just reading on reddit...witnesses coming over to someone’s home after a death in the family to ‘pick over’ their possessions or asking about if they left any money to the cult?
i remember, at my previous place of employment, a mexican immigrant at my workplace, had converted to jw from catholic, although i did try to talk him out of it.
this has to be over 25 years ago.
That's because the WTS makes a big thing about how their members can list the organization in people's wills and surprising or not will their entire estate over to the WTS/JWS, land and property too. $$$
I would imagine some would intentionally do so to appease Jah and make themselves appear loyal to him and chosen earthly organization.
i have a question.. have every member of the governing body (past and present) been american citizens?.
while i understand that some may have been born outside of the us, ultimately to serve in the world hq long term, i imagine that they all had to become 'americans'?.
no zombie.
Unless ... Jehovah is racist?
Funny could be ,
He obviously has a preference for English speaking Americans who own and operate their own publishing company.
interesting.. here is the first thing i've found on the subject, though i haven't read much of it yet.. http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/05-deuteronomy/text/articles/heiser-deut32-bs.htm.
pseudo.
What I find interesting is the the ancient Israelites practiced polytheism for a very long time, the bible even supports this but there has been an obvious attempt to kind of wash over this fact.
Between the 10th century BC and the beginning of their exile in 586 BC, polytheism was normal throughout Israel;[25] it was only after the exile that worship of Yahweh alone became established, and possibly only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC) that monotheism became universal among the Jews.[26][27] Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshipped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel.[26][28][29] There are references to the worship of numerous gods throughout Kings: Solomon builds temples to many gods and Josiah is reported as cutting down the statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh (2 Kings 23:14). Josiah's grandfather Manasseh had erected one such statue (2 Kings 21:7).[30]
Further evidence for Asherah-worship includes, for example, an 8th-century BC combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai desert[31] where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and several inscriptions.[32][33] The inscriptions found refer not only to Yahweh but to ʾEl and Baʿal, and two include the phrases "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah."[34] The references to Samaria (capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Teman (in Edom) suggest that Yahweh had a temple in Samaria, while raising questions about the relationship between Yahweh and Kaus, the national god of Edom.[35] The 'asherah' in question is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object (a stylised tree perhaps) to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, consort of ʾEl, is unclear.[36] It has been suggested that the Israelites may have considered Asherah as the consort of Baʿal, due to the anti-Asherah ideology which was influenced by the Deuteronomistic Historians, at the later period of the kingdom.[37] It has also been suggested by several scholars[38][39] that there is a relationship between the position of the gĕbîrâ in the royal court and the worship (orthodox or not) of Asherah.[40] In a potsherd inscription of blessings from "Yahweh and his Asherah", there appears a cow feeding its calf.[41] Numerous Canaanite amulets depict a woman wearing a bouffant wig similar to the Egyptian Hathor. If Asherah is then to be associated with Hathor/Qudshu, it can then be assumed that the cow is being referred to as Asherah.
William Dever's book Did God Have a Wife? adduces further archaeological evidence—for instance, the many female figurines unearthed in ancient Israel, (known as pillar-base figurines)—as supporting the view that in Israelite folk religion of the monarchical period, Asherah functioned as a goddess and consort of Yahweh and was worshiped as the queen of heaven, for whose festival the Hebrews baked small cakes. Dever also points to the discovery of multiple shrines and temples within ancient Israel and Judah. The temple site at Arad is particularly interesting for the presence of two (possibly three) massebot, standing stones representing the presence of deities. Although the identity of the deities associated with the massebot is uncertain, Yahweh and Asherah or Asherah and Baal remain strong candidates, as Dever notes: "The only goddess whose name is well attested in the Hebrew Bible (or in ancient Israel generally) is Asherah."
The name Asherah appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible, but it is much reduced in English translations. The word ʾăšērâ is translated in Greek as ἄλσος (grove; plural: ἄλση) in every instance apart from Isaiah 17:8; 27:9 and 2 Chronicles 15:16; 24:18, with δένδρα (trees) being used for the former, and, peculiarly, Ἀστάρτη (Astarte) for the latter. The Vulgate in Latin provided lucus or nemus, a grove or a wood. From the Vulgate, the King James translation of the Bible uses grove or groves instead of Asherah's name. Non-scholarly English language readers of the Bible would not have read about the figure for more than 400 years afterward.[42] The association of Asherah with trees in the Hebrew Bible is very strong. For example, she is found under trees (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10) and is made of wood by human beings (1 Kings 14:15, 2 Kings 16:3–4). Trees described as being an asherah or part of an asherah include grapevines, pomegranates, walnuts, myrtles, and willows.[43]
here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.
hierarchical political interest may have been involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.
These are historical facts that skeptic scholars and historians agree upon.
Historical facts based upon expressions of mythological story telling or hearsay.
All the ancient civilizations of their select mythological gods were expressed stories without practical evidence of these beings ever existing.
here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.
hierarchical political interest may have been involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.
Good point Simon
here is an interesting discussion about how christianity probably began.
hierarchical political interest may have been involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civ8gscbo_g.
Organized religion is an agreement to set of appealing lies that produces various results, some good, some bad.
The supernatural agents in the heavens who were once thought to control and cause things to happen here on earth never actually existed, some today still believe they do.
after my 4 and 6 year old sisters and i (5) were molested and covered up by elders, at 15 i'm disassociated for smoking.
then years later after attending a passover with family members, i'm not suddenly disassociated anymore and attempted befriending begins.
wow.
This religion has an innate structure of cruelty and harm for people on various levels.
Evidence of this is smoking cigarettes which can get you DA but you can drink hard liquor and not bat an eye.
Or like you stated Tjhunt child molestation gets pushed under the carpet a noted serious crime in the modern world.
A reason why drinking booze is a problem in the JWS.
Ray Franz said JWS are victims who follow other victims of the Org..
I think ?
Sorry I dont get all this speculation that the WTS/JWorg is going to sell off KHs and go strictly on line.
That would be a death sentence for this religious organization and they probably know that.
This organization exists and sustains itself upon eye to eye contact in imposing fear, guilt and obligation, its pretty hard to continue that by visual contact via the inter-net.
I see a gradual return to the way it was before Covid, with more video presentations directed to each congregations.
Watch the monitors brothers and sisters, what exciting times.
In this return I do see some slow down in numbers attending KH meetings, a shrinking of congregations which may induce some KHS being sold and amalgamating with other congregations.
we are encouraged to all, if possible, get the vaccinations.
if you don’t, we are told that we definitely could get the virus.
fair enough.. but what happens if you decide you aren’t going to get the shots?
I disagree. That's precisely when they start to lock down because of "variants"
The vaccines been distributed right now are able to counter the new Covid variants that are appearing, hopeful it will stay that way.
As long as that happens there is no reason to not lift social restrictions.
There is most likely going to be a small number of cases that popup in the years to come but they should be quite small in numbers as the entire populations get vaccinated.
So once everyone gets vaccinated from the elderly to small children, we can look forward to having the social restrictions lifted.
Most modernized wealthy countries are on tract to have all of their citizens vaccinated by the end of this summer.
Unfortunately being that some poor countries cant afford the vaccinations, there most likely will be travel bans in place to those countries who are behind their vaccination programs, at least for the immediate future.
revelation 20:2-3. and he [jesus] laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and satan, and bound him a thousand years,.
and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.. we see that the millennial reign begins with satan being bound.
he will be bound for 1000 years.
Or how about what Jesus said when he stated that no one knows of time not even he and admonished his followers to set a time upon god's own sacred time, which makes all of these specific date settings by men and their organizations such as the JWS false, sinful and acts of scriptural apostasy ?
