Posts by Jofi

37

"Do you believe that the 'faithful slave' is God's channel of communication?"

by The Fall Guy in

if a jw had the nerve to ask me this question, i'd say to them, "you go first.

using only scriptural proof, show me why you believe that the wtbts/ccojw is god's choice and i'll tell you if i agree with your scriptural reasoning.".

wait for the silence and the rabbit in the headlights moment.. i searched on the wt cd rom for references of "channel of communication.".

Jofi_Wofo

- Jesus didn't describe the faithful & discreet slave as a channel of communication, so it is a scripturally invalid question.

- 1 Tim 2:5, Jesus is the only mediator between God and men, so it is a scripturally invalid question.

- Mark 9:38-40, Jesus chastised his handpicked spirit-appointed apostles for thinking they were the only ones used by Jesus to perform signs and spread his message, therefore it is a scripturally invalid question.

- How do we know who is annointed? Because the anointed, themselves, say so. How do we know that only the GB are the faithful and discreet slave? Because the GB, themselves say so. Proverbs 14:15 warns us against believing every word.

- Humans used as God's channel of communication are, by the very definition of the term, prophets. If prophets make false predictions, they are false prophets - Deuteronomy 18:20-22. The GB has an extremely long history of disseminating false predictions and, even by their own standards, false doctrine and false assertions of scientific and historical fact. To continue to believe that God uses them as his channel of communication is to blame GOD for every wrong thing the organization has ever taught.

- To follow false prophets makes you an apostate.

22

Kiss the son lest God be angry and you perish in the way

by Quotes in

jw
friends

in another thread, quentin reminded us all of the lyrics to one of the kingdom songs: .

"kiss the son lest god be angry and you perish in the way" .

my question is: .

Jofi_Wofo

@eyeuse2badub

It's one of the clearer examples of Bible contradictions- God is slow to anger AND and anger flares up easily... ??? WTF???

To soften the blow of what the scripture means Paragraph 4 of this 1972 WT article adds in brackets [when the time limit is reached]. That is, God's anger only flares up easily after he's done being slow to anger. Which completely invalidates what it means to have one's anger flare up easily. Nice one, Watchtower. Nice one.

22

Kiss the son lest God be angry and you perish in the way

by Quotes in

jw
friends

in another thread, quentin reminded us all of the lyrics to one of the kingdom songs: .

"kiss the son lest god be angry and you perish in the way" .

my question is: .

Jofi_Wofo

I agree with Umanfly. Read the whole Psalm, especially verse 11, and the context much more supports Yahweh being angry over the son being angry.

Oddly, the latest NWT rendering says "God" with a footnote that it literally means "he." That is, they put a proper noun in place of the pronoun to enhance clarity where they thought it was lacking.

Not sure if there's some obscure theological reason why they would have done this. They could have done the opposite- properly translate it as "he" and add a footnote that it refers to God.

15

Can't deny my JW's past

by StephaneLaliberte in

today was a beautiful day and so, decided to drive by my old town with my wife.

at some point, she asked me to stop talking about jws to which i said: i'm talking about were i lived, what i did and who i knew.

its just that all of it was jws!

Jofi_Wofo

There's nothing wrong with remembering your past, even fondly, though you've now disowned most of it. It's your own history- you can choose to make your own sense of it and let it not be a bad thing.

These are the things I'm telling myself in the remaining months before ~~Armageddon~~ I finally leave, myself. Many of us stayed for so long because we benefitted from being in. I don't think I would have ever had such an opportunity to grow as a public speaker, immerse myself and gain fluency in different languages, nor even have a social life when I was pitifully shy and didn't know how to make friends.

Nostalgia is a good thing. It helps us to make peace with our past. Since we can't change any part of our past, making peace with it is the only recourse we have left.

12

JWs closer to Islam than to Christianity.

by Lost in the fog in

ok, so i know that the following article is from a roman catholic church blogger, but i thought that his ratios and comparisons were very well set out, if anyone else is interested.

.

https://completechristianity.blog/2020/02/09/on-jehovahs-witnesses/.

Jofi_Wofo

Conveniently, the writer defines Christianity in distinctively non-Biblical terms. In his mind, JWs aren't Christian because they reject a particular teaching that he interprets into the Bible. A teaching, BTW, that the Bible never actually explains and requires a lot of glue and paperclips to keep together.

I'll let the believers debate whether or not the Trinity is true, but the definition of Christian is a follower or believer of (Jesus) Christ. There are any of a number of ways that belief can be taken, and seemingly endless interpretations of what is correct or incorrect doctrine.

Also... a Catholic criticizing the sordid history of ANY other religion?

I mean coooooome oooon!

At least JWs only look bad in terms of contemporary religious experience, which has mostly become neutered in the developed world after centuries of struggle. Catholicism has a very long and evil history, including endless scandals they're guilty of in the century and a half since Watchtower has come into existence. The whole "damn! look at that messed up religion!" thing is hypocritical and ridiculous.

25

Can You Name ANYTHING That Jehovah’s Witnesses Have Been Right About?

by minimus in

jw
friends

regarding prophecies, i can’t name one thing jws have been correct about.

as a matter of fact nothing stands out to me that shows the witnesses have the truth..

Jofi_Wofo

@BluesBrother

Stole my comment just as I was about to type it up!

Several years ago, Tony Morris gave a talk at a convention I was attending and he gloated from the platform that JWs are the only organization on Earth who have two dates to their credit- 1914 and 1945.

Even then, well before I was ready to leave, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and groan on the inside. It was pretty silly, but it was also a pivotal moment for me- it was the first time I had ever seen a GB member and the first time I came to know one by name. He spoke with an incredible amount of confidence and authority, nothing like I'd ever seen from any other JW. Probably from years of never being questioned and failing to apply the counsel every other speaker gets about being humble and not talking down to an audience.

Now for a bit of a sidetrack- I usually don't remember jack squat from any assembly or convention, but that one was notable for one other reason. A different speaker claimed that evolution was irrational because "we've never seen a horse give birth to an elephant!" During almost my whole time as a JW, I secretly believed in theistic evolution, so that sort of misrepresentation of the question of evolution didn't sit well with me. However, during the lunch break, a sister sitting nearby me exclaimed that she really appreciated what a great point it was!

23

My kids are watching Atheist Content on Youtube!

by Miriam in

i was looking at my children's watch history on youtube when i saw that they were watching atheist content!!!

what should i do?

.

Jofi_Wofo

38

Dumb things JWs believed

by JimmyYoung in

i am not talking about the usual crap from the cult writings, but rather things idiots believed on their own.

maybe even helped on by the cult but not directly taught.

i knew an old man now long gone kunde in michigan.

Jofi_Wofo

If I opened up the waters of my entire memory banks, I could turn the flood myth into a reality

Chiropractic, acupuncture and homeopathy were very common amongst my JW friends. Questioning those practices often led to similar emotional responses as if I had questioned the authority of the GB themselves. "It's from Jehovah!" They say. One particular alternative medicine "doctor" was very popular because he was, himself, a JW. I don't know what the actual connection was, but I was told that "Bethel sent" brothers and sisters to him. The friends would tell me about how he miraculously cured absolutely everything, by using all sorts of thoroughly debunked pseudoscience. It was embarrassing and depressing.

Several friends tried to get into multi-level marketing schemes, expecting that Jehovah would bless them with success and they could set their own part time hours and pioneer. Sometimes, they'd try to push the product on other JWs despite clear direction not to do so. It seems they were desperate to have success despite having no verifiable skills.

In similar vain, there is a huge racket for need-greaters to use phony academic credentials, including diploma mill degrees, in order to secure jobs and maintain visas. Thing is, many of them actually believe that their degrees are legit. Often, people who get these phony degrees know they're being dishonest, but these JWs, somehow, are completely clueless.

Lastly, for now, allow me to recount something a seemingly intelligent sister once told me. She told me that she had heard a talk where the speaker made a linguistics argument against evolution. The speaker explained that older languages used to be "richer" and more "complex" than current languages, demonstrating that human beings are actually devolving instead of evolving.

I kept quiet, knowing how well any objection would have been taken. I wanted to scream "THAT'S NOT HOW LINGUISTICS WORKS, THAT'S NOT HOW EVOLUTION WORKS AND THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS DEVOLVING!!!!!"

*sigh* Why was it not obvious? I guess I'm not one to talk. Despite knowing that things were not as they seemed, it wasn't always obvious to me that this religion can't be the truth. Also, when I was a teenager, I believed in the moon landing hoax conspiracy and was a devoted student of herbal remedies.

At least I can say I grew out of it all, and learned tremendously from my mistakes.

45

The end is so close now....

by punkofnice in

aren't they tiring out from saying this now?.

a jobo pimi-lite i know has a terminal illness (no names, no pack drill), was told, 'hold on, the end is so close.

the pimi-lite said they will need to hold on to their 'go bags(tm), then!.

Jofi_Wofo

@diogenisister

I remember 10 or so years ago a sister telling me "the Governing Body have been telling people at Bethel that we're not just in the last days, but we're now in the last stretch of the final part of the days".

Of course, I can't verify that anyone actually said that, but that's how she related it to me, and for some reason it didn't sound silly to her at all.

33

Special meeting next month (February 2020)

by Jofi_Wofo in

jw
friends

it was announced today that we will have a special weekend meeting next month.

it will be 3 hours long and will include some streamed content.. no explanation was given as to what the meeting will be about, only that it will be exciting and we will not want to miss it..

Jofi_Wofo

I don't feel comfortable being too specific about my location. I'm in a non-English congregation in a small country south of the U.S. (where the "need is great"). We were told that our meeting would be later than that of the English meetings due to the need for the streamed content to be translated into our language.

I have absolutely no details as to what the meeting will be about. I was hoping we could piece together whatever information comes in as it comes in. In any case, I can share my experience after the meeting occurs.

I can't remember this ever happening before. Closest would be that special talks in recent years have been streamed.

Jofi_Wofo

Posts by Jofi_Wofo