The WTS has always made it clear that only the GB can interpret scripture. JWs are encouraged to read the Bible, not to study it. At least, not without the WTS publications on hand, so they get the 'correct' interpretation.
TonusOH
JoinedPosts by TonusOH
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7
BOOK STUDY OR BIBLE STUDY?
by blondie in*** km 9/76 p. 8 question box ***.
might a discussion using the bible alone be reported as a study?
(…) but at times persons are unwilling to use any literature other than the bible.
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141
WAR begins.
by lastmanstanding inthings are moving right along.
“israel” has gone to war with iran.. who is fooled?.
this is uncle sam, same as in ukraine.. daniel layed out clearly the events of “d day” june 6, 1944 as the “ships of kittim” would sail against the king of the north.
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TonusOH
Journeyman: if you don't want to set yourself up for a lot of mess in the longer term.
Sadly, we're at least ~120 years too late for that. The west has been meddling in the Mideast for more than a century, and the bad feelings run very deep. Many of the religious theocracies in the Mideast would happily do massive damage to the nations of the west if they had the resources to do so, and if they didn't realize that the retaliation would be overwhelming.
But the situation is what it is, and a nuclear Iran is a catastrophe waiting to happen. I agree that the President shouldn't be able to authorize strikes like this, but that is another ship that has long since sailed (and, while it is theoretically possible to fix this, there is no political will to do so here). My hope is that it ends without a larger conflict forming in the short term. The Ayatollah's government made enough enemies of its neighbors that I don't think anyone will be willing to stick their necks out for Iran.
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The Coming Global Salvation - (Not Universalism)
by Sea Breeze inthe overwhelming majority of the early church leaders (fathers) were premillennial and believed in a literal 1000 yr. kingdom.
today, 2/3 of christians are amillennial.
i do not want to imply that amilennialists, are not christian.
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TonusOH
I think the biggest problem the WTS has with the separation of people into heavenly/earthly 'classes' is that there is no way to determine who has received the heavenly calling aside from "trust me." The issue became quite clear as the number of participants first stabilized, then started to increase. Today, it is more than 20,000. They may try to dismiss it as mental illness, but that means that a very large number of mentally sick people are partaking of the wine and crackers each year. The other option is that there is a large number of JWs who are deliberately partaking when they know they are not among the chosen. That's not a good look.
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WAR begins.
by lastmanstanding inthings are moving right along.
“israel” has gone to war with iran.. who is fooled?.
this is uncle sam, same as in ukraine.. daniel layed out clearly the events of “d day” june 6, 1944 as the “ships of kittim” would sail against the king of the north.
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TonusOH
LMsA: If I were Iran I’d be running to Trump right now and begging for a deal.
It looks like they've been doing that almost from the beginning. Trump has made the terms pretty clear: abandon all nuke development. I think he is also inclined to let Israel do whatever it can to help overthrow the Iranian government. The pressing question remains whether the US will take any direct action, and what that will lead to.
As for Israel, they must see this as a very rare --and perhaps their only-- opportunity to reshape the Mideast more to their liking. Trump hasn't just given them the green light to act, he's moving ships and planes to the area and making loud noises on social media. I figure he is doing this to warn off anyone else from interfering until Israel gets what it wants.
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Know it’s not true but stay anyway
by Elena inhow many of the millions of jws know it’s not true but stay anyway?.
my guess is most jws know it’s not true on a subconscious level to an extent but they don’t want to think about it too much and would never ever voice it out loud.. but this is probably true with all religions around the world?.
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TonusOH
Elena: What if you decide not to do any heavy lifting?
If you decide to stay in because you don't want to deal with the fallout from admitting that you do not believe, then do what you must. But don't call it agnostic. You're not staying in because you're not sure who has the truth. You're staying in because the organization has put you in a difficult spot, which is the way they operate. It isn't because you're not sure you believe. It's because you fear the consequences of leaving.
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Reddit thread on convention video urging cutting off contact with Faders
by LongHairGal ini just read this.
don’t know if anybody here has seen the video.. the intended result of this is to obviously scare ‘faders’ out of the shadows.
now, they are being threatened with loss of association with their loved ones and friends.
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TonusOH
Mikejw: You just go because it’s a nice social club.
Anyone who believes this way has never been outside of the JW bubble. It's a social club where suspicion is the most prevalent feeling. Not warmth, not camaraderie. You know that the people around you --who are treating you like best friends and closest family-- will do a complete 180 and turn their backs on you ("for your own good") the moment they learn that you're not 100% loyal.
It's only like a social club if your idea of a social club is a prison. It doesn't matter how nice the people are and how long you've been friends. They're keeping an eye on you, and won't hesitate to turn on you. Stay in if you want to or have to, but don't lie to yourself that it's anything like a nice social club.
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Applying the facial hair change in New Order portrayals
by careful ini have a hard time watching the org's vids and reading the publications.
however, that's not the case with others here.
hence this post.
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TonusOH
They seem to be leaning into the idea of short, sparse beards. I don't think they'll be taking many pictures of JW men in the Midwest or southern USA.
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Video: I Am Not An Apostate . . . I Had The Courage To Think For Myself (By Exjw Danny)
by AbaddonProvesIt ini had the courage to think for myself!
they’ll call us apostates.
but really, we just had the courage to think for ourselves.
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TonusOH
For JWs, the important thing is not that the GB had something right or wrong. The important thing is that they accepted whatever was being told to them and did not challenge it, even if they did not agree with it. They must accept that Jehovah will frequently mislead his people by giving the GB the wrong information or knowledge.
If you come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that a group of men who have to constantly correct themselves may not be getting their information direct from God... you are an apostate. An opposer. An enemy. You are the one type of person they cannot allow in their community, and you must be removed before you can spread your dangerous ideas.
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WAR begins.
by lastmanstanding inthings are moving right along.
“israel” has gone to war with iran.. who is fooled?.
this is uncle sam, same as in ukraine.. daniel layed out clearly the events of “d day” june 6, 1944 as the “ships of kittim” would sail against the king of the north.
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TonusOH
I don't see any scenario where Russia or China provide Iran with nukes. The region is too unstable and still under the heavy influence of a dangerous religious ideology that makes it unpredictable. A nuclear exchange in the Mideast would have both long range and long lasting consequences.
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1/2 of the Jehovah’s witnesses have gone
by hoser inthere are 1/2 of the jehovah’s witnesses that there were 30 years ago in my area.
some have left but i think that many have died and none of their kids stayed being jehovah’s witnesses.
7 congregations have been dissolved over the years.
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TonusOH
slimboyfat: I can’t stand these AI generated videos. Maybe someday they’ll get better, but as it is I find them unwatchable.
Same. Almost every time, they are low-effort crap designed for quantity over quality. In many instances, even the script is auto-generated from simple prompts. And the creator doesn't even do the courtesy of listening to it to make sure there aren't any poorly-pronounced words (to say nothing of accuracy of the information). As if the dry monotone wasn't bad enough, you get weird spacing of words and pronunciations that would be funny if it wasn't so irritating.
It's bad enough that AI is effectively inevitable, but the lack of quality means that the net contribution to overall quality of entertainment/edutainment is very negative. And this is just the start. We are probably in for several years of being swamped by endless waves of creative sewage from the same content mills that already was posting too much worthless crap online. And, if it is lucrative enough, it will probably just get worse.