Posts by Chariklo

77

According to WT 8/11: YOU MIGHT BE MENTALLY IMBALANCED IF YOU PROFESS TO BE ANOINTED!!!

by JustHuman14 in

according to the august 2011 watchtower magazine:.

memorial partakers.

this is the number of baptized individuals who partake of the emblems at the memorial worldwide.

Chariklo

Maybe Catholics and others who believe in a soul zipping through heaven tend to believe they are of the remnant.

No, they don't. They don't believe in a remnant, because they don't believe, as JW's do, that the Old Testament can be interpreted as directly relevant to now. By which I mean that the remnant of the Jews in Israel was the remnant of the Jews in Israel, and that's all it means. It's historical.

They believe that God is our loving Heavenly Father in heaven, that he loves us all, and that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ his Son everyone has the chance to gain everlasting life in Heaven.

They believe that to do so we must believe in Jesus and do our best to follow him. But the Catholic church recognises that we are fallen human beings for whom perfection is not possible. We are going to make mistakes every day. What we need to do is to love Jesus and do our best to follow him, and provided we are genuinely sorry for each time we fail, God will forgive us and it will be OK. He will receive us with open welcoming arms.

No remnant. No obliteration and wiping out of all those who don't come up to scratch. Just do your best, believe in Jesus and you'll gain eternal life in heaven. No two classes of people. No 144,000 of the good ones, and a great crowd of all the others who never had a hope of going to heaven, but instead are stuck on earth in a surreal paradise where people cuddle lions and tigers, play musical instruments and harvest sheaf after sheaf of golden corn. Heaven, on the other hand, is for everyone, you and me, all of us.If you do something really, really dreadful, then you have to be really sorry and make amends, but the Catholic church allows that if you are indeed truly sorry, do your best not to sin again (allowing for the fact that you are only human so you still might, but you do your best) and as far as you can you put right any wrong that you've done (i.e. if you steal you give back)...then if you do all those things the church assumes that God will forgive you. Even for the worst sin, Catholics believe that God is loving and forgiving and will always forgive a truly repentant sinner if in his heart he really turns again to God. It's very different from the Jehovah in WT pictures wiping away most of mankind at Armageddon.

It'll do for me.

26

What's Your Favorite Internet Site?

by minimus in

jw
friends

since my homepage is drudge report, i'd have to say that the drudge report is what i often check during the day.. of course, this site is clearly one of my favs..

Chariklo

http://www.redhotpawn.com

77

According to WT 8/11: YOU MIGHT BE MENTALLY IMBALANCED IF YOU PROFESS TO BE ANOINTED!!!

by JustHuman14 in

according to the august 2011 watchtower magazine:.

memorial partakers.

this is the number of baptized individuals who partake of the emblems at the memorial worldwide.

Chariklo

A number of factors-including past religious beliefs or even mental or emotional imbalance-might cause some to assume mistakenly that they have the heavenly calling.

So what does this say about the young, fairly new Circuit Overseer who is apparently among the anointed? Maybe he should have kept his head down?

What nonsense it all is.

11

Serving where the need is great, in Utah.

by jam in

jw
friends

a nice visit with my daughter and her family yesterday, (jw,s).. she told me next month they will be serving in utah for four.

days because the need is great.

have anyone here had experiences.

Chariklo

The Dubs and Mormons should just merge. They're so similar.

Now that would be interesting, a JW/Mormon hybrid religion!

26

Parroting in the meetings

by dgp in

in the one meeting i attended, i noticed that some witnesses were creative in the answers they gave to the questions, while others were simply repeating what the magazine said.

i remember that, at the time, i thought the creative ones were also the smart ones, while the others were lazy, and that no doubt the creative ones would rank higher in the watchtower.. well, i think i have changed my mind.

it seems to me that those parroting the questions are, in a way, the smart ones.

Chariklo

In the local congregation I attended for 14 months before my common sense kicked in, people were encouraged to do their own research but within the material provided. In other words, everyone was encouraged to use the Reference Bible, the Insight books, past Watchtower books. "All Scripture is Inspired", DVD's, any publication at all from the WT.

Naturally, new to it all, and being of a nature that tended to think and then share my thoughts, I would put up my hand and come up with my own original ideas, though self-edited because (sorry about this) I was consciously trying to fit in. Occasionally others also would come up with their own thoughts, and these were not rejected.

I have to say that my comments were always welcomed...in fact far beyond what they merited...and I did notkice that people seemed to find them profound whereas, used to theological discussions in another church, I knew that they were rather shallow. Still, for the sake of truth and balance, I'm just saying that in this one congregation at least, the weekly WT study sessions were not conducted in a notably restrictive manner.

NB The local study conductor is clearly an intelligent man with a mind of his own. I do wonder how he manages to accept everything!

85

How many gods are there?

by jgnat in

christianity was birthed in a polytheistic world, inheriting from jewish roots the concept of one g-d. now, instead of one god for israel, we are offered one god for the whole world.

caesar (mortal men) was declared a god.

gods had powers beyond ordinary men, could grant requests, and demanded sacrifice and worship.

Chariklo

JWs are right to think the Bible is God's inspired Word.

Yes, inspired, but not word for word inspired to the point that people sat with pen in hand getting dictated to, word for word by God. That's just not sensible.

85

How many gods are there?

by jgnat in

christianity was birthed in a polytheistic world, inheriting from jewish roots the concept of one g-d. now, instead of one god for israel, we are offered one god for the whole world.

caesar (mortal men) was declared a god.

gods had powers beyond ordinary men, could grant requests, and demanded sacrifice and worship.

Chariklo

Godrulz wrote

God alone is true God by nature. He alone is worthy of worship. He alone is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. The main definition of God/Deity relates to the one, true, living God.

This is a basic premise for me too.

However, ProdigalSon wrote

The simple fact that Jehovah is constantly warning about the worship of other gods is clear evidence that they do exist in his own mind.

and I am not at all sure that this is so. If God is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, those qualities do not necessarily mean that he requires worship. Nor do they preclude it. Even Godrulz said that he is worthy or worship, not that he requires it.

I do agree with this though

This whole idea of "I'm the best", "I'm the only one", "I'm jealous" is telling us that Biblegod has an ego, a very big and dangerous one.

And that's the crunch. The Old Testament tells us that the God portrayed there is a jealous God, and during my time within the WT setup I noticed they do put great emphasis on the OT, and constantly re-iterate concepts like "Jehovah's feelings". The Bible is seen as inspired.

I'm not arguing whether or not the whole Bible is inspired. I suspect it is, but, and here's the important bit, it is filtered through human beings. Just ordinary human beings. Well, even allowing for a bit more tyhan ordinary in some cases, still human beings.

The couple who conducted my study kept on about the word by word inspiration of the Bible. The sister would even say things like "when God wrote the Bible", and when I said, "No people wrote the Bible" I was told I wasn't even a Christian. That kind of primitive thinking gets nowhere.

My point is that it is the OT and Revelations that give us the idea that God of himself requires worship. Although he may do, I think it's conceivable that he does not, of himself require any such thing, because he is, as ProdigalSon rightly says, Love. Jesus shows us what Love is. We don't see Jesus referring to his Heavenly Father as jealous.

85

July 15th WT- Don't Research " False Stories " - Inspired by Satan !

by flipper in

jw
friends

i know the poster lost generation made a fantastic thread on this july 15th apostate article, however - i noticed some very powerful points on pg.

17 paragraphs 9 - 11 which weren't brought out that i feel needed to be touched on.

as was brought out in his thread this article told jw's to avoid apostates because they are " mentally diseased " allegedly and to avoid their web sites, not read their literature, watch t.v.

Chariklo

Flipper

Information control has been a main tactic of the WT society in controlling JW's - NOW they are unable to do so thanks to the Internet.

In other words, as far as information control's concerned, they gave it out and they're going to have to cope with getting it back. There's a sweet irony that in the internet the WT has finally met a worldwide information source that it can't control at all. All it can do is threaten and frighten its members.

And that means that this isn't true

The ones who are gonna stick with it might research but will not be moved to do anything.

because the ones who are disposed to stick with it and trust the WT won't go anywhere near any form of research on the internet because...wait for it...Satan wants them to! Ta-da!

2

Jealousy and the Watchtower

by sabastious in

i like to tell people things.

i do, i get a kick out of helping someone solve a problem using a logical solution that is efficient and intuitive; it's my thing.

so when i read how jf rutherford said he always wanted lead a "large army" i can sort of relate.

Chariklo

The Watchtower?

6

What If You Asked Them to Deduct "Field Service" Time For You?

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

my minimus-like question:.

suppose a jw knocks at your door and you tell him/her, "i heard that jw's do their door-to-door and study work to 'count their time.

' i cannot stand the idea of someone calling on me just to mark down some credit with their religion.

Chariklo

Yup, they'd count it anyway. And they'd count the time getting to you and leaving you. And when they had coffee afterwards they'd find some way to do something meaningful for Jehovah so that they could count that time too. At least, a lot of the ones I know would. That's what they did.