Oh, and I forgot to mention - there is a difference between honoring a person and religiosity venerating a person. The Bible says to honor your mother - not pray to your mother nor put up a statue in the likeness of your mother and prostrate yourself before it.
Jofi_Wofo
JoinedPosts by Jofi_Wofo
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40
This one bible passage proves abortions are wrong and honoring Mary is right
by TTWSYF innwt luke chapt 1.
41 well, as elizabeth heard the greeting of mary, the infant in her womb leaped, and elizabeth was filled with holy spirit 42 and loudly cried out: “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruitage of your womb!
43 so how is it that this privilege is mine, to have the mother of my lord come to me?
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40
This one bible passage proves abortions are wrong and honoring Mary is right
by TTWSYF innwt luke chapt 1.
41 well, as elizabeth heard the greeting of mary, the infant in her womb leaped, and elizabeth was filled with holy spirit 42 and loudly cried out: “blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruitage of your womb!
43 so how is it that this privilege is mine, to have the mother of my lord come to me?
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Jofi_Wofo
The new testament is a Catholic book. The example of Jesus calling his mother 'woman' is not derogatory as the WTS would have you believe. Jesus was never disrespectful of or to his mother. The passage of calling Mary 'woman' is a reference of the OT title of the Woman who will crush the head of the serpent. Enmity between the two. Gen 3:15
Unike many of its other teachings, WT has been very consistent on this one point:
"Woman: Jesus’ use of this term when addressing his mother was consistent with his way of addressing other women (Joh 4:21) and was apparently considered polite in many contexts (Mt 15:28). It was not understood to be rude, unkind, or disrespectful in any way. Angels and the resurrected Jesus used this form of address when speaking to Mary Magdalene when she was weeping in sorrow at Jesus’ tomb; their words would surely not have been harsh or disrespectful in such a situation. (Joh 20:13, 15) On the torture stake, Jesus used the same term to address his mother when his great concern for her moved him to place her in the care of his beloved apostle John. (Joh 19:26) He made this arrangement because of the Scriptural obligation to honor one’s father and mother. (Ex 20:12; De 5:16; Mt 15:4) Several reference works confirm that using the term “woman” as a form of address could reflect respect and affection."
- From the NWT Study Bible, Gospel of John study notes.
It's also been addressed in questions from readers. Not only are you misrepresenting Watchtower's teaching on this manner, Watchtower actually proves its point with references.
Further, if calling Mary "woman" indicates that she was the woman prophesied about in Genesis, then are all the other women Jesus called "woman" also the woman in Genesis? Is there a Watchtoweresque woman "class" giving birth to Jesuses and adopting Jonadabs?
Also, what so we make of the man that Jesus called "Man"? Lest we forget, Jesus called himself the Son of Man. Draw your own conclusions!
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How long did it take before you realized that you missed the obvious?
by pistolpete inremember when the public speaker in the kingdom hall or convention related the ten plagues and the parting of the red sea?.
the finale when jehovah closes the red sea and swallows pharaoh's entire army of egyptian men.. when i was a little kid about 5 years old and listened to this story, i would think---wow jehovah is strong.
when i started school and started learning compassion as early as the first grade i started wondering?????.
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Jofi_Wofo
Great points.
Despite being a naturally skeptical person, I allowed myself to be convinced that I didn't need to know anything more than, nor question anything about, the information that God had (supposedly) already given us. All I can now see in Watchtower and biblical literalist doctrine is contradiction, discrepancy, omission, dishonesty and absurdity.
How did we miss it? Human cognition wasn't programmed optimally to find truth. It was programmed optimally to allow us to survive the context in which it evolved. Obedience to tribal authority and adherence to group loyalty were always more important than whether or not any of the myths used to foster those ties had any truth to them.
The second that we stop thinking of it as "our" doctrine and start thinking of it as "their" doctrine is the second that we no longer understand how anybody could ever believe it.
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Sam Heard in April JW cult broadcasting says are you doing all you can?
by mickbobcat inso sam rolex had this months talk on jw cult broadcasting.
my question to sam rolex is why not sell your rolex and give it to the cult?
how about muppet lett, why not sell your rental property in ga and give it to the cult?
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Jofi_Wofo
Watchtower: Jehovah never expects you to give more than you can!
Also Watchtower: No matter what you are doing for Jehovah, you can always do more!
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If you want a depressing anecdote to illustrate the depressing point, here's a depressing anecdote about depression.
Like anyone else in life, I've had my ups and downs, and like many others I've experienced temporary, but prolonged, periods of depression. I shit you not when I tell you that I was rebuked by at least three different elders (might have been more, I'd have to unlock my mental file cabinet to get a fuller number) not for sinning, disobeying a Watchtower rule, nor even for showing up late or accidentally being rude. I got counseled FOR BEING DEPRESSED.
1) One elder told me that Jehovah's people are a happy people snd that if I'm not happy, I must be doing something wrong with my spiritual routine.
2) Another elder took me aside and told me that I looked miserable and that I needed to cut it out because it makes the religion look bad to unbelievers. We need to give them the impression that being a JW is pure joy, even if we are hurting badly in the inside.
3) One elder interrogated me on why I didn't preach during a CO visit. I told him that I was so depressed that it was making me physically ill and that I spent almost the entire week sleeping day and night and was still tired. This elder said 'I'm sorry to hear that, thanks for sharing, but here's some advice for you. You really need to figure out how to push through whatever it is that you're going through so that you can continue to reach out for more responsibility.'
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Derek Chauvin - The Right to a Fair Trial
by Simon inanyone following the derek chauvin trial?.
if you are actually following it, not just listening to the media, you will likely realize that there is a huge gap between what is going on in court and what is being reported in the media.. if the trial was fair, i think he should be acquitted.
there is plenty of reasonable doubt about the cause of death (his dealer doesn't want to testify because he could be guilty of 3rd degree murder for selling him a fatal amount of fentanyl) and even doubt over whether the officer even had his knee on the guys neck or did anything counter to what they were meant to do as per policy.. but is it fair?
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Jofi_Wofo
The raw video of George Flloyd is one of the most heart wrenching things I've ever seen and I truly believe that Derek Chauvin is a warped individual who deserves to be punished.
He might be liable for the manslaughter and maybe even the third degree murder charge, though even that might be tough. To make the murder conviction stick, you have to prove that there even was a murder to begin with, and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts surrounding the case paint a more murky picture than most of us originally thought.
George Floyd had was found to have no physical signs of asphyxiation. Even the close-up video, awful as it is to watch, confirms that he WAS breathing, and other videos show that he was already shouting "I can't breathe" BEFORE he was even taken to the ground. He was also found to have a high enough dose of fentanyl in his system to kill not just one, but a handful of people. It's almost certain that he was going to die even if he had not gotten into a confrontation with police, and it was 100% his fault that he got into the confrontation to begin with.
A better argument can be made that Chauvin's abusive and unauthorized restraint tactic exacerbated Floyd's demise and that it should have been obvious that he was in a state of medical emergency and needed to be handled with care. That's my take on this situation. Derek Chauvin should be in prison for a very long time but the justice system needs to handle this situation professionally. Not politically nor emotionally. "SCREW THE FACTS, WE WANT BLOOD!!! " is not the kind if system that we want.
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Parking Attendant Training Videos
by Jofi_Wofo ini know that all of the assembly/convention attendant training videos have been leaked publicly, but has anyone gotten a hold of the parking training videos?.
i saw these about a year and a half ago, when i was still pimo.
as bizarre and manipulative as the attendant video series is, the parking videos put them to shame.
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Jofi_Wofo
@Atlantis Thanks for the vid! I speak spanish, so that video will do the trick.
@desirousofchange @ffghost
Very little is said of the actual work involved with parking duty. We're given a little peek, in the form of the dramatization, of what goes into organizing parking arrangements and what could go wrong. More importantly, it stresses what a privilege and honor it is to serve Jehovah in such an outstanding way. Basically, a paint by numbers JW recruitment video where a mundane and unskilled task is given extreme importance as a way of drumming up excitement over nothing.
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Parking Attendant Training Videos
by Jofi_Wofo ini know that all of the assembly/convention attendant training videos have been leaked publicly, but has anyone gotten a hold of the parking training videos?.
i saw these about a year and a half ago, when i was still pimo.
as bizarre and manipulative as the attendant video series is, the parking videos put them to shame.
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Jofi_Wofo
I know that all of the assembly/convention attendant training videos have been leaked publicly, but has anyone gotten a hold of the parking training videos?
I saw these about a year and a half ago, when I was still PIMO. As bizarre and manipulative as the attendant video series is, the parking videos put them to shame. It's nothing more than recruitment propoganda, presenting the parking department as a cult-within-a-cult. The parking brothers supposedly form a special bond with one another that lasts a lifetime.
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False memorial partakers deserve to die???
by Jofi_Wofo inevery memorial, much emphasis is placed on making sure that only the (self-proclaimed) anointed partake in the emblems.
this year, however, the speaker at my wife's congregation presented it as an even more serious matter.
he likened it to individuals in ancient israel who sought position of the priesthood despite never been appointed by jehovah.
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Jofi_Wofo
@vienne Thanks for confirming. Do you (or anyone here) happen to know when the last time any change to the outline was made?
And now I'm actually more curious and will try to see if I can find a copy online to look at.
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False memorial partakers deserve to die???
by Jofi_Wofo inevery memorial, much emphasis is placed on making sure that only the (self-proclaimed) anointed partake in the emblems.
this year, however, the speaker at my wife's congregation presented it as an even more serious matter.
he likened it to individuals in ancient israel who sought position of the priesthood despite never been appointed by jehovah.
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Jofi_Wofo
Thank you both. I guess this is more of an example of one speaker getting carried away.
Now I'm wondering if it was a point he made up all on his own, or if there was some publication on WOL that might have laid out the same argument.
It took me a while to figure out just why this particular point was so jarring to listen to, given how frequently WT uses biblical executions as a warning for why we should do X and never do Y. I'm now certain that what rattled me a little bit was the context. The memorial talk is usually relatively tame compared to other meetings- it seems to serve as a meet and greet and open house for non-JWs to take a peek at what goes on inside a Kingdom Hall. The least palatable parts of the religion, and religion in general, are usually either hidden or severely watered down. In this case, the speaker went full on talking as if it was the midweek meeting without thinking twice about how crazy some of this stuff sounds to people who aren't already all in. 'Don't take a bite of the cracker because god killed scores of people for doing something similar' is a pretty hot take for a guy who's trying to introduce the religion to unbelievers.
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False memorial partakers deserve to die???
by Jofi_Wofo inevery memorial, much emphasis is placed on making sure that only the (self-proclaimed) anointed partake in the emblems.
this year, however, the speaker at my wife's congregation presented it as an even more serious matter.
he likened it to individuals in ancient israel who sought position of the priesthood despite never been appointed by jehovah.
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Jofi_Wofo
Every memorial, much emphasis is placed on making sure that only the (self-proclaimed) anointed partake in the emblems. This year, however, the speaker at my wife's congregation presented it as an even more serious matter. He likened it to individuals in ancient Israel who sought position of the priesthood despite never been appointed by Jehovah. Such people were executed for their disrespect in flouting Jehovah's arrangement, and the speaker claimed that that demonstrates just how seriously Jehovah feels about false emblem partakers.
To my recollection, I have never heard any speaker threatening (at least by way of analogy) false partakers with death. I'm wondering if anyone here might have caught the memorial talk and heard something similar. I know that Watchtower tightly controls what is said at memorials with their outlines and I also wonder if there was a change in the outline or a letter that the elders might have been given to the effect that this point needed to be brought out.
If so, it doesn't bode well for Watchtower. It's blatant poisoning the well + gaslighting + damage control over all the controversy about the increase in memorial partakers, despite for many years claiming that a decrease in partakers was (somehow...) evidence that they actually interpreted a Bible doctrine correctly for once.
Are they now trying to scare people into not partaking, or was this just one speaker adding his own spin?