I do know of a fully awake JW who does indeed spout the party line but only to emphasise how stupid it is. Popularity within the club membership is based on how heroic you are in defending the club rules.
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
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15
Is it possible that someone who gives really gushing comments might still be awake?
by Isambard Crater inof the 50% of congregants who regularly participate, many of them give gushing answers about how appreciative they are, how wonderful jw.org is and so on, which makes me think nobody in my congregation is awake.
but maybe it's possible for someone who comes across as super spiritual to be awake?
i can't see how, though, as surely it's emotionally draining to fake it like that?
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Observations From an Ex-Elder Part 3 - Searching for the Lost Sheep
by doubtfull1799 in"what man among you with 100 sheep, on losing one of them, will not leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it?
" - luke 15:4. disclaimer: by posting the following observations i am not complaining.
i am happy to be left alone.
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Half banana
Interesting Doubtful, the JW cult is to do with appearances and conforming to the expectations of being a member of the club. Paradoxically they often take the scriptures in a literal way but don't take the spirit of Christianity to heart. Not that I recommend the need for that because we can do good without being told what to do.
I faded and then stopped attending completely, what an enormous relief! I expected a visit or two but instead around six or seven weeks later an elder who I knew well called by and told me, as if under instruction, that he was only calling to check whether I was leaving because I had become an active and vocal apostate. Of course I denied that, that was to happen later. But the point of his visit was not for my welfare but to stem possible anti JW sentiment and disfellowship me. I was never bothered again.
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Emotionally very ill but can't face consequences of leaving
by Isambard Crater ini'm a new member so wanted to say 'hi'.
i live in the u.k, was born in, fell away as an unbaptised publisher, got baptised in my 30s for reasons i'm retrospectively unsure of, and lost my faith about five years ago around the time of the original a.r.c.
now, being unable to leave is making me physically, emotionally and mentally ill.. i'm not strong enough to da and live with the family consequences, and despite having several good friends outside the faith, none of them could support me in an active way as such.
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Half banana
Isambard Crater, you are feeling fragile at the moment you have a number of pressures on you. Sorry to hear of your difficult situation. The logical thing is to slow down and avoid those areas of your life causing the stress which is of course the religion.
Tell your friends and family that you are weak, worn out and depressed. There will be sympathy for you on this since many JWs talk this way in the first place! So tell them you need some personal space to recuperate and skip some of the meetings and most of the field service. (I do find it a puzzle how non-believers can preach the WT lie with a good conscience?) If you make your position clear that you need private time it will alert them to the fact that you are sliding and that is good to establish because they will get used to it and ask less of you.Thank the elders for offers of "shepherding" but firmly and politely decline. You can remain a JW as long as you don't verbally express doubt or criticism of the org and its doctrines.
It is a fake organisation which uses theocratic warfare, so don't be afraid to you your own "TW" back on them!
Fading like this gives you time to build up your health and confidence to do what you actually want in the longer term. So don't rush it, just gradually fade and you know we are all gunning for you.
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2 Peter 1 = Deity of Christ.
by towerwatchman in2 peter 1 = deity of christ.
2 pe.
1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .
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Half banana
Personally I have not done away with God, there is simply insufficient evidence for this phantom so it never enters any argument of mine. Compassion and fellow feeling need no external force to impose it on to humanity, it comes from within.
Nietzsche was right however in saying that with the cultural death of God we have to determine our own human values and that is what is being done. Look how much better the world is (outside of religious sectarian wars) how we are living longer, eating better food, curing once incurable diseases, enjoying better education and communication........... and all through applying science and reason to the tangible, measurable world.
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How deep is the rot?
by JeffT inby now it seems obvious that the gb and other leaders of the wtbs are corrupt.
the pedo scandal and various financial schemes are sustained by either lack of concern or greed at the top.
my question is how far down the food chain does this go?
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Half banana
I think the whole organism is flawed and rotten, it was rotten in fact to its foundations right from the start. All egos and Dollar bills. As to the level which corruption penetrates I suggest that it is systemic although a majority of followers mean very well.
In the hierarchy there are the big people at the top enjoying the undeserved rewards of their scam with a layer of brain dead wannabes below them. All the rest including the elders are the little people with Watchtower induced lobotomies.
The whole con trick is based on a fictional story dressed up to look miraculous and the GB play on the credulity of the little people who have been lured into it by a ticket to paradise.
I don't think the org can remain an attractive option to outsiders for much longer. I do hope the heartless GB will be publicly outed-- but the true believers by their very nature will hang on to the bitter end whatever happens.
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2 Peter 1 = Deity of Christ.
by towerwatchman in2 peter 1 = deity of christ.
2 pe.
1:1 simon peter, a bondservant and apostle of jesus christ, .
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Half banana
In order for anything to be objective it has to be outside of the box, cannot be part of the equation. So any source of objective moral values has to be transcendent, and the only one that can be transcendent is God.
Towerwatchman are you not able to see the falsity of your statement? Only you are determining that a source of moral values has to be "trancendent". Without discussing the subject of morality in any depth here may I direct you to Nietzsche who comes close in my mind in simplifying the matter by calling morality "custom", Untranscendent, tribal custom, the feelings of the herd.
Come back down to Earth, your empty shoes are still here! You have been taken in by the holy hyperbole and believed the baseless flummery which is virtually the whole of the NT. It is destroying your objectivity .
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Words for the Day; please share
by compound complex ingreetings, word lovers:.
in my job, i work with words and wrangle them into shape, well, in a manner of speaking.
one word might be mistaken for another, a word with either a similar or identical sound.
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Half banana
Sylvia: antimony, antinomy, antonymy, autonomy and anatomy........read very fast
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Words for the Day; please share
by compound complex ingreetings, word lovers:.
in my job, i work with words and wrangle them into shape, well, in a manner of speaking.
one word might be mistaken for another, a word with either a similar or identical sound.
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Half banana
licence and license
practice and practise
.....both cases here are nouns followed by verbs .............(alphabetically C comes before S as Noun comes before Verb) but with;
principle and principal
.....they are both nouns but the second spelling can also be an adjective.
As in; The principal (adj) argument on moral principles (noun) was taught by the school principal.(noun)
Here endeth the lesson
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Words for the Day; please share
by compound complex ingreetings, word lovers:.
in my job, i work with words and wrangle them into shape, well, in a manner of speaking.
one word might be mistaken for another, a word with either a similar or identical sound.
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Half banana
How about the word syzygy just for its own sake and its absence of vowels? (a pairing or alignment)
Or in use; Sylvia, I like your syzygy of antimony and antinomy but we could also add antonymy to them as well.
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Interpret John 1:1 by John 1:1.
by towerwatchman ininterpret john 1:1 by john 1:1. .
the greek language has the definite article which has approximately thirty variations, is translated into english as “the”, and points to an identifiable personality, someone we have prior knowledge of.
but the greek language has no indefinite article corresponding to the english “a”, or “an”.
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Half banana
Towerwatchman, thank you for a long reply. The natural reaction of Christians is to defend to the hilt the position of Jesus as redeemer because if this hope was flawed it would destroy the very thing which gives meaning and value to their lives.
Please note, (and you still prevaricate by giving special meanings to certain words) the idea of cheating death is a fundamental driver of religious belief and yet; no one has credibly benefitted from Jesus’ supposed life and sacrificial death. Apart that is from the false security in grasping the illusory straw, in hoping for eternal life.
I was in the Ryland Library in Manchester last year and enjoyed looking at the fragment of John, one of the earliest pieces of NT text dated around the third quarter of the second century, a tiny scrap of papyrus with a few lines of smudgy Greek but important nevertheless. This is representative of the reality of the early NT texts not the thousands of documents you infer. The bigger mistake is to believe they are divine. It is hardly surprising that manuscripts which were authorised and funded by Imperial Rome became common and the evidence is that it is after the fourth century that their number proliferates. However the most widely distributed Christian literature of the first two centuries was “The Sherperd of Hermas”, which is ‘scripture’ by Paul’s definition and never uses the name Jesus but just calls the saviour figure “Lord”.
You miss the significance of the resemblance of Christianity to Mithraism. Of course they are different, otherwise we would call Christianity Mithraism! However, Jesus Christianity palpably did derive many things from the secret cult of Mithras but by no means exclusively. Noteworthy is the borrowed eschatology, atonement by much of the Apocalypse and outstandingly the last supper, the memorial of Mithra which the Romans had been celebrating once each year with small cakes for centuries before Jesus was thought of. The home of Roman Mithraism was on the Vatican stone promontory on the very spot where St Peters stands today. Yes the Roman Catholic Church was built on the Rock of Peter; Mithraism. The last Mithraic Pope,(PAter PAtris or Papa) Vettius Agorius Praetextatus died in 384 CE well after the death of Constantine and hence the Mithraic Papal role was tolerated by him. The cult of Mithras had a celibate clergy, they worshipped on the holy day of Sunday since all pagan saviours including Jesus, are sons of Sun Gods born to die “on the cross” i.e at the spring equinox, and thence to heaven.
But as you rightly said Christianity did not come from the Good Sheperd Mithra, he was only a part of the story. The Catholic faith was the result of politically motivated synchretism, absorbing all the major Jesus cults including the Pauline, the Johannine community as well as the cults of Attis, Dionysus, Serapis, Cybele etc.
Whatever defence modern Christians claim in an attempt to deny this unwelcome origin, usually by protesting the differences; the historical fact is that the beliefs, rituals and words found in Christianity had already been practiced for centuries before the first century CE. Only about sixteen percent of Bible text is without precedent in secular or ‘pagan’ texts. There is irony that the city centred Roman religion which after absorbing and sacralizing every kind of peasant faith, later pontificated that this same folk belief of the villagers (pagus/pagans) and the heath-dwellers was to be condemned as “pagan” or “heathen”. . .
And so the sentiment remains today.
The gospel’s promise of saving or gaining life has proved to be a spurious superstition. Jesus got it all wrong, (Mark 9:1).