these are the immediate thoughts that come to mind for me:.
jesus was against religion/ists (matthew 23 esp v15).. the watchtower is pro-religion - their version.. the watchtower teaches a "religion about jesus" instead of a relationship with him.
they do this because jesus always has led people away from the sanhedrin (governing body) and the pharisees (ruling religious clergy class and hierarchy).. these "builders" of religion stumble at using the "stone of stumbling" and the "rockmass of offense" when building their god defying religious empires to rule over and control the laity class (dumb sheeple) with inane rules (legalism) and other devices of supremacist self-righteousness.
"There is ONE mediator between God and men........ Christ Jesus " 1Tim2v5 NWT vs 6 says "this is what is to be witnessed to.."
JW's reject this and "witness to" their belief that the GB is the mediator. So they reject Jesus, and the witnessing work that they should be doing.
..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
I posed the "Question of Evil" to an active JW a while ago, he is one ofthe rare ones who can reason up to a certain point, he left me, rather abruptly I think because all he could say as he scuttled away was : "There is no answer".
I think he has thought it through much further than most JW's by saying that, and I hold out hope that eventually his intellect will freee him from the W.T
What was on the tip of my tongue, but before I could utter it he was out of earshot, was : "Unless the answer is that the Universe is truly random, and therefore as well as good things, sh*t happens".
Great thinkers of the past have wrestled with the problem of evil, and the more you think about it, it leaves no room for the kind of god any thinking, compassionate person would want to worship.
on another forum, someone recently started a thread asking what sort of lifestyle the watchtower elite enjoy.
it prompted me to do a little digging.
when the leaflet 'dress and grooming for visitors touring bethel' was published a few years ago, i thought the room below looked familiar.
When I was a believing JW I was told of the opulence there, the Bro that visited said "It oozed money".
I said at the time, well if it is Jehovah's H.Q for his Org. you would expect it to be the best.
Boy, was I mind-controlled then !
which of the two is considered to be more of an intelectual?.
which of them has produced one of the most brilliant people?..
which of the two societies is considered more advanced than the other?.
What is a Brit ?
Tammy, in my book a slap or spit in the face is no reason to murder either, even if it makes you feel like it.
Justitia, thanks for the link, it is easy to forget, or be ignorant of, what Afghanistan used to be like, such a short time ago really.
I too am deeply suspicious of the "accident" claim, I was just giving the benefit ofthe doubt, whoever did it, if they were not aware of the nature of the material because of not having the language, they should have checked, they may have been destroying vital intelligence.
It smells bad.
i just read this on the website reddit.com, about a teenager's experience with being kidnapped from his parents house and drove to this "academy.
" also later on he mentions that it is in the nevada desert near area 51 and so you are very isolated and can't easily escape.
also your parents sign over 51% custody to this group.
Sorry, can't edit my post above, I reall meant to say :
"Fascistic/Nazi thinking and tactics are alive in America" which is not much of an improvement on what I wrote first, but there you go.
i just read this on the website reddit.com, about a teenager's experience with being kidnapped from his parents house and drove to this "academy.
" also later on he mentions that it is in the nevada desert near area 51 and so you are very isolated and can't easily escape.
also your parents sign over 51% custody to this group.
J.W's will be doing this next !
I am disgusted that such establishments exist, and even more disgusted that parents would subject their child to such a brutal, at least mentally, regime.
I never forced my children to believe anything, they left the JW's of their own accord , and they knew that we would still love and care for them just as muchas if they had stayed in.
Now of course I am glad they are free.
These places need closing down, Adolph Hitler would approve of them, but Adolph and his ilk are the only ones who will. Fascism is alive and well in America.
for those who are still in, are you dropping little hints.
among your friends , this is not the truth.
i realize you must.
I think it depends how you phrase things, something like "I am really struggling to understand how we could prove the new over-lapping generation teaching to a sceptic in the DtoD work, how would you explain it from the Bible ?"
Put them on the spot, stick with it too, and show how weak the doctrine is, same with the Blood doctrine and 1914 etc "How would you explain it using only the Bible ?"
This makes them confront the weakness of their "truth".
had pancakes with tree blood (my favorite!).
sipping coffee, going to the mountains today.
ah, life is good.
Went and played my favourite sport, and won handsomely, came home to big fry up lunch and beers, going to read the Newspaper this arvo.
Meetings? a dim unpleasant memory.
since that great atheist heavy weight christopher hitchens left us.
it seems the british press have had their knifes out for richard dawkins.
mostly trying to discredit him and smear his name.. his exasperated "oh god!
I have always thought he erred on the side of being too polite and gentle with some of the willfully ignorant people who he has had to deal with.
His books have been a wonderful help to me in understanding evolution and science in general, he has the true teachers art of making a complex subject understandable to thickos like me.
He is vilified and made fun of because people have no valid argument against the straight facts that he presents. Creationists and others have only that specious method of argumentation, attack the man, not the argument.
