Raymudas Martini

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Posts by Raymudas Martini

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  10

  Leaving a small minority group.....

  by The Rebel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has a profound influence on our life.

  on the one hand we have the background of our childhood, our upbringing, but when we leave and become apart of society, our witness traits and their set of beliefs are not tailored to fit in.

  however as i slowly learnt to know longer judge from the perspective of my witness life, i also learnt i am simply an ordinary person.

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  Raymudas Martini

  I'll tell you'll right now, I wouldn't change a thing about my childhood, and let me tell you, it was not pleasant in the least. My dad was baptized the year I was born, so I had to deal with all the Witness crap till I hit 15, but I also dealt with physical, verbal emotional abuse from my dad, and also sexual abuse from an older step-brother, and several members of the ORG. But it all made me an empathetic, compassionate, hugely caring person. It was a huge climb, but I finally got on top of the mountain after thirty years struggle.

  By the way, I did go back, became a pioneer and elder, but the facade of co-dependency finally brought me crashing down. In reality, it was my life-line, the final crash at the bottom of the stink...err....sink-hole.

  Ah heck, my young neighbors are fighting again, I have to run quickly and take down my paintings and pictures.
  
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  22

  Has WT actually drafted an End of Days tract?

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i heard in years past that there was such a tract planned for the great tribulation.

  my father at the time denied this, and reasoned that that would not be a loving thing for them to do, to essentially say, "told ya so!".

  last year, the bunker videos had brother brown mention "a message of judgment".. has such material been drafted or is this just another bluff?.

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  Raymudas Martini

  Astrotheology, check it out. All I can say is, we humans are in our own "40 year trek" through the wilderness to the promised land, the "New World", so to speak. Remember what Jesus said, "look for the man with the water jar". "This is the dawning of the age of ????????" They were right, back then, it was the dawning. When you finally see what the Bible is really all about, you will be floored. The Bible was written for our day, and there is a reason the Mayan calendar ended in 2012.
  
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  16

  Has the threat of being shunned caused the organization to be unclean

  by poopie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i keep hearing stories of rank and file publishers involved in gross wrongdoing but because they fear of the possibility of being shunned they only tell those who will not report them to elders .

  and they continue to go out on service and conduct bible studies and stay in good standing with cong even going to many social gatherings..

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  Raymudas Martini

  Finkelstein a day ago

  Something to consider and realize is that elders can be unclean themselves in pseudo secrecy such as adulteraters, pedophiles, wife beaters, child beaters, business crooks, abusers of alcohol, materialistic show offs. etc.

  Oh my GAWD, Finkelstein, you just described my child-hood with my unclean Elder dad! Not to worry, I reconciled that with, and forgave him, years before he passed.
  
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  22

  Looking for a Book on Evolution

  by Saethydd in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i am wondering if anyone is aware of a book or series of videos designed to explain evolution to creationists, (specifically the jw strain of creationism if possible) without being patronizing or overly confrontational.

  i would like to have something to recommend to people who challenge evolution, but i know that the sources which convinced me would turn most of them off because of the confrontational and at times condescending tone in which it's presented.. some examples of what i'm looking for would be someone who doesn't claim evolution is a fact until after they have presented all of the evidence that makes it a fact and also have addressed as many counter-arguments as possible..

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  Raymudas Martini

  The problem is, Saethydd, there is evidence for evolution, that is, change over time. Organisms do adjust to their environment by incorporating different trait mechanisms, but on a very small limited scale. The issue isn't evolution, but the mechanisms claimed to cause these minute scale changes, mutations + natural selection. I debate this subject with many materialistic atheist PhD scientists, and they cannot give me one positive mutation from any species that caused a positive change for survival. Natural selection in not a force of nature, nor a mechanism in or of the biological cell, it is just a phrase. Mutations cause disease and malformations, and that is the only evidence an "evolutionist" can give to support evolution. So, evolution is good, it is good for medicine, for finding the mutations that cause horrible disease. But you will not get a whale from a deer-like mammal from mutations + NS....err.....evolution. A good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApJ-nvNoTSg
  
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  16

  Has the threat of being shunned caused the organization to be unclean

  by poopie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i keep hearing stories of rank and file publishers involved in gross wrongdoing but because they fear of the possibility of being shunned they only tell those who will not report them to elders .

  and they continue to go out on service and conduct bible studies and stay in good standing with cong even going to many social gatherings..

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  Raymudas Martini

  @ sir82, like burning in hellfire for all eternity!
  
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  16

  Has the threat of being shunned caused the organization to be unclean

  by poopie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i keep hearing stories of rank and file publishers involved in gross wrongdoing but because they fear of the possibility of being shunned they only tell those who will not report them to elders .

  and they continue to go out on service and conduct bible studies and stay in good standing with cong even going to many social gatherings..

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  Raymudas Martini

  Poopie, that is a very interesting take. And you are probably hitting the nail on the hammer head! Fear of being disfellowshipped could be leading to an "unclean" congregation, but then again, when has man ever been clean? I mean, what Elder really qualifies to be an Elder? Are they not unclean themselves?
  
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  27

  the Book of Enoch and the Nephilim

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've heard all my cognizant life that angels from heaven looked upon the daughters of men, took wives, and their wives bore giants called nephilim.. i've heard all my adult life about the book of enoch and why it's apocryphal and to be avoided.. so tonight i was curious enough to download an e-book and have a look, since dothemath had the thread about rarely used scriptures and the book of jude directly quotes from the book of enoch.. if jude quotes from enoch, shouldn't both or neither of them be canonical?

  if you consider jude canonical, then enoch should be too.. hey, how many fallen angels were there again?

  two thirds of heaven, right?

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  Raymudas Martini

  Schnell: "200 angels. 200... And that's two thirds of all heaven"

  How many "Watchers" do you think it would take to watch over earth? Realize, not,only Jude quotes from The Book of Enoch, but obviously Genesis 6 uses The Book of Enoch. Why was TBoE left out of the Bible canon? To hide certain information, for sure! Just like Moses' creation account is taken from the Sumerian tablets. The JWs are taught the Bible is the oldest document known to man, but that is a blatant LIE! The Book of Enoch, and the Sumerian tablets are much older.
  
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  40

  Not one visit, 8 years in a nursing home, and not one visit!

  by Raymudas Martini in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my dad{rip}, was a faithful jw since the year i was born, i'm 60, he died 2 years ago.

  his last 12 years were spent in an assisted living/nursing home right in the small town where he spent the last 8 years of being an elder/pioneer.

  when he went into the home, one brother would visit him regularly, but after 4 years, that friend moved away, and visitation from the locals ceased, for 8 years!!!!!!!

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  Raymudas Martini

  "He said that he found enormous amounts of Watchtower publications in the house of his passed away mother."

  If the son had been visiting the mother, she would not have needed the attention of the JWs, and he would have known about the literature sooner! But I agree, if you cannot add money to the contribution box, your usefulness has passed.

  My current wife and I attended a local church for awhile, she wanted to introduce our young g-kids to God and religion. They passed out a contribution envelope where you could select among many different church to community programs, and one was attending to the elderly at hospitals and nursing homes, and I was surprised to see the amount of volunteer church members that did the visiting.
  
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  40

  Not one visit, 8 years in a nursing home, and not one visit!

  by Raymudas Martini in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my dad{rip}, was a faithful jw since the year i was born, i'm 60, he died 2 years ago.

  his last 12 years were spent in an assisted living/nursing home right in the small town where he spent the last 8 years of being an elder/pioneer.

  when he went into the home, one brother would visit him regularly, but after 4 years, that friend moved away, and visitation from the locals ceased, for 8 years!!!!!!!

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  Raymudas Martini

  Yeah, he went through a broken heart period, sadness, then down right hatred. I was totally shocked he got to that point! I haven't been in a KH for 30 odd years, so I'm sure a lot has changed, but more has remained the same, or gotten worse, as the saying goes.
  
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  40

  Not one visit, 8 years in a nursing home, and not one visit!

  by Raymudas Martini in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my dad{rip}, was a faithful jw since the year i was born, i'm 60, he died 2 years ago.

  his last 12 years were spent in an assisted living/nursing home right in the small town where he spent the last 8 years of being an elder/pioneer.

  when he went into the home, one brother would visit him regularly, but after 4 years, that friend moved away, and visitation from the locals ceased, for 8 years!!!!!!!

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  Raymudas Martini

  My dad{RIP}, was a faithful JW since the year I was born, I'm 60, he died 2 years ago. His last 12 years were spent in an assisted living/nursing home right in the small town where he spent the last 8 years of being an elder/pioneer. When he went into the home, one brother would visit him regularly, but after 4 years, that friend moved away, and visitation from the locals ceased, for 8 years!!!!!!! He died, disavowed from anything related to JWs. What a shame, a life time wasted on a stupid worldly religion, a childhood robbed from me!