Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  27

  My father is a f*****g a*****e

  by Butyoucanneverleave in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  this is my first post.

  i just had to get that statement off of my chest!

  my father is one cold hearted judge mental, hypocritical, piece of s**t. i hate this religion and what it has done to my family!

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  Half banana

  And the sad thing is that your father has been encouraged to believe that what he is doing is the best possible thing for his family.
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  17

  The Last Cup [please add an ending]

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  good morning, fellow posters and friends:.

  please use your imagination to complete this little tale.

  several endings came to me while drinking my morning cup of coffee on the patio.. thanks.. cc.

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  Half banana

  You dear reader may wonder why...

  I had broken the last commandment: do not be found out. This being 2026 just six years after the great meteor strike, with religious surveillance being complete now for five years, the thought police, considered a jest in the last century had become a reality.

  The seven leaders of the religious cult had turned political and duped the world. They call it God's New Kingdom on Earth... Huh! The giant meteor which landed in central Italy affected the whole world, killing more than half the population mainly in Europe and Asia. Ice and snow fell all over Africa, it rained in the tropical deserts and has been complete drought in Southern USA and most of South America. Floods and droughts in all the wrong places. How could people in this day and age still believe it was a judgement from God? My last coffee.

  I thought I could go undetected but in two hours I will be humanely eliminated at the centre for Religious Justice. It will be a routine show trial with a foregone conclusion. From then it will be all over in fifteen minutes.

  My sabotage plan would have succeeded but for one informer afraid for his life. You can’t blame him, all his family would have to be killed as well when the police elders found out he knew of my scheme. All who dare to think differently to the ruling elite are progressively eliminated. The seven ”Culture Heroes”, as they call themselves, who through psychotic determination, media and mind control, ruthlessly deny the basic needs of humanity. They rule in the name of God with a tyranny unknown to history. My very last coffee.

  The caffeine kicked in and I awoke with a start... If only it would rain!
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  64

  Mind control.

  by New day in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in a recent thread someone mentioned that the wtbts uses mind control techniques.

  do you think this is a conscious ploy?

  if it is it would mean that the leaders of my religion (i am still an active jw) set out consciously to control people.

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  Half banana

  @ smiddy, that all religious governing bodies use the same or similar tactics does not make for complicity between them as if they have the same organic root. As you are alluding, most of them do have a common ancestor and that root is Adventism. Yes Mormons are a different species but just as nutty and demanding of slavish obedience.

  However to just look at these religious groups is to ignore the fact that all undemocratic authority be it religious, parental or dictatorships, go unchecked and use the same systems of reward and penalty, information control etc.

  I don’t think they read up on how to pull the wool over the eyes of the less powerful...it seems to be a human weakness of the insecure in power to exploit underdogs. That is why I suggest the GB do not know they are lying, manipulative, narcissists who consciously use “mind control”... it just comes naturally to them in their delusional role as God's chosen ones.
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  2

  Invitation to be a director

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you had been invited to become one of seven directors of a religious corporation which has a mainly tax exempt annual income of one billion dollars; how would your sense of responsibility to uphold the tradition of office (and therefore your own privileges) affect your moral judgement?.

  for example would you let the corporation fail financially for the sake of pursuing a decision on what you understand to be gods will?.

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  Half banana

  If you had been invited to become one of seven directors of a religious corporation which has a mainly tax exempt annual income of one billion Dollars; how would your sense of responsibility to uphold the tradition of office (and therefore your own privileges) affect your moral judgement?

  For example would you let the corporation fail financially for the sake of pursuing a decision on what you understand to be “God’s will”?
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  1

  old Guardian article---any comments ?

  by stan livedeath in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/15/stephenbates

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  Half banana

  Stan it amazes me that there has been no publicity about those who have lost relatives, a child or parent through sticking to the JW teaching of refusing blood. Can anyone imagine the situation where a family have lost a loved one and then realised TTATT. The pain of realising that the death was unnecessary, done just for compliance with a brainless cult... must be terrible.

  Has anyone heard of such cases? I wonder, has anybody tried to sue the WTBTS due to its blood doctrine causing a fatality?
• 
  64

  Mind control.

  by New day in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in a recent thread someone mentioned that the wtbts uses mind control techniques.

  do you think this is a conscious ploy?

  if it is it would mean that the leaders of my religion (i am still an active jw) set out consciously to control people.

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  Half banana

  This is an interesting question with thoughtful replies.

  Hassan’s criteria for mind control, certainly fits the pattern for the method deployed by JW leadership. But I find it hard to imagine that they believe they are practicing some devious dark psychological art themselves. I would suggest that they are using a method of emotional abuse in the way that an unkind and thoughtless parent wants to control a child. For example by threats, fears and guilt. It is a kind of ’grooming’ by the governing body for the purpose of compliance to their will. The GB members are the greatest beneficiaries of the continued financial success of the cult and therefore they exploit the flock to this end.

  What Hassan has done is analyse the nuts and bolts of how it is done and his model works for all people or groups invested with some authority over others who abuse that power, not that they consciously think they are using “mind control”.
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  4

  The borrowed magic of the memorial

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  myth comes from myth and ritual comes from ritual.

  myth and ritual are borrowed in the way fire is borrowed to light another flame.

  john 6:53 says that whoever does not eat (jesus) body and drink his blood will have no life in him.

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  Half banana

  @ Heaven, I read that it is reckoned that more than 80% of the contents of the Bible are taken from pagan beliefs. This is not to say Paganism with a capital P which is a modern incarnation.

  @ azor, certainly but which bits?

  @ HTBWC my purpose was to show what lies at the bottom of the memorial namely cannibal magic, nevertheless I would be interested in knowing what you mean by distinguishing between Pauls words on the matter and those attributed to Jesus.
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  14

  Some Early Church Fathers even ignored the name YHWH

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was reading the bart's answer to terry on th name "jehovah", and i remembered that when i did my personal study about the church fathers of the second century i found that justin martyr ignored the divine name:.

  from the first apology of justin martyr:.

  ... and as many virtues as are peculiar to a god who is called by no proper name.

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  Half banana

  So Justin Martyr got one thing right!
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  8

  Red Bull punted in baptismal talk

  by Vidqun in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  an acquaintance reported that the brother giving the baptismal talk at a regional assembly recently punted red bull a few times.

  he never mentioned red bull by name, but he referred to the drink that "gives you wings" more than once.

  this sounds like subliminal advertising.

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  Half banana

  I agree, isn’t it just the stupidity of the speaker. I remember a wedding talk in the KH given by a bro who was mechanic by trade referring to the workings of a motor to marriage. The bride was less than impressed.
• 
  4

  The borrowed magic of the memorial

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  myth comes from myth and ritual comes from ritual.

  myth and ritual are borrowed in the way fire is borrowed to light another flame.

  john 6:53 says that whoever does not eat (jesus) body and drink his blood will have no life in him.

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  Half banana

  Myth comes from myth and ritual comes from ritual. Myth and ritual are borrowed in the way fire is borrowed to light another flame.

  John 6:53 says that whoever does not eat (Jesus’) body and drink his blood will have no life in him. v54 extending the thought into the positive and saying that the partakers will get life and resurrection... But eating people is not nice!

  In fact the Greek word trogon translated “eat” in this verse 54 conveys an even more vigorous sense; that of ‘gnawing’ at the flesh. There was no doubt about the strength of the meaning. The apologists say that Jesus was speaking symbolically and without doubt it must be so, for most things can be made symbolic in meaning, but that does not explain the reason for its inclusion in the Greek writings especially as the Jews would have bridled at the concept of drinking blood?

  In the headlong competition of the Christ cults in the early centuries of our calendar, to gain converts the short-cut to success was not to come up with new and strange ideas, they would become a barrier and exclude people; the method for religious popularity was to incorporate the prevailing pagan beliefs... or re-cycle them as we would call it today. The main characteristic of Jesus-Christianity was not novelty or originality but its borrowing of ideas from every pagan source.

  Who said this first:“Whoever does not eat the flesh and drink the blood, the same will not be with me in paradise.” This is an inscription from the Mithraeum or temple of the Saviour Mithras which lies under the present Roman Vatican City Cathedral of Saint Peters. How does it happen that this Christian teaching had been already in place for another saviour? We see how the fusion Jesus-cult had fed off the strengths of Roman Mithraism:

  "The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgement in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.
  

  Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.” Craig Lyons, ‘Mithra’s contribution to Christianity’, section ‘Have you heard this before?’

  The Jesus cult had borrowed the annual memorial ritual of the saviour’s death but have you ever stopped to think about its root meaning? The thrust of the pre-Christian story is that the god-man, son of the Sun God, gave up his earthly life in sacrifice and returned to his heavenly father at the spring equinox. We are referring to a sacrificial death. But there is more; we are referring to the most abhorrent reason to sacrifice a person: to eat their flesh and drink their blood. The normal name for this practice is cannibalism.

  Superstitious people are susceptible to what is claimed by others to be holy. The essence of this innately human streak is to be found in Paul’s words, it is that desire for,”Power beyond what is normal.” (2Cor 4,7) The religious mind, not finding comfort from the ‘world’ seeks help from an intangible spirit realm to assist. After all, the mass of humanity historically speaking have been peasants. That meant being poor, illiterate and powerless. So to clutch at the straw of divine intervention in their benighted lives and believe in fanciful spirit beings and sacred rituals was all the strength they could muster, this was Paul's”the power beyond what is normal.”

  The Bible was written by the literate few who were in the employ of the kings and princes of their time. The mighty texts emanated from the courts of the ruling elite. That is why when reading texts which became part of the Bible we must bear in mind this dynamic: it was written for illiterate people who would naturally revere something which was beyond their own comprehension i.e. writing. Yet in that world back in the Iron Age of the Levant when the Bible writings were collated, for the common people it was not the text but ritual and action which primarily counted in religion. Making the writings sacred came later. The most potent spiritual magic any community could summons was that of sacrificing a human life. By partaking of the flesh and blood of the chosen victim, the purpose would have been for appeasement of the gods, ritual purification and restoration of equilibrium and cementing of group loyalty.

  Last autumn, I was travelling in the Mediterranean and by chance came across an archaeological site which was a Tophet or child sacrifice place as used by Israel’s neighbours the Phoenicians. I shuddered at the implications.

  The JW memorial is now a confused and irrelevant affair because the leaders are themselves unsure of the meaning of it and to whom it applies! By looking at the history from the pagan original down to its mere shadow of today's ritual, shows the crass desperation of Christianity relying on the notion of tribal magic to make claims for its central doctrine.

  Eating sacrificial flesh and drinking blood even symbolically cannot get you everlasting life...nothing does!

  The fictional idea that the god-man Jesus came to save us is truly primitive thinking. Do not support the Watchtower's unholy memorial of borrowed magic.