Chariklo

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Posts by Chariklo

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  9

  JW Online Donations

  by Poztate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a new and"improved" website will be coming out for all things jw in june.. i predict a "donate here button" will now appear for the first time on their new page.. it has already been done in britain at jwgift.org and perhaps other countries.. atm's are popping up at assembly halls.

  money...money..money.

  what do you think.. are north american jw's in particular ready for the change or will they be uncomfortable with the new concept ?.

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  Chariklo

  Wait for the Paypal button to appear...
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  6

  So, how are you doing? (help/encouragement for newbies)

  by Lozhasleft in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  there's quite a few newbies around lately, and often struggling to envision a life after the wtbs.

  maybe if we share a little about how we're doing we can provide reassurance and hope?.

  me, i'm doing just fine.

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  Chariklo

  What Wizard said
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  8

  Chocolate Bunnies & Cadburry Eggs

  by skeeter1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my jw mom always seemed to buy me a chocolate bunny and some cadburry eggs near easter.

  no easter basket or egg coloring or egg hunt - but always a chocolate bunny & eggs made it, somehow, into the house.

  i remember she'd say that she always got them when she was a kid.

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  Chariklo

  I so enjoyed buying Easter Eggs for my family this year!
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  115

  Cyber-Bullies

  by Lady Lee in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as a kid i got bullied a lot.

  i was taller than all the kids in the class.

  i wore funny clothes - usually hand-me-downs from somewhere or just plain ugly.

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  Chariklo

  One of my sons has just spent 3 months working in another country, a global holiday destination in fact. He took his family with him for the experience. The older of the children, aged 8, went to school there. To begin with everything was fine, and then after a few weeks the bullying started, mainly because of the difference in accent and in background. (Fortunately, they still enjoyed the experience, even so. ) They're home now.

  So, I have direct family experience of recent bullying.

  As to cyber-bullying, we just don't know how sensitive another forum member might be. I agree that debating on ideas etc is one thing, and verbal abuse is another.

  But actually, you know, I've seen very little cyber-bullying on here. When set on the scales against supportiveness, help and sheer genrosity with information and more, in this forum those scales are very heavily weighted on the good and positive side.

  Just my two penn'orth.
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  156

  In love with a JW...

  by CuriousUK in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  apologies if this has been discussed before, or is in the wrong forum, but i could really do with some advice.

  two years ago i met the love of my life; someone i regard as my soulmate.

  he is an active jw and i am a practising church of england person.

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  Chariklo

  he has been encouraging me to develop spiritually before making any decisions.

  Believe me, what JW's mean by "spiritual" and "develop spiritually" bears no relation whatsoever to what Anglicans, Catholics and Methodists, for instance, mean by the same words. I learned that to my cost.

  My very deep and extensive Anglican/Catholic background led me to assume that "spiritual" meant prayerful, contemplative, perhaps active in good works, and that "spiritually-minded" meant putting the things of God first. To JW's, "spiritual" etc means learning about and believing in WT teachings, accepting the edicts of the faithful and discreet slave (de facto the Governing Body and through them the Circuit Overseer and the elders) and most of all actively and unquestioningly obeying them as the mouthpiece of God, the conveyors of what "Jehovah wants".Working with dedication in the field service would be part of it.

  Seriously. That's what they mean. It is not what you will always have thought those words to mean. And it's just one example of the way JW's have their own vocabulary, made-upwords unique to them and ordinary words with meanings unique to them. I think there's more than one thread here about this.

  Whilst I truly believe that the behaviour of my JW man is not maliciously playing with my emotions or just out for fun (he had plenty of opportunity to make a move on me when we were alone recently and didn't). I think he just doesn't know what he wants.

  It's very interesting that he is not a born-in JW but a convert. In my time with the JW's I've met many converts from Anglican, Catholic and Methodist backgrounds. Almost without exception, they are every bit as indoctrianted and zealous as born-ins and in many cases more so. It sounds as if your chap isn't currently all that zealous but he will be every bit as indoctrinated. As I've mentioned before, I very nearly became a fully-fledged JW, realising only just in time the reality of what I was about to do. I was definitely getting indoctrinated, although being an awkward-minded, analytical kind of person it was all a bit more on the surface than I admitted even to myself. But that's another story. Still, I do know how thorough the indoctrination is. He absolutely knows what he has to do, what is expected of him....and, he is also aware that if he ever gets you to agree to a "study" (nothing to do with studying as you and I know it) that would be a big feather in his cap.

  Sorry to be cynical, but it's the truth.
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  78

  Atheism or Agnosticism, which one is correct?

  by Joey Jo-Jo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this has been bugging me for a while, and while i dont want to turn this into something about semantics i think that we should quickly define what an agnostic and atheists are.. richard dawkins defines 7 different types of atheist ranging from weak to militant atheists, but along these definitions there appears one definition with a strong resemblance to agnosticism.. to me an agnostic is a person who neither believes nor disbelieves in deity/deities, but there are those who define agnostics as a ignorant who simply just don't care or don't have the intelligence to come to sound conclusion.. an atheist can be a person who disbelieves in a deity/deities based on the current mathematical and scientific understandings of the universe, as well as understandings that can refute certain religions such as the strong influence of protestantism christianity in america.. .

  from here i will refer deity as anything ranging jehovah to a real spaghetti monster, it's not important because a) we dont know b)for the purpose of this discussion it is not important to define what we believe god to be.. an argument that can be used about a deity is -we cannot prove nor disprove that god exists- this is referred to as a null hypothesis, an assumption that we cannot create a hypothesis to prove or disprove this deity.

  this to me is agnosticism and is more correct than the idea of atheism.

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  Chariklo

  but there are those who define agnostics as a ignorant who simply just don't care or don't have the intelligence to come to sound conclusion.

  Some of the most intelligent people I know define themselves as agnostics. They are intelligent enough to know that they don't know, i.e. they are not sure that there is a God, and they are not sure that there isn't.

  That seems a very intelligent, reasonable stance to me. Not one I share, but entirely reasonable, humble and honest.
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  44

  What did Raymond Franz believe after his exit?

  by Botzwana in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  did he start believing in the trinity and hellfire?

  i have not read in search of christian freedom yet as i do not have a copy of it.

  does he touch on this in that book?.

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  Chariklo

  My question is: How do Trinitarians reconcile there being only one God if, as they now claim, the three are not one as the WT claimed the doctrine, but three in one?

  Binadub, this is just a quick, off-the-cuff answer from my own knowledge but without checking anything.

  "Christendom" as JW's seem to call the rest of the churches, use the term Godhead which I don't think I've encountered during my time with the WT. It's maybe a bit old-fashioned, possibly going out of common usage, but basically it encapsulates the concept of "Godness", "God-substance". Thus, the Nicene Creed says of the Son "being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made". (Well, the translation has changed since I went to Mass, and it now says "one in Being with the Father", I just checked.)

  I was taught, and have always believed, that that substance, the Being shared by both, is the Godhead.

  I think your analogy of the monarchy is helpful in a way. I haven't met that before. Again, and this is just thinking as I type, there is the "substance" of royal-ness. The analogy begins to get a bit weak here, because of course royalty, or royal blood, can be diluted, but just to go with it for the time being.

  When I wrote my last post in this thread, I was really just analysing how it was that I, as just one person, a very active and hitherto "devout" Catholic, came to become to all intents and purposes part of a JW congregation. (I was never baptised, but was a zealous unbaptised publisher. Events brought subsequent misgivings and baptism was postponed. The elders told me I was very much part of the congregation, and treated me as such.) I was able to accept the WT definition of God and even that it was possible that Jesus might after all be one and the same as Michael, though I was never comfortable in any way with that teaching and never found it proved or probable, merely possible. I was, though, certain that there is one God.

  You say "three in one", and I'd say cautiously, ye-e-s, but also "one in three". Non-JW Christians see God as three-in-one and one-in-three together as a whole concept. You probably wouldn't find that very often on a doorstep, because unlike JW's, who are constantly educated in their own doctrines, most members of other churches do not know their own doctrines in any depth at all. I just happen to, because that is my nature and the way my life has gone.

  Does that throw any light, Binadub, or just cloud the waters more?

  Best I can do first thing in the morning. I am well aware of the teachings of both sides of this, but have no idea at the minute how I resolve these teachings, either for myself or anyone else.
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  121

  Where is Outlaw?

  by Iamallcool in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  he is one of my favorite posters, i look him up from time to time.

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  Chariklo

  WE WANT OUTLAW!!!!

  I WANT OUTLAW!!!!!

  OUTLAW! OUTLAW!!!!

  OUTLAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  3

  Bird brain...

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just mentioned this in another random comment so i thought i'd mention it on the off chance someone else is as boring as me.. a wt publication once talked about a bird i will never forget... the arctic swift.

  it travels further than any other bird and migrates across the world.

  with no gps or map how can any animal do this unless god designed the bird with instinctual earthly knowledge?.

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  Chariklo

  Could you perhaps mean Arctic Tern?

  I don't believe there is an Arctic Swift, but the Arctic Tern does migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

  Not sure that all birds have magentite in their beaks...some do....
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  22

  Time for an Intervention

  by NCO in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  come this july, i will have been out of the jw's for 20 years.

  and it has been quite a long time since i've really spent any serious time studying up on jw news and doctrines although i do still read here occasionally.

  but after today looks like i've got some work to do.. my first sergeant called me this morning asking for my help to fix his dad's truck as i'm an auto technician in my civilian job.

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  Chariklo

  As well as telling them that it is Satan trying to stop them, and saying you are telling them lies, they may tell them that you have deliberately turned your back on Jehovah.

  I've been told all of that.