Posts by Perry

26

I feel like I'm losing my religion/faith

by christina1111 in

i'm a baptized jw...been baptized for 8 years...and throughout the years i've been baptized i see "hypocrisy" so to speak in the religion...when you're new and not baptized that's when the jws want to invite you to every gathering they have, they want to appear like they're your best friend...they want to help you out when needed and so forth...however, once you're baptized you go to the elders for help they don't help you....all they do is gather you around the office...have bibles in hand and so forth...they give you articles as well, instead of physically helping you out....but yet when you weren't baptized they would physically help you out and not throw scriptures and articles in your face.

also when you ask for help and so forth with the bros/sisters they want to throw the "each one must carry his/her own load" scripture at you.....but yet what happened to the scripture of taking care of widows and people who are orphans?.

it's not just one congregation...throughout the 8 years i've been baptized i've been through many kingdom halls...many towns...many states...when i was inactive for awhile i even pretended to not be baptized and just play dumb when the witnesses came to my door...they're much nicer to you when you're not baptized then when you are baptized...why is that?.

Perry

He said "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple".

Jesus also demonstrated things like, that there were in reality only two laws: Love God and Love your Neighbor as Yourself. He also said his yoke was easy and his load was light - unlike other pursuits.

Man-Centered religion & ideologies on the other hand, (including and maybe especially bible cults) are deeply works based. They bind up heavy loads on adherents that they themselves are unwilling to bear.

The scripture you cited has special meaning for me. I left the Watchtower willingly, but I was unwilling for years to stand up to my family and state to them my desire to be a Christian apart from the Watchtower.

Until I did that, they just viewed me as "weak". The funny thing is, they were right. Jesus words, are incredibly liberating.

26

I feel like I'm losing my religion/faith

by christina1111 in

i'm a baptized jw...been baptized for 8 years...and throughout the years i've been baptized i see "hypocrisy" so to speak in the religion...when you're new and not baptized that's when the jws want to invite you to every gathering they have, they want to appear like they're your best friend...they want to help you out when needed and so forth...however, once you're baptized you go to the elders for help they don't help you....all they do is gather you around the office...have bibles in hand and so forth...they give you articles as well, instead of physically helping you out....but yet when you weren't baptized they would physically help you out and not throw scriptures and articles in your face.

also when you ask for help and so forth with the bros/sisters they want to throw the "each one must carry his/her own load" scripture at you.....but yet what happened to the scripture of taking care of widows and people who are orphans?.

it's not just one congregation...throughout the 8 years i've been baptized i've been through many kingdom halls...many towns...many states...when i was inactive for awhile i even pretended to not be baptized and just play dumb when the witnesses came to my door...they're much nicer to you when you're not baptized then when you are baptized...why is that?.

Perry

Now I see why people say they don't want to be a part of an organized religion.

I think vast numbers of Christians today get this.

Jesus had little good to say about most of religious people he met. He emphasized relationship over religion.

26

Does Paul preach a fundamentally different religion than Jesus?

by Yesu Kristo Bwana Wangu in

controversy has arisen regarding jesus versus paul as scholars debate the different emphases and messages of jesus and paul.1 jesus preached the kingdom of heaven.

paul did not.

paul preached justification by faith alone.

Perry

Understanding Dispensations (God's progressive modes of relating to man) clears up any seeming difference between Jesus & Paul. Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, but Paul was an Apostle to the gentiles.

Israel got to keep their beloved LAW (as they wished), and believing Gentiles were grafted into the family of God and inherited the gift of GRACE.

The appearance of Jesus, the long promised Messiah represented a major transitional event from one dispensation to another. Each dispensation (mode in which God deals with man), always ends with 1. The Failure of Man 2. Judgement & 3. A New Beginning.

Using a dispensational template, to "rightly divide the word of God", it becomes apparent that many of Jesus words were spoken to the Jews that were living then (before the age of Grace) AND to the Jews that will be alive during the Great Tribulation (after the age of Grace but before the Millennium). Whereas Paul's message was mainly directed to those living during the age of Grace.

12

I was manning a cart

by closed in

i was manning a cart not long ago.

o, aye:) .

a man, who i suspect is familiar with this site comes to me.

Perry

I believe that if a person studies this image closely enough, they will be able to come to a true understanding of the overlapping generation doctrine:

10

Finding Peace in Older Age

by compound complex in

jw
friends

a cool sense of tranquility overtakes my troubled spirit.. i emerge slowly from a deeply entrenched, lifelong nightmare and proceed into gentle reverie, into quiet wakefulness.

youthful ideals, embodied in vaporous form before me, are a black reminiscence, threatening to return as an untold want having neither name nor substance, only a niggling dig that skewers my soul.. i shut it out, shut out all the noise in the head: irrational thought, excessive thinking that leads to depression, to insanity.

yet, i am hopeful that devils of the past are blocked approach to me by a portcullis that guards both heart and mind.. i see but darkly my amorphous reflection and sense it is a phantom, not the real me.

Perry

I suffered a turbulent youth and truly do welcome the slow and spiraling descent into older age; I am not afraid . .

Ditto that

80

The Fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

ever since i came out of the witnesses, i've become very political.. i've heard lots of arguments back and forth for many things.. in the u.s. there is the argument that it is "racist" to want to deny entry to muslims.

while there is freedom of religion, there is also the very valid concern of maintaining democracy and a justice system that is based on modern values.we as exjw's constantly quote the pew center for statistics on jw's such as: they are last place in the us for members of a religion that go to university, and second-last for poverty levels of members of a religion.

we accept those statistics and mention them as proof of how damaging the jw's are.now, let's use the same center for some very scary statistics on islam:http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/.

Perry

Christianity has moved on from being horrible, as in the Middle Ages.

Yes, of course... I get your point.

Jesus readjusted people's thinking regarding Law. The problem was on the inside according to Jesus, not on the outside.... a sin nature that operates alongside of our own will, and many times foreign and antagonistic to it.

The apostate Catholic Church jettisoned the idea of being born again (which is the Christian solution to the problem) once Rome's City Overseer filled the power vacuum when the Capitol was moved away from Rome to Constantinople.

This consolidated power, both religious and secular into one super state. It produced a thousand years of unbelievable persecution against bible believers. (Biblical Christians as opposed to cultural Christians)

The founders of the USA, fresh out of a thousand years of persecution from religious super-states, wanted nothing more than to create a safe place to live according to Christian ideas, free from the heavy hands of consolidated religious and secular authority.

The idea that the government would now allow millions of people to quickly migrate here who aren't even cultural Christians, and would probably like nothing more than to create another religious super state to enslave its opponents, is antithetical to every single founding father of this nation I'm sure.

80

The Fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

ever since i came out of the witnesses, i've become very political.. i've heard lots of arguments back and forth for many things.. in the u.s. there is the argument that it is "racist" to want to deny entry to muslims.

while there is freedom of religion, there is also the very valid concern of maintaining democracy and a justice system that is based on modern values.we as exjw's constantly quote the pew center for statistics on jw's such as: they are last place in the us for members of a religion that go to university, and second-last for poverty levels of members of a religion.

we accept those statistics and mention them as proof of how damaging the jw's are.now, let's use the same center for some very scary statistics on islam:http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/.

Perry

The founding fathers of the USA who were virtually all Christians, did everything in their power to prohibit a "State Religion" because they believed in the New Testament concept of a sin nature. Because of this biblical belief, they knew that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They tried to disperse authority as much as possible among the electorate and government.

There was no separation of Church and State like many like to try and portray. The Christian faith was the foundation period. Morals, ethics, and laws were all based and rooted in the Word of God and were found at every level of every branch of government and school house. They tried to incorporate and balance the OT & the NT models of Law vs. Mercy into its statues.

They gave birth to incredible concepts that:

1. All people were created equal

2. Freedom wasn't something granted to you by a ruler (religious or secular), it was bestowed on you by the Almighty at conception

3. People different than you have intrinsic value because they were made in the image of God

4. There was no need to micro-manage everyone because people believed in a personal judgement after you die

5. God paid a big price to allow people the agency of free moral choice. Consequences not elimination should be emphasized when possible.

6. The Christian faith was to be lived out peacefully, non-violently. Wars were for defence, not for the spread of a particular form of government or religion.

A Lot of our history fell short of these ideals, much of our history rose up to the occasion too though.

Islam, from what I know of it seems the antithesis of the traditional American (and now much of the west in general) value system.

It seeks a state religion through Sharia Law. From its beginning, it spread by violent conquest. By contrast Christianity took down the most powerful military machine the world had ever known - Rome: without a single sword being drawn. The two systems couldn't be more different.

14

SCOTLAND: JW warned court will deliver judgment

by darkspilver in

jw
friends

from the east coast of scotland, just north of dundee...... the courier - friday 10 february 2017 - page 8. jehovah’s witness warned court will deliver judgment .

a church figure has been told by a sheriff that the courts will deliver judgment on his domestic offending and not the jehovah’s witness group he is a member of.

.

Perry

Why would the JWs even be brought into the discussion? I guess the wife was trying to defend him with the Watchtower association?

She could have said any number of things:

Don't take him to jail because ________________ .

a. he walks old ladies across the street

b. gives to charities

c. returned some money he found

Kinda confusing

21

Serpent in the Garden of Eden is not Satan

by anointed1 in

many interpret serpent in the garden of eden as the satan hence miss the whole point because satan himself does not exist.

he is a fictional character [for example, in the temptation account, satan is shown as reflecting the erroneous belief of ancient time that shape of earth is flat, thus taking jesus to the top of “a very high mountain” and showed him “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” (mathew 4:8, 9) the fact that jesus did not correct the mistaken view of satan shows the account of temptation is allegorical.

further, jesus knew that satan was only a personification of evil (mathew 16:23; john 6:70) and categorically declared that “all evil thoughts proceed from one’s heart,” not from satan.

Perry

People tend towards what is sometimes called a "lower nature" as opposed to our "higher nature", even when they try to will themselves otherwise.

For me, it was quite liberating to be free of the Watchtower dogma that basically says that the problem was "I just wasn't trying hard enough".

But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, ...no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. - Romans 7

This is the dual nature of man. The founding fathers of the American constitution well knew this principle that operates within men and created a form of government with checks and balances that tried to minimize/penalize the expressions of our lower nature and maximize/reward expressions of our higher nature.

It was an amazing application of biblical principles.

21

Serpent in the Garden of Eden is not Satan

by anointed1 in

many interpret serpent in the garden of eden as the satan hence miss the whole point because satan himself does not exist.

he is a fictional character [for example, in the temptation account, satan is shown as reflecting the erroneous belief of ancient time that shape of earth is flat, thus taking jesus to the top of “a very high mountain” and showed him “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” (mathew 4:8, 9) the fact that jesus did not correct the mistaken view of satan shows the account of temptation is allegorical.

further, jesus knew that satan was only a personification of evil (mathew 16:23; john 6:70) and categorically declared that “all evil thoughts proceed from one’s heart,” not from satan.

Perry

Interesting thoughts. For sure many things people ascribe to the Devil is really out of their own selves.

As JW's we denied the Christian doctrine of an inherent fallen nature, so we blamed most everything on the devil instead. Our failures to be godly was interpreted to be because we weren't active enough in field service, studying, meeting attendance etc. This left us open to the attacks of the devil. Pure nonsense from a biblical perspective.

Jesus deals with the sin nature, that is the part that must die and be replaced. That's why he three times told Nicodemus that he must be born again..... not from flesh, but by Spirit.

But, I do think the overall treatment of Satan in Scripture portrays him as a real entity. Article