As if Jesus would drive a Vauxhall or be seen dead in a primark suit!
snare&racket
JoinedPosts by snare&racket
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45
Circuit Oversneer Says. . .
by piztjw in"do you realize how much of a privelge it is to enjoy the visit of the circuit overseer?
they are appointed by the governing body who in turn are apointed by jesus and holy spirit.
so you have a great privilege when we visit your congregation, because it is the same thing as having jesus visit you.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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snare&racket
Ahh so you have read his autobiography then Caliber? The worst for me was when he drowned everyone on earth, all the old, the women, the children, the babies, the men, the cute 'ickle animals....all but 8 preachy people and a selection of animals somewhat representitive of the animals found in the middle east region of the time.... And all because he was in a bad mood. What a loveable guy, tee hee!
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Theists - does your god DESERVE to be respected or worshipped?
by cantleave inor should she abdicate for lack of action / leadership?.
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snare&racket
Kate my dear, you keep saying "science without religion is lame..."
But 'science' is LITERALLY a 5 step method of how to do a good experiment, the scientific method is a checklist of things to do In order to reduce error. That IS science. I am sincerely confused by what you mean?
What does buddah or the umin and thumin have to do with chi squared figures or p values or peer review or impact factors or methods and predictions?
Its like saying 'the correct way of building a table from ikea by following the instructions, is lame without religion' it literally makes no sense.
Science for me as a JW used to mean a movement, a belief system, a group of people with an agenda, but that is just JW paranoia. Science means observing the universe we live in, via the scientific method, a 5 step process that reduces error. A process suggested by Francis Bacon 150 years ago. What on earth does this even have to do with churches, scrolls from the desert, golden idols of many armed women, lot having sex with his daughters in a cave, drunk, the day sfter his wife dies....? Religion includes these texts, so being someone who does science, which religion am I supposed to be involved with for my science to not be 'lame'? In what capacity am I to introduce this religion to my science? Or from the alternate viewpoint most adopt...How does observing the side effects of heartburn medicine, or measuring the speed of the particle become LAME if someone involved with that data or reading it is not religious?
Sorry for the "fire in the hole" grenade, but you keep saying it and it just makes no sense as a sentence. Please can you explain it?
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108
"Jehovah ALWAYS had/used an organization". How would you reply?
by EdenOne inin a recent meeting with elders, an argument was used to the effect that jehovah has always [= throughout history] used, or operated through, an organization; therefore, the wts must be that organization today, since god must be using one.
naturally, i know what arguments i've used to counter that argument.
but i'm interested in hearing yours.
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snare&racket
In thousands of years covered in the bible there is NO organisation spoken of.
In early christian sect formation, people argued about teachings, as written in the NT. On one occasion, older men of several sects met to discuss doctrines, if anything this indicates a devolution of organisation and an evolution of intepretation and freedom. certainly, meeting to discuss opinion on foreskin does not an organisation make!
If you read the letters at the end of the bible, it is clear that everyone was doing there own thing depending where they lived and what they believed. Again no organisation. The dude paul, roamed about judging people for not seeing things his way, but again that does not make an organisation at all. The only reason pauls books were in the bible, despite them being written 30-70 years after jesus died, paul never even meeting jesus....his books were hand picked by the roman catholic church who supported his romanesque view. Now THEY are the first official and organised group in the history of christianity and we all know they smell dodgy And WT would neverk ever, ever admit it. Do most JW's know that Paul settled and initiated the church? Its baloney to me, but historically there is more evidence for that than the existence of jesus for example.
The nearest thing to an organisation, anywhere in the bible is the anointed kings of israel, a system long ago abandoned by the biblical god. It is dangerous to be under the fickle wavering of one man as evident by history and the bible. Hence that was scrapped by the almighty some time ago.
Then there are the priests and pharisees, who....say what you want about them......did EXACTLY as the bible told them to, they were VERY good people by bible standards. But then the new testament comes along and quite clearly demotes the authority of all those hierarchical positions and makes it very clear it is all personal, you and the big G in the sky, the only mediator being the big J. Again.... No organisation.
Now for me the easy answer is "why do i care what you think of the bible, it is all nonsense anyway!" but then I am an evil atheist. However, as you can see,even biblical reasoning does not in any way shape or form say ANYTHING of an organisation.
If i was you, spend 2 weeks, researching the guts out of this issue because it is the one and only defence they have to exist and it is untrue to begin with. Show the elders the greek words, the other bible translations and the JW 'version'. Go right back to the greek and hebrew and prove them wrong. Use biblical dictionaries and guides and show them there was no such thing as ANY organisation. Dont do it without the research. Also dont celebrate early, let them go away and come back to you.... Empty handed!
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snare&racket
They think that to say servants of god 4000 years ago didnt understand blood fractions...and therefore it is not detailed in the bible ...AND THEREFORE we think it is up to the FDS to decide, totally negates their belief that god wrote the bible and that he WOULD know about the makeup of blood and the future dilemmas those verses caused. Blood fractions will save lives, those ambigous verses as watchtower indicates, have already led to many deaths. Ironically, WT advertise that the whole bible is relevant to modern man.... Hmmmm.
This also does not explain why fractions were a sin to accept in the 80's as made clear in the blood brochure, what EXACTLY changed? They try to angle it that fractions are a new invention, but they are not ...and were available but forbidden by doctrines inthe last few decades! On what authority was that dangerous doctrine based? Remember you would be disfellowshipped from family and friends for breaking that rule and people died because of it.
They are literally making it up as they go.
Interestingly, I hope you kept a hard copy because it quite clearly says 'the faithful discreet slave published....' making evident that the FDS is a real religious, physical entity AND liable for what watchtower publish. such letters may prove very important for legal and historical reasons. Whoever has them or something similair, please, please keep them. It may make a huge difference to someone one day.
snare x
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22
"Peace and Security"!!!! JW.ORGs best and last chance for fulfilment.
by scotoma inin the old revelation book there was a section on the cry "peace and security.. "14 in recent years, politicians have used the phrase peace and security to describe various.
human schemes.
or was paul referring only to a specific event of such dramatic proportions.
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snare&racket
Another case of:
"Jesus will return to earth next year!".........tumbleweed........
One year passes......... more tumbleweed......
"Wait, wait he DID return.. INVISIBLY!" ...oooooh !
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31
Where else is there to go?
by snare&racket inwhen i left the jw's, close friends and some elders discussed my desicion with me,without fail they all concluded the same thing.... "but where else is there to go?!".
at the time, the question just confused me, i could not see why it confused me or the very telling nature of such a comment.
i never thought that once.. firstly, this indicates that many jw's remain jw's simply because of this tunnel vision perspective... everything in their periphery is valueless, but the wt on which they focus is everthing.
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snare&racket
Doc ssked the following.... As I would have as a JW!....
But who else is following Jesus' command to preach house-to-house? Why follow anyone, who wrote that verse, when , why? On closer analysis, it is referring to jesus and his apostles going to stay at interested people's houses. Look at the original text, did jesus command that? IF.. if he did... So what? In the context of evidence, what does it matter that this was written down? Search ALL the historical evidence on jesus and the bible FIRST before you live by it! This is basic common sense! If i handed you a book, told you it was holy, would you just accept that and follow if? Chapter one... Every thursday you must walk like a chicken and bring me, thy lord, a kfc zinger tower meal to the most holy of holies...(my front garden).
But how will we follow Jesus' command to make disciples? Again, on assuming the person has reached a point where they know JW's are wrong on many things, how bad is it to make people subscribe to these wrong beliefs! Also why follow anyone, who was jesus, what evidence was there for him, what else did the JW's get wrong and lie about? The bible? It makes no sense to either jump back to the JW's or to a random christian religion. It makes logicsl sense to start from scratch when you know you have been lied to. Certainly this should be step one before you encourage others to follow them!
But whom else is doing a world-wide preaching work? Lots of religions are doing this, in fact any religion that is world wide must have done this to become world wide. Some hold classes, some print bibles, some do charity, some do sermons, some sold literature until tax laws prevented their sale....
Where & how shall we worship Jehovah? With whom shall we "gather together" for worship? Again, start from scratch, is god's name even jehovah? Evidence and history is embarassingly clear.... No it is not his name! Who is the god of the bible. Is he the god the JWs portray him to be? Why not read the bible and see....(several months later). Oh my god.... Hes an evil git! This negates the 'worship' problem. Also, this argument says that a man and a bible is not enough to please god, he must first build a hall, convert locals and then worship together... Nonsense. This argument was put to me by an elder and I said "I would rather face god and defend my intepretation of his message, than stand before him sheepishly trying to explain why I followed 8 dudes in brooklyn who made several HUGE mistakes,seversl HUGE false prophecies, had hundreds of thousands of dead peoples blood on their hands and was a worldly financisl institution in of itself. Where in the bible does it say you need these 8 dudes?" I now don't believe in god, but they had no answer for me back then. I alsoasked them how they could hang their spirituality on 8 men they could not name and did not even know. It is a terrible logic!
Their obvious answer to any of those questions takes them back to JWs. Too true...why.... Because they want it to lead back to JW's, thats how such movements survive. Who WANTS to hear that they wasted half a life? ........
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31
Where else is there to go?
by snare&racket inwhen i left the jw's, close friends and some elders discussed my desicion with me,without fail they all concluded the same thing.... "but where else is there to go?!".
at the time, the question just confused me, i could not see why it confused me or the very telling nature of such a comment.
i never thought that once.. firstly, this indicates that many jw's remain jw's simply because of this tunnel vision perspective... everything in their periphery is valueless, but the wt on which they focus is everthing.
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snare&racket
You have to want the cogs to turn..... it actually requires bravery, removing the fear of asking the simplest questions!
How many times did you wish as a JW that you were a bible sudy so you could ask questions you dare not ask now..
I think JW's know that the route ends in leaving, they know the ivory tower stinks when you get close , so they hit the hand break!
In addition to that, the JW brain is certainly hardwired differently, independant thinking is seen as wrong. That is some scary sh*t right there!
If I heard a medication may cause more problems than fix, I would jump on the research with zeal. Tell a JW that a governing body member left and wrote a memoir of his "crisis of conscience" and watch the cogs hit the brakes, watch the brain washing kick in..... every natural response is to ask where they can read that book! Every honest inch of that person should WANT to read that book, for reasons of sincerity, integrity and truth... but look at what actually happens...
FEAR
TREPIDATION
DEFENSIVE
ACCUSATORY
These are programmed responses, with an element of personal dishonesty. When you reach a point where you simple WANT to know, you still get those responses, but you overcome them, the need for truth is greater than the indoctrinated fear.
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How Long Have You Been Viewing Thiis Site? Does It Serve Its Purpose For You?
by minimus ini've been here forever.... this site still gives us some of the most up to date info about jws .
it keeps evolving.
sometimes it is the place to be and i think that's especially true for newbies.
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snare&racket
It is an insightful, intelligent, warm and comforting place to visit.
It is also not far from being an addictive black goo, it would be nice to leave WT far behind, but as long as there are newbees visiting with questions, it is important that people from all perspectives offer advice, help and direction to answers.
Sometimes it all gets a bit passionate and can feel personal. But I think everyone has good motives for the best part.
Even people I could not disagree more with, are people I can talk to and laugh with.
The only issue I have here, is the misintepretation of simply signposting people towards data. It is taken so personally. For 33 years I was lied to about the world ,the universe, life and death, world history, science. When I look at what humans knew BEFORE I was born, it frustrates me that I was told such nonsense, the data was there to be read! With 5 meetings a week, constant studying and WT research, there is no excuse for not doing REAL research and reading.
That frustration motivates me, to come here in my spare time (today it is before work) in order to signpost people towards that info. That is often intepreted as militant, or aggresive. Many feel that one persons opinion is as valid as anothers, but that led to me losing 25 years of my life! There are people here who have lost MORE years than that. So when people post here with opinions that are in opposition to things we now KNOW, things we now have EVIDENCE for, I feel obliged to signpost people to that info. It is not born out of militant, aggressive atheism, it is born out of being lied to all my life.
People often post opinion as fact, be it god visiting them at night or making up science on the spot to negate some religious-scientific contradiction. I understant how it may look, to throw a spanner in the works and say 'that isn't true and you shouldn't do that'.... but my motive is sincere and good. I am sure others are likewise well motivated, but with humans so easily decieved (hence this forum exists) it is something some of us are very sensitive to.
Evidence is the most powerful thing we have, forgive me if I communicate it poorly sometimes xxxxx
snare