Posts by Half banana

25

Has God preserved His word today?

by JW Answers in

has god preserved his word today?

many people attack, doubt and fault god's word.

yet god has made several promises in his word.he promised to preserve his word unto every generation,he promised that every word would be truth,he promised that we can rely and depend on his every word.satan wants nothing more than to dismiss, and cast doubt on god's word... so the question today is... do we have god's preserved word today?

Half banana

So did an ox headed idol called Yahweh in the Phoenician pantheon create the world and all that was in it? Did this idol from the days of polytheism ever speak or write? Then did he inspire imperial Rome to assemble borrowed and selectively altered texts drawn from pagan and exotic sources to represent his thoughts? And then demand its subjects to regard these writing as the unassailable and sacred word of God and by the fifth century punish you by death if you didn't believe? Are Gods a projection of the concept of fatherhood invested with power by common acceptance as a last ditch safety net to ward off existential anxiety?

You have to sort out these incongruities before being able to ask whether an unprovable, unknowable, untestable, uncommunicative invisible spirits even exist let alone being capable of creating things or writing books.

81

How Long Before They Introduce Tithing?

by pale.emperor in

when i was a full-on believing jw i had an obsessive fascination with mormonism.

i read, studied and watched their propaganda with strange interest as well as their apostate mormon books.

i have to say, they have a good scam going claiming that "the lord reintroduced tithing" in the modern age.

Half banana

If they did introduce tithing, like everything to do with the JW organisation, it would be a disaster.

Firstly the majority of JWs are poor and would greatly resent a compulsory tithe; it would drive out all those looking for an excuse to leave--which could amount to millions of them?

Secondly the other church members who pay a tithe such as Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists get a lot back from the payment as it goes into funds which in turn yield social security and recreational benefits for the congregants.

The GB have no stomach for social support for their devotees, their response to those hurt by sexual abuse amply demonstrates that they don't care a fig about the psychological and earthly needs of their members. Their mythical heavenly kingdom is supposed to do the social welfare part, which leaves the role of the GB as takers and not givers...........

However I do hope they have to resort to tithing as it will be a sign of final desperation and it will hasten the end of their nasty cult. Yipee!

33

J.W.`s and Paradise and the Reality of it.

by smiddy3 in

when god created adam and eve and put them in the garden of eden it was then up to them to cultivate and take care of it ,god had no further hand in it .the responsibility rested with adam/eve and their offspring.. the same would be true in the paradise to come ,god gets rid of all of us wicked people ,but then it is up to j.w.~s who are left on this earth to restore such a paradise.?

without god`s intervention.. think of it , this system is gone with all its infrastructure.. 8 million + j.w.`s scattered throughout the earth with.

no communication systems operating .

Half banana

Yes Vidiot, I agree with you, the Watchtower cult can only organise the brain dead. One of the final liberating blows to my JW experience, like a giant warning bell sounding in my head-- was the realisation that the GB intended to micromanage my choices, thoughts and actions forever.

I'll tell you what paradise is: living a life free from the demands of the JW organisation............

23

Anyone know the significance of the three days and nights Jesus is dead?

by Crazyguy in

in my studies i’ve come to realize that most dying and rising gods such as inanna, jesus and others all were dead three days and nights.

the moon is dead as far as man not being able to see it in the sky three days and nights but many of these gods are not associated with the moon, osiris maybe being the only exception.

have any of you in your research come up with a plausible idea on why there all dead just threes days and three nights?.

Half banana

In another sense the sun always stands still, it is us on planet earth who move around the sun. The sun however takes a hundred thousand years to rotate around the Milky Way galaxy.

The key to Crazyguy's question is that the ancients, who were assiduous observers of heavenly bodies, saw the point on the horizon at which the sun rose for each of three midwinter days at the same spot and called it dead-- and on the third day it rose from the dead (Christ and the Sun) and went forth from there. "Things as in heaven also upon earth".

These are among the thousands of points of affinity of the Bible's unoriginal thoughts with universal folk tales from the ancient world. The Roman Church after absorbing and fusing most prevailing religious belief, condemned and destroyed earlier versions so as not to demean its own high status to deliberately obscure the fact that its so called sacred texts or Bible as we know it originated in humble folk tales. It produced the disparaging term paganism (rustic beliefs) to put down the peasants and distance itself from their beliefs even though they were the source material for its own approved holy writings.

23

Anyone know the significance of the three days and nights Jesus is dead?

by Crazyguy in

in my studies i’ve come to realize that most dying and rising gods such as inanna, jesus and others all were dead three days and nights.

the moon is dead as far as man not being able to see it in the sky three days and nights but many of these gods are not associated with the moon, osiris maybe being the only exception.

have any of you in your research come up with a plausible idea on why there all dead just threes days and three nights?.

Half banana

4 hours ago

In the NT Jesus makes it sound like he's the sun.

Indeed he does Acluetofindtheuser!

I see the that the whole Christ story as a vastly elaborated myth which ultimately has at its root an astronomical reality.

It is hard to appreciate this if coming to the subject cold. Much groundwork is needed including a comprehensive grasp of mythology (which I don't have) to be able to trace the individual threads of myth back towards the folk tales many of which are drawn from the zodiacal star stories.

The earth turns in a daily motion and the stars predictably change position on the annual orbit of earth around the sun. Knowing the constellations and stars, and their explanation was a "Bible" before the Bible.

In its simplest form back in pre-literate, pre-scientific times, an explanation was demanded of why things are like they are.Humans are like this. Stories feed on human imagination but for any to endure they must have a have a reference point and structure, this is the difference between stories and myth.

Nothing exists so patently structured and orderly and permanent as the starry canopy, so marvellous and universally recognised that it was branded the home of the gods. This gave the whole world of humanity a common canvas to paint their own cultural mythologies on and is the explanation of why disparate peoples came up with the same ideas about gods, religion and salvation.

I won't rabbit on-- but the universal saviour is the Sun God who daily overturns darkness, however his father is a Sun God as well, which is why there is a troublesome ambiguity in the Bible regarding the identity of the Son and the Father.

Three days dead? I asked myself the same question about six years ago. Well the sun 'dies' in the sense that for three days every year, as it was said to do on 21st December and rose again on the 25th. Which day we know is the birthday of the Sun, and from the fourth century onward, the birthday of Jesus who was conflated with the Sun God in the Catholic faith. (Sol Invictus, the unconquerable Sun) The death of the literal sun was describing the position of the sun's setting and rising as having stopped dead for three days and not moving along the horizon as it normally does for the rest of the year. The idea of "three days dead" based on this perception had already well before the first century become a signifier or accoutrement for a god-man hero in folk tales and heroic literature.

The Christ figure was simply one of many heroic christ myths who all shared the common tropes of solar connotation, sacrificial death, miraculous healing abilities, overcoming death etc. and including going to hell or Hades for three days.

38

What Privileges do you get when you are baptized ?

by LOLS in

my husband was baptized at the recent 2018 convention in south africa ....... he was very annoyed that his non-believing wife did not attend the baptism....... but i think he received pressure from his jw father & elders as to why his wife was not attending ....... anyway ..... it's really water off my back .

i wanted to know what privileges you get as a baptized jw man , as i saw a message from one of the elders at his cong , congratulating him on his baptism and to earning more privileges ..... what are these privileges the elder is speaking about ,,,,, .

i don't feel like asking my husband as it just lands up in a stupid fight ..... or a long winded explanation ..... thanks .

Half banana

So sorry for you Lols and thank you for your post.

"Privileges" means greater opportunity to waste more of your own time, energy and funds on an unworthy mind-controlling cult which specialises in stealing people's lives and inheritances and never gives anything back in return.

Through mock heroics like being more gullible than others and lots of grovelling to the elders means that you get still more "privileges" and as a consequence more adulation comes from the cult hierarchy leading to an elevated status within the congregation--which is how it works in fairyland.

33

J.W.`s and Paradise and the Reality of it.

by smiddy3 in

when god created adam and eve and put them in the garden of eden it was then up to them to cultivate and take care of it ,god had no further hand in it .the responsibility rested with adam/eve and their offspring.. the same would be true in the paradise to come ,god gets rid of all of us wicked people ,but then it is up to j.w.~s who are left on this earth to restore such a paradise.?

without god`s intervention.. think of it , this system is gone with all its infrastructure.. 8 million + j.w.`s scattered throughout the earth with.

no communication systems operating .

Half banana

A serious consideration of a perfect life in a perfect world is soon realised to be cloying and inhuman not to mention the problem of infrastructure. Are JWs going to dispense with worldly technology and return to the Stone Age? It would be fitting because intellectually that's where they belong. However paradise is never going to happen unless humans can arrange it.

If paradise is the return to pre-lapsarian (lovely word!) Eden with JC having paid off Adam's sin then how will it be? A petty god still demanding obedience, a woman egged on by another snake and boom boom: disobedience--it could all end in tears again!

The great thing about leaving the JW cult is that you can live a normal life and think for yourself --the relief is exhilarating bye the way and all JWs should try it. . . The notion of Adam and Eve, paradise and Armageddon are mere fictions from the Biblical myths. Real life deals with real events and is more exciting. Eagles don't fly with pigeons!

25

Has God preserved His word today?

by JW Answers in

has god preserved his word today?

many people attack, doubt and fault god's word.

yet god has made several promises in his word.he promised to preserve his word unto every generation,he promised that every word would be truth,he promised that we can rely and depend on his every word.satan wants nothing more than to dismiss, and cast doubt on god's word... so the question today is... do we have god's preserved word today?

Half banana

JW answers, the wording of your question betrays a slave mentality found in most religious people, an unquestioning and childish belief in what other people say!

If you were to learn the basics of philosophy you would realise that the question you pose is loaded with cultural assumptions for which there is no concrete evidence. So how can you expect an intelligent reply to such an unintelligent question?

8

Dealing with nightmares

by Freedom rocks in

i had some terrible dark nightmares when i was studying which disappeared once i got baptised.

i think it was psychological based on the fact i believed jehovah was protecting me after i was baptised.

i had a nightmare tonight after just under a year of being out of the borg and woke up feeling a bit lost because in the past i'd have prayed and then gone back into a peaceful sleep but since i don't pray anymore i wasn't sure how to comfort myself to go back to sleep.

Half banana

If praying helps then this may indicate that by doing so you are tapping into those brainwaves which give a sense of calm. You might try the autosuggestion, telling yourself that there are no existential terrors about to get you and that life and the world is good not suffocating in evil.

Have you tried to think of something positive when you wake up in the night like walking on a palm fringed beach and letting a story grow from this. Watching the sea swirl gently around a rock, meeting friendly people etc? This is the portal for better dreams!

16

"It doesn't work!...SMASH IT!!! HATE IT!!!" (Tantrum alert)

by Darth FayDehr in

.

Half banana

Diogenesister I entirely agree, he is stuck in the cult without qualifications to have a better job and comes over as a toadying robot. The glass smashing is to get over his own frustrations for not being chosen as a GB member.