Vanderhoven7

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Posts by Vanderhoven7

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  21

  Do you still talk to the dubs?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just wondering!

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  Vanderhoven7

  Before Covid, I would look for JWs to talk to. on Saturday mornings. Started a study with two Witnesses; one claimed to be an elder. We met about six times, twice at the kingdom hall because they thought I would be somewhat intimidated by the location. Just berfore Covid I had an elder and a female Witness come to my home for a study. The female had already visited a week before and arranged for the elder to come. We discussed interpretive abuse i.e., the distinction between exegesis and eisegesis. They never came back...since their entire religion is based on the latter
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  7

  Why JWs Can't Cope With The Real World

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  no clue how i got this.. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1trgavbqlx9e9qv7begvmp0742tpawg3vfkh1eifqepe/edit?usp=drivesdk.

  top ten reasons.

  (why) jehovah's witnesses can't cope with the real world____________________.

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  Vanderhoven7

  Good points iXav and LHG!

  I wonder if the author was thinking of the more exemplary JWs, i.e., the sheep-like ones.
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  7

  Why JWs Can't Cope With The Real World

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  no clue how i got this.. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1trgavbqlx9e9qv7begvmp0742tpawg3vfkh1eifqepe/edit?usp=drivesdk.

  top ten reasons.

  (why) jehovah's witnesses can't cope with the real world____________________.

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  Vanderhoven7

  No clue how I got this.

  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tRGaVbqlx9e9Qv7bEGvmP0742TpawG3VFkh1EIfqePE/edit?usp=drivesdk

  TOP TEN REASONS

  (Why) JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CAN'T COPE with the REAL WORLD
  ____________________
  
  

  1. The WatchTower Organization denies access to reality, substituting its OWN propaganda version instead

  1. Only Watchtower approved publications are allowed.

  2. No higher education is to be pursued.

  3. No non-JW friends or associations are encouraged with worldly "outside" POV.

  4. No free-style questioning of doctrine is permitted nor is constructive criticism.

  5. Threat of being "marked" or disassociated is wielded to discourage insubordinates.

  2. Between every real-world event and the JW's mind, a roadblock has been placed.

  1. The interpretive moment of free thought is interrupted by RE-LABELING in Watchtower-speak, jargon, and doctrinal rhetoric substituted.

  2. World events are twisted into a narrow storyline and propagandized as End Times signs leading to Armageddon.

  3. Individual tastes for Personal IDENTITY are expunged and replaced by a collective PERSONA. You are not yourself. You are to be viewed as a representative and example.

  1. Private thinking is red-flagged as selfish and sinful.

  2. Personal ambition is crushed. Only door-to-door ministry substituted as "worthy" endeavors. Beards and tight-pants are glaring demonstrations of satanic ego.

  3. JW’s are coerced into a public spectacle of theocratic performance for judgement.

  4. No individual is allowed a right to fall in love and marry or educate or earn without prior approval. You are the property of the Kingdom Hall and the Governing Body.

  4. Both History and Future cease to be objective occurrences

  1. Every human endeavor is judged as to whether it is part of Jehovah's Plan

  2. Great Leaps of advancement for humanity are disregarded and minimized.

  c. Terrorist atrocities are proof positive of a Satanic doomed world.

  d. Individual triumphs and tragedies have no particular value; only Armageddon matters.

  5. Talent, Creativity and Genius are transformed into useless ego obsessions.

  1. No personal achievement is praiseworthy since all glory is for Jehovah only.

  2. Neither Musical, Artistic, Scientific or Mathematical ability is encouraged because the preaching activity supersedes all else.

  3. Critical Thinking leads to skepticism and eventual disfellowshipping. Even intelligence itself is marked as suspicious.

  6. Ignorance, poverty, disease and psychological disturbance are NOT worthwhile for charity, education or institutional tasking for JW's.

  1. Building hospitals or colleges diverts precious time away from the JW ministry. Besides, Paradise implies repair and perfection anyway.

  2. Becoming a physician, social worker, volunteer in the community or joining any established task-oriented organization DISTORTS rather than solves human problems because Armageddon is coming quickly anyway.

  3. Humanitarian activity, disaster relief and institutional charity promote secular and false-religious creeds instead of Jehovah's solutions.

  4. Personal financial concerns aren't important to the congregation. Your finances are a symptom of End Times eventuality, not a focus of brotherly remedy.

  7. Human perception is untrustworthy, corrupted by sin and worldliness

  1. Only thoughts which come from official Governing Body writings are safe.

  2. Personal opinions, life experience and original analysis constitute hubris and running ahead of Jehovah's plan for his people.

  3. Calling attention to doctrinal irregularity, questioning "new light" and repeated calls for clarification red-flag spiritual weakness and danger.

  8. There are no "Good" people in any other religion. If they were good they'd join Jehovah's Witnesses.

  1. The appearance of goodness, charity, benevolence and selfless devotion to others by Catholics, Baptists, Buddhists or other religious types is only an artificial misunderstanding of Jehovah's permanent solutions to mankind's true problem: sin and death.

  2. Most do-gooders are religious fakes, imposters and money-grubbing charlatans who should be exposed and not admired.

  3. There is no one good except Jehovah anyway

  9. Everything you read, see, experience and think is a distortion by Satan for the purpose of deflecting you from Jehovah's TRUTH.

  1. Watchtower study replaces corrupt images, thoughts and ideas with clean, purified and approved replacements.

  2. The human heart is desperate and corrupt. What you "feel" is probably sin and not compassion. Don't trust yourself to know anything.

  3. The entire world is in the control and power of invisible demonic forces hellbent on destroying humanity

  10. Doubting Jehovah's organization isn't the result of logic or awareness of errors

  1. They never said they were perfect or inspired or prophetic

  2. Jehovah eventually repairs any damage (Wait on Jehovah)

  3. Disloyalty to the Organization is disloyalty to Jehovah himself. Armageddon will settle that score.

  In view of the Ten reasons above, there can be no doubt that the Organization has completely REMOVED REALITY from JW awareness.
  _________

  Being denied a right to reality is to have one's mind taken hostage.

  Without thinking your own thoughts you cannot ever be an actual real person.

  The group thinks FOR you and instructs you what to do and say and how to be.

  Without that GROUP there is only doubt, emptiness, and longing to be cocooned by the "other" and cradled away from fear.
  ________

  Why it is hard to break free?

  You wonder why JW family member won't listen to reason?

  You wonder why the obvious isn't at all obvious?

  __________

  JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CAN'T ABIDE REALITY.

  For them......it isn’t allowed to exist!
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  26

  Was your faith in Armagedddon connected to current events?

  by Wasanelder Once in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  remember when nixon resigned?

  the big a was here some said.

  remember 1986 and the "international year of peace and security?

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  Vanderhoven7

  Absolutely not connected to modern events. Armageddon is history....Revelation 16:16 was fulfilled in the first century.

  https://www.revelationrevolution.org/revelation-16-a-preterist-commentary/
  
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  16

  3 Types of People?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as a rule, there are 3 types.

  one is the dramatic over the top person where a hangnail means you might have to get your finger cut off.. the second type is —who me, worry?

  i’m not going to let too much of anything bother me unless it really is armageddon.. the third type is the person in between.

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  Vanderhoven7

  Three types of people

  1. Those who make things happen

  2. Those who watch things happen

  3. Those who don't know what is happening.
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  8

  Development of a False Prophecy

  by Ding in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  based on wt history of repeated false prophecies, here is the way these things seem to develop:.

  1. someone connects unrelated bible verses and comes up with a date for the end.. 2. this date is "confirmed" by outside information, such as pyramid measurements.. 3. they share this "hidden knowledge" with others.. 4. they develop a following of people who are excited to be the only ones on earth who understand "the deep things of god.".

  5. they promote the date.. 6. people laugh them to scorn.. 7. the faithful cry "persecution" and wait expectantly.. 8. as the date approaches, they get more and more excited.. 9. when the date is imminent, leaders get worried and start to hedge their bets through cautionary language.. 10. when the date comes and goes, they come up with some explanation (adam-eve creation gap, no year 0, etc.

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  Vanderhoven7

  Had to rush the last post.

  Because Armageddon was so close, it was not time for the rank and file to marry and have children, nor could they get a smallpox vaccination to save their lives Then from 1967 to 1980, they could not get a cornea transplant to save their sight.

  But then some asked why the Jehovah who had led them all the way led them to make these mistakes that no other church in Babylon the Great had made.

  Then it was discovered in 1968 having accumulated all the proof needed, that there was no time to go to university or even plan for a career. In fact it would be dangerous. It was time to sell your house and concentrate on the preaching work. But when 1976 came around the rank and file found out that they were guilty of being overzealous again. Shame on them. They of course would have to pay for their mistakes by humbly delivering newspapers and washing windows to make ends meet. If only they had listened to Jehovah's organization in the first place they wouldn't have to work two jobs to support the families they were told not to have.

  Oops I see I'm in rant mode.
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  8

  Development of a False Prophecy

  by Ding in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  based on wt history of repeated false prophecies, here is the way these things seem to develop:.

  1. someone connects unrelated bible verses and comes up with a date for the end.. 2. this date is "confirmed" by outside information, such as pyramid measurements.. 3. they share this "hidden knowledge" with others.. 4. they develop a following of people who are excited to be the only ones on earth who understand "the deep things of god.".

  5. they promote the date.. 6. people laugh them to scorn.. 7. the faithful cry "persecution" and wait expectantly.. 8. as the date approaches, they get more and more excited.. 9. when the date is imminent, leaders get worried and start to hedge their bets through cautionary language.. 10. when the date comes and goes, they come up with some explanation (adam-eve creation gap, no year 0, etc.

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  Vanderhoven7

  Then they blame the rank and file for overzealous anticipation emphasizing the cautionary elements of their prognostications

  As the years go by they look at the blunders of the past positively with even a touch of humor claiming that everyone makes mistakes or the light gets brighter.

  Jesus came back in 1874 with 80 proofs to back it up, then aftet Armageddon did not occur in 1914, nor in 1918, nor in 1925, Jesus actually returned they discovered it was 1914.
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  15

  Transparency Questions

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here are some questions to ask witnesses.

  how would you alter or improve or add to them?.

  transparency questions.

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  Vanderhoven7

  Nitty Gritty

  Care to pm me?
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  15

  Transparency Questions

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here are some questions to ask witnesses.

  how would you alter or improve or add to them?.

  transparency questions.

  1. 
  2. 
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  Vanderhoven7

  Concerning this generation one must ask how the Greek word "genea" is used in all four gospels. We'll just use Matthew's gospel as an example to answer the question:

  Which generation was Christ referring to in Matthew 24:34?

  The Greek word “genea” (pronounced ghen-eh-ah') appears thirteen times in Matthew's gospel. Four times it is used to delineate “one set of parents to the next”. Ignoring Matthew 24:34 for the moment, in every other appearance, including 6 of the instances Matthew places the definite article “this” (houtos) before “generation”, “this generation” (houtos genea), in context, clearly covers the same group of people -i.e. “Christ's contemporaries”

  Mt 11:16 But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, (the persons then living contemporary with Christ)

  
  

  Mt 12:41 The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

  (the persons then living contemporary with Christ)

  
  

  Mt 12:42 "The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (the persons then living contemporary with Christ).

  
  

  Mt 12:45 "Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself.... That is the way it will also be with this evil generation ." (the persons then living contemporary with Christ)

  
  

  Mt 17:17 And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? ..." (the persons then living contemporary with Christ)

  
  

  Mt 23:36 "Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

  Reading Mt.23:36 in context again shows " the persons then living contemporary with Christ are being referred to:
  

  
  

  29. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, 30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. :33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of Gehenna? 34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: 35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. (the persons then living contemporary with Christ)

  
  

  Mt 24:34

  "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

  
  

  In every gospel the combination of the definite article "houtos" with the Greek word genea invariably refers to the evil generation Christ was dealing with at the time. The 1914 generation has nothing to do the gospels and everything to do with the speculations of men in New York who shamelessly add to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  
  
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  15

  Transparency Questions

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here are some questions to ask witnesses.

  how would you alter or improve or add to them?.

  transparency questions.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  Vanderhoven7

  Hi iXav

  If the GB receives new light, does that mean that the old light came from Satan or did the holy spirit gave the GB the wrong information.

  If God doesn't speak/intervene directly in human affairs today, how do you know that the GB are chosen by God?

  How can someone chosen by God and who has holy spirit still make doctrinal and organizational mistakes?

  Excellent questions! Thanks