This particular paragraph will be used when I "come out". I will say how much I appreciate that Jehovah allows us free will, and based on that free will and the research I've done, I choose not to be part of this religion.
leaving_quietly
JoinedPosts by leaving_quietly
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"Draw Close To Jehovah" study - strange logic..
by BluesBrother inwhat do you think of the reasoning in this paragraph from this week's meeting study?.
draw close to jehovah - chapt 4 .
21 consider jehovahs self-restraint from a different angle.
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"Scriptural" Baptism
by NeverKnew ini was told that jws baptize in the name of the father, son and the holy spirit.
i asked if it was done exactly as stated in the bible to be sure i was hearing the answer correctly.
the response i got was "yes!
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leaving_quietly
Searcher, thanks for that. Can you cite your source?
Even so, JWs don't even baptize in Christ's name. They baptize "on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ." (w10 1/15 p. 3 par. 1)
There is no passage that even alludes to baptism being linked to Christ's sacrifice. People were baptized by John for repentence of their sins. That is the JW baptism. With Christ, however, people were baptized by holy spirit and into Christ. JWs say this is only reserved for the anointed.
"Therefore, those who become joint heirs with him, with heavenly hopes, have to be “baptized into Christ Jesus,” that is, into the Anointed Jesus who, at the time of his anointing, was also begotten to be a spiritual son of God. They thereby become united to him, their Head, and they become members of the congregation that is the body of Christ." - it-1 p. 252
Most JWs do not realize the difference between the way they are baptized now and being baptized into Christ. I certainly did not until I looked at all the verses that talked about baptism, then read various WT articles on the subject. Most think that the way they perform baptisms is perfectly legitimate, but have no clue they are being baptized in the baptism of John, and not of Christ. In addition, there is no such thing as a "personal dedication to Jehovah" in the scriptures followed by baptism. If you look up Dedication in the Insight book, you will not find a discussion of a personal dedication to God. I haven't done a lot of research on this subject, but from what I have done, many scriptures are used, but not a single one of them says "dedication" in the NWT.
Here's the rub: if one does indeed dedicate themselves to God, it will forever be used as something against that one by man. I've heard many times, 'even disfellowshipped ones are under obligation since being disfellowshipped does not invalidate their personal dedication to God.'
Depending on how that dedication is made, it could be going against what Christ said:
“Again you heard that it was said to those of ancient times: ‘You must not swear without performing, but you must pay your vows to Jehovah.’ However, I say to you: Do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, since you cannot turn one hair white or black. Just let your word ‘Yes’ mean yes, your ‘No,’ no, for what goes beyond these is from the wicked one." - Matt 5:33-37
I am not saying that one should not promise their life to God if they truly desire to do so. But, the idea of dedication, and that being symbolized by water baptism is not found in the scriptures. I have to do more research on this to see where this idea came from.
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Critical Thinking from the Wife !!
by TTATTelder inthe other day i had a couple of drinks and went off on the gb (again), about how they are just posturing and have no clue.
i said if they knew what they were talking about we would already be in the new world, but we're not ..so they dont...the end.. well i got some push back as would be expected, but what surprised me was what she said a little later.
firstly she didn't pay attention to the public talk this past sunday and instead read an article in a watchtower on stress.
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leaving_quietly
R_O: "So what happens if you're walking and a big branch breaks or a rock suddenly comes loose and falls on you?"
"We'll be perfect, so we'll know not to walk that way at that time."
R_O: "So you're saying we'll be able to see the future?"
"Well no, but even if something did fall on us, we wouldn't get hurt."
R_O: "So you're saying we'll be indestructable?"
"Well no, but...."
As I was reading this, I thought about Christ's experience at Matt 4:5,6:
"Then the Devil took him along into the holy city, and he stationed him on the battlement of the temple and said to him: “If you are a son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written: ‘He will give his angels a command concerning you,’ and, ‘They will carry you on their hands, so that you may not strike your foot against a stone.’"
Since JWs believe that Christ was perfect, and many believe he could not die unless God took away his holy spirit, then why did Satan even give this challenge? Why did he say he would be saved by angels? To me, this could be used as proof that a "perfect" person CAN get hurt. -
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New Light to be released on the 100th anniversary of 1914
by smiddy inwith further study and meditation , the holy spirit has guided the governing body to the evident reality that the year 1914 was a symbolic enthronement of jesus christ to his heavenly kingship .
jehovahs witnesses worlwide rejoice at this new understanding , empowering them to be even more determined to spread these pearls of truth to those moaning and groaning in this wicked system of things.
rom.8:22. some have wondered , even had doubts about the ever increasing numbers who now seem to be partaking of the wine and emblems at the lords evening meal ( memmorial ) celebration held annually .. we are pleased to announce that this too has been clarified by holy spirit , with study and meditation , and we can now announce that the 144000 is in fact a symbolic number and not to be taken as a literal number as previously thought .. we , the g.b.
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leaving_quietly
@Searcher, with the exception that THIS year, at the International District (er... I mean Regional) Conventions, GB members will be tied in by audio, and probably video to other conventions. The speakers are GB members and their helpers. There's a distinct possibility of "new light" with that sort of audience at this particular venue this year.
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The Organization is expanding so much........
by DATA-DOG in...that district overseers are now being used as circuit overseers!!
that was a comment at the wt study program.
another great comment was this: " you can go to bethel and have zero skills.
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leaving_quietly
Funny you say this. We all see this as an obvious downsizing move, just like any corporation would do. But after the announcement my MIL commented how they must be doing this "for all the new circuits being formed."
It's because they say something like 10 new congregations are being formed every day because 277,000 get baptized each year, averaging to 740 per day, averaging to 10 congs with 70(ish) people in them. This is, of course, idiotic, because we know that out of 113,000 congregations, this only adds 2-3 per cong per year. The is NOT 10 new congregations each day. Silly people.
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Shared some TTATT with my wife and now she wants us to have a weekly personal bible study
by suavojr inhere is the situation.... a young 19 year old in our congo had a fallout with his parents because of all the restrictions and jw dogma and moved out of the house last wednesday.. to make the story short, the parents went running to the elders and what was the comfort?.
coe said: i saw that coming!
your son never reached out to get baptized.. then the other elder said: don't worry, you still have one left that will be saved.
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leaving_quietly
Good points from everyone here. If you want to wake here up to TTATT, how about suggesting that you go through doctrines unique to Jehovah's Witnesses and prove them scripturally. Say: "I think we think we know our Bible pretty well. If that's the case, we can prove all our doctrines scripturally without the use of the any WT publications. So, let's do that. Let's pretend we have to defend our beliefs to a householder."
You might even suggest that each week, for the WT study, that you go through each of the cited scriptures and read them in context to see if they really say what the WT says they say. You could start with this past weekend's WT that cites Phil 3:15,16. Then read that in context (esp. verses 13,14) to see what Paul was really saying. Then, the best thing to do would be to actually look up the scripture in the indexes (use the WT Library, but use the indexes) to see every place the verse(s) are cited and read what the WT has to say about the verse. Does it match what the Bible says? I can tell you that this is an eye-opening exercise. This is one way that I learned TTATT.
Oh, and really important: keep a notebook together of topics discussed and verses involved. It's easy to forget things. The WT may say use a scripture that will make her go, 'see, this proves it', but you'll have other verses that say otherwise.
The hard part will be to get past the "in a sense", "evidently", "logically, then" wiggle words that has been used for decades.
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Meeting after meeeting
by molybdenum ini just got information that there is going to be a short 10 min meeting.
with elders and ms after the first meeting of the week during the co visit.. this is in addition to the usual elders/ms meeting.. it might just be for my congregation, but is this something new?.
i wonder why.. .
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leaving_quietly
Likely the new program that's set up for C.O. visits: on Tuesday night, meet with all the elders and make arrangements to call on every inactive person sometime during the week. It's an outreach program. The D.O. announced that at the last special assembly day a few weeks back. Wasn't aware it would involve M.S's, too.
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Which Bible Translation?
by Blackbird Fly injust wondering which is your favorite translation of the bible?
we only have the nwt (pre 2013 revision) here, curently.
but i wouldnt be opposed to having another translation to refer to....
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leaving_quietly
It depends on what you are looking for: a translation that is on the side of formalism (that is, as technically accurate as possible) or one that is funtional (that is, one that targets the widest audience). The 1984 NWT version is more formal than the 2013 version, and in most places, it is actually quite accurate, technically. I say "most" because we know that it also is translated with a doctrinal/theological slant.
I prefer the NET bible, but am also a fan of the NIV.
If you have the time (about an hour) and desire, check out the video on this page about the NIV. It's pretty informative, although given by a *gasp* pastor:
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Pushing the JW.ORG
by Etude ini took these pictures over a month ago.
i had not realized that they were really pushing their site.
this was at our farmers market, although they were not officially in the market area but off the side on the sidewalk.. .
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leaving_quietly
I expressed my dismay about pushing the website to an elder recently. He said it's a positive thing. "Jehovah is speeding it up," he said. "The nations shall know that I am Jehovah," he said. "No excuses." he said. I couldn't respond because I was so flabbergasted at that thought. The nations knowing about Jehovah is all about a war that Jehovah executes a whole lot of people, so much so that Israelites would be burying the dead for seven months. Unbelievable that they apply this to to the preaching work. Unbelievable.
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exodus 7:1
by Truthexplorer inhi all, ive decided to come back to the forum.
am needing to let of some steam in regards to things in general as finding myself frustrated once again with wt rules policies etc which i will discuss in future threads.
i just wanted to ask your thoughts about ex 7:1 as it says that the lord made moses god to pharaoh.
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leaving_quietly
I've thought about this one a little bit in the past. In the revised NWT, WT does a tricky thing. They say, "made you like God" with a footnote that reads: "Lit. made you God". The word elohim means divine, divine being, God, god. Surprisingly, the revised NWT did not make it lowercase god.
Now, that said, my thought with this verse is along the same lines as yours: The Almighty God can make ANYONE HE WANTS to be God / divine. This is one of the first things that changed my opinion of the nature of Christ. Instead of just an exalted angel, I view him as of a divine nature. Not God himself, but "in the form of God".
Just my opinion.