The Bible doesn't teach anything first of all, but does any Biblical author teach the trinity as we know it today in orthodox Christianity? No, they don't. The closest we come is 1 or 2 Timothy where 'Paul' (probably the liar Polycarp) charges his readers in the name of 'God, Jesus, and the holy angels' to keep his word or something, the Catholic renegade Alfred Loisy sees that as the first appearance of any trinity whatsoever. According to Clement of Alexandria who wrote in the late 2nd century the Gnostic Valentinus, who wrote in the early 2nd century, first referred to a trinity in his writings.
john.prestor
JoinedPosts by john.prestor
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35
Do You Think The Bible Teaches A Trinity As Religions Teach?
by minimus ini’m not asking whether you believe in the bible.
i just want your opinion as to whether you think the bible teaches it.
i don’t, for what it’s worth..
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The Baptist version of "Listen Obey and Be Blessed"
by john.prestor inso i share stories from time to time on here from my childhood in a fundamentalist baptist church, which sounds pretty damn similar to some of the stories i read on here from ex-witnesses, the fear and guilt-tripping, the sexual repression, the world being a dark and wicked place, i even went door-to-door once in a while to hand out chick tracts (wish i was kidding) and try to get people to come to our church... so they could pay the pastor's salary, but i digress.
anyway, i don't remember a lot of it because my parents started bringing me to sunday school as soon as i could walk, so on sunday mornings my family dressed up and headed out the door bright and early to services.
my parents stayed upstairs for adult classes and me and my brother went downstairs where all the kids met to sing songs together before we separated for "age-appropriate" activities.
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john.prestor
I really don't care if the man was accredited or not, and I don't know why you're banging on that drum. Let's leave it at that, you're straining out the gnat and leaving in the camel. -
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JW's With Explosives?--A Little Hard to Believe!
by Atlantis inthis is a little hard to believe.
(2018 article).
this article must have slipped by me because i never heard of this before.. .
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john.prestor
It sounds planted alright, Jehovah's Witnesses are pacifists, I can't see them owning guns much less hand grenades, come on. I don't know anything else about this except what I read in the articles you posted, but just on the face of it, I find it convenient and unbelievable. If the government didn't plant them they grabbed those World War II relics and knowingly played up their significance.
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JW's With Explosives?--A Little Hard to Believe!
by Atlantis inthis is a little hard to believe.
(2018 article).
this article must have slipped by me because i never heard of this before.. .
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john.prestor
I call bullshit. The Russian government played this up to make Jehovah's Witnesses look crazier and more dangerous than they actually are.
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JUNE 2019 Watchtower: Higher Education - HQ & Bethels are populated with evil, educated folks!
by The Fall Guy inhow alienated from jehovah and un-christian so many bethelites must be, who finished their higher education and gained their degrees!
i don't know how they can live with their consciences!.
pages 6 & 7, pars.
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john.prestor
Just imagine them printing anything other than unending praises to Jehovah, i.e., the Governing Body :
A sister who has been in full time service for over 15 years says: 'Although men who live comfortably in a lakeside resort warned me against pursuing higher education, when I went to college I found their warnings failed to come true, just like their predictions of Armageddon's imminence. My professors encouraged critical thinking , and I developed as a person as I encountered new ways of being and living. My classmates showed me respect and kindness, and invited me to eat with them at the dining halls; we even partied from time to time, and I enjoyed letting loose. I experimented sexually with men, and found sex very pleasurable. I also joined various clubs and tried my hand at different sports. Although I found classwork stressful, when I graduated I found better employment than I could without a college degree.'
They would never print that. Their testimonials might as well be sock puppets or recordings of them disguising their voices.
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JUNE 2019 Watchtower: Higher Education - HQ & Bethels are populated with evil, educated folks!
by The Fall Guy inhow alienated from jehovah and un-christian so many bethelites must be, who finished their higher education and gained their degrees!
i don't know how they can live with their consciences!.
pages 6 & 7, pars.
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john.prestor
I always take my career advice from anonymous people who sound like parrots squawking out the company line. That's a sure sign of reliability right there: nameless, ageless, location unknown. Might as well call her Andrea.
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Will the Russian brothers start to wake up?
by nowwhat? inif i was a russian brother i would be wondering what exactly is the gb doing to help us out.
they are sitting in their lakeside corporate country club doing nothing while outside worldly agencies are making known our plight.
i found it puzzling that they flew out of russia like a bat out of hell as soon as the court rendered its decision leaving us high and dry.
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john.prestor
Yeah, it's not gonna do much to anyone's faith. The Governing Body will send their love and prayers and the faithful will eat it up. The more Russia cracks down, the more Jehovah's Witnesses will feel persecuted, i.e., special, important, meaningful. That's gonna draw them deeper in, not push them further out.
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The Baptist version of "Listen Obey and Be Blessed"
by john.prestor inso i share stories from time to time on here from my childhood in a fundamentalist baptist church, which sounds pretty damn similar to some of the stories i read on here from ex-witnesses, the fear and guilt-tripping, the sexual repression, the world being a dark and wicked place, i even went door-to-door once in a while to hand out chick tracts (wish i was kidding) and try to get people to come to our church... so they could pay the pastor's salary, but i digress.
anyway, i don't remember a lot of it because my parents started bringing me to sunday school as soon as i could walk, so on sunday mornings my family dressed up and headed out the door bright and early to services.
my parents stayed upstairs for adult classes and me and my brother went downstairs where all the kids met to sing songs together before we separated for "age-appropriate" activities.
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john.prestor
I think the difference is just terminology, I mean yeah the song says "the Lord" but the Baptists wanted to tell me what "the Lord" wanted, and if I said "The Lord wants me to rob people" they would never accept that, and we understood male leaders as spokesmen for the Lord more or less, we trusted them to tell us what the Bible meant and how we should live. The church was independent, it wasn't connected to any overarching authority, so if the board of elected deacons thought a pastor looked good, they hired him; that's all it came down to.
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7
The Baptist version of "Listen Obey and Be Blessed"
by john.prestor inso i share stories from time to time on here from my childhood in a fundamentalist baptist church, which sounds pretty damn similar to some of the stories i read on here from ex-witnesses, the fear and guilt-tripping, the sexual repression, the world being a dark and wicked place, i even went door-to-door once in a while to hand out chick tracts (wish i was kidding) and try to get people to come to our church... so they could pay the pastor's salary, but i digress.
anyway, i don't remember a lot of it because my parents started bringing me to sunday school as soon as i could walk, so on sunday mornings my family dressed up and headed out the door bright and early to services.
my parents stayed upstairs for adult classes and me and my brother went downstairs where all the kids met to sing songs together before we separated for "age-appropriate" activities.
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john.prestor
So I share stories from time to time on here from my childhood in a fundamentalist Baptist church, which sounds pretty damn similar to some of the stories I read on here from ex-Witnesses, the fear and guilt-tripping, the sexual repression, the world being a dark and wicked place, I even went door-to-door once in a while to hand out Chick Tracts (wish I was kidding) and try to get people to come to our church... so they could pay the pastor's salary, but I digress. Anyway, I don't remember a lot of it because my parents started bringing me to Sunday school as soon as I could walk, so on Sunday mornings my family dressed up and headed out the door bright and early to services. My parents stayed upstairs for adult classes and me and my brother went downstairs where all the kids met to sing songs together before we separated for "age-appropriate" activities. This friendly and kinda effiminate guy got in front of the room and held up these poster boards with the song lyrics on them, we used to get really into the songs,
A while back I remembered one of the songs we used to sing, it just came back to me at a bus stop and it creeped me the hell out so I wrote the first stanza and the chorus down in a notebook. It's called "Obedience," no need to mince words I guess:
Obedience is the very best way,
To show that you believe.
Doing exactly what the Lord commands,
Doing it happily.
Action is the key – do it immediately,
Joy you will receive.Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe.
O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E
Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe.I ask myself how a grown man could make us sing that song in good faith. It's nothing more than "Do what we say and don't think about it," it's not like at 5 or 6 we made up our own minds on what "the Lord" said, people like him told us what "the Lord" wanted us to do and we did it because we didn't know any better. It reminds me of "Listen, Obey, and Be Blessed," just change the tune and the words it's the same authoritarian, Orwellian message underneath, barely disguised.
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May 2019 Study Article in the Watchtower
by Lost in the fog inhere is paragraph 18 of the study article.
made to the congregation.
(1 cor.
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john.prestor
Vidiot, I'm with you one hundred percent. Pedophilia shatters the illusion of "we're different from the world" like a rock through a window.
days of future passed, no, opportunists aren't everywhere, that's my point. Pedophiles don't roam our neighborhoods: they go after "low hanging fruit." It's suspicious as hell if some random guy shows up and tries to talk his way inside with some kid he doesn't know, who might call the cops, they teach kids to do that in school, and pedophiles aren't braindead. It's not suspicious if uncle someone wants to take their nephew on a camping trip, or if the priest wants to instruct a kid one-on-one about religious matters. Find me or show me one case in which a pedophile went door-to-door, found a kid home alone, and came back later.