schnell

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Posts by schnell

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  18

  Arguing with Witnesses vs Trinitarians

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have always been told as a jw that trinitarians, particularly baptists, are just the worst people to argue with out in service.

  i have always been told it was the world with a veil over their eyes.

  the hypocritical irony is that so many witnesses are completely stubborn and willing to believe in magic before they believe anything against their dogma.

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  schnell

  Being confident about your position is fine, but the one who knows provable history will always win the trinity debate.

  The plurality of the Jewish God according to the Hebrew scriptures is unassailable. The belief that the Savior would be God, himself, in the flesh has much explicit scriptural support.

  I hope this thread hasn't gotten people thinking that I would necessarily argue one way or the other about the Trinity. I don't. As I said earlier, I actually find the history of Jewish and Christian theology to be interesting, especially about the positions JWs so despise.

  To quote Richard Dawkins:

  "How did the Greeks, the Romans and the Vikings cope with such polytheological conundrums? Was Venus just another name for Aphrodite, or were they two distinct goddesses of love? Was Thor with his hammer a manifestation of Wotan, or a separate god? Who cares? Life is too short to bother with the distinction between one figment of the imagination and many. " Read more: https://www.scribd.com/book/249308897
  
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  24

  2 elders just came to my door. I smiled and told them no.

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  not playing their game, as i've learned here.

  they came to my door to find me with a full beard and a nightmare before christmas hoody, playing a video game where the characters "do not act according to bible principles", and i happily answered the door.

  i simply smiled and told them no when they asked if i have a minute.

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  schnell

  Thank you so much for the encouragement, Flipper! 😉
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  24

  2 elders just came to my door. I smiled and told them no.

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  not playing their game, as i've learned here.

  they came to my door to find me with a full beard and a nightmare before christmas hoody, playing a video game where the characters "do not act according to bible principles", and i happily answered the door.

  i simply smiled and told them no when they asked if i have a minute.

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  schnell

  Now an elder and a ministerial servant came to my door.

  It's funny. One of the elders yesterday and this elder today both dealt with my brother's case where his wife divorced him and got baptized while divorcing him (and while celebrating holidays). They know they screwed up, and they are coming to my door.

  Yeah, hey. Ya screwed up. You're not coming into my home and we are not having a conversation.

  They do this one more time and I am calling the police for harassment.
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  20

  GB member Geoffrey Jackson going apostate

  by darkspilver in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  yes, it's true, geoffrey jackson, the cleverest member of the governing body, is going apostate.. he's already written two scholarly books, the question is .... when is his third book going to be released!!.....

  desirousofchange: "faded" is definitely only an "apostate" term.

  i don't know of it being used by wt publications or "in the dark" jwsberrygerry: geoff jackson used it during the arc..

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  schnell

  That two-thirds rule though.

  

  

  I'm sure they'd just add a new member.
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  24

  2 elders just came to my door. I smiled and told them no.

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  not playing their game, as i've learned here.

  they came to my door to find me with a full beard and a nightmare before christmas hoody, playing a video game where the characters "do not act according to bible principles", and i happily answered the door.

  i simply smiled and told them no when they asked if i have a minute.

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  schnell

  @flipper, this known pedophile was not out in service, though he does go. The reason I say he's a known pedophile is that he molested his cousin's son at 18 years old. His uncle kept him from getting arrested. He has made comments at the meeting about controlling his urges.

  I had become a family friend in the last couple years and when I learned that (from them), I was not out yet. Just sickened by it and stuck with how to deal with it given the political correctness in the JW congregation. "Be loving, hospitable, forgiving..."

  I am out now and I want to start a family. He has gone up to talk to my wife at meetings and PMed her on Facebook. I was not hospitable to him. I made it very clear that he is not welcome here on his own. Because whether we like it or not, sometimes you have to be a protectionist asshole.

  Now, to answer your more general question about sex offenders out in service:

  https://youtu.be/W4a9kJqWGIE
  
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  34

  Why didn't God also reveal himself to the Canaanites just as he did to Moses in the burning bush?

  by deegee in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  why didn't god also reveal himself to the canaanites just as he did to moses in the burning bush so that the massacre/genocide of the canaanites could have been avoided?.

  why didn't god also invite the native palestinians into his covenant, giving them the same laws he gave the israelites, and establish an egalitarian society where people of all races could live together in harmony?.

  instead, he ordered his people to invade and slaughter the natives, killing them to the last man, woman and child, specifically instructing them to show no mercy to anyone under any circumstances.

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  schnell

  I seriously came here for David_Jay's comment, and to recommend The Bible Unearthed if you haven't read it.

  But yeah. Even in the JW or Christian fundamentalist understanding of the Hebrew scriptures, you raise great questions about God's character. Keep doing that.
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  30

  Why is religion in general so obsessed with what people choose to do with their willies and vaginas?

  by jambon1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what was it in the evolution of religion that got them so hung up about what people do with their genitalia?.

  i mean, the (mis)use of genitalia is up there with murdering another human being in terms of badness.. and in the 21st century, we have a situation where in the jw religion, it's deemed as acceptable for three middle aged/old men to sit a teenage girl down and ask her the details of her use of her genitals.

  to any normal person this is intrusive, completely inappropriate and bordering on deviancy.. why they so obsessed?.

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  schnell

  Paul spoke about singleness a lot (and that's why the Pastoral letters where he endorses men getting married is a sign that the letters are fake). Many gospels that didn't make the canon talked about abstinence even in marriage.

  Seeing as believers tend to believe in God wherever they see it, in "a God of the gaps" in their knowledge, it might be too easy to say these people saw things like syphilis as a sign that God hates sex.

  Or perhaps they were trying to show the Romans that they weren't into orgies as they were so accused. Whichever.
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  30

  Why is religion in general so obsessed with what people choose to do with their willies and vaginas?

  by jambon1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what was it in the evolution of religion that got them so hung up about what people do with their genitalia?.

  i mean, the (mis)use of genitalia is up there with murdering another human being in terms of badness.. and in the 21st century, we have a situation where in the jw religion, it's deemed as acceptable for three middle aged/old men to sit a teenage girl down and ask her the details of her use of her genitals.

  to any normal person this is intrusive, completely inappropriate and bordering on deviancy.. why they so obsessed?.

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  schnell

  One thing I heard but never understood while I was in was that young newlyweds who have sex before marriage feel regret on their wedding night.

  That's obviously not necessarily true. I'm not saying they can't, but they may not feel guilt at all, and they probably wouldn't if they didn't have this religious idea rammed down their throats.

  But regardless, my wife and I remained abstinent while we dated. Then the Monday after our wedding, the brother called me to say that I'd messed up the court documents, and irony of ironies, we weren't legally married yet... But we were in Jehovah's eyes!

  No guilt here, and our marriage license hangs in our living room with a date different from our anniversary. It's almost like if we were cool with it, even if we simply thought we were married (more generically, that we thought it was okay and we were consenting to this), then there was no argument to be made for wedding night guilt.
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  45

  Rejecting something due to unscriptural or pagan origins.....?

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so witnesses reject many practices or holidays due to their "unscriptural or pagan" origins.. for example, birthday celebrations, mothers or father's day, christmas etc..... most people in the world will say "but the origin doesn't matter anymore, we follow this custom now because it's a joyful occasion that creates happy times and brings the family together".

  it is still firmly rejected.. so, if the wrong origin is so important, and should result in rejecting something, why isn't the same principle applied to the actual jehovah's witness faith itself!?.

  after all, the very foundation of the organisation was based on wrong understandings of the bible, far fetched teachings and doctrines, links to false religious backgrounds, pyramidology, false predictions, inaccurate beliefs etc...... using their reasoning, it doesn't matter how good something is now, if the origin was faulty to begin with?

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  schnell

  Absalom was the original piñata, right?
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  24

  2 elders just came to my door. I smiled and told them no.

  by schnell in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  not playing their game, as i've learned here.

  they came to my door to find me with a full beard and a nightmare before christmas hoody, playing a video game where the characters "do not act according to bible principles", and i happily answered the door.

  i simply smiled and told them no when they asked if i have a minute.

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  schnell

  I was polite enough. But if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile, and they've taken enough miles off of my life already. So they asked if I had a minute and I answered the question.

  Edit: Oh. Cool. A known pedophile just came to my door. Sent him home too. What's going on today?