It's about asking the right questions and not being satisfied with "perfect" conclusions... but it's good that you are already asking good questions Jrjw, that is the road to mental freedom!
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
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The Netherlands: Minister for Legal Protection wants Jehovah's Witnesses to conduct an independent investigation of sexual abuse
by jochie inmeanwhile in the netherlands:minister dekker: jehovah's witnesses must review abuse policyin order to protect children better against abuse, the jehovah's witnesses must look back on catholics, according to minister dekker.
but abuse victims think that this approach will not work.. minister sander dekker for legal protection wants the jehovah's witnesses to conduct an independent investigation of sexual abuse within the community, just like the catholic church.
this is stated in a letter he sent this week to the parliamentary committee for justice and security.
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Half banana
How interesting that the Dutch government imagine that the JW leadership in Holland is a responsible group who are actually interested the protection and welfare of its members. This is not the case historically and it is not the case institutionally as directed from HQ in New York State. The JW belief in an imminent apocalyptic destruction of the world precludes focus on individual welfare concerns.
The second consideration they should be aware of is that the JW administration has no experience or incentive for objective self-assessment. Their modus operandi is the cultivation and practice of doctrines sustained by constant propaganda. The only real world problems they organize are financial ones. When it comes to spending time or money on matters for individual members well-being; it does not exist. Its stratagems of policy are about avoiding bad publicity and maintaining a squeaky clean public image.
It will be interesting to see what the Dutch government do and what they are able to enforce with the JW org.
The Dutch government does not realize that Jehovah’s Witnesses are an irresponsible cult which is not interested in membership welfare however much protest they may hear to the contrary. The religion's primary concern is for fidelity to its governing body and even for those counted as loyal, no money is spent on humanitarian benevolence except in rare cases where to do otherwise would be considered a loss of good publicity.
Rehabilitation of those who have been abused does not exist in any official compassionate form by Jehovah's Witnesses organization, reading the victims a few scriptures is hardly a serious response to deep psychological damage. The religion hopes the abused will get better or go away but certainly they should keep quiet, again for avoiding bad publicity.
The selective Biblical literalism which empowers JW belief system is totally inadequate for maintaining the high standards expected in the developed world. So the Dutch government should be apprised of these matters and also of the ARC child abuse investigation of Jehovah's Witnesses and it findings.
It will be interesting to see what the Dutch government can actually do.
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2017-12-4 TO ALL CONGREGATIONS IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND Re: Changes to Circuits
by wifibandit indecember 4, 2017 to all congregations in britain and ireland re: changes to circuits.
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Half banana
"Due to the increase" I thought the increase in JWs in the UK was 26! Who is pulling the wool over the sheep's eyes?
Perhaps they mean that there are no longer enough COs to go round since many of them are waking up to the JW racket.
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Have you ever thought what the primary teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses is?
by Half banana init is not “preach the good news” nor is it “believe in jesus and get saved” neither is it “believe in the governing body of jehovah’s witnesses and get saved” although in practice they do teach this.
no, everything they claim depends on a belief in another doctrine which logic decrees cannot be found in the bible.
the leadership of jehovah’s witnesses put absolute faith in a protestant doctrine which is given a latin name, sola scriptura, meaning “by scripture alone”.. good evidence of the governing body believing in the primacy of this doctrine was when being questioned by the australian royal commission, they resorted to the ‘authority’ of scripture to defend their stance on having “two witnesses” when they are investigating child abuse cases.throughout the hearing they paraded their naive trust in the bible as the highest possible authority proudly ignoring the fact that most people regard it as having been superseded by modern scientific evaluations of what is true.. .
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Half banana
@Smiddy, the NWT distorts the meaning at 2nd Tim 3,16. The writer said "god-inspired" writing is beneficial, he was referring to what we might call today any inspirational writing. He said that all of that was good...a bit of a platitude really but as you stress, he could not possibly be referring to the Bible. The verse before, v15 uses a different Greek expression to refer to Hebrew scriptures.
If as a JW you have your mind rewired by the GB brain reconfiguration programme, Bible meanings will now fit your preconception i.e. that Paul said the Bible is from God. That is not what Paul wrote and the Bible is most certainly not from God. It is terribly flawed, entirely human and full of bestial Iron Age fantasies.
The second point (repetition for emphasis!) If the Bible really did say "All of the Bible is inspired", that would be no evidence of any fact or any more truthful than you, me or an intelligent parrot saying "our words are inspired by God".
Wakey wakey! Jehovah's Witnesses.
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"Each a glimpse and gone for ever"
by compound complex inhere is a cart run away in the road.
lumping along with a man and load.
and here is a mill and there is a river:.
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Half banana
Today trains rush on displacing a continuous tube of air with a whooshing sound. Modern trains also run on welded rails with attenuated oblique expansion joints which create no extra noise when travelled on. When I was young there were gaps between the rails to prevent buckling in hot weather and this feature, as the wheels crossed them, made for a rapidly repeating sound; diddely-da diddely-da diddley-dur, modified according to the local acoustics.
When RLS wrote his poem From a Carriage in the nineteenth century, the old trains went quite slowly over the expansion joints making the rhythm he mimicked in his poem.
I was in the Manchester Museum of Science and industry (UK) not long ago and was amazed and delighted (being a schoolboy at heart) to find an early locomotive in running order with a full head of steam and pulling three passenger carriages around the immediate district. What surprised me was that the boiler originally only produced a mere fifty horse power which is about half the power of a modern motorbike.
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Have you ever thought what the primary teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses is?
by Half banana init is not “preach the good news” nor is it “believe in jesus and get saved” neither is it “believe in the governing body of jehovah’s witnesses and get saved” although in practice they do teach this.
no, everything they claim depends on a belief in another doctrine which logic decrees cannot be found in the bible.
the leadership of jehovah’s witnesses put absolute faith in a protestant doctrine which is given a latin name, sola scriptura, meaning “by scripture alone”.. good evidence of the governing body believing in the primacy of this doctrine was when being questioned by the australian royal commission, they resorted to the ‘authority’ of scripture to defend their stance on having “two witnesses” when they are investigating child abuse cases.throughout the hearing they paraded their naive trust in the bible as the highest possible authority proudly ignoring the fact that most people regard it as having been superseded by modern scientific evaluations of what is true.. .
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Half banana
Thank you for your responses. I don’t know how to say it any clearer but my intent was to show that what underpins the whole of modern JW Bible interpretation and consequently their claim to being God’s chosen interpreters, is an extra-biblical doctrine; the one which says that the sole authority for Christian belief is the Bible itself and that it is the inerrant word of God........and logically speaking that doctrine cannot be found in the Bible.
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"Each a glimpse and gone for ever"
by compound complex inhere is a cart run away in the road.
lumping along with a man and load.
and here is a mill and there is a river:.
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Half banana
What an engaging rythm RLS uses?
"Each a glimpse then gone forever"
Like life itself CC?
As William Blake wrote in his poem Eternity:
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise. .............
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gb, PLEASE, PLEASE UP THE ORGANIZATIONAL HARSHNESS IN 2018
by steve2 insometimes i have expressed a longing for jw organization to tone down its rhetoric and become, well, nicer and more loving.
i have not been alone in my hope.
some posters have even said that if a wave of kindness washed over jw organization and, say, the shunning doctrine was modified (e.g., left up to the individual's conscience without fear of retribution from elders), they'd go back.
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Half banana
I just thought, when JW holy men notice that the membership is in decline they justify it by saying in their holy language that God is "sifting" his organisation.
May it please God to use the coarse grade of sieve preferably just use the frame without a mesh so that the whole lot go through.....
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gb, PLEASE, PLEASE UP THE ORGANIZATIONAL HARSHNESS IN 2018
by steve2 insometimes i have expressed a longing for jw organization to tone down its rhetoric and become, well, nicer and more loving.
i have not been alone in my hope.
some posters have even said that if a wave of kindness washed over jw organization and, say, the shunning doctrine was modified (e.g., left up to the individual's conscience without fear of retribution from elders), they'd go back.
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Half banana
If this brainless cult didn't hurt people then as ex-JWs we wouldn't be concerned.
As doomsday cults age they have to turn the screws to keep the tension of threats and fear on an increasingly higher setting to scare members into staying.
Another site mentions that from a survey sample a small proportion of JWs would be prepared to drink a potion if the GB asked them..........Truly there is a limit to anyone's tolerance of religious behavior and this would be a demand too far. It's just as well that we here are better informed than the flock as a safeguard for them.
There is the chance that the cult demands are now too high already for comfort except for the most deluded but the evidence on this site is that the more thoughtful JWs are indeed seeing through the panda propaganda and escaping the cult.
We cannot organize to increase the burden of demands on JWs but some of us, the 'awake' part of the JW membership, can keep talking to each other and enlarge their awakened circles in each KH until a tipping point is reached.
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Have you ever thought what the primary teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses is?
by Half banana init is not “preach the good news” nor is it “believe in jesus and get saved” neither is it “believe in the governing body of jehovah’s witnesses and get saved” although in practice they do teach this.
no, everything they claim depends on a belief in another doctrine which logic decrees cannot be found in the bible.
the leadership of jehovah’s witnesses put absolute faith in a protestant doctrine which is given a latin name, sola scriptura, meaning “by scripture alone”.. good evidence of the governing body believing in the primacy of this doctrine was when being questioned by the australian royal commission, they resorted to the ‘authority’ of scripture to defend their stance on having “two witnesses” when they are investigating child abuse cases.throughout the hearing they paraded their naive trust in the bible as the highest possible authority proudly ignoring the fact that most people regard it as having been superseded by modern scientific evaluations of what is true.. .
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Half banana
It is not “Preach the good news” nor is it “Believe in Jesus and get saved” neither is it “Believe in the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses and get saved” although in practice they do teach this. No, everything they claim depends on a belief in another doctrine which logic decrees cannot be found in the Bible.
The leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses put absolute faith in a Protestant doctrine which is given a Latin name, Sola scriptura, meaning “by scripture alone”.
Good evidence of the governing body believing in the primacy of this doctrine was when being questioned by the Australian Royal Commission, they resorted to the ‘authority’ of scripture to defend their stance on having “two witnesses” when they are investigating child abuse cases.Throughout the hearing they paraded their naive trust in the Bible as the highest possible authority proudly ignoring the fact that most people regard it as having been superseded by modern scientific evaluations of what is true.
Sola scriptura came into existence in Europe at the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century as an antidote to the monopoly of Papal influence and its claim to determine Christian teaching by its own authority, the Roman Catholic Magisterium.
So is the belief in the Bible as the sole arbiter of truth a sensible idea?
One dramatic consequence of the belief in Sola Scriptura was the proliferation of Christian sects who were freed from the stranglehold which the Papacy had wielded for twelve centuries. Where there was one all embracing church before the Reformation, afterwards at least 20,000 Christian denominations and sects have ensued.
This informs a lot about the nature of enforcing religious orthodoxy versus the freedom to interpret the scriptures according to personal taste. As all controlling religions know, especially the RC church and Jehovah’s Witnesses, that “heresy” is the greatest threat to maintaining order, and that freedom of belief leads to splintering and disintegration.
The Reformation was propelled by trying to right the abuses and corruption in the Roman Church, revealing at the same time that such practices are a corollary of unregulated religious authority. However the fracturing of Protestant belief into myriads of sects, speaks about something else namely the impossibility of finding a coherent and absolute set of doctrines “from scripture alone” which could stand as a universal “truth”. No coherent, inerrant “truth” resulted from the Reformation, nothing which would shift monolithic Catholicism from its self built pedestal of “divine appointment”.
A lesson learned from this would be that one set of divine and absolute doctrinal beliefs to which we should be drawn is an idealistic impossibility, the success of a religion is about perceived authority and power not doctrine.
Surely though the JW Bible says “All scripture is inspired of God, beneficial etc”. Doesn’t that mean the Bible is inspired? If it did mean the Bible is inspired it would logically be disqualified because it is circular reasoning; using the authority of the original statement to justify itself.
By looking at the Greek text and other translations, the writer of Second Letter to Timothy here is saying that all “inspired writings” are beneficial, a reasonable thought if you are promoting a religious approach to life. He cannot be saying the Bible is inspired because it was not compiled until the fourth century CE. Paul used an expression which referred to a category of writing; "divinely inspired writings", which at the time would mean all of the popular literature encouraging faith in God such as found in the Shepherd of Hermas, and other hand written documents of a similar vein then in circulation. Interestingly Paul could not focus on Jesus or the so called gospels of Jesus because they were yet to be written.
In other words the most important belief of JWs, that the Bible is the word of God, is itself NOT found in the Bible. It is impossible to determine this doctrine on the authority of the Bible.
Belief that the Bible is the sole and inerrant word of God was a Protestant reaction to the corrupt Papacy and is unsupported by evidence. Instead the Bible is filled with gross factual errors and failures of logic. It unreflectively describes mythical and magical events as if they are true, it borrows much core narrative from astrology and it imitates and copies pagan writings of antiquity. It suffers from later literary insertions, it has been selectively edited, and revised according to partisan dogma.
Is it from God? Does it sound like it is from God? The Bible writers and editors evince all human failings not the least being to promote religious, racial, patriarchal and homophobic bigotry. Really would God do this?
The JW leadership cling to Sola scriptura above all other things because they have nothing to else to offer mankind except their pathetic reliance on this Protestant superstition.