a watchtower in ceremonial magical tradition is a tutelary spirit of one of the four cardinal points or quarters (east, south, west and north).
in many magical traditions, they are understood to be enochian angels... originating with the enochian tradition of john dee, a version of it was popularized by the hermetic order of the golden dawn, which became hugely influential in modern western esotericism, including wicca.
the watchtowers are invoked during the ritual of casting a magic circle.. .
the evidence is too strong to be disputed
Russell and Rutherford loved doing this-- regaling readers about how ironclad a particular claim was, even though they had no way of demonstrating this. Many of these 'indisputable' claims were later changed, and many of their 'indisputable' predictions did not come to pass. Come on, Watchtower-- show us some of these "genuine manifestations."
so i went to a christmas evening candlelight service tonight and it hit me.
i was primarily doing christmas since leaving the jw for the children.
lots of people do it for family without really thinking of the relevance.
I don't recall them ever emphasizing Jesus's birth. It's a meaningful event to a JW, in that it meant that an important step in Jehovah's promise to redeem humanity had finally arrived. But Jesus is a secondary character to Jehovah for JWs. They make note of it, but do not celebrate it the way other Christian denominations do.
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This is how he came up with the lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter.
rethinking wt charity status in canada.. .
https://avoidjw.org/news/canada-rethinking-charity-status-project-straight-arrow/ .
Vidiot: Decrease.
I agree. If they go fully mainstream, they become just another Christian church. But that requires a long list of changes. These changes will alienate the old-school hardcore JWs, but will do nothing to make the religion more attractive to potential recruits.
Allowing birthday and holiday celebrations? Congrats, you are starting to catch up. Do away with shunning and the blood policy? Again, lots of other Christian churches don't have this issue, plus it will generate a LOT of criticism from loyal JWs who suffered under those policies. Their view of the afterlife for sinners is better than the concept of eternal suffering, so I guess that's one possible point in their favor (even if it's not unique). Goodbye, governing body? Goodbye, book publishing? I don't think you'd have anything left, if that went away...
I don't think they can go completely mainstream without shutting down. I'm more interested in how far they will go, and how their decisions will affect the numbers along the way.
how many of you dutifully told this lie to your friends as a kid?.
I repeated that one, and also the ones about not celebrating Valentine's Day or Father's Day or Mother's Day. "You can do those things any time!" So... how often did we buy/receive gifts during the year? Not that often. How often did married couples celebrate anything remotely like Valentine's Day? Not very often; for many couples, not at all. How often did we treat our parents as if it was Father's/Mother's Day? Hardly ever? Never?
This is another of the ways in which a restrictive religious cult harms people. These holidays were considered evil, and so we were conditioned to reject even the spirit of these events/periods. The only concession I can remember my mother making was that she would allow us to watch the Christmas cartoons. Mostly, she did it because it kept us out of her hair for a couple of hours. To enjoy the festive nature of the holidays was to allow ourselves to be tempted. And that's such an awful thing to do to people.
Enjoy the lights. Enjoy the festivities. Enjoy the gift-giving, the costumes at Halloween, the box of chocolates on Valentines Day, the cards and gifts on Father's/Mother's Day, and so on. And have some cake on your birthday, for crying out loud.
the police have started an investigation where a woman has courageously come forward about her sexual abuse by a former elder, who had a record of doing such things with the local congregation, and i think it was all covered up.
they have charged him, he is claiming he is not mentally fit to appear in court, i hope that lie does not hold up !.
this case was unknown to the local elders, but hopefully will now give the strength for other women, who were all very young and very vulnerable at the time , to come forward as well.
Organizations can talk all day about the 'cleansing light of truth' but they change their tune very quickly when it is one of their own who needs to be investigated. Please, Stephen Lett, tell us again about those "apostate-driven lies"and false accusations, and how much you care about the safety and well-being of children...
so there's a bill called the social security fairness act that "might" help those on social security.
the bill is something trump said he would push for once he become president.of course there is some rinos and democrats who don't want the bill because they still want to fund wars that americans have no business getting involved.
all the president has to do is signed it "if" he makes it into office.. this could go in effect as soon as next year.
A point of clarification: in spite of the name, DOGE is not actually a department; it is a commission. It has a specific task (identify areas of wasteful spending in government) a time period (18 months) and a specific outcome (a report). It does not --and will not-- implement any changes itself, since it does not have the power to do so.
I cringe when newspeople and commentators talk about what DOGE is going to do, as if it has any power to make policy changes or strike out even a single budgetary line item. It does not. It will give the President a list of things that he may choose to target, and probably some recommendations. That's it. Also, when given this list, Trump will not be able to simply scratch off items and terminate the funding for them with a stroke of a pen. I realize that people are panicking right now about Trump naming himself King of the Universe, but Congress still runs things in the USA, and Republicans in the House and Senate are not all aligned with Trump's plans.
It's similar with Social Security. Stated plans are all well and good, but actually getting something done requires more than a sternly-written letter from the President.
a post from another exjw site, shows how throughout the years, in a regular, systematic fashion, the watchtower has influence thoroughly; an ideological point of view, in the minds of it’s members by using bible scriptures and examples, to get the members to do the unthinkable, even if it clashes with modern ethics.
february 2016 watchtower, paragraph 3 of the article titled .
"learn from jehovah’s loyal servants".
It seems as if they've gone from "even if we are wrong, you should still be loyal and obey" to "even if we do something immoral and awful, you should still be loyal and obey."
this is the watchtower study article being studied today.
so it’s the current new light!.
what are the new qualifications to be an “elder-aka older man...and circuit overseer?.
If people are leaving when they are young (especially the born-ins), then it's no surprise that they are doing this. Rope them in early with a position of authority and let them get a taste of power. Sadly, that doesn't make for a good elder or ministerial servant. But it probably keeps them in a little bit longer.
Now they just have to figure out how to offer something similar for women...
like the one in tennessee, this one in maddison, wi, was done be a female.
the police chief points out that: .
“yes, i don’t know whether [the shooter] was transgender or not, and quite frankly, i don’t think that’s even important.
I agree that cheap guns are a major part of the problem. It's also the one we do not focus on, since the cheapest guns are the ones that are obtained illegally, and we do not seem to be too concerned about illegal gun ownership. We focus on the damage done with legally-obtained guns, but deliberately ignore the huge toll caused by illegal guns. It is the latter that is the reason why so many places that have the strictest gun control also have high numbers of gun-related crimes and deaths.
It is treated primarily as a political issue by the left, since they are determined to end legal gun ownership. The odds of ever achieving that are almost zero, because the USA has a very deeply-ingrained gun culture. The practical approach would be to work on getting rid of illegal weapons, but there's not enough to gain politically from that. So we do a lot of huffing and puffing, but don't ever really make progress on the problem.
