Posts by joey jojo

10

Has God broken the Sabbath?

by joey jojo in

in the early 80's, i remember a district convention drama that featured the story of the guy that was stoned to death for gathering sticks on the sabbath.

i thought it was kind of harsh because it wasn't like the guy was doing any real work like building anything, or plowing a field.. if we accept that god is perfect, then surely he would set the example of keeping the sabbath in a perfect way.

the word sabbath means inactivity as far as i can tell and this leads me to ask a question about things god has done during his rest day that seem like work to me.. .

joey jojo

From what I have read about the way Jews follow the Sabbath, it is expressly forbidden to sew, skin an animal or cut patterns, yet God apparently did just that for Adam and Eve.

The scripture in Genesis states God made the garments, not anyone else.

I have also heard a lot said from JW land and other Christian commentators, about how God must have changed something in the chemistry of animals because before sin entered the world they were all vegetarians.

Once you factor in all the miracles attributed to God, as well as all the other stuff, it seems like a lot of work for a day of inactivity.

I wonder how many followers of the old testament have been, or still are being persecuted for not following the Sabbath to the letter?

10

Has God broken the Sabbath?

by joey jojo in

in the early 80's, i remember a district convention drama that featured the story of the guy that was stoned to death for gathering sticks on the sabbath.

i thought it was kind of harsh because it wasn't like the guy was doing any real work like building anything, or plowing a field.. if we accept that god is perfect, then surely he would set the example of keeping the sabbath in a perfect way.

the word sabbath means inactivity as far as i can tell and this leads me to ask a question about things god has done during his rest day that seem like work to me.. .

joey jojo

In the early 80's, I remember a district convention drama that featured the story of the guy that was stoned to death for gathering sticks on the sabbath. I thought it was kind of harsh because it wasn't like the guy was doing any real work like building anything, or plowing a field.

If we accept that God is perfect, then surely he would set the example of keeping the sabbath in a perfect way. The word Sabbath means inactivity as far as I can tell and this leads me to ask a question about things God has done during his rest day that seem like work to me.

How do we explain away God making it rain? Apparently, God had to make it rain to cause the world to flood because the mechanism wasn't there.

What about the sun standing still? I'm no scientist but I would think that the only way to make that happen would be to cause the Sun to suddenly revolve the Earth. If God simply stopped the earth from spinning, everything on the earth would be flung eastwards at 1600 km/ hr.

Manna that fell from the sky. This must qualify as an act of creation? Food falling from the sky was something that had never happened before and hasn't happened since. It was a new creation.

God made clothes for Adam and Eve.

He parted the Red Sea.

He raised his son from the dead.

I could go on but hopefully you can see where Im coming from.

All of these things seem like the opposite of inactivity to me.

21

Did your congregation ever throw special parties exclusively for Pioneers?

by Tenacious in

i'm trying to remember if these parties were a direct instruction from hq or if this was something on a local level.. i remember i attended at least 2 of these parties and we also would bring them gifts.

i saw them no different than a bday party (elevating someone to idolatry level).. if anyone else remembers these parties please let me know.

if there's a letter out there somewhere from hq that would be even better.

joey jojo

Remember Rod Spinks from the Australian Royal Commission?

He had a bus drivers licence back in the day and he used to organise groups of young ones to take on tours. You could only go if you were a pioneer, or he deemed you to be of good character.

28

"Are natural disasters a sign of the times?" -- Yes, says WT

by FatFreek 2005 in

yes, bible prophecies suggest that there would be disasters during “the conclusion of the system of things,” or “the last days.” (matthew 24:3; 2 timothy 3:1) for example, concerning our time, jesus said: “there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another.” (matthew 24:7).

that from their website this morning.. i see how they've morphed (by interpretation) food shortages and earthquakes into virtually all bad happenings today.. i'll bet if the "blue bonnet" (one elder's fractured pronunciation of bubonic during a public talk, using it not once but three times) plague, one of which happened nearly 700 years ago -- was going on today, it would be a sign of the times.

after all, it "caused the death of 60% of the population of europe".. no natural devastation like that seen since..

joey jojo

Religious people get turned on by all the big stuff that is bad in the world and point to any major news event as evidence that the end is nigh.

If Jesus was real, and responsible for creating everything, as JW's believe, why didn't he mention the mosquito?

Some people estimate that malaria has quietly killed almost half the human beings that have ever lived and put the estimated deaths from this illness at 50 billion.

That figure makes the deaths from all the wars ever fought in history look like a footnote.

45

New Light on the 144,000?

by Ding in

someone on facebook is claiming to have reliable information that the gb is about to announce new light on the 144,000 -- that it's symbolic, not literal.. one person suggested that they will retain the two-class teaching and just change the meaning of 144,000. his idea was that the change would avoid three problems with the current teaching:.

1. embarrassment over more and more partakers at the memorial when the number should be getting less and less.. 2. embarrassment over 12 symbolic 12,000s somehow equaling a literal 144,000.. 3. solving the problem of running out of "anointed" ones who are old enough to be on the gb.. thoughts?.

joey jojo

Are they still publishing the attendance figures?

Weren't there a few posts here that discussed the abandonment of the yearbook and publishing/ memorial attendance reports?

Not publishing memorial partakers numbers would go a long way to solving this problem for the GB. Out of sight, out of mind. Future JW's will just say, 'wow, we used to know how many partakers there were- how cute'.

48

Corporal punishment

by Incognigo Montoya in

so i just finished watching the latest cedars video on spanking children.

i like lloyd, and think that overall he does a good job covering issues in his videos.

but i've gotta disagree with him on this issue, to a point.. i don't agree with beating your children, but i do believe in spanking, when appropriate.

joey jojo

Im not a parent but I was raised in the twilight period of spanking in the western world, the 70's and 80's.

I last got caned across the hands in 1986 at school in Australia.

It must be a little difficult for anyone that was spanked or belted by their parents to adjust now to non-physical discipline.

7

The Jehovah’s Witnesses Cult Tears Families Apart. Here’s How It Tore Mine

by Tenacious in

***this is not my story.

it's a newspaper article.

source follows.***.

joey jojo

A lot of honesty in your post. I particularly liked the comparison of the pursuit of personal interests being like a lesser God competing with the one true God.

4

A joyless memorial

by eyeslice2 in

many years ago i started a thread entitled 'a religion with nothing to celebrate' (https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/80630/religion-nothing-celebrate).. prior to about the year 2000, our congregation met in what had previously been an old church.

we purchased it and even though we had little cash, made the place beautiful.

it had real character, with beautiful wood work and we even managed to keep some of the stained glass windows as they weren't religious in nature.

joey jojo

Reminds me of an international assembly in 2003 in Sydney. 60000 people packed into a stadium in summer with little shade cover. Sitting on seats for days that became uncomfortable after 1 hour.

The worst part was that even though they speak of a brotherhood, there was no way to celebrate it.

The crowds were so bad it made it almost impossible to meet up with friends and family who had come from all over the country and had not seen each other for years. An elderly relative of mine had travelled 3 days on a bus to attend.

On Sunday the speaker cut into lunch by 20 minutes and this time wasn't added to the lunch break to make up for it so people could catch up.

It took about 40 mins and 2 trains to get to the Olympic stadium from the city and then another 15 mins to walk and find a seat.

We were all told to bring our lunch with us and take our litter home with us as no bins were provided. You can imagine how pleasant it was carrying leftover tuna sandwiches home on the train after a day in the Australian summer sun. We were also encouraged not to eat at any of the restaurants around the venue like McDonald's.

The whole event was a PR exercise for the organisation with no arrangements for anyone to socialise. It could have been an event to fondly remember but of course it wasn't.

25

Does It Bother You That Christian Churches and Christian People Are Being Persecuted and Killed?

by minimus in

jw
friends

even if your fed up with “religion” , i don’t want to see christians persecuted.

it’s happening in many parts of the world and it’s so wrong.

.

joey jojo

Religion has always given the average person courage to act like this life is just a practice run for the real life. With this in mind they will happily kill or be killed for their beliefs.

All religions are the same in the sense that they all offer their members an opportunity to cheat death.

8

Slavery - ancient

by joey jojo in

i have been listening to podcasts by dan carlin and his excellent series on persia and the spartans, called king of kings.. its a refreshing way to hear unbiased accounts of history, untainted by religious beliefs.. a part of the podcast dealt with the jews but it put into perspective their place in world history and events.

pretty much just another tribe- sometimes rebellious, allowed to exist under the rule of a major power, allowed to worship their own gods exactly like the other tribes around them.. another part that caught my interest was the account of slavery and it made me think about the way wt and other christian religions have tried to reconcile the idea that it was ok in those days for jews to own slaves because they had laws to protect the slaves.. the podcast made me realise a lot of apologists of slavery obviously forget how a person becomes a slave in the first place.

apologists like wt say it was ok because it was part of the economy and the way life was, which totally skips over the important part.. after a war, when most of the men were killed or wounded on the battlefield by the winning side, whoever was left, men, women and preferably young virgins, were taken back to the homeland of the victors and sold at the slave markets.

joey jojo

Sea Breeze, I read as much of your link as I could but I have to admit, as soon as I noticed it came from a site called 'the Christian think tank', I knew it was going to be biased. A bit like Jewish researchers writing a paper defending the relevance of male circumcision in the 21st century.

I understand that being a slave in the ancient near East didn't mean you spent your life in chains and got a whipping every other day. Slaves in a lot of cases were like employees but without the same rights as their owners. I'm sure some slaves had it better living in a big town working for a nice family than where they grew up.

However, armies of the day depended on capturing slaves to help finance their war campaigns. Slaves were sold like donkeys or chickens for gold. The capturing of slaves was a brutal and traumatic event.