a recurring motif is generally used by writers to connect stories and characters to the past or suggest parallels.
the gospels and acts are filled with them.
an example of this is found at acts, 2 cor, 1 sam and joshua.
The Jews wouldn't have had any jurisdiction in Damascus to attempt an attack on Saul, it's a badly done re write of Paul's original account where he has to run away from Aretas, the ruler of that city. He got into trouble for preaching in Damascus to gentiles who'd probably never even heard of a peasant called Jesus.
Luke has quite a few of those awkward changes of Paul's previously written accounts.
Whether he was trying to discredit Paul or bad mouth the Jews is the question.
we get old because jehovah had to prove to all the angels that his way of ruling was the best?
that's the sorriest argument the watchtower has come up with.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/11hz_jqjkjo.
If Genesis is taken literally then God created Bad with the Good in the Tree of knowledge of good and bad.
In a perfect paradise garden like Genesis depicts, Adam and Eve wouldn't have been able to comprehend the meaning of 'bad'. The snake is the first one to give any kind of explanation about the tree. God just commands them not to touch it, never mind eat from it.
He might as well have told them that eating from the tree would turn them into a space shuttle, they would have been just as clueless.
The way Genesis is written makes God sound like an unfair parent who sets his kids us for deliberate failure with a test and only half the instructions. Like rats in a lab. Unless it's all a metaphor.....at best.
i know most people here are totally out and that’s fine.. many these days are staying physically in for the social life and that is also fine.. i feel being fully mentally in is dangerous as it could be such a shock mentally if or should i say when the tower collapsed.. im sitting in the fence like so many others here.
mentally agnostic if god exists or not and if the bible is his word.. when i talk to people who are physically and mentally still in i can tell that they so need it to be true.
i’m worried for them when they wake up to the fact that they have been lied to 1914 wasn’t true 1975 wasn’t true 1999 wasn’t true and now here we are 2025 it’s all not true.
Once I realised that the Kingdom of God is a way of living in the here and now, by loving yourself and loving your fellow as yourself.
That one statement is actually so far reaching, that if everyone lived by it, it would transform this earth completely
You wouldn't rob, rape, injure, abuse, poison yourself when you love yourself. It has to begin with self love.
Yet Christian religions generally prefer to preach self hatred, punishment, disgust, belief that we are inherently damaged and sinful, and WT favourite of 'self sacrifice', a phrase that doesn't even appear anywhere in their guidebook, the Bible.
Hence people in general equate self love with selfishness, indulgence, being self absorbed, and therefore often self harming by unhealthy living, running themselves into the ground putting others way ahead of themselves etc. There is no balance.
2000 years ago a peasant was attributed with that teaching about love, and they called him the Son of God. Whether you believe that bit or not doesn't make that statement 'Love your neighbour as yourself' any less powerful, it is the simplest, straight to the heart of mankind's troubles, sentence ever uttered and written.
It is up to us to embody that concept in our everyday life, God-dess, the Universe, Evolution, Consequences will take care of the rest.
But it has to begin in us.
i'm going to drop a bomb shell here for all you who think you know something about depression.
most depression cases are being cause by the food and drug administration.
they are putting things in certain foods that they know will affect certain people especially those who have gluten problems.
Just Google Human Antennas, riveting stuff and it's on so called respected science websites, food is just one piece of the giant puzzle, or matrix, whatever.
https://youtu.be/qzpj3kzgidi?si=x1xazpqmed1zq5h2.
ah, yes, another shining example of the watchtower’s *unmatched* commitment to rational thought.
forget logic, science, or even basic common sense—just blame that suspiciously cursed handbag for all your troubles!
Remember the Gospel accounts where Jesus expels demons from the furniture and handbags??
No, me either....
i was reading an intriguing post on the exjw reddit, a forum i do not with to sign up for, as i'm not interested in the internal politics of reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1hwlja8/the_governing_bodys_letter_that_shook_bethel_and/.
another post counteracted this one, driven by the "conspiracy theory" card.
WT master is the government who granted them the 501C3 charitable organisation status which can be revoked by government if WT doesn't stick to the agreement, which is a list of regulations of which not all of them have to be complied with, but WT actually does, including the one about supporting Government policies, of which the vax was obviously a major policy at the time.
Unfortunately for WT, ruling parties in government change, presidents come and go, the then government policies they preached as the word of God, are now being reversed, and they stand out as the charlatans that they are, along with all the other religions that took part in the great deception.
so i am having these discussions about children etc and there are witness ties and family history in these discussions.
i got the feeling having this discussion that they seemed to imply somehow it was ‘the parent’s fault’ for having a miscarriage.
whether it was domestic violence, or the mother did something wrong themselves.
But now science has realised that most spontaneous miscarriages are due to defective sperm, as sperm is made by the man's body on an ongoing basis and directly related to his health, stress levels, diet, exercise habits etc, whereas a woman's eggs are fully formed before her own birth.
Society and the religions that I know just survive purely on misogyny and brainwashing.
so trump has signed an executive order to withdraw from the united nations human rights council, a refugee organization, some others parts as well and calls for a review of american involvement in funding of the united nations.
he said the united nations has not been living to its potential and they need to get their act together or just dissolve the organization completely.
he said america will continue to be a part of the un but it's tiring that the united states is the country that funds most of the monies and that can't continue.
It will be very interesting to see how JWs explain their prophecy if the UN does dissolve!
Maybe scholars were right all along, the harlot was Rome, and Revelation was fulfilled 2000 years ago.
https://youtu.be/3yylzu0bi_k?si=kku6r9szfenj3h9i.
whatever happened to those who came back to jehovah?
due to slow growth and the constant scrutiny from governments like norway in relation to their harsh disfellowshipping practices,last year in a move that no one expected the watchtower for the first time extended an olive branch to all those who left the organization or were disfellowshipped in the past.considering this practice was introduced over 60 years ago and with a rough estimate that around 100,000 leave jehovah’s witnesses every year the total number is in the several millions.so we should have expected millions to have accepted this invitation and rejoined the organization, the result though was an abysmal few thousands according to a recent jw update.. so now, for the first time, the latest watchtower study magazine for april 2025 gives us an inside view on how this reintegration is coming along, and it doesn't look good!.
Duran, like I said before, I don't know anything for sure. This is a journey and it's individual to each one of us.
What I think now is not what I believed a year or so ago.
Did Jesus really exist? That's for you to find out and decide for yourself, nobody here can do that for you.
I do think if people lived by 'Love your neighbour as yourself ', and actually did know and love themselves truly and deeply first, this world would be transformed.
But that's just my small opinion.
there a group is fighting in the legal area to make clergy accountable to report child sexual abuse cases https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20250127ph04780/clergy-accountability-coalition-urges-support-as-legislature-renews-battle-over-clergy-reporting-bill-sb-5375-amid-fierce-catholic-pushback "if passed, sb 5375 would align washington with six other states—new hampshire, north carolina, oklahoma, rhode island, texas, and west virginia—that mandate clergy to report knowledge of child abuse, including information disclosed during private religious rites like confession.
washington is one of only five states where clergy are not required to report child abuse under any circumstances.
" for the past three years, the catholic church and catholic state lawmakers have fiercely opposed similar legislation, even as the church remains under investigation by the attorney general's office for clergy abuse and institutional concealment.
The fact that this isn't the law in countries that profess to uphold Human Rights and the Rights of Children, just shows how this goes all the way to the top.
Patriarchy at it's finest.
