for me it was when i learned that gb makes their decisions by 2/3 majority vote, not by direction of holy spirit..
we were discussing John 1:1.
i stopped preaching some years earlier because of something in the Watchtower and gradually it led to a meeting with some elders and me ceasing to attend.
later my daughter had some discussions with a baptist girl about the trinity and we discussed it. i had little time for it. then a short while later the elder visited and it was how he viewed Christ. i'd for some reason never felt that way. hard to explain but i was surprised how I felt.
i tend to look at people and situations with a little bit of humor.
i tend to feel that many view themselves as being better than they really are.
people's perceptions are often skewered.
i dont give it a lot of thought. i get on with most people but can't say i have a lot of friends, more female than male. my dog is pretty good, but has been known to attack me.
for me it was when i learned that gb makes their decisions by 2/3 majority vote, not by direction of holy spirit..
i think my aha moment came after i left.
when i had a problem with something in the Watchtower i had no intention of leaving and it was about two years later that i finally stopped attending.
some years later i had an elder call on me for a while and it was in one of his visits that the scales fell from my eyes so to speak. i was somewhat shocked.
i have almost never had a visual hallucination and i was wondering what they're like.
how "real" do they seem?
is there any kind of a hint you get that tells you they are not real?
I have thought about the incident in 1976 and the reason why the chill run up my back and i think it had to be related to an incident before. I knew where I was standing when it dawned on me nobody was there. It was F*** me i'm outta here.
But i still think it was the ale and the heat.
i have almost never had a visual hallucination and i was wondering what they're like.
how "real" do they seem?
is there any kind of a hint you get that tells you they are not real?
In the hot summer of 1976 we were living in a large Victorian house in North London. It was a good summer I wasn't working and days were filled with a lot of late breakfasts and pub visits.
One evening in June or early July it was stifling hot we had the bookstudy at our house and afterward we went to the pub. I had a couple of strong ales and came home had a cup of tea and went to bed.
Early hours of the morning I woke up really warm and after some tossing and turning I thought I could hear voices talking so I listened. I couldn't make out what was said but i thought it was my mother and older brother talking downstairs. I thought they must be in the kitchen below me they probably couldn't sleep and had got up to have a cup of tea. I got out bed looked out the window as I could see light on the garden coming from the kitchen window. Great I thought I would join them.
I went down the hallway and down the stairs and as I got to the bottom of the stairs a chill run up my back so to speak and i peered down the downstairs hallway to the kitchen and it was very dark and quiet and I raced back up to the bedroom and looked out the window and it was very dark in the garden no light shining from the kitchen window.
Must have been the ale.
but god has changed his mind?
according to the bible god can and does change his mind.
the example of jonah comes to mind.
i think everyone has different reasons that they stop attending the hall and being a Jehovah's Witness.
for me i couldn't join them in the preaching work.
the reason that stopped me then led on to eventually other areas of my belief i think they are all interlinked.
if i have faith in Christ then i don't see a problem with Armageddon whether it comes or whether it doesn't
i've decided to start a thread on christian theology, wherein i will lay out what i believe scripture teaches about baptism... because i can.
throughout the first 1500 years of christian history, it was universally understood that the christian is 'born again' at water baptism (and the majority of christians still hold to this) but then many christians started to argue that baptism was just a symbol of obedience, but i posit that nowhere in the bible will you find a verse that claims baptism is just a symbol, instead scriptural references to baptism always claim that it actually achieves something:.
john 3:5 - born of water and spirit.
in 1 corinthians 10 paul mentions passing through the sea and a baptism into moses and peter talks of the ark and the flood as corresponding to baptism. both involved water and in both people went into it and came out saved from death.
i realized this about myself yesterday.
i was noticing how on a thread i thought about commenting on, i held back out of a fear i still have of speaking out against the governing body.
i have been disrespectful to the god of the bible and openly proclaimed i do not think he exists.
maybe it's to do with sinning against the holy spirit. as maybe we believed the organization was doing the preaching of the kingdom foretold in matt. 24:14 and it was led by God's holy spirit in doing this. to talk against those taking the lead was going against the holy spirit. maybe. and so seems worse than talking against God.
god ordered the killing of men women and children and animals and pillaging of various nations around them.
in some instances god apparently led the way with his might arm.. this is not a question of wether it is right or wrong, but moreso a question(s) of:.
1. if you were there would you have personally participated in those killings or would you ignore the commands?.
i think it's difficult to answer. I was raised to turn the other cheek as a Christian but i also have faith in God. I can remember discussing this before i left the witnesses. As a witness i felt i was expected to reach out to become an elder in the congregation this would be pleasing to God but i never did. I wasn't keen on the arrangement
ok so rutherford came up with the idea to change the name of the true religion of god to jehovah's witnesses based in isaiah 43. and of course ever since the rank and file witnesses have lovingly thought of themselves as gods chosen people.
well some one frogot to mention that in chapter 62 of isaiah gods says his true followers will be called by a new name.
yes newer then the old name almost 20 chapters ago.
in Exodus 6:7 "I shall indeed certainly take you to me as as a people, and I shall indeed prove to be God to you:"
in Isaiah 43: "You are mine. .. For I am Jehovah your God.
Thomas said my Lord my God of Jesus
