my wife was playing the "stay loyal" convention that she taped the other day and i noticed the brother said something that wasn't in the outline.
during one of the talks friday on shunning he said "can you imagine if apostates were allowed to stay in the congregations?
the congregations would be a garbage heap instead of the spiritual paradise they are now.
Good points TD.
If I were made to remain in the cong, I would have to be bound and gagged as Outlaw suggests and then I would still blow a gasket if I was forced to hear the speakers.
I feel very sorry for those who suffer this cruelty for the sake of their spouses.
it doesn't look significant, but it is - the jerusalem post reports:.
the finding – coupled with a sphinx fragment of the egyptian king mycerinus (who ruled egypt in the 25th century bce), discovered at the site by the research team three years ago – are the only monumental egyptian statues found so far in second millennium contexts in the entire levant.the discovery of these two statues in the same building currently being excavated by the research team indicates the special importance of the building, which was likely the administrative palace of the ruler of the city, as well as that of the entire city of hazor.shlomit bechar, a doctoral student at the institute of archaeology, who has been excavating at hazor for a decade, is the dig’s co-director, and oversees the main excavation area.during the course of nearly 30 years of excavations, fragments of 18 different egyptian statues – both royal and private – dedicated to egyptian kings and officials, including two sphinxes, were discovered at hazor.“most of these statues were found in layers dated to the late bronze age (15th-13th centuries bce), corresponding to the new kingdom in egypt,” said ben-tor.“this is the largest number of egyptian statues found so far in any site in the land of israel, although there is no indication that hazor was one of the egyptian strongholds in southern canaan, nor of the presence of an egyptian official at hazor during the late bronze age.”ben-tor added that most egyptian statues found at hazor date to egypt’s “middle kingdom” (19th-18th centuries bce), a time when hazor did not yet exist.“it thus seems that the statues were sent by an egyptian king in the ‘new kingdom’ as official gifts to the king of hazor, or as dedications to a local temple, regardless of their already being ‘antiques,’” he said.“this is not surprising, considering the special status of the king of hazor, who was the most important king in southern canaan at the time.
the extraordinary importance of hazor in the 15th-13th centuries bce is indicated also by the biblical reference to hazor as ‘the head of all those kingdoms’ (joshua 11:10).”all the statues at the site were found broken into pieces and scattered over a large area, he noted.“clear signs of mutilation indicate that most of them were deliberately and violently smashed, most probably in the course of the city’s final conquest and destruction sometime in the 13th century b.c.e,” said ben-tor.“the deliberate mutilation of statues of kings and dignitaries accompanying the conquest of towns is a well-known practice in ancient times (i samuel 5:1-4; isaiah 11:9), as well as in our time.”the hazor excavations, which began in the mid-1950s under the direction of the late professor yigael yadin, are carried out on behalf of hu.
It is worth knowing that the first mention of 'Israel' is about 1200 BCE. They earlier comprised groups of assorted and dispossessed families (the Ebiru) from all over the surrounding territories looking for the anywhere they could scrape a living. Nobody would choose the uplands of central Canaan as an ideal territory, it was and remains desert conditions, but it did support goat herding and much later in the Iron Age olive oil production and both commodities were were traded with the all powerful Egypt.
I find it interesting to consider how completely skewed the Bible propaganda is. Israel hardly ever mentions the elephant in the room which was Egypt. The reason being that they had little material culture to brag about which implied to them that their gods were not powerful like the Egyptian ones. The archaeology of Israel shows that over time a consistent state of impoverishment existed and only occasionally is quality sculpture unearthed like the ones you have presented FTS...and then it comes from their overlords; the Egyptians.
For those interested in the early settlements in Canaan and the origins of the Hebrews and Israelites, I recommend: Thomas L Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People From the Written and Archaeological Sources, E.J.Brill 1992.
i guess you are guaranteed to survive the "great tribulation" if you don't be a "kevin".
my family members are doubling down on their fervor about meeting attendance.
they are having an effect on some of my wishy washy long time inactive family.
Thanks Carla, it sounds like judgement day paranoia is alive and kicking in the collective American consciousness...
if you, knowing ttatt, could go back in time and speak to your former jw self, what would you say to wake yourself up from the wt religion?.
i would speak to my unbaptised publisher self.
at that stage, i believed.
I just wish I had been taught philosophy and understood the value of skeptical thinking before I first went to a JW meeting at the age of fourteen.
via reddit.
here are the morning program highlights.
will update for the afternoon once it's all over.
I think we must recognise a more serious significance in the adoption of the bunker or siege mentality.
It usually happens in groups who are isolated from the rest of the world, often held in the thrall of leaders who use the situation to foster a sense of unity and prideful identity among its members. The notion of persecution is a critical propaganda ingredient and North Korea is a good example. Note how the leaders prosper and rank and file sacrifice all they have. Loyalty is praised as the key virtue.
For Jehovah's Witnesses governance, the concern is that they are weakening in their influence over a community who are able to get an alternative and a more accurate description of what is going on through the internet. This loss of authority has triggered a response from the leadership to heighten the fear and consequently the believer's dependency on the words of the leaders.
My own musings on this are to do with the fact of the governing body's complete negligence for the welfare of the sexually abused in their midst has exposed them to public shame and justifiable censure. Many governments are now on the JW org case. Yet any persecution is fuel to their paranoid teachings so the believers, who are insulated from the real reasons, will only interpret it in the way the GB spins it, not realizing how selfish and truly heartless they really are.
Nevertheless the JW org is clearly moving towards hunkering down in the bunker.
It is significant in a political or religious group to move from one mode and into a siege mentality. It usually presages big changes or even total breakdown as with the denouement of the David Koresh group at Wako.
Doomsday cults do not usually have a good shelf life and one hundred and thirty seven years is stretching any intelligent person's credulity.
Let's hope that it heralds a grand awakening........... even among the leadership; that Jehovah's Witnesses are participants in a monumental confidence trick.
i've been 100% alone since my df last month.
i'm dead to my family now, unless i return to their cult - so i recently made contact with 3 former jw's that were in my cong when i was in my youth.
to my surprise, they all had exactly the same doubts and reasoning i had and said even though they've been out 6-7 years they "still feel tied to it in some way" and "feel guilty celebrating xmas or birthdays".
PE, it was good to find friends who were JWs. In fact it is a good thing to make new contacts and friends after having been locked into the Watchtower social club. Keeping company with sensible non-JWs is a real a help in losing the insane JW way of thinking.
When we leave the org most of us follow a familiar pattern. The anger, the shunning, the new found freedom and the unfamiliar need to think for ourselves. Actually we have to be constantly re-thinking EVERYTHING for quite a time.
While we are doing that, things continue to drop into place and we become normalized, we realize the enormity of the hold the JW thought-vice once had on our brain.
After a while I think you might agree, perhaps not yet but later on, that the need to reform the JW org is futile. If it is not God's exclusive "spirit guided organisation" then it may as well be disbanded...and the sooner the better to prevent any more harm being done to people's minds, education, well-being and self esteem.
jw don't believe in evolution .
how come animals teeth are designed to chew meat?
sharks for instance have razor sharp pointy teeth these are not to eat vegetation .
I would be interested to hear any argument or good reason why anyone should listen to what the Bible says...but in the absence of such, I cannot see how an old book of myth borrowed from pagan sources could be the work of an almighty creator god. How can you defend the Bible?
jw don't believe in evolution .
how come animals teeth are designed to chew meat?
sharks for instance have razor sharp pointy teeth these are not to eat vegetation .
Carl get a grasp on the fact that the Bible has nothing to do with telling us anything practical...it is a story book for the illiterate of the Iron Age based on Bronze Age myths.
The tiger shark has an interesting take on survival of the fittest: whilst still in the womb the embryonic sharks attack each other until there is one left who in turn will go out into the sea and having eaten all its siblings will go on to pass this ruthless strategy to a new generation.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrqgPjZ07Ts
Did the vegetarian God slip up here?
Or is it not a perfect demonstration that Darwin's big idea is right and that Genesis and vegetarian lions are just a bunch of primitive folk tales?
it might just be me imagining things.. i hear things from my jw spies.. from all that's being said, it seems to me that the rank and file(tm), are either waking up to the scam and fading/leaving.
they are going full on 'cult mode' and acting like 'spiritual police'.. is it just me and my imagination?
have others noticed this?.
I like Cha ching's point that they leave it up to the next generation of gb to clean up the mess left by the earlier incumbents and find their own excuses and spin as to why Big A has not yet come.
The poisoned chalice is handed down to a new set of leaders who keep the lie of paradise on the move like a Chinese juggler keeps his plates spinning on a stick.
It must appear like a game at the top of the JW (dis)organisation.
time to take a break from debating religion.
take in a breath of fresh air and be healed by the wonders of nature around you.. how many of you have a garden?
how many have a nice flower patch to go with your vegetable garden?
My Collins Guide to the Insects indicates you have a Magpie Moth.
Until this week southern Britain has had a damp dull early summer, hardly saw the sun in June (which is our sunniest month of the year!) hence as you say Xanthippe, very few butterflies...just a succession of Red admirals...always welcome, the odd Brimstone and a few Great whites or cabbage whites as I've always known them.
The real show is when the Tortoiseshell butterflies arrive in September and swarm on the Buddleia
How about you people in far flung places, what butterflies do you see ?
