Listener

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Posts by Listener

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  8

  "You are good people"

  by ateograciasadios in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this story goes back 2 years, when my girlfriend and i traveled to my homecountry in south america to spend the summer visiting my family and friends.

  although i was still attending the meetings back then, i had already been inactive for a while.

  the developments since that visit have been slow but dramatic, and my perception of the people inside the organization has changed greatly.

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  Listener

  'well, do you know this website?' while showing us a badge with the JW.org logo

  This is so corny and hopefully it will wake some JWs up when they compare their witnessing to the sort of real witness you just gave.
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  35

  Perfect Relationship, He Still Broke Up With Me

  by tiff21390 in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  last month, my best friend of four years and boyfriend of six months came home from a jehovah's witness convention.

  he'd been acting strangely the entire weekend and i knew something was wrong.

  i initiated a discussion and he said, "essentially our relationship is wrong and i'm not supposed to be with you.

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  Listener

  Welcome 21390 and sorry to hear your story.

  You can't have had a perfect relationship if he was living a lie.

  It's possible that the person you know now is the person he always was. I doubt whether your partner has changed at all, it's just that you didn't see it.

  Now that he wants to do the 'moral' thing has he already spoken to the elders and confessed? This should also help you to see what sort of person he is. If he believes it is the religion for him and wants to do the right thing then he will have confessed. This may mean he will be disfellowshipped and shunned by his family and friends for up to a year, it will be a horrendous time for him.

  I think you are doing the best thing at the moment and that is to cut off all contact with him. This will give him time to decide how much you mean to him and how difficult it is to be without both a friend and a lover.

  There is nothing at all that stops him from marrying you other than himself and his wishes. Although the JWs discourage this and talk about being 'unevenly yoked' if he were to marry you then there is nothing they would do about it. This makes me think that there are more issues here than he wishes to discuss and my first instinct is to say just give him up. However, time will tell.
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  9

  JWs everywhere!

  by NVR2L8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm traveling through the us on my motorcycle and yesterday i tried to get a hotel room in indianapolis.

  the first 3 hotels were sold out and when i finally found a room i realized that everyone in the hotel were hispanic and wearing lapel id cards for the convention.

  the other rider accompanying me is the only active jw i'm friends with so i had to be careful how i handled myself with the brothers...of course he engaged some of them but i managed to keep my conversation to a simple introduction.

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  Listener

  Mum, without question it is up to you how you chose to deal with JW's and I do understand what you are saying.

  A lot of JWs would react badly if they knew they had been talking sweetly to an Apostate and yet because they have spoken to you and not known you were an apostate nothing has happened to them and they have not had any bad feelings to deal with. It shows what a nonsense the shunning policy is.
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  9

  JWs everywhere!

  by NVR2L8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm traveling through the us on my motorcycle and yesterday i tried to get a hotel room in indianapolis.

  the first 3 hotels were sold out and when i finally found a room i realized that everyone in the hotel were hispanic and wearing lapel id cards for the convention.

  the other rider accompanying me is the only active jw i'm friends with so i had to be careful how i handled myself with the brothers...of course he engaged some of them but i managed to keep my conversation to a simple introduction.

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  Listener

  Mum, if a JW does not know you are an apostate or you don't discuss anything with them then you are playing into their hands and they are getting one over you. That's exactly what they want, that's why they have a shunning policy so that they can't listen to you.
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  13

  Jehovah's Witnesses on vaccination (let's remember)

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  this a excerpt from the article "the sacredness of human blood (why vaccination is unscriptural)", the golden age, february 4, 1931, page 294.. .

  the following is an excerpt from the article: "vaccination---why not?

  ", the golden age, february 4, 1931, page 298.. .

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  Listener

  In true JW Christian fashion she threatens the Judge

  If the court insists on inflicting punishment upon me because I am obeying God's law, then the Court must take the consequences before Jehovah God"

  They were such great judgemental witnesses even back then.

  There is another newspaper article about this Maria J Braught but I can't open it as I am not a subscriber. She was fined another $318 for further offences. That was a lot of money in those days.
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  7

  Jah's Org is our MOTHER and they are also Jesus' Bride and also Jesus' father's wife?

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  __i'm confused .

  israel: the wife of jehovah ( ezekiel 16:8 ).. israel committed adultry.

  ( hosea 2:2-5 ).. jehovah and israel "separated" for about 100 years.

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  Listener

  Just to add to the confusion, there is the birth of a child. This is what the WTBTS has to say about it in their Revelation book

  Subject: The heavenly woman gives birth, Michael battles with Satan and casts him to earth

  Time of fulfillment: From the enthronement of Christ Jesus in 1914 up to the great tribulation

  2 John now sees a great sign—one of outstanding interest for God’s people. It introduces a thrilling prophetic vision, the meaning of which was first published in the March 1, 1925, issue of The Watch Tower in an article entitled “Birth of the Nation” and then again in 1926 in the book Deliverance. This brilliant flash of Bible understanding became a historic marker in the advancement of Jehovah’s work. So let John describe the drama as it starts to unfold: “And a great sign was seen in heaven, a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon was beneath her feet, and on her head was a crown of twelve stars, and she was pregnant. And she cries out in her pains and in her agony to give birth.”—Revelation 12:1, 2.

  3 For the first time, John beholds a woman in heaven. She is, of course, not a literal woman. Rather, she is a sign, or a symbol. (Revelation 1:1) What does she symbolize? In the inspired prophecies, women at times represent organizations “married” to outstanding personalities. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Israel was spoken of as a wife of Jehovah God. (Jeremiah 3:14) In the Greek Scriptures, the congregation of anointed Christians is spoken of as Christ’s bride. (Revelation 21:9-14) The woman John here sees is also married to someone, and she is about to give birth. Who is her husband? Well, later her child is “caught away to God and to his throne.” (Revelation 12:5) Jehovah thus claims the child as his own. Therefore, the woman that John sees must be Jehovah’s symbolic wife.

  4 About eight centuries earlier, Jehovah had addressed this symbolic wife, saying: “All your sons will be persons taught by Jehovah.” (Isaiah 54:5, 13) Jesus quoted this prophecy and showed that these sons were his faithful followers, who later formed the congregation of anointed Christians. (John 6:44, 45) So members of this congregation, spoken of as God’s sons, are also children of God’s symbolic wife. (Romans 8:14) The apostle Paul adds the final piece of information when he says: “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.” (Galatians 4:26) The “woman” seen by John, then, is “the Jerusalem above.”

  5 Exactly what, though, is Jerusalem above? Since Paul spoke of her as “above,” and John sees her in heaven, she is clearly not an earthly city; neither is she the same as “New Jerusalem,” since that organization is the bride of Christ, not Jehovah’s wife. (Revelation 21:2) Notice that she is crowned with 12 stars. The number 12 is associated with completeness in an organizational setting. Hence, these 12 stars seem to indicate that she is an organizational arrangement in heaven, just as ancient Jerusalem was on earth. Jerusalem above is Jehovah’s universal organization of spirit creatures that acts as his wife, both in serving him and in producing offspring.....

  A Son, a Male

  .... Rather, it is the birth of God’s Kingdom in 1914 as a reality, with Jesus—now in heaven for close to 20 centuries—enthroned as King.—Revelation 12:10.

  God's Wife - the Jerusalem above/spirit creatures

  God's Son - the newborn Messianic Kingdom with Jesus as King and the 144,000 ruling as King's and Priest's

  Because Jesus' bride is the 144,000 then Jesus is marrying his brother.
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  39

  Poignant Statistics Summary for Comment at This Sunday WT Study! (Aug. 3, 2014)

  by SAHS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the watchtower study to be considered this sunday, august 3, 2014 (using the magazine dated may 15, 2014), titled are you moving ahead with jehovahs organization?, in paragraph seven (on pages 27-28), talks about the number of people baptized in recent years:.

  7 where do those making up the great crowd come from?

  they are being brought together because of what jesus foretold as part of the sign of his presence.

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  Listener

  The reaction you had SAHS is not surprising and demonstrates the idea that most JWs are not thinkers.

  Looking at all these statistics it never occured to me before that there is something very strange about the numbers they are printing. They don't appear to be stating the actual number of baptized JWs at any given point in time. That is, even though they state the number of baptized people in any given year, they do not give the total number of JWs who have been baptized and in that year are considered active.

  Rather they just provide the number of publishers at any given time, which includes people who are unbaptized. This would suggest that they are not really interested in acknowledging the number of people who have dedicated their lives to God but they are interested in knowing the numbers of those people that are working for their organization.

  They are basically saying that an unbaptized publisher is recognized as a Jehovah's Witness.
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  50

  thinking of leaving

  by justme67 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i am 46 and have been a jw for only 6 years.

  i was doing ok until about a month ago.

  we were having an international convention and i heard the brother that had to pick up 2 of the members of the governing body had to get a background check done on him and his wife.

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  Listener

  Welcome justme67. There was a thread started not long ago regarding a convention speech by a GB member. He said they had recieved a letter from someone advising them to stock up on food to prepare for Armageddon. The GB member said this was crazy and they should be relying on Jehovah to provide. When it comes to their own protection it sounds like they have little faith in Jehovah to provide for their safekeeping.

  They are also building a huge underground 'carpark' in their new headquarters, even though they have acres and acres of land. I don't know if you have ever heard of Beth Sarim but the president (Judge J Rutherford) of the WTBTS had a house built there with an underground bunker.
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  10

  For Band on the Run-My Chinese Experiences

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. social
  2. current

  band on the run, stated on another thread, that rather than hearing that china is now the world's greatest manufacturer of cars (something, i guess, no red-blooded american wants to hear), that her preference is to hear about:.

  if you are in china, i would much rather hear about your experiences.

  how much freedom do christians have?

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  Listener

  Thanks for the information regarding the Visa's Fulltimestudent. It is certainly worth considering those places for a future trip.
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  90

  PEER PRESSURE!!! I gave in to Pioneering during August...I feel dirty...

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ok, i'll admit it...i am weak.... as everyone knows, the pressure to "pioneer" during "the most momentous, awesome, amazing, centenary anniversay of jesus invisble kigdom rule, & distribute tracts about a dodgy website" campaign is very strong at the moment.... also, many will have read my threads about the extreme views and expectations in our cong for "all appointed men to pioneer" etc..... every elder and ms and their families have been announced as pioneering....i mean everyone's name was read out except mine..... i was not going to do it, as i do not believe anyone should be forced...(and of course its the last thing on earth i would rather do anyway since learning ttatt).

  but i am not quite ready to make the break yet, so i realised that i would stand out more if i didnt put in a form to pioneer.

  yes it would make me more conspicious, and make fading harder to do...it would bring more heat on me if i didnt pioneer.. so i gave in and submitted a form.... now, of course, i'm only going to make sure i'm seen at the key field service groups etc...but then go and do something more interesting...like count blades of grass..... ahh....i feel hypocritical to myself now......

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  Listener

  If you are willing to sign up to pioneer, imagine how many other JWs are signing up that don't really want to do it either. It makes a joke of the whole arrangement and the numbers are meaningless. Which is really interesting because the org. loves to say that they only count active publishers when giving a count of how many people are 'in' their religion, therefore their numbers are genuine followers unlike the many other religions.