i thought this was so insanely stupid that it made it funny, so i had to share.
living in "the bible belt", i meet people with this sort of mentality all the time but this guy takes the cake!
let's all applaud this guy for reaching new lows in his preachy narrow-mindedness that it was barely interesting enough that a reporter was desperate enough for a story wrote about it.. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/08/florida_pastor_asks_why_atheis.html.
I thought this was so insanely stupid that it made it funny, so I had to share. Living in "The Bible Belt", I meet people with this sort of mentality all the time but this guy takes the cake! Let's all applaud this guy for reaching new lows in his preachy narrow-mindedness that it was barely interesting enough that a reporter was desperate enough for a story wrote about it.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/08/florida_pastor_asks_why_atheis.html
i am sure many of us have had experiences while we were active jws where we were often discouraged from talking to worldy or disfellowshipped family members regardess of occasion or circumstance.
i was always told not to communicate with one of my cousins who, along with her husband had faded back in the 90's and are now off celebrating christmas, birthdays and such.
she has been the victim of many a snub and all out unkindness from various family members, including me.
I am sure many of us have had experiences while we were active JWs where we were often discouraged from talking to worldy or disfellowshipped family members regardess of occasion or circumstance. I was always told not to communicate with one of my cousins who, along with her husband had faded back in the 90's and are now off celebrating Christmas, birthdays and such. She has been the victim of many a snub and all out unkindness from various family members, including me. I couldn't invite her to my wedding and I never called her or talked to her for years because I was afraid of catching flack from family members that are still "in".
A few days ago, I figured I was faded out enough to contact her via Facebook. I told her I was sorry about not inviting her to my wedding and I informed her that I would be heading her way up to BC very soon and would like to meet up with her and her family. What surprised me was that there wasn't an ounce of bitterness to be found in her and she is extremely happy. Its just so striking that even her own sister (who we call Elder-ina) always made her out to be miserable, irresponsable, disorganized and every other pejorative in the book when she couldn't be more happy!
I am still working up the nerve to contact my aunt, my ExJw cousin's mother, who has been disfellowshipped since the 70's for Idolatry and Apostasy and has recently been outed, in an ugly way I might add, by her JW daughter as bisexual. She for sure has the black mark upon her and I still have many of my JW friends and family on my Facebook page and I have been threatened by my uber-dub mom that she would sell me out and get me df'ed if I contacted her! It's just so terrible to think that the same woman she is treating so badly is her own full-blooded sister who she grew up with! It makes you wonder where is all that brotherly love that these drones keep talking about.
..when you got baptised, and when you discovered the truth about the truth?.
me: 20 and 27.
Born in. Dipped at 17 (for a guy). I always had my sneaking suspicions that everything I knew was a bunch of BS mostly because I always had this cloud of guilt hanging above me when they tell you that if you are doing everything you are supposed to be doing you are supposed to be happy. But I was finally convinced that the elders didn't care for me personally nor was there a God that cared about me if there was one at all after a series of unfortunate events at around 19. My mom threatened to kick me out if I decided to not be a JW but after I got married I finally faded at 23. I have never been happier since I escaped the stifling hell that was my life.
suggested street encounter questions:.
perhaps you have a question or two that might prove effective.. .
1. is it true that you believe that only jws will be saved at armageddon?
Is it true you all have to follow exactly what the GB says word for word with no objection because they recieve divine direction direct from the Holy Spirit? How do you know they do if they have falsely predicted armageddon may times in history and their positions about various doctrines has changed so much over the years. If so, was the direction that they recieved from God incorrect, or did he just change his mind a few times?
How do you explain the rise of numbers in the Anointed Kind?
How do you explain the article in the Watchtower that claimed that the generation that was alive during 1914 will not die?
Glitch.. sorry.
...Religion in general is what I am referring to, not just JW. The reason I ask is because last night I had a dream that there was concrete indisputable evidence of some sort, (no real specifics in my dream) that disproved the validity of the bible and confirmed that Jesus never existed. After much confrontation from different sources, the UN, the collective superpowers, religions worldwide, this proof finally got out to the media. When it did, it was met with a wave of riots, crimes being reported everywhere, and just general lawlessness. This got me thinking. Granted, Religion as a whole has caused a lot of problems in the world, but many religious groups are very active in charity, peace keeping, and aide to third world countries and such. And, in a way, religion is the basis of many people's "moral compass". Many people try to behave because of a morbid fear of hell, armageddon, etc. but also to try and acheive some sort of reward like paradise, heaven, a palace full of virgins...
My question to all of you is, what do you think? Do you think that some sort of moral code is needed to keep people from just running rampant, (an opiate of the masses, if you will) and religion is it, for better or for worse, or does this man-made invention cause more problems than it solves?
when you were in the borg looking at the yearbook, none of the middle-eastern countries were accounted for were they?
did it ever strike anyone as odd that the region of the world which this religion was born in, had no "preaching" work being carried out there?
all the while the wtbs is shouting the end is sooo close?
It had to have been just one of those JW stories that get passed around IMO. How is it that just any random little girl be allowed to get near the president without security being all over it, you'd think, no?
when you were in the borg looking at the yearbook, none of the middle-eastern countries were accounted for were they?
did it ever strike anyone as odd that the region of the world which this religion was born in, had no "preaching" work being carried out there?
all the while the wtbs is shouting the end is sooo close?
I remember asking about this during family study once and I also got some line how we don't mention the work that is being done in those countries because it would cause trouble for those working the territories if the authorities got a hold of that information. I do believe that Designs put it more eloquently than I ever could!
reason i ask is we have seen 2 threads this week about angels:.
1. the angels direct judicial committees; when someone is disfellowshipped, the angels are behind it.. so i am wondering why the angels can't seem to identify the pedophiles that are in the congregation, and when a case does come to light, as they did in california over and over, they can't seem to decide that the pedophile should be kicked out?.
do angels like child rapists?
Oh, I am certain there is NO SUCH THING as angels or the holy spirit, or like this thead suggests, they just don't care. All the stuff I never got found out about.. you'd figure with all the yammering the elders do about Jehovah purifying his flock.. My husband and I lied to the elders face and his "holy spirit sense" sure didn't tingle. Besides, if that was the case, then why would there be that stupid "two witness rule" in a JC? Wouldn't the testimony from a f*cking angel suffice??
jerusalem a dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the old testament: the sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.. an ancient version of one book has an extra phrase.
another appears to have been revised to retroactively insert a prophecy after the events happened.. scholars in this out-of-the-way corner of the hebrew university campus have been quietly at work for 53 years on one of the most ambitious projects attempted in biblical studies publishing the authoritative edition of the old testament, also known as the hebrew bible, and tracking every single evolution of the text over centuries and millennia.. and it has evolved, despite deeply held beliefs to the contrary.. for many jews and christians, religion dictates that the words of the bible in the original hebrew are divine, unaltered and unalterable.. for orthodox jews, the accuracy is considered so inviolable that if a synagogue's torah scroll is found to have a minute error in a single letter, the entire scroll is unusable.. but the ongoing work of the academic detectives of the bible project, as their undertaking is known, shows that this text at the root of judaism, christianity and islam was somewhat fluid for long periods of its history, and that its transmission through the ages was messier and more human than most of us imagine.
(cont....) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44117239/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/.
wow! I wonder if the WTB$ is gonna ignore this or what's more certain to occur is that if it picks up press, just undermine these scholars finds by saying its a trap from satan or just apostate lies designed to trick us or, mypersonal favorite, we have to wait on Jehovah. I am sure they will use one of their tried-and-true tactics. They'll just reach in their little bag of pre-approved GB responses and see what comes out. They are also not taking into account that the bible scribes sometimes edited the bible, they added passages and took some out in an attempt to acheive more "cohesiveness" I guess is the best word. Like the story of Lilith, Adam's first wife. So no one can really say with unquestionable certainty what was originally in the books of the bible. It's so sad that so may people hang on to this book's every word and live by it, and also die by it when it is all but infallible.
