next year the watchtower society will be forced by world events (i.e.
no armageddon yet) to confront a full century of christ's presence.
with nothing to show for it!.
Creative salesman seem to make successful religion founders, like Joseph Smith or Russell
I've read somewhere that people like this would have been successful business founders in our time, but in the 19th century America, they started instead a religion.
I wonder, what was the situation/setting during this time like (especially in the US) to make it so prone for starting religions? Any thoughts on this?
P.S.: I am sorry, tonight I am too tired and the English words don't come to me as easily.
research has shown that " generally" the best way to challenge someone is to use their first name.
to me being addressed by my name " michael" and addressing someone by their christian name is more friendly than using a title.
i think it would also make it easier for elders to accept someones different point of view if they referrd to the brother by therir christian name.
I always wondered about this as a child.
In our culture, which is predominantly catholic, "normal people" only use this with respect to monks and nuns. They usually where given, or chose a new FIRST name when they entered. THen they where FROM EVERYONE refered to as "Frater sosandso" (Frater=latin for brother) or "Schwester soandso" (Schwester =German for sister), and always with the first name.
I found it very weird that "we" would use sister/brother + last name.
I once asked about it, and the only answer I got was, that if there is an unbelieving spouse who attends, he needs to see, that everything goes its correct way. ???
For the younger ones it would switch from using the first name only to sister/brother + last name, the minute the meeting started.
there are times when we manage to step outside of our own identities, perspectives and world view, and look at ourselves, our situations or certain lived experiences almost as an outsider.
sociologists call it seeing the strange in the familiar.
an anthropologist by the name of miner wrote a fascinating piece involving this very concept (see http://www.ohio.edu/people/thompsoc/body.html).
One of the first I can recall, I was probably seven years old, and running outside with some neighbours kids. There was one guy about two years older, for whatever reason, I don't recall, we came to talk about, that our family was JW (this was in an area in the deepest South-Bavaria, Germany, nearly everyone is catholic by default). He didn't know what it was, that we were. I started explaining, and he said "oh just another religion". I was taken aback, because I had never thought of our "whatever we were part of I didn't actually have a name for it" as a religion just as the catholic one. How would someone dare to call JW a religion? I thought about this shortly and, yes I thought, he is right.
those who were baptized as jehovah's witnesses but no longer preach to others, perhaps even drifting away from association with fellow believers, are not shunned.
in fact, we reach out to them and try to rekindle their spiritual interest..
Just an aside: among the German JW the commonly used word for "disassociate" is something like: let oneself be disfellowshipped"
making the two terms pretty much the same in the mind of the people.
I don't even know, what the official word is. For other churches one simply says leave/resign
matthew 6:14-15new revised standard version (nrsv).
14 for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.. .
at least on a superficial interpersonal level the above scripture requires the victim to forgive the offender in order to be forgiven in turn.
Mat. 6: 14-15 - Under the disguise of promoting peace, a subtle and manipulative way to enable bullying, to give offenders more power and weaken victims.
This is one extreme, compared to the extreme on the onther side, pure cold justice, as applied e.g. in the garden of Eden.
This is black and white, and neither if solely applied would be very helpful for a balanced functioning society.
On another note, in the garden of Eden scene, god would be the victim and the ultimate forgiver. But he chooses not to forgive, so he can't forgive himself?
if you grow up speaking english and you move to mexico you don't automatically speak spanish, know customs, understand currency, possess skills.
for self-support or have any special insight into latino mindset.. .
why would you expect leaving jehovah's witnesses would leave you any less ill-equipped to navigate the real world?.
Inside: tossed around, do more, don't stop and think, just listen, did you do enough, there is no time, did you underline, go on, it's dangerous out there, don't even think about it, here take this insted, do more, repeat, ... too much noise to use your brain.
Then the awakening, everything black, no orientation. Confused.I don't hear anything anymore, but I can see now, I can observe.
Just stand back awhile. Some time off. Find a place to stand and just observe and see what comes, how it turns out.
Start exploring your ideas, your values, your thinking abilities. There is no rush. New roots develope - slowly.
Just my own experience.
many people don't know why they "feel" what they feel.
they fall in love with the wrong person.
they cry unexpectedly.
Can this explain partly, why someone can be logical and deep thinking in one subject and totally lack this, when it comes to other subjects?
i love the word: practical.. practical .
/'praktik?l/adjectiveof or concerned with the actual doing or use of something.
(of an idea, plan, or method) likely to succeed or be effective in real circumstances.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Doesn't it depend on how we define practical? Everyone might have a different definition.
I am a mathematician. I am doing pure math, probably the most abstract field of math that you can find. What I do has nothing to do with "the real world". People accuse me of doing nothing practical.
But I am sure it will be useful - and if it takes 400 years
my wife passed away 2 years ago we had been married over 30 years, i have since remarried and my new wife is younger than 3 of my children from my first marriage.
i just wondering if there are any more like me out there.
i stay in excellent shape for my age, work out almost daily eat good and have absolutely no medical problems or at least none i can do anything about, bad knees, but my vitals are excellent, and i am known as the teenage because of them when i have my yearly medical checkup.. so was wondering if there are others out there like me, and what some may think about it, just for the record i am extremely happy once again, and we have a 18 month boy who delights me, have a whole new outlook on fatherhood and child raising.
I think society should be much les judgemental. How can we allow ourselves to judge about a situation we don't know completely?
I think it is good, if one starts a relationship or gets married, to openly discuss possible issues together, look into the future, be honest to oneself and to the partner. But this holds for EVERY relationship. Every situation is different. Age might be an indicator about experience, but not necessarily of emotional/intellectual/... maturity.
In any case, I think one should never say something is gross or disgusting just because it doesn't fit the norm. If an older man is together with a younger woman (or the other way round!) who are we to judge their situation?
"it is the concept of original sin that negates morality.. if man is guilty by nature, he has no choice about it.. if he has no choice, the issue does not belong in the field of morality.
morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will -- only to those actions which are open to his choice.. to consider man guilty by nature is a contradiction in terms.".
augustine had the mistaken view that many metaphysicians had at that time: all humans were "nested" inside of adam like those russian dolls that fit inside each other.
Yes that helps.
So, do we get to the following argumentation: Morality reqires free will.
But we only have REAL free will with regard to things that are not subject to our nature. (If at all, but doesn't this come suspiciously close to determinism?)
If we want to "disprove" the concept of original sin or maybe better, derive a contradictin between the concept of original sin and the concept of morality:
Assume the story is true as told. Then before the sin, man didn't know the difference between good and bad (because they were promised to become like god knowing good and bad). Therefore they lacked the knowledge to make moral choices.
On the other hand, after the sin their nature in the sense above was altered and thus the area of subjects where they could exercise free will had decreased. In particular it was so small now, that it didn't include moral choices.
In both cases we derived a contradiction.
Does this make sense?
