@designs: That's certainly what the songbook used to show on the inside cover: a chorus of men in heaven. Perhaps some were women wearing fake beards to avoid getting noticed and kicked out. Strange that women could be accepted as "priests and kings" alongside Christ in heaven but don't get to do $% on earth in the congregation in the meantime.
Apognophos
JoinedPosts by Apognophos
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60
New video: Stephen Lett warns about "Women's Lip"
by cedars inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=citaz613koc.
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cedars.
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Who Was Stumbled By Wicked Congregation Participants? From Overseers To Rank-File.
by ÁrbolesdeArabia inok, a thread began with members who found their way out by "company literature" or "apostate literature", but what about thoughtless to evil actions by happy and humble witnesses?.
were most members caring, compassionate and lovings (john 13:33-35), which made coming to jwn diffucult, or did their conduct push you to seek anwsers here?
i had a traveling overseer tell me, "i am so happy you are enduring the wicked actions lodged against you, keep up the good work!
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Apognophos
I was never given a single reason for stumbling in my congregation. Seriously. Either things around Bethel are kept more on the straight-and-narrow (based on some of the crazy stories here, I have to say this is part of it), or else I was never privy to any scandals in the local cong. (also likely as I was not an MS or elder), or else I was just lucky. If I had witnessed something scandalous, it might have led me sooner to doubting that they were something better than "worldly" people. As it was, my doubts were based on principles and Bible interpretation and such, but took a long time to come to the surface.
That being said, a number of my peers were not faithful Witnesses, but they left as young adults and I imagined that this only proved that the ones left in the cong. had to be good Christians. But I was not really very sociable, and was generally left out of conversations between the adults (even the ones a few years older than me) that would have let me in on the "dirty laundry" that they might have known about each other.
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DWTS-Michael Jackson tribute night
by purplesofa inok, i don't tell many i watch dwts, religoiusly!
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so tonight is michael jackson night and they are scanning the audience and his mom is there.. how does she manage to stay in good standing.
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Apognophos
And the occasional errant nipple. Ahem.
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 11-18-2012 WT Study (KNOW DAY HOUR)
by blondie inday or the hour of the end?.
knowing the exact day or hour when the.
5. how may not knowing the day or the hour.
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Apognophos
Yes, those illustrations were incredibly lazy. They sounded even stupider when the friends had to repeat them robotically word for word in their comments, since nobody could relate to them and find a more personal way of expressing them.
It boggles the mind--they say the Bible is their final authority and that people should read it daily, and then in every
circumstance possible, the Bible is regarded as utterly insufficient as spiritual nourishment for a "true Christian".
Well said. I guess I'm still pretty indoctrinated in some ways, I didn't even catch how awful that sounded when we covered the paragraph.
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Was it EX JW literature / WT's or the BIBLE which woke you up? Post scriptures if any....
by EndofMysteries ini considered myself immune to ex jw stuff.
no amount of old watchtowers or anything would change me.
it was seeing treatment of others by elders and the bible itself, which woke me.
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Apognophos
This is a great thread. As a born-in who took 30 years to wake up, my story is of the "straw that broke the camel's back" type. Various little things about the WT teachings nagged at me, mainly the allowance of blood fractions as a conscience matter and the seemingly figurative nature of 144,000 in the Bible. Assorted dissonances such as seeing people look forward to the death of billions at Armageddon began to add up, silently. There are too many tiny things to count... yet I still was a true believer. After all, surely Witnesses were closest to the truth, at the very least! I have always been a very black-and-white thinker, and a cautious, studious sort of person; appeals to the heart meant little to me, but I enjoyed all the little details of the Witness beliefs -- the comfort and certainty that they gave me -- so I stayed "all in" mentally.
It wasn't until I was an adult that I began to really notice the intellectual glass ceiling. Other Witnesses, who I knew were intelligent, were quite open about how they avoided any information, apostate or not, that could weaken their faith. This seemed very strange to me; why should those who possess truth be afraid of anything? Surely no information could be a threat to them? Although I did not read apostate writings for years to come, I resolved that I was not going to avoid learning any science or reading any atheist writings just because it might conflict with my existing beliefs. I wanted to be confident that I had the truth. As I approached my thirties, I spent many hours defending the truth against imagined objections (essentially playing the dual roles of a cynical householder and a sincere Witness in my head). After years of hearing these bickering "voices", I started to wonder, "Could it be that the cynical voice in my head is not an imagined householder that I feel a need to be able to refute, but in fact my own subconscious trying to tell me something?"
In addition, the older I got, the more I could see the psychological aspects of what made Witnesses act the way they did (superstition being a big part of the explanation). I began to feel distanced from their mindset. But all of this was so gradual that I still believed that I believed it was the truth. I had a worldview that seemed more stable and secure than a worldly one, and I was afraid to question it and cause it to collapse like the house built upon sand. You see, I myself was also superstitious in one specific way. A family member had supposedly experienced a demonic attack, and that was enough to scare me. Even though I was no longer "all in", I felt that if I stayed in physically, and did a minimal amount of field service and other activity, then I could have a least a little of the holy spirit to protect me from demons. Disassociating myself would leave me open to the demons. But over time, not hearing any more credible stories of demonic activity, I began to grow skeptical that this really happened at all.
Finally, I read a word one day that I didn't understand, and looking up the definition to that word caused me to experience an almost electric shock: Jesusist. It had never occurred to me that it was possible to believe in Jesus' teachings and not belong to organized religion. For the first time I could imagine leaving the organization. I had always been afraid that leaving would somehow force me to throw all my beliefs away and live a life of debauchery (so the Watchtower warned), but this was a new concept: I could still be a good person, at least as far as my own willpower allowed me, even without being a Witness! I used to think that I couldn't be a Christian without God's help. As a teenager, I had tearfully pleaded in prayer for God to help me with his holy spirit many times. Now that I was older, I had started to wonder why I never clearly felt his helping hand back then. I began to suspect that I had been on my own all along, and I would do just as well at being a Christian without an organization as with one.
As I left behind the fears and superstitions of my youth, I finally decided that there was no reason not to read apostate material. At this point, JWFacts.com was very helpful for me. It used the Bible and common sense to argue against some of the same teachings I'd already felt were dubious, which really put my mind at ease. I also learned about some flip-flops in teachings which were surprising -- especially the stance on organ transplants. I finally felt confident that the Witnesses could not be God's approved organization if they made these kind of mistakes. I am very thankful to Paul Grundy for taking the time to make the site which helped me get peace of mind. Now I really feel free for the first time -- free from fear and unnecessary guilt, free from obligations of man.
Sorry for the long boring story, but since things just came to a head in this last year, the details are still vivid in my mind. Might as well write it all down for the sake of aiding my memory, and for anyone reading this who can relate to my experiences!
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 11-18-2012 WT Study (KNOW DAY HOUR)
by blondie inday or the hour of the end?.
knowing the exact day or hour when the.
5. how may not knowing the day or the hour.
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Apognophos
In fact, not knowing dignifies us, allowing us to use our free will in manifesting our loyalty to
Jehovah. Although we look forward to surviving the end of this system, we serve Jehovah
because we love him, not merely to get life.
You know what God could do if he really, really wanted to dignify us? Don't threaten to destroy people if they don't want to follow his will. He could move unbelievers to another planet or another universe where they can do their own thing if he doesn't want the bad apples ruining the good ones. I'm just saying. It's awfully hard to love someone who is so abstract, so distant. Surely an all-knowing God would realize this about human nature, as our Creator. And yet Christians are supposed to serve God out of love, not in order to avoid destruction. That's right, don't think about the warning of the 'narrow path leading to salvation and the broad path to destruction'; love for an invisible figure who may or may not be blessing your life should be your overriding motivation. I'm sure many Witnesses are serving God only for the principles. It's not as if fear of eternal death could possibly muddy the waters when it comes to their motives.
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Off-topic: hand shaking
by Libelle inthis is totally unrelated to anything jw, but it's the only group i'm in online with such a mix of men and women, so i'm asking.
what's your experience with hand shaking?.
me, when i meet someone for the first time, i offer to shake their hand.
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Apognophos
Ha, that too.
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Off-topic: hand shaking
by Libelle inthis is totally unrelated to anything jw, but it's the only group i'm in online with such a mix of men and women, so i'm asking.
what's your experience with hand shaking?.
me, when i meet someone for the first time, i offer to shake their hand.
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Apognophos
Yes, I was taught much the same thing, that giving a limp handshake would reflect poorly on me. The only thing worse than getting a limp handshake is getting a macho crusher handshake. When I was new on a job, I think this one guy I met was trying to tell me not to move in on our attractive mutual co-worker who I had just been talking to. He squeezed so hard I felt something pop. Not that I gave him the satisfaction of showing it.
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Off-topic: hand shaking
by Libelle inthis is totally unrelated to anything jw, but it's the only group i'm in online with such a mix of men and women, so i'm asking.
what's your experience with hand shaking?.
me, when i meet someone for the first time, i offer to shake their hand.
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Apognophos
We had a brother who was of the anointed who wouldn't shake hands, but it was just because he was elderly and trying to avoid germs. He would shake your thumb instead. This was always fun to watch when it happened to someone for the first time.
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How do you keep your hopes up while in this doomed existence?
by sabastious incoming from aguest's thread where she showed us the article that describes a "brain drain" that has been occuring for centuries do to "mutations" i can't help but be a little fed up with how much negativity comes from the land of science.
sure, facts are facts and they do not set out to sound good or bad, but instead of identifying the problems of doom, like our brains are devolving, why not focus on the solutions to those problems?
where are the hopes and dreams that our culture so desperately holds onto which actually provides the drive to progress towards them.
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Apognophos
Actually, the Nazis treated our prisoners relatively well (compared to the horrors of the Japanese) and we in turn did so for theirs.
True, I should have been more specific -- I was referring to the Commando Order.
If it does then that would require determining what one's best is, right? How do you do that?
How do you know you are giving as much back as you can? What if you are working with saving a species from going extinct,
does that mean you are then not responsible for people going hungry?
My point was that we can't really know how much effect we're going to have or what is the best course to take, so we should just try something. There's no sense in worrying over our own lack of omniscience. If humans' lack of omniscience ends up dooming the human race and the universe, then oh well, the cards were stacked against us to begin with. Some people believe the universe continues to "reboot" itself; perhaps this is already doomed to be a failed experiment and the universe will just have to try again with slightly different parameters. Cut! Take #153,546,367,675! Action!
Anyway, if we're at least trying something, odds are that we're helping. The people who are not helping are the ones committing crime and using more social services than they are funding through their income taxes. That's it. Frankly, it's a low bar -- just don't be a self-destructive unemployed idiot, and you're contributing something. That's why most of us can relax, knowing that we're doing a reasonable amount of good.
Besides, you know that the most important achievements are made by a handful of people anyway. It takes a certain stable level of society, supported by plebes like us, to allow the occasional Einstein or Newton the leisure to spend time on things that interest them and publish the results of their world-changing experiments. So there's no shame in just doing our best to make ends meet, giving a little to charity as we can, and enjoying life when we can.