Jerhoover the great killing machine...but you'll be ok if you keep up your protection payments to the WTBTS
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
-
6
Sept, 17 text; "Jehovah protects his people"-- from Jehovah.
by prologos inthe danger for the families?
to have their firstborn killed by jehovah, ---but teach them they will be protected by following jehovah's (gb's) instructions, even seemingly irrational.. if you do the daily text, don't pass over this opportunity.
of the irrational passover.
-
-
-
52
After Death Communications in the JW community
by jack2312 inmy name is jack and i'm looking for after death communications from the jehovah witness community.
an after death communication (or adc) is when a loved one sends a kind of message to this side of life after their death.
it can be a dream or smell (like perfume or roses that would be attached to them in memory) or a feeling of their presence.
-
-
Half banana
Wrong community possibly? Try spiritualists. -
74
That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.
by Island Man ina careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.
-
-
Half banana
Calebin F, your argument from a Jewish perspective for Jesus as a real human is: Why would Responsa (formalised rabbinic replies) develop antithetically to a non-existent person? Superficially a fair point but not necessarily valid. I suggest that the body of sacred Jewish writings, however revered, is itself inherently the product of politico-religious and nationalistic bluster and myth in the first place. In other words a system of beliefs not founded on fact but from mainly non-existing i.e. fictional characters such as Moses and the twelve sons of Israel. (All have precedents in earlier exotic tales mainly from Egypt). Therefore the credibility of Jewish pronouncements on other heroic figures is suspect. It is easier to diminish the importance of an individual than it is to suppress a myth. All religion, since it is mostly devoid of testable evidence; is just propaganda. Religious argument therefore, to put it crudely, it is a case of “My myth is better than your myth.” If human evolution is true but not readily observable, then the evolution of ideas and mythology is more readily accessible to the textual scholar. To disentangle deeply entrenched and strongly felt beliefs, require research into the facts and not just repeating suppositions...as you are well aware.
The God-men tales of the near East and western Asia was the template for the “christ stories” of which Jesus was the last one of note. The reason for his prominence being that this character was promoted by the Roman state and through the agency of its Catholic Church; left a legacy of dominant small O orthodoxy of ‘Christ belief’ right up until today. However prior to the fourth century we have a string of heroic messianic celebrities supplying the answer to the greatest existential problem facing humanity; how to overcome death. It was a preponderantly illiterate world, the transmission of belief outside of the temples and synagogues would have been for millennia; through passion plays. They still exist today, even in my nearest village in civilised and literate England, the nativity is re-enacted on Christmas Eve every year. Joseph and a Mary (played by the last couple to be married at the local church) travel round the village with Mary riding a donkey, and knocking on doors looking for a place to stay, rejected, they stay at a barn at the manor house replete with oxen and a baby Jesus in a straw filled manger.
A mordant is the chemistry which fixes colour in the process of dying cloth... for the illiterate throughout history; the nativity play or any such play as the Passion of Christ would surely be the ‘mordant’ to fix a “belief” into the cultural fabric. (It is also a strong clue as to the how and why, many of the Bible stories came to be recorded... they are transcripts of folk plays).
So if you believe that Jesus existed as a breathing human, why not believe the pedigree of his literary forebears: the fictional crucified Dionysus who had the same history attributed to him, why not the mythical Osiris, born of a virgin (Meri) whose step father was Sep, born in a cave with oxen, who had twelve disciples, walked on water, preached, healed the sick, cured leprosy and resurrected his friend Lazarus (El Osiris)... a thousand years before Jesus?
The character or role of the God-man and its story-line was well established in the peasant consciousness. This belief was retained without critical thought, with minimum education other than a religious tradition, and maximum gullibility. The God-man hero existed independently of a personal name of the lead character; it had already done the rounds for many centuries before the first century. He was the son of the Sun God he was the saviour of mankind, the Christ. The Jewish authorities would have needed to challenge the belief adopted by some of its number in joining a Christ –cult. They would not investigate whether he existed, since the unbelievably exciting message of the magic belief was that “the word had been made flesh” and many Jews had declared this as it was the founding cry of Jesus- Christianity and axiomatically held to be true. The Jews would have fought against the belief and the implication of losing power to the new cult and not the facts of the case.
So I suggest that the Jewish stance was to decry the Christ cults with a mythical founder who had a Jewish sounding name called “Jesus”. A man unknown to any credible historical source although conflated with other Jesuses over time. We are in the territory of folk myth, gullibility and messianic hope...not reality.
Osiris was not real neither was Dionysus: why should anyone else sharing the same fictional characteristics attributed to him have been a live person? That he could have existed is not germane to the foregoing and is a misleading sentiment.
-
75
Lurker trying to gain clarity
by questioningmyfaith inhello all, i would like to first say that i am basically questioning my faith in god.
i am not negative towards the wt at all.
so honestly i am to concerned with more ad hominem attacks towards the wt because i still love the organization and the people in it.
-
-
Half banana
Questioningmyfaith, a warm welcome to the site and thanks for posting. The fact that you have come here and explained your situation shows that unlike most JWs, you are prepared to think for yourself, a very good quality!
As one who experiences shunning and worse from my JW family, I think that the JW religion has proved in my case to have caused more pain and suffering than any other thing in my life. That might be just my private misfortune but I’m sure I’m not alone. However since leaving the org, my life, freedom and happiness has improved immensely. In my case it has come about by finding out how the world works and by a sceptical analysis of things.
Doc has already said that he felt like you at your stage in waking up...we understand here! The notion that not all is well in JW land is usually very confusing and unsettling. You are justified in objecting to the criticism of the brothers, most of them are decent people... after all we are talking about ourselves!
The missing link which is never alluded to in its raw state is that the JW world can only exist because of its ruthless power structure. It is autocratic, it is authoritarian, it uses the emotions and stories found in the Bible as tools to control its subservient followers. The gospel now appears to be the Watchtower itself and the mediators between men and God are the GB... Any lie as Hitler knew, can be made to stick if it is repeated enough.
The innocent believers are god-fearing and often with poor education; they enjoy being led and especially with the prospect of paradise ahead. (Funny how the paradise carrot is attached ever ahead of the WT donkey as it moves forward in an attempt to reach it)... The WTBTS power play may not be the picture you have seen or imagined regarding the GB but believe me, if you left the org it would become starkly apparent and then you would understand the reason for the animosity held amongst many ex-JWs. We were lied to. Can you trust people who lie to you?
-
110
Just had a former elder friend tell me, “This Overlapping generation is crap.
by John Aquila inlast night i ran into a former elder friend, he is in his late 70s.
he asked how i was doing and i asked how he was doing.
then out of the blue he tells me; .
-
-
Half banana
Timeline of the big adventist disappointments:---
The Great Disappointment of 1844
The wedding night of Charles and Maria Russell 1879
The 1975 debacle
The failure of the century long Watchtower promise of the "1914 generation"
-
10
Trolley Cart effectiveness
by freddo indoes anyone here who goes to meetings know of anyone who comes to their meetings after being contacted on the trolleys?
anyone hear of a real bible study from these carts?.
exaggerations from the assembly platform or jw urban myths do not count!.
-
-
Half banana
Pete Z I agree with you except being the other side of the pond, I've no idea what a Pontiac Aztec looks like.
A friend of mine who attends the Kingdom Hell tells me that the rumour on the inside is that people are pouring in from the cart witnessing. I suspect this is an exaggeration but even if they get some newcomers they are going out the back door either vertically or horizontally at the same rate.
-
31
Bethel Provides Excellent Clarification of "This Generation"
by berrygerry inbethel clarifies "this generation" via letter.
/s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzzxpiqj2w.
-
-
Half banana
Quite right Vidiot... but just to be super picky, being authoritarian, that is a stickler for rules, is not quite the same as having authority or using authority alone as the basis for control. They could be authoritarian and Bible-based but here is evidence in the letter of reply from HQ that in the end as a JW, you just have to believe the Watchtower text without a Bible precedent. I reckon that is "authoritarianism" or a better word to describe the GB would be "autocratic". -
74
That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.
by Island Man ina careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.
-
-
Half banana
Bender does not tax the brain like Jesus and is much more fun. However...my argument would accord with Carrier's; if the stories of the saviour figures preceded Jesus with details exactly the same for those attributed to Jesus; an original Jesus in the first century is a fraud. It is true that real people can become fictionalised but think on this; no one can live the life of a mosaic of historically earlier stories.
As Carrier mentions the accounts in the gospels are a syncretism or fusion of many old saviour heroes brought together under one roof.This is clearly a political move for the purpose of being attractive to a mass audience; something miraculous for everyone, the ideas being drawn from many saviour cults. When you read the nativity for example this story pre-dates the first century and all of its features features, the three Persian astrologers led by a star, a virgin birth, the animals in the stall, the death of first born, trip to Egypt, shepherds in the fields...all these and many more are pure ancient pagan tales inserted into the "gospel". They have no basis in history... they are fact-free myths.
So here is the crunch point: when did any fictional character jump off the page and become a real breathing person?
-
12
Parrots Turn Carnivores.....Media Article ..Sure to get J.W.`s all excited .
by smiddy inthe first part was a heading in the herald sun newspaper tues.sep.15 ,2015 melbourne victoria .. , lorikeets and other parrots are becoming meat eaters---and researchers want to know why.. griffith university professor darryl jones has heard the herbivorous bird was eating mince left out by bird feeders in brisbane (australia ) "in two weeks i had about 500 emails from across the country all saying lorikeets were eating meat" he said.. that will surely get the faithful thinking the big "a" is almost upon us.. in the 1960`s i was told that buzzards and other carnivorous birds were laying twice as many eggs than was normal proving the big "a' was almost here.. here we go again.
smiddy.
-
-
Half banana
Did someone say the GB are turning cannibal? perhaps I misunderstood. -
20
Humanism and Witnisam.
by The Rebel inwell it seems for many on this board the time came to leave the w.t and cross the bridge in to a real world.
speaking for myself l feel i did not enter the cold and lonely world i was lead to believe i was entering.
rather i have discovered it was no great loss leaving a world that had protected me with false, dreams, fantazy and false promises.. but what have i really achieved by my leaving that i value?.
-
-
Half banana
This thread so far is so good it should be compulsory for all JWs to read!
For me stopping going to the meetings was a real pleasure for many reasons. Not having to listen to the brain-dead zombies praise the governing body at stultifying meetings, listening to saccharine indoctrination about love and paradise... all in the past... Oh the joy! I had the time to do things I wanted to and nobody was going to criticise me for it like attending Humanist meetings and doing prehistoric archaeology and taking university courses. They may have criticised but who cares? Perhaps the best bit which I didn't see coming, was that after being a JW drone for all my adult life up to that point; I now became myself...who I really was...my natural identity. This was a completely private thing not something anyone else would know about. The result was that I realised I had struck out against this false authority holding me in their straightjacket. I began, and without too much smugness, to be pleased with my own boldness in having made this very important shift in my life, from uncomfortable mental slave to a free person... in my late forties and just growing up!
As a JW everything seemed to be contaminated with a veil of grey "worldliness". Now the real world unfettered by religious obligations, is to me endlessly fascinating and rewarding to contemplate (and I contemplate a lot!)