"build it and they will come".
i said, " in a world filled with crappy fast food restaurants that should never have made it, movies and tv shows that are terrible yet make millions, celebrities who are famous for doing nothing and butt ugly crappy cars that were built and sold by the millions; if you put "it" out there and are consistant about it, people will eventually find you.
no matter how bad mcdonalds food is for you and (tastes) there will always be a line of people out the door.
There are more than seven million atheists in world - surely they can't all be wrong?
Of course they can say the believers!
What is clearly wrong is the idea that because millions of people swallow something it must be true. I find it quite depressing that millions of people swallow such fallacious logic as this.
the word dogma is defined as "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.".
i began comparative religious studies several years ago, in fact, i am currently attending school with the desire to acquire my degree in this discipline.
while studying the buddhist belief system, i realized how similar the jw's were in their evolution to every other religion.
Quite agree SOP - and In Search of Christian Freedom, Ray Franz provides a powerful record of how this happend to the Watchtower Society.
when i believed in god i tried not to pray for anything selfish.. after a while i began to think that a lot of things i was asking my imaginary friend in the sky for were selfish for some reason.. i do not ever remember a single thing i prayed for ever being answered.
if there was the appearance of an answer it was because i did mental gymnastics to make it fit the delusion that god had actually answered me.
there was never an obvious message/answer from god.
I don’t quite understand this idea that Jesus is God’s revelation of Truth to the world when he answers just as many prayers of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and all the other religions just as much as he answers the prayers of Christians. He obviously doesn’t care what religion you are, so why send Jesus at all? And if he does care what religion you are, why does he answer the prayers of people from every religion?
the watchtower study yesterday made it clear that the cry of peace and security has not occurred yet.. what they don't mention is their false alarm that they falsely pointed to events in 1972 as the cry of peace and security.
that was 42 years ago.. they did this with a special awake in october of 1972. they devoted the full issue to the subject.
it rivals the infamous "is it later than you think" special awake of october 8 1968 in its grandiose predictions.. the october 8 issue of awake 1972 is must reading in view of the latest discussion of peace and security.. here are a few exerpts with the grandiose statements in red.
A book "True Peace and Security - From What Source?" came out in 1973, which gave us all added proof that Armageddon was coming in the mid-1970s.
But these are by no means the only times this cry has been sounded. During WWII there were countless predictions that when the war ended, there would be a cry of 'peace and security', which would be immediately followed by Armageddon.
as an apocalyptic cult the brahma kumaris have some similarities to the watchtower.. they believe that all humans will die during an imminent and desirable end of the world they called destruction, in order that 900,000 faithful brahma kumari followers will inherit a heaven on earth before 2036.. to outsiders, bks refer to this event as a transformation and adherents are led to believe that a heavenly royal status can be achieved after it by donating money, free labor and unquestioning mental submission to the brahma kumari leadership, who will rule the world as emperors and empresses.
the brahma kumaris leadership has sought to cover up or deny child sex abuses at its headquarters, multiple suicides of followers at centers, financial corruption and abuses, immigration abuses, the persecution of minor or breakaway groups and the breaking up of families.. with echos of russell's divine plan of the ages, time, according to the brahma kumaris, is limited to a single, identically repeating, 5,000 year period called, the cycle in which human beings procreated by the power of mind for the first 2,500 years, and will do again from 2036, and the dinosaur period existed at the time of ancient greece.
likewise, in another 2,500 years into the future, brahma kumaris world spiritual university leaders teach that abraham, buddha, christ and mohammed will all be reborn again in order to start to teach, after having re-learnt their religion under them at this time.. the bkwsu leadership continues to financially benefit from their position by encouraging their adherents to a total mental, physical and financial surrender to their god.
In the summer of 1970, myself and another young publisher knocked on the door of a group of these people in north west London. We spent a couple of hours batting back and forth our differing ideas of impending Armageddon. It was great fun, and I think I still have their chart somewhere – must dig it out and see if any of it has changed. Never met another one since – didn’t realise they were still going. Oh, yes, they were definitely bat shit crazy, but I guess that was their view of me too.
for example, let's say an awake jw wanted to share ttatt about the true meaning of john 10:16, so he just posts on his facebook wall a couple passages of scripture with no commentary whatsoever - like this:.
"in answer he said: i was not sent forth to any but to the lost sheep of the house of israel.
- matthew 15:24.
It’s worth remembering that the purge of 1980 was because those guys started reading the bible on its own. And they were not disfellowshipped for apostasy against the bible, but for apostasy against the Watchtower.
And you would just as surely be disfellowshipped for posting a string of Watchtower passages as well, especially if those passages exposed past errors.
when i visit this forum, i'm always a bit surprised by those members who, on deciding they no longer wish to be a witness, write long letters to the elders, set out their reasoning in e-mails to family and friends, attend judicial meetings to have their say etc.
i've never heard of an ex-catholic, for example, writing a resignation letter to their parish priest.. i'm a never-in so i can't appreciate the emotions these people are going through.
however they also often say a big worry is loss of contact with family and friends.
Fading is not always that simple. For some it has worked a treat - some have even complained that not a single elder called on them to find out why they had stopped meetings, FS etc – they should count themselves lucky – and, as you say, make no grand gestures. The reason I faded, rather than simply tell them what I thought of it all, was the same as most people, I still had family in and I didn’t want to be disfellowshipped. But it was six years after I stopped attending meetings before the elders from the different congregations stopped calling on me, and I was treading a fine line for all that time (and I moved twice during that period, but they always knew where I was because my wife was still in). Sometimes the only way to get them out of your life is a 'grand gesture’ of some kind. And if you have no reason to fear the shunning, I’m sure it can be somewhat therapeutic.
http://jehovahstrumpet.com/conjoined-twin-shuns-brother/.
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i apologize if i am double posting about this..
Yes - a great spoof site - however, its Links page could do with a link to this site - that would make it even better.
so bring it on, and lay the evidence on me, kate (but perhaps you should start a new thread).-adam.
it does not prove god exists, there is no substantial evidence god is real.
if one is a self labeled atheist, one has no desire to see gods fingerprints in organic chemistry.
"The knowledge I have in my personal experience increases the probability of a intelligent Creator"
You may be a whiz at organic chemistry, but you have a lot to learn about the laws of probability.
underlining is mine.. march 6, 2012 letter.
pursue divine education:some of our brothers are pursuing higher education, feeling that they can acquire a measure of financial security.
as you are aware, the educational system varies from country to country.
"heeding the warnings given by the faithful slave and its Governing Body" - hold on a minute - the FDS is the GB. Oh wait a another minute, this letter is dated March 2012 - it's already infected with 'old'light' the BOEs should just ignore it.
