Posts by Chariklo

I'm hardly qualified to comment on this idea, because I never even got baptised, though I came very close to it. My own family and long-time are overjoyed to have me back in the world of sanity and reality.

That puts me into a very different position from those whose families are intertwined with the whole web of the WT. I made what I thought were very good friends in my JW years, and, although I wasn't yet baptised, there was every expectation that I would be, if not in the March just gone then at least at the summer Convention. I was told I was welcome back at any time and as far as I know that hasn't been rescinded...would be, quick as a flash if they were reading my posts here! But, though I'm fairly certain I'm not "marked" or anything, yet, maybe because of the Special Talk, all phone calls and texts etc from the local congregation have ceased, though not from the lovely elderly sister about 40 miles or so away. She is a factor outside any local politics or policy. I'm very fond of her and don't intend to hurt her, which means I am almost daily kept up to date with her version of WT thinking. But that's another story...

What I mean is, even I, with such relatively brief JW links, found I missed some of the JW friends. I missed the camaraderie of the field service sessions...because I'd gone at it in a big way and was out a lot more than just Saturdays.

Anyway, in my time on here I've come to understand and appreciate, what I didn't as a total newbie this time last year, how very painful and difficult it is for those who are enmeshed in the WT links of family and friends. I know how I would feel if my children and grandchildren were ever to remove themselves from me, if lifelong friends crossed the road rather than talk to me. None of that has ever happened because, contrary to what the WT would have us believe even from early on in the Bible Teach book, people in the world don't ostracise those caught up in the WT brainwash process. They may look on from the sidelines, horrified at what's happening to someone they love, and not knowing how to proceed. (Mine did.) But usually they are all too ready to pick up where you left off and move on without recrimination and not wanting often even to talk about it.

I felt a bit like this when I read about the demonstration planned in London for the Memorial. I've done a fair bit of political activism in my time and I know how idealistic people can be and how unlikely a process is to gain any kind of success or make any real impact without meticulous and, yes, WT phrase, "detailed planning". Where people have such powerful factors impelling them to toe the line as family links and loyalties and their whole friendship- and life-structures, it's even more difficult, and more dependent on individual psychological and emotional makeups.

So, I'd be really interested to know what anyone else thinks about this? Can there be a real revolution?

Just my thoughts, more from the sideline than anything else...

19

Visit from anointed

by wezz in

jw
friends

so tonight i get to be graced by the presence of one of the anointed.

last time he visited to help me i told him that i have a problem with the 1914 date.

now obviously every single aspect of this date is wrong, but i started off by asking how come they end it in 537 instead of 539, when the king of babylon obviously received his punishment in 539, as foretold by jeremiah.

Chariklo

Well, speaking personally, my biggest question would be:

"Tell me, how do you know you are one of the anointed? "

24

Life is in the blood?

by sinis in

however, at conception (life) blood is not present until much later as the fetus developes.

blood is an organ.

now if "life" starts without blood, then is life really in blood?.

Chariklo

However, at conception (life) blood is not present until much later as the fetus developes. Blood is an organ. Now if "life" starts WITHOUT blood, then is life really IN blood?

Very, very good point, sinis. I can't think of a useful comment, though. I do think you've made a really sensible point that never occurred to me.

20

Letter about using iPads at meetings

by under the radar in

jw
friends

first of all, i really appreciate it when official, especially "secret," boe letters and the like are posted here.

it's great to have that stuff on hand, straight from the horse's... uhh...mouth, when certain "friends" deny the slave would ever do or say such and such.... anyway, there have been some references to a letter they sent out about using ipads and the like during congregation meetings.

could anyone provide a scan or link to this letter?

Chariklo

I'm trying to visualise them all in the KH with their iPads.

I'm having a problem.

There they all are, Watchtowers and pens at the ready, Bibles on the other knee, each one industriously scanning all the underlining and notes covering their own pages while making sure others can see their pages while surreptitiously they're peeking at their neighbours to see who's managed to get everything covered with as many notes as possible...and who hasn't prepared properly?

Where is the iPad going to get a look in? Or even a Kindle?

My mind is boggling.

61

Is worship deserved?

by goddidit in

anyone know the jw explanation for this:.

so supposedly, god exists outside of space and time.

or, god wasn't created and didn't create itself, it just always was, or something.... ignoring any logical issues for a moment, if this is true, why does it deserve any worship for this?.

Chariklo

Hey, well done, Nambo!

http://youtu.be/oVGK3fuD5Kw?t=2m19s

Have I got that video link right?

Actually, that wasn't quite the one I had in mind...maybe it was a Jean Luc Picard one...but this one makes the point perfectly well, complete with the lass in the pretty pink frock! And it's a good early episode. True James T Kirk stuff!

27

Fernando says we are "all" dysfunctional

by Phizzy in

poster fernando makes the statement on another thread that we are all "fallen, imperfect, dysfunctional" .

everybody.. i get the feeling that this is not too far removed in its thinking from the wt statement that apostates are mentally diseased, now i am aware that fernando is perpetuating the late doctrine of original sin, and his words were about all mankind, not just us on jwn.. but do you believe you are cursed by what a fictitious couple did in a fabled garden around 6,000 years ago ?

does that make you imperfect, fallen and dysfunctional ?.

Chariklo

Hi Fernado!

Yes, I'm totally with you on this! The Watchtower tells a whole series of clever and subtle lies whilst condemning the so-called "lies" of "Christendom".

Sorry about the two posts above. It seemed as if I couldn't submit, my mistake, I then corrected the html and found I'd done it twice!

106

One Lord - One Savior : Get Used To It

by Perry in

jehovah in the old testament and jesus in the new testament are one and the same.. .

3. jehovah is salvation.

5. jehovah wants only himself to be worshipped.

Chariklo

61

Is worship deserved?

by goddidit in

anyone know the jw explanation for this:.

so supposedly, god exists outside of space and time.

or, god wasn't created and didn't create itself, it just always was, or something.... ignoring any logical issues for a moment, if this is true, why does it deserve any worship for this?.

Chariklo

Anyone know the JW explanation for this:

So supposedly, god exists outside of space and time. Or, god wasn't created and didn't create itself, it just always was, or something...

Ignoring any logical issues for a moment, if this is true, why does it deserve any worship for this?

Also, why would it *want* any worship, unless it was a tyrannical boss with a huge ego?

I think this is a really good question.

It seems to me that the God of the Jehovah's Witnesses, i.e. the way they describe the God they believe in, not only wants worship, he demands it! He sets "righteous standards" before them in the Bible and is willing to eradicate those who don't follow them.

Such a god reminds me of the juvenile god in an old episode of the first series of Star Trek. I've been trying to find it on Youtube but can't seem to put in the right search parameters. Anyway, they find this being who treats them just like the powerful God of the Old Testament. He gets petulant and angry and very destructive, and then his parents come along and take him home to be a good boy.(Anyone know the episode and where to find a clip from it?)

I don't believe in a god like that. Any Creator Being must surely be above all the pettiness of human beings. The JW's God behaves like a spoiled toddler.

27

Fernando says we are "all" dysfunctional

by Phizzy in

poster fernando makes the statement on another thread that we are all "fallen, imperfect, dysfunctional" .

everybody.. i get the feeling that this is not too far removed in its thinking from the wt statement that apostates are mentally diseased, now i am aware that fernando is perpetuating the late doctrine of original sin, and his words were about all mankind, not just us on jwn.. but do you believe you are cursed by what a fictitious couple did in a fabled garden around 6,000 years ago ?

does that make you imperfect, fallen and dysfunctional ?.

Chariklo

Panhandlegirl wrote, first quoting me,

We are all born of the Earth and the natural process is that our bodies return to it when we die.

I am beginning to think that is the case. I know God likes to recycle and I am afarid we may just be recycled.All I can say is: whatever happens,

happens. I had no contol over my birth and I don't think I will have any control over what happens after I die. I will just be the best I can be now.

Yes, but when I wrote the first sentence quoted above, I was thinking of our physical bodies. Personally, I am quite certain that everyone will continue afterwards in a spiritual form...or maybe even by beinig born again as some religions insist. I don't know. Who knows for certain? But I don't rule it out.

What I know I DON'T believe in is that 144,000 will sit on thrones "in heaven" "ruling" over the rest of the world, that is, those who haven't been obliterated by a vengeful Jehovah God. That is as much rubbish as vegetarian lions and tigers!

The more I thought about Paradise Earth and the JW's teaching all the resurrected people, those not wiped out, about JWdom, the more like the hot place we're told doesn't exist it sounded. It's utter nonsense. But I don't think life after death in some for or other is nonsense, and I think that living the best and kindest life you can has got to be the right way to go about living now. We do the best we can, as you say, and that's enough.

We absolutely do not have to "keep ouselves in God's love". Myself, I think that is an evil and pernicious book.