Posts by FreeTheMasons

135

Rumour 144,000 literal number teaching to be abandoned at Annual Meeting

by slimboyfat in

say it ain’t so!

.

in one sense it’s a no brainer because the figures just don’t add up any more.. in another (negative) sense it’s a no brainer because it’s been fundamental to jws since year dot and might undermine the whole thing?

FreeTheMasons

@aqwsed12345 - no, I haven't read your links yet, I was just addressing what you had posted here, but I can if you want me to. I will check them out a little later. If I checked them out now and responded to both those links and what you just posted, this comment would be too long🙂...

The 144,000 thing in Revelation is about healing the family.

Sometimes in the family, the head of the family will assign chores to various members for the sake of the household. One kid might be assigned to take out the trash. Another might be asked to bring up the laundry or put away the dishes. It's not about rank or redemption - it's just about getting a job done.

I told you I'd check out your links, and I will later today, but for now do you mind if I just address the five points you posted in the comment just above?

1. As regards the resurrection, Jesus was resurrected as a spirit creature. He materialized a human-looking body so as to be able to eat with and hug and walk around with the disciples. There were witnesses to these things. He did all that prior to his ascension to heaven so that we'd know a spirit creature can materialize a human looking body and eat with people, hang out with them, etc. The 144,000 mentioned in Revelation will also be resurrected in the same way. None of the 144,000 who have died have been resurrected yet. When they're resurrected, there will be witnesses just like in Jesus' day. They will all be resurrected at the same time at the end of the tribulation foretold in Revelation and just before going into their assignments in the kingdom.

2. The way of "rulership" that has been taught by Christendom (including Watchtower) has twisted the view of "the kingdom of God." The use of the word "kingdom" is illustrative for people who have always lived in a world of human governments; but such things were not originally intended. There was no "kingdom" in the garden. It was a family arrangement, where Jehovah and the angels materialized and hung out with people. The illustrative "kingdom" descriptions came later. To understand what the "kingdom" means it needs to be framed from the point of view of returning to the original way of life in Eden, which was family, not like some worldly way of governing.

3. "Glory" means love. The worldly idea of glory is some funky glowing power-trip thing, but Jesus showed us what "glory" really was. He was lowly. He was warm. He was kind. His power was in his self-control and wisdom and being approachable despite having immense ability and knowledge. Both the angels and the humans are made in God's image. Having a third kind of creature that also reflects God's image, namely the "new creations" spoken of that are Jesus and the 144,000, does not negate the fact that humans reflect God's glory.

4. All humans redeemed by Christ's blood are "for God and the Lamb." Such ones figuratively become "Israel" since Jesus represents Israel and anyone joining him gains his name. Jesus came as a human and was part of Israel. All those looking to him as "father" in Adam's place inherit that name "Israel" as Jesus' figurative "kids." The 144,000 are a subset taken from that group "Israel." It's for a purpose. The reason they're called firstfruits isn't because all humans become the 144,000 - it's because the 144,000 are made "perfect" first and will interact with Jehovah first to get the rest of humankind ready for when Jehovah comes back to earth in a materialized body to hang out at the end of the 1000 year reign. The 144,000 will be working in their priestly assignments and in order to do that (go back and forth between heaven and earth just as the priests of old went back and forth between the temple and the courtyard) they need to be a new creation. Humans can't physically go to heaven. The 144,000 will never be allowed to procreate. They will lose their "human" inheritance, but God is giving them something else. They are firstfruits because humans will also hang out with God and see Him here on earth.

5. The scriptures are very clear that God in the past has taken a representative sample out of Israel for the purpose of ministering, and those ones did not get the same inheritance as the others. God is fair. Both types of inheritance are awesome. A bird can fly and a fish can swim. Each type of bird has a different gift, some sing better than others, some have prettier feathers. Each type of fish has a different gift. Some can swim faster, others can dive deeper. They have different gifts. No one bird or one fish has a monopoly on everything. Jehovah is fair.

Anthropology is the study of humans. Jesus is called in scripture "the son of man" and he became a spirit creature.

"All things are possible with God."

16

How to get help within the hospital.

by was a new boy in

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FreeTheMasons

I apologize if I came across overly negative - my ire isn't aimed at anyone who's been raked over the coals by the medical industry or the everyday people employed there who are doing their best to work within its limited framework. It's the ones at the top of the "pyramid scheme" I think are particularly heinous, since they know more about how so many of these treatments either don't really help or actually make things worse.

It is refreshing to meet people working within that system who know how to get things done while also recognizing the system is broken. I've dealt with a few physicians thoughout the years who have known how to navigate the healthcare miasma to help people without getting them bogged down in the mire. Kind of like the "use the world but not to the full" thing.

As far as the "how to get help in the hospital" thing goes: always having an advocate with you if you can help it; not letting them do every test or every med or every procedure just because they try to sell you on it; recognizing any research you do on the surface online is framed by the same people who are selling a treatment ("follow the money") whether that treatment is pills or supplements or some other therapy; understanding the products/procedures promoted are ones that have higher profits for the hospital and will be covered by your insurance if you have some; knowing all the medical centers have C-Diff, bed bugs, and other not cool stuff so get out of there as soon as you can; remembering that people are individuals and they vary so one dr/nurse/tech might be honest and the next a liar.

Hospitals are filthy places. You might see someone cleaning one area that is visible, but then around the corner it hasn't been washed for years. The doctor wears scrubs into the surgery, but you didn't see him wearing those same scrubs in the public bathroom a minute ago where he was standing at the same urinal used by the transient who came in to shoot up drugs a just prior. Your nurses used sanitizer when they came in the room, but the shot they gave you fell on the floor in the other room before they stuck it in your arm. The food delivered to your room was the proper temperature to kill bacteria when they first cooked it, but it's been sitting on that tray for hours by the time you ate it and has been exposed to every wing of the hospital on its way up to you.

And I won't even get started on the mishaps as regards wrong treatments for the wrong patients or what some unscrupulous healthcare workers do to patients while they are drugged up...

[shivers]

@DisgruntledFool, I am glad you've known some nice practitioners. Sometimes what helps us most about the "practice" is the human kindness and compassion shown when we are undergoing a health issue. A little love goes a long way.🙂🫶

As regards "Brother Hood" lol I didn't know him personally, he was before my time. The snootiest CO I've ever known was Ian Flynn. During COVID when they had an assembly via audio link, I remember him announcing at the beginning: "I'll be giving the first talk...and then so-and-so will give the talk...and then I'll be giving the talk...and then...and then I'll be giving that talk...and then I'm giving that one too." He seriously talked about how he was giving this and this and this talk for like ten minutes! It was so funny! (I don't think he meant it to be, but it sounded like the assembly should have been renamed "The Ian Flynn Show") it reminded me of this guy😆...

16

How to get help within the hospital.

by was a new boy in

.

FreeTheMasons

@DisgruntledFool...

Lol...I just checked out your other comments - this one is from what you said on the "Who Was the Biggest Jackass Circuit Overseer You Ever Met?" thread...

Alan Hood...and his son ran a close second although he couldn't hold a candle to the arrogance of his daddy.

I remember my husband saying when he was a kid in the Kingdom Hall in Rumford they'd joke about the Kingdom song "Thank you for our Brother Hood" ("brotherhood" "Brother Hood") and everybody would smirk😜

As regards the Maine Health System, they've taken two organs out of me - one organ that they had messed up with two decades of meds that didn't help and I didn't need in the first place (the meds, not the organ); the second organ that wasn't needing to be taken out but they figured "while we're in here." And I've known other people where it was the same thing, they were doing "exploratory" surgery and just decided to take out an organ "while we're in here" since they couldn't find anything else to charge for.

My husband worked at CMMC until recently and now he's at a local nursing home (haha, he works there, not as a patient/resident😁)

I've had other friends/acquaintances/family work in the medical field enough to know not everything is as it appears on the surface.

The hospitals are disgusting and dirty. They're falling apart. Elevators are broken down for months. There are mold issues, fire hazards (the hospital caught fire and part of the building evacuated but others didn't even know until they found out from a different hospital - how's that work when you're in the middle of an operation?) mixing up of drugs, shootings, theft...the place is falling apart and they're going bankrupt. The nursing care facilities are just as bad or worse. They're putting on a good face for the public, but the inside is ridiculously falling apart - and this is in the supposedly "best" health care country in the world.

Whatever.

It's a facade. I'm not buying it. I know too much about it.

I'm glad you feel good about your pills. You can keep 'em. The local WT people think the meetings make them feel better too. I used to be indoctrinated into WT and I also used to be indoctrinated into the medical doctrines, but then I did more research and also my own experiences with the medical field woke me up.

The same people who own stock in the medical industry are often the same ones who make the products that lead to the diseases in the first place. Too scammy for me.

Nice to meet you, by the way.🙂

16

How to get help within the hospital.

by was a new boy in

.

FreeTheMasons

I hate the medical indu$try.

135

Rumour 144,000 literal number teaching to be abandoned at Annual Meeting

by slimboyfat in

say it ain’t so!

.

in one sense it’s a no brainer because the figures just don’t add up any more.. in another (negative) sense it’s a no brainer because it’s been fundamental to jws since year dot and might undermine the whole thing?

FreeTheMasons

Being a human is a gift.

It's such a cool gift that some of the angels coveted it.

Being "redeemed" has nothing to do with whether a person is changed into a spirit creature or not. The "changing into a spirit creature" is illustrative of how the priests had to change their clothes to work in the temple then they'd change back for secular duties.

Angels can materialize. Spirit creatures can materialize, but they aren't supposed to have sex and procreate.

The 144,000 are to be changed into spirit creatures for a specific purpose. They lose one gift and get another, but they are not any more "special" than anyone who stays as a human.

The heavenly government comes down out of heaven which means the 144,000 and Jesus and Jehovah will all materialize bodies and hang out here on earth with humans.

"All things are possible with God."

16

How to get help within the hospital.

by was a new boy in

.

FreeTheMasons

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-found-over-700-doctors-who-were-paid-more-than-a-million-dollars-by-drug-and-medical-device-companies#:~:text=Prosecutors%20Say%20the%20Payments%20by,other%20doctors%20about%20important%20medications.

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/summary-by-state

https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov

60

The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity

by aqwsed12345 in

1. the continuity and visibility of the church.

the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.

there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.

FreeTheMasons

Thank you, I just responded there.🙂

135

Rumour 144,000 literal number teaching to be abandoned at Annual Meeting

by slimboyfat in

say it ain’t so!

.

in one sense it’s a no brainer because the figures just don’t add up any more.. in another (negative) sense it’s a no brainer because it’s been fundamental to jws since year dot and might undermine the whole thing?

FreeTheMasons

There is a difference between "being redeemed" and "being assigned to do a job."

60

The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity

by aqwsed12345 in

1. the continuity and visibility of the church.

the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.

there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.

FreeTheMasons

Regarding the links between Christendom and paganism - examples from the Catholic church:

https://templarpriests.weebly.com/initiations.html

https://merrywitch.weebly.com/black-preceptory-of-haiti.html

53

WTS 2024 Annual Business Meeting ...

by careful in

... is just three weeks from this saturday.

the org has been tight-lipped, really, successfully secret about advance info on these in recent years,.

now that these relatively recent changes on dress and grooming, reporting fs time, judicial matters, etc.

FreeTheMasons

(Here is a video clip featuring part of last year's "opening prayer" at the Annual Meeting, which is not typically published for the rank-and-file to hear, just like the decision making part or the "voting" part of the meeting isn't public either.)

https://x.com/Larchwood20/status/1712803140003659784