I do not beleive in God. My answer is, there is no god. The more I study the bible the more I see it for what it is, individual letters and writings each written for a specific purpose, then all compiled by men to accomplish a specific purpose. How many letters & writings were discarded at Nicea? Christianity could look completely if different voting had inserted or removed even a single book from the canon. The holes identified in the Christian bible by modern scholars have fundamentalist christians creating ridiculously complicated scenarios to salvage the appearance of divine inspiration when a historical reading of the text provides the most simple and rational explanation of any text. It only takes one generation to turn folklore into a belief system.
wallsofjericho
JoinedPosts by wallsofjericho
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544
FINALLY! Can you prove God exists? If you can I won't ask again!
by punkofnice ini have seen debates and shizzle about god or not god etc etc.. i was even confronted by an aggressive and trheatening muslim in the street, who was angry that i wanted proof that god existed.
he ranted on a load of old b0110cks about 'hell' and stuff.
finally he yelled at me: 'do you want god to write your name in the sky?
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Hi guess i may have to introduce myself
by rickisteel inhi im from the uk im 42 years old , i was brought up as a witness from birth to 12 years of age i left the meetings with my parents ,.
i had a wild youth was a bit of a rebel involving alcohol ,drugs , heavy metal and motorcycles , i was thrown out of home at 17 my sister was 14. and was discarded as my parents remarried and neither of there new partners wanted us (baggage) , anyway by the time i was married and 21. somebody spiked my pizza with lsd (cant remember the flavour ) and for the next 3 days i thought the world was ending , i called my dad and rambled some stuff to him ( cant remember exactly but the world was ending in my head) a little while later i got a witness call briefly , i found out where he lived and went and asked him for a bible , he suggested i have a bible study me and the wife took the offer and so it began again , i was baptised in 93 and went from strength to strength in the truth , aux pioneering , volunteered for everything , talks , cleaning , meeting parts etc was soon appointed and moved on giving public talks , assembly parts , shepparding calls etc , then in 1997 my wife fell down a kerb and damaged her cruciate ligaments several operations later and disabled ( by the way the brothers /sisters in the cong were great at this point ) my wife began to act odd 1n 1999 she tried to take her own life and over the next several years took 26 overdoses and spent much of her life in phychiatrict hospital in 2001 she was bi polar disorder type rapid cycling (not the common oh i feel a bit low type bi polar but the full blown rollercoaster ride bi polar) .
the thing that struck me was i began to feel like a leper and despite a couple of close friends nobody in the cong or on the circuit( long time friends) seemed to care , i brouht up the kids on my own visiting my wife in hospital and caring for her at home , i felt so alone , when i used to take the kids to the meeting / assembly on my own i just got tutts and sad headshakes "she not come" ?
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wallsofjericho
Hi and welcome!
I am always interested in stories like this. I thnk it identifies as much about humanity as it does the JW's.
I think in any group and in society in general you will see a waning of peoples interest in others over time. It's not that JW's lose interest, it's that people lose interest.
The hurt within the org is that you are conditioned to beleive that the org is "better" than the world. For those that experience trials, especially those like yours with long term illness & depression, the cold reality of how 'fleshly' the organization really is hits home hard.... that is, witnesses are no better than anyone else no matter how many decades you have beleived it.
This is compounded by the realization that now that you have discovered this, if you leave you have absolutely nobody to go to since no JW will ever talk to you and you have never developed any realy friendships with 'worlldy' people.
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Jehovah's Witnesses dismayed by new magazine format from Watchtower Society.
by Balaamsass inwow.
i was surprised this week by calls from active jws complaining about the new magazine format, and more begging for money from the platform.. frankly i was surprized by this reaction since this is old news to jwn members.
i guess actually shuffling to the bookroom and grabbing the new "awake tracts" minus the inside cover forward ...awakened many sleepy, catatonic, bored jws who never read the things or go on the internet anyway.. any feedback from other areas?.
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wallsofjericho
so "active JW's" call you on the telephone to complain about the new magazines?
I haven't met a single JW that could care less about the new mag format let alone multiples... and "complaining"? meh. nobody cares.
sounds exagerated to me
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Faith... and Trust: The Same Things?
by AGuest inin a discussion with some other dear ones, the question was asked as to what such ones put their faith in.
in response to one comment that"one can't function without faith," another disagreed, stating ones can, that "many do so every day... the ones who have trust" (in things like the sun rising in the east versus the west).
that trust extended to "faith" based "on nature and the natural order of things.
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wallsofjericho
I was gonna reply to this but then I saw it was Aguest who posted it so......
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Less than 1 million J-Dubs will survive Armageddon. Only hundreds of thousands will survive. Over 6 J-Dubs will be murdered.
by Calebs Airplane infreddy franz, the great wt prognosticator, had a lot of time on his hands in the 1950s to come up with the strangest end-time assertions and create a sense of urgency.
occasionally, he would even prognosticate approximate amounts of jws who would actually survive armageddon and never die.
for example.... already there are reported over a half million serving as witnesses in the newborn land with the new world society.
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wallsofjericho
right on Blues.....
Since this plaguing hail-like message will not convert men, why will it be delivered? So that the wicked will know for a certainty who is causing their
destruction and why."
I remember as a kid thinking how all those bullies at school who picked on me would finally know in the last moments before their horrible death that I, wallsofjericho, was right all along and that they would be fraught with guilt and sorrow for being so stupid to have ever made fun of ME... a TRUE servant of Jehovah!
How could anyone ever suggest that that is a healthy thought for a young child? JW's will say that's not what they encourage but that is such a lame duck. All JW's know that all JW's revel in the thought of such pay back. "Vengeance is mine says Jehovah!".
Oh ya, and after Jehovah kills all those jerks I am going to live in their big houses too!
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Meeting with my family doctor...
by NVR2L8 ini needed a prescription renewed and found out my old doc retired...met my new doc and took this opportunity to update my medical record...removed the no blood transfusion clause from my file.
i told the doctor that inconsistencies within my church's doctrines made it impossible for me to put my life at risk for no valid reason.
after throwing out my medical directive card, amending my medical record is another step toward totally breaking free from the cult.
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wallsofjericho
anyone in that dr.s office can view your records. odds are she will know within a few months. confidentiality is one thing yes, but that does not mean she won't snoop for herself. ask your doctor about monitoring your info, i beleive they can see anyone internally that has viewed your file. if a staff member has viewed it without cause they can identify it. at least I know they can in my dr.s office
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does anyone feel messed up sexually because of being brought up as jw? like you have missed out, etc?
by johnjones3210 inhiya,.
i'm new to this forum but just wanted to talk to somebody about this.. i was brought up as a jw and left just over a year ago.
i'm now 26 and feel messed up sexually.
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wallsofjericho
yup
learning to interact with the opposite sex socially AND sexually is huge in developing confidence and self esteem. This does not mean you have to be promiscuous to have either of those, but I beleive if you are an ex-JW that is older and trying to "get in the game" it can be a real struggle to not be either a complete wussy or a creepy perv....]
JMHO
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the WTS says obey only us without question as if we are the voice of god
by wallsofjericho init always amazes me that if you make a statment like this to the rank & file jw they will without fail, emphatically deny this is the case.. yet it is 100% fact!!!.
quote "it is vital that we appreciate this fact and respond to the directions of the "slave" as we would to the voice of god, because it is his provision.
" watchtower 1957 jun 15 p.370.
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wallsofjericho
Think about it -
This Cult even has a "loyalty test" question devised to ascertain one's loyalty to the WTS as God's organization, channel, voice, etc.
"To receive everlasting life in the earthly Paradise we must identify that organization and serve God as part of it." Watchtower 1983 Feb 15 p.12
"We need to obey the faithful and discreet slave to have Jehovah’s approval." Watchtower 2011 Jul 15 p.24 Simplified English Edition
"Since Jehovah God and Jesus Christ completely trust the faithful and discreet slave, should we not do the same?" Watchtower 2009 Feb 15 p.27
"To act consistently with our baptism for life and into the Greater Noah we must submit to and cooperate with that slave and its legal instrument, the Watch Tower Society." Watchtower 1959 Oct 1 p.583Punkofnice - Thanks but you should be thanking Paul Grundy for his excellent website www.jwfacts.com - I am on that site everyday mining these unbeleivable and incriminating WTS quotes
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the WTS says obey only us without question as if we are the voice of god
by wallsofjericho init always amazes me that if you make a statment like this to the rank & file jw they will without fail, emphatically deny this is the case.. yet it is 100% fact!!!.
quote "it is vital that we appreciate this fact and respond to the directions of the "slave" as we would to the voice of god, because it is his provision.
" watchtower 1957 jun 15 p.370.
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wallsofjericho
it always amazes me that if you make a statment like this to the rank & file JW they will without fail, emphatically deny this is the case.
Yet it is 100% fact!!!
QUOTE "It is vital that we appreciate this fact and respond to the directions of the "slave" as we would to the voice of God, because it is His provision." Watchtower 1957 Jun 15 p.370
QUOTE "The point is that Christians have implicit trust in their heavenly Father; they do not question what he tells them through his written Word and organization." Watchtower 1974 Jul 15 p.441 **** and how do we learn what God tells us in his written word?
QUOTE Only this organization functions for Jehovah's purpose and to his praise. To it alone God's Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book. Many persons of the world are very intelligent, capable of understanding complex matters. They can read the Holy Scriptures, but they cannot understand their deep meaning."" Watchtower 1973 Jul 1 p.402
I LOVE IT!!
so when the org says "we do not question" what we learn from the bible and from the F&DS, when you read the above quote you see that we are not cabapable of learning from gods word without the F&DS telling us what it means.
THEREFORE - the WTS is ACTAULLY saying in the Watchtower 1974 Jul 15 p.441 quote above is....
- we do not question what we learn from the F&DS and the F&DS. We listen to them without question as if their writings are the voice of god.
INCREDULOUS!!!
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wallsofjericho
(Double posted for formatting.... sorry) So I have been thinking about this lately, sorry if it has already been brought up here on another thread. But if the greek scriptures are directed to the 144,000 does this cause trouble for our most recent "new light" on F&DS=GB? First off, some quotes from the WTS regarding the 144,000 *******Only the 144,00o have Jesus as mediator- "So in this strict Biblical sense Jesus is the "mediator" only for anointed Christians." Watchtower 1979 April 1 p.31 "Likewise, the Greater Moses, Jesus Christ, is not the Mediator between Jehovah God and all mankind. He is the Mediator between his heavenly Father, Jehovah God, and the nation of spiritual Israel, which is limited to only 144,000 members." Worldwide Security Under the "Prince of Peace" pp. 10-11 *******the Greek scriptures are mainly written for them- Revelation, it's Grand Climax at Hand pp. 317-318 "Yes, these words are primarily "for the congregations." This is a message, first of all, for the congregation of anointed Christians on earth. Everything in Revelation is addressed primarily to anointed Christians, who will inhabit New Jerusalem. Through that congregation, the great crowd is also privileged to gain understanding of these precious prophetic truths." United in Worship p.111 "Special attention was being given to making up the government that would rule mankind for 1,000 years, and nearly all the inspired letters in the Christian Greek Scriptures are primarily directed to this group of Kingdom heirs - "the holy ones," "partakers of the heavenly calling." Watchtower 1974 June 15 p.376 "Also, it is to the spirit-anointed Christians who will rule in that kingdom that most of the Christian Greek Scriptures is directed, including the promises of everlasting life." ******************* Yet online at JW.org we can still read this from the w07 4/1 pp. 21-25
Loyal to Christ and His Faithful Slave “On arriving” to inspect the “slave” in 1918, Christ found a spirit-anointed remnant of faithful disciples who since 1879 had been using this journal and other Bible-based publications to provide spiritual “food at the proper time.” He acknowledged them as his collective instrument, or “slave,” and in 1919 entrusted them with the management of all his earthly belongings. ........
Giving Loyal Support 14 The humble submission of the other sheep to the anointed members of spiritual Israel was foretold in the prophecy of Isaiah: “This is what Jehovah has said: ‘The unpaid laborers of Egypt and the merchants of Ethiopia and the Sabeans, tall men, will themselves come over even to you, and yours they will become. Behind you they will walk; in fetters they will come over, and to you they will bow down. To you they will pray, saying, “Indeed God is in union with you, and there is no one else; there is no other God.”’” (Isaiah 45:14) Symbolically, the other sheep today walk behind the anointed slave class and its Governing Body, following their leadership. As “unpaid laborers,” the other sheep willingly expend their physical strength and their resources in support of the worldwide preaching work that Christ assigned to his anointed followers on earth.—Acts 1:8; Revelation 12:17. 15 The other sheep are happy and grateful to serve Jehovah under the oversight of the slave class and its Governing Body. They recognize the anointed as members of “the Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:16) As figurative “strangers” and “foreigners” associated with spiritual Israel, they joyfully serve as “farmers” and “vinedressers” under the direction of the anointed, the “priests of Jehovah” and ‘ministers of God.’ (Isaiah 61:5, 6) They zealously share in preaching this good news of the Kingdom and in making disciples of people of all the nations. They give wholehearted assistance to the slave class in shepherding and nurturing newly found sheeplike ones.
*********** the WTS has said that the other sheep are "walking behind" the anointed and GB. What does the prophecy at Isa 45:14 mean now that the other sheep and non-GB anointed are all members of the "domestic class"? Above,the WTS says: "They recognize the anointed as members of “the Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:16) As figurative “strangers” and “foreigners” associated with spiritual Israel, they joyfully serve as “farmers” and “vinedressers” under the direction of the anointed, the “priests of Jehovah” and ‘ministers of God.’ (Isaiah 61:5, 6" How are the other sheep strangers and foreigners to those of the anointed that are of the same domestic class as they are? If the GB are alone the Israel of God then how can the non-GB anointed be said to be "strangers" to the F&DS that is the GB? I don't feel I have completed all my research on this by any means, but I just got to thinking on this and I just had to post. Any thoughts on whether or not the GB will soon be the "Israel of God" and if so, what the impact of this would be? I hope some of you can piece together where my mind is trying to go with this.....
