any of the perfect beings involved were sorry or repentant.
Also, your idea that God "created" evil is flawed. Failing to obey God's commands is evil and, as I mentioned before, it wasn't a long list of tedious orders. God didn't have to create darkness, because it's merely a lack of light. Jehovah created light just as he created righteousness (which is just doing what he says). Without light, there is darkness. Without obedience, there is evil.
Your entire post is based on a completely unfounded twist to the events, thus to go point-by-point would be redundant. I believe if you reexamine what you wrote with the proper understanding of what's actually written in Genesis, you'll see your whole hypothesis should be scrapped.
p.s.
my kind of heaven
Am I correct in assuming you have no JW background?
like the question is jehovah witness the true religion?
is all others false, what do yall think?.
i am confuse and just wanting to know others thoughts??
Did God invent unknown variables?
Why not? People invented dice. If God truly invented free will, it can't be foreseen or else it's just a complicated program and we're robots.
Doesn't this kinda screw up both his omniscience and omnipotence?
I never said God was either. I don't believe God is a magical fortune teller; he's just a lot smarter than us. I don't believe he has limitless power; he's just the most powerful entity.
The God of most "Christians" is magical. I don't believe this. I simply believe God is vastly intelligent, understands things about physics we haven't even scratched the surface of, and has access to reserves of power that defy our imagination which allows him to act on this knowledge with amazing outcomes.
It's said that a model of the universe that would allow everything to be completely understood would have to be at least the size of the universe and thus impossible to contain within the universe. Any reduction loses accuracy, leaving us with guesses. God is outside the universe and the source of it (there's no telling how much or little of himself he put into the creation of it). As the designer, he understands the functions from the quantum to the astronomical.
like the question is jehovah witness the true religion?
is all others false, what do yall think?.
i am confuse and just wanting to know others thoughts??
@seraphinajade
I've thought about many of these things myself, as I'm sure most here have. When I think about them, I actually want answers, not just to wax philosophical and stroke my own ego for my self-indulgent perception of brilliance, which is the goal of many who "question". For example, if you encounter the "Can God create a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" question, that person is a pompous douche and talking to him/her is a total waste of time and oxygen. Add to that, their "stroke of brilliance" is borrowed, which makes it that much more pathetic.
I will endeavor to give my personal take on these questions. My hands are kind of tied without the ability to quote the Bible, but I feel I understand it better than most and can put what's said into my own words and omit much of what people believe, even though the Bible never says it. Having an opinion on what's not said is where my personal opinion comes in. Many will contradict the Bible with their personal opinion - which is their right - but then we just have another religion (perhaps with only 1 member, but a religion nonetheless). Where I fill in the gaps the Bible leaves is what I believe is the most logical, with the pieces I do have. Those who randomly fill in the gaps out of ignorance and share their "brilliance" for just making stuff up irritate me and do not add to the discussion; they merely muddy the water, wasting time and pixels.
Does god know all?
My belief is, God knows everything that can be known. Given unfathomable knowledge and wisdom, anything which the outcome can be calculated - if all variables are known - God can figure it out. He also has the power to manipulate the outcome, in cases of his divine will and prophecy, but he is not a puppeteer.
Did he create all?
God is the source of all creation. While the only thing he personally created was Jesus, he provided the energy and design for everything else, as well. Thus, making all creation possible, he is credited with it. Similarly, a construction contractor is credited with a building, even if he never swung a hammer in its entire process. He wrote the checks, provided the materials, provided the labor, made sure the blueprints were followed, and oversaw the work to make sure it was to his standard. Never do you see a list of the workers on a sign outside a new building.
Why did he create evil?
Creating free will requires options. If disobedience isn't an option, there is no free will and all are robots existing within the confines of restrictive programming.
We are his playthings.
No more than children are the playthings of their parents. We exist to love and worship God, but given the option. Forced, programmed worship is hollow and meaningless.
Did god know that this world would turn out the way it did?
I don't believe so. Free will would require something which cannot be calculated. If our actions can be calculated based on our knowledge, experience, in-born temperament, chemical makeup, etc., then we are simply complicated robots, acting out complex programming, who can't be held responsible for our deeds.
For evil to come into this world, our creator MUST have known evil, or how else would it even exist?
At one time there was nothing. No light, no matter, no life, no gender, no emotions, nothing. Everything that exists is an invention of God. He is neither male nor female, but male and female exist.
Adam and Eve, who were mere mortals with curiousity and they didnt know.
According to the Bible, Eve didn't know; Adam did. We aren't fallen through Eve, but Adam.
Its like putting a cake on the table and saying to your kids "DO NOT EAT THIS or you will become evil".
Adam and Eve had nearly absolute freedom. One of the two commands was - in a nutshell - have sex and beautify your home. People do this naturally, so for all intents and purposes, there were no rules but one: Don't eat from this tree. Without the opportunity for disobedience, there is no real obedience. That was all God asked from them as their acknowledgement for their Creator. No sacrifices, no church, no prayers, no Bible. Contrary to closed-minded and prudish modern "Christianity", there were no rules against using drugs (many of which occur naturally), drinking alcohol (a natural process), tobacco (also naturally-occurring), promiscuity, various sex acts, etc. Many assumptions are made as to what would have turned out to be in a perfect paradise earth, but we never got a chance to see it through.
EVERYTHING comes back to the creator.
If I kill someone with a hammer, just because it's possible, is the hammer factory somehow responsible? Free will was misused in the Garden and continues to be misused today. When this one-time example has run its course, misuses of free will won't be tolerated anymore. In the new earth, any uprising will be immediately quashed, as a precedent will already exist. Nobody - neither angel nor human - will have to suffer for the misdeeds of anyone else. The example of Satan and several thousand years of human misery will serve as an example and never allowed to happen again: A small price to pay for eternal perfection and happiness.
There is an opposite to everything.
Eastern philosophers would agree. Unfortunately, this allows for nothing better than what we have and makes everything pointless. It answers no questions and provides no hope. If there is a God and his book is a pack of lies, we're screwed. If there is a God and his book is truth then making up other philosophies is an empty exercise in mental masturbation. If there is no God, then be glad you are living in a place where you are free to believe what you want and question things. Be glad you weren't born in an African village, with AIDS, to suffer and starve to death before your 5th birthday. If we only get one shot, many have been horribly short-changed. Yet it seems the ones who are the most advantaged are the ones who appreciate it the least.
My 2¢ (not adjusted for inflation, so it's got to be worth at least $1); I hope it's helpful.
sorry for the lengthy thread, i've spent too many years preparing talks.
i can't help it.
i had so many questions as a kid when my dad read me "my book of bible stories".
Was there possibly at one point an older God that created Jehovah?
That would require Jehovah to be a liar and if our God is a liar, we are all screwed and there isn't anything we can do about it.
what was God doing a billion years ago?
Some would say, "Playing with dinosaurs". Obviously our universe has existed much longer than 6k years and obviously there was life here before us. The Bible pretty much just tells us what we need to know. The whole account of creation is only 2 chapters of the entire Bible, so it would seem it was left pretty sparse on purpose. Who knows how long Jesus existed with Jehovah and then there are "myriads of myriads" of angels.
Why does the T-Rex have such huge razor sharp teeth?
Many scientists theorize that T-Rex was a scavenger.
That's about all I can offer, right off the top of my head. I'm sure God won't keep you hanging forever. We'll have forever to learn and new scrolls will be opened.
like the question is jehovah witness the true religion?
is all others false, what do yall think?.
i am confuse and just wanting to know others thoughts??
Jesus was the Truth. Anything short of that is just another untruth, to varying degrees. According to Scripture, the JWs are the closest I've found so far.
99% of churches can be written off for the Trinity doctrine. Most have some fundamental flaw. Unitarian Universalism loses me with the Universalism part. The few who didn't merge in 1961 seem to have disbanded. Really, the main problem I have with JWs is the human leadership. This was exactly the problem with 1 st -century (and leading up to then) Judaism. Jesus pointed this out, but didn't encourage his followers to leave.
Instead, he led by example that man-made rules are not mandatory and flawed human interpretation of Scripture is not binding. He warned that we'd have problems inside "the synagogues" being his follower and that our enemies would be in our own houses. If we go with the flow and follow the congregation into blasphemy and idolatry for the Governing Body and the Organization, then things will be easier, but living for glory before men is its own reward. Jehovah will reward us for following him and his son, not for following men.
You'll have to read your Bible and learn about God's commands. If you follow Jesus' example and lead a Christian life, but other Witnesses and elders find fault with you, remember the same thing happened to Jesus and the apostles. They were persecuted and killed at the hand of their "brothers". For over 1000 years, the closest thing to true Christianity was the Catholic Church, so in comparison, JWs aren't so bad. If you find something that fits the Bible better, please let me know.
we are great friends now....but he wasn't much of a father growing up.. worked all the time...we went on few vacations....pretty much pussy whipped my my nazis jw mother.. he never did believe in the whole jw thing.
he just when along with it, for my mothers sake.. she never did respect him for not being a "spiritual head" and pretty much let us kids know about it.. i, like my mother became very self rightious and judgmental.. i wished now he had just came to me just once and said "keith maybe the jws are not the people you think they are.
" but he was to afraid of my mother to say that...even though he knew it to be true.i would have never believed him....back then....but it would have planted a seed.... .
Anyone whose parents were in for the 1975 debacle (especially if they came in because of it), are still in, and fight tooth-and-nail against anyone who doesn't worship the Society along with them probably has some deep issues. These mental/emotional problems are probably not caused by association with Jehovah's Witnesses, but rather targeted by Jehovah's Witnesses. I notice whenever I'd go on a "Bible" study (yeah, right) it was always with someone who had serious mental and/or emotional problems. The person was either mentally handicapped and easy prey for anyone selling anything or emotionally needy and studying just to have someone to come by and love-bomb them for their "progress".
Even though my parents knew about it, I never heard about 1975 until I found out about it on "apostate" websites. I never knew organ transplants were banned as "cannibalism". I never knew the literal heart was said to contol emotions. I never knew sterilization was - for all intents and purposes - banned (kind of like the mild counsel against beards that is used as a hard-line club). I never thought to check 607 B.C.E. until I found out about it on "apostate" websites. Parents who hide information from their children to keep them in their religion would probably be controlling and abusive under any circumstance. In my experience, these same parents will side with the liars against their own children, defending the indefensible and denying reality in spite of mountains of evidence.
I don't believe JWs make bad parents. I believe they attract bad parents. The JW religion is self-important (only we have the truth, only we will survive, only we are moral, etc. - they even judge each other), self-indulgent (it's okay to be on welfare, barely support my family, not repay loans - even to each other - etc. because I need it for "Jehovah's work"), self-righteous (too many to list). It seems the unwritten undercurrents of the average JW attitude wallow in narcissistic and/or antisocial personality disorders.
Then, of course, there are the emotionally-needy and delusional people who cling to the man-worship of the Organization tm just because their fragile psyche needs it. These unstable people aren't always going to make for the best parents, either. Of course, this is only my opinion and based solely on my personal experiences. Yours may not be the same as mine and may have led you to an entirely different perception.
we've all known those fanatical witnesses who are guilty of pdf (public display of faith) and always have to make a big song and dance to the whole world and let everyone and their dog know they're a faithful witness of jay hoover!.
1) when my mother first came in 'da troooof' this wacky, over zealous 'sister' was studying with her - you know the type.
this woman was one of those not so subtle individuals who would always talk loud in conversation and say the name jehovah a million times even when the conversation could have been about basketball.
Virtually every time I listen to the magazine sales pitch of my service partner, I cringe.
Every time elders drag me into the back room over some man-made rule I've broken, I am ashamed of them and their pathetic ignorance.
Whenever I'm at someone else's study and they're mentally-handicapped, a shut-in, or obviously insane I can't stand it.
Every time I hear how the New World Translation has been proved to be the most accurate Bible.
i was wondering if it's actually possible to define what faith is in a simple, logical, unambiguous way.. .
i have a theory that words which cannot be defined in a simple, logical, unambiguous way do not really mean anything specific, and therefore should probably be avoided.. .
i know there have been books written on this subject, but i think that anyone who has to write an entire book to define a simple word like faith, does not really understand what it means.. .
Of course, if there is proof, then we don't need faith, right?
The whole hypothesis of this thread is based on a popular false premise. The same point was made in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In that book/show/radio program, the Babel fish was obviously too complex to have evolved, thus proof of Creation. God was asked how anyone could have faith in him with solid evidence he existed, so God "disappeared in a puff of logic".
The churches have people convinced God requires everyone to blindly believe in him or else they're going to Hell. Even if they live(d) in a time and place where learning of him to a degree where one could put any faith in him was highly unlikely or impossible, God would punish them for eternity for not believing in him. This isn't even close to what faith is.
If believing in God was all it took, then demons would be saved, because they all believe in God. If definite knowledge of God revoked faith, then angels could have no faith. Get it out of your head that "faith in God" means blindly believing he exists. That is a lie, perpetrated by the religions of the world, which exist solely to confuse all of humanity.
A knowledge of God and his past history of kept promises is a prerequisite to faith. The definition of "faith" in Heb 11 is about faith in God's promises and abilities. You have to know God before you can put faith in God. The faith is in the future God promises. The faith is in the resurrection (1Cor 15:12-18).
For “everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.” However, how will they call on him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn, will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? - Rom 10:13-14
Trusting in the Creator for salvation, through the ransom of his son, Jesus, guarantees a sure thing. Without that, we're judged by our deeds (John 5:28-29). Of course, if one were to know God and fail to acknowledge him as the only source of salvation, he would probably consider that a "vile thing" and that one would be screwed.
