Posts by MrRoboto

9

What exactly is an Apostafest?

by Whynot in

jw
friends

i read a few threads on apostafests but i don't really understand what they are or what happens.

are they family friendly?

is it a party or support group meet-up?.

MrRoboto

Never been but I always envisioned it would be something like a beach party of apostates..

Maybe someone else can chime in?

12

God is going to kill all of his unbelieving children at Armageddon

by Half banana in

jws are taught to think in a childish, simplistic and paranoid way.. the ticket to paradise includes a gory bloodfest of unimaginable proportions.

and jws calmly and unquestioningly trust and even look forward to this happening.. what about the morality of this unprecedented solution to mankind’s problems?

(there is evidence in the earth’s crust that noah’s flood never happened so it doesn’t count as a precedent).. sweep all of your problems under the biblical carpet and you know that god will sort it all out by the ultimate act of near total genocide—or not!

MrRoboto

Good point amidst.

I, for one, am rather upset that mermaids were spared while our human brethren were treated like fodder!

12

God is going to kill all of his unbelieving children at Armageddon

by Half banana in

jws are taught to think in a childish, simplistic and paranoid way.. the ticket to paradise includes a gory bloodfest of unimaginable proportions.

and jws calmly and unquestioningly trust and even look forward to this happening.. what about the morality of this unprecedented solution to mankind’s problems?

(there is evidence in the earth’s crust that noah’s flood never happened so it doesn’t count as a precedent).. sweep all of your problems under the biblical carpet and you know that god will sort it all out by the ultimate act of near total genocide—or not!

MrRoboto

God is love - the most loving thing he could have done for his creation was to keep them from being able to bring such misery and pain and death to all of his (mans) billions of descendants. Maybe that would mean creation without free will. But if free will causes god to slaughter billions for 1) nor believing when there is insufficient evidence and 2) not choosing correctly despite being imperfect - then I would have to say god is not love.

I believe WT has said that babies and others who are too young (whatever that means) are protected via the standing of their righteous parents. Sorta implies death to the infidels' babies at the big A, in my opinion.

Side note, anyone notice that in WTs illustrations of the "new system" where they are building things they are also wearing hard hats? I would imagine that perfect people wouldn't have accidents but who knows.

26

Struggling to Live a Lie

by Addison0998 in

jw
friends

it’s been very difficult, much more than i first anticipated to live a lie, (be pimo and a regular active member) i still live with my parents but i plan on moving out at the end of the year, so i really need to keep it together.

but i think people are starting to get suspicious that something is up.

i’ve stopped commenting, going on service all the time, talking at the door, and occasionally voicing something, such as a question that no one has a good answer for, that makes people think, but ahah, thinking is dangerous and wrong so that is suspicious of course.

MrRoboto

I feel your pain, I'm in a similar situation though I'm a bit older and my family concerns are similar but different.

Its definitely a soul-wringing experience to live pimo.

I mostly ignore the meeting contents, when I do go. Though its easy to get your feathers ruffled by the theological nonsense and obvious lies.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just D/A or just stop being careful about stuff that will get me D/F just to put an end to it. Not looking forward to the myriads of problems that would suddenly come my way though... And the way of others very close to me. Ugh

You're not alone bro.

12

Yoga Sutras Of Pantanjali (1600 Years Ago)

by Brokeback Watchtower in

i know a lot of people might not want anything to do with any religion and i can sympathize, the bible an ancient collection of books compiled by the catholic church authorities and the some what restricted version by protestant movement we have the less voluminous of collected "holy" books call the king james.

which i think we have a lot to learn from them if we look at them from a more psychological point of view and not force them to be literally understood.. i think it is the same with these sutras, what is it telling us about the mind?

what can we expect from certain meditative practices.

MrRoboto

I wish I had the time to pursue exactly this... I'm pretty sure my lack of sleep would have me sleeping in the first 3 minutes of trying to meditate though...

I would love to explore what else is out there.. Or is that... in there..

A consciousness researcher/physicist named Tom Campbell has an interesting story about doing transcendental meditation in college which wound up with him having visions of his computer code (punch cards in those days) where the lines with bugs in them would be highlighted. He would go back to the cards and sure enough, the visions were accurate. He explains it better but he's got a number of interesting observations from beyond the physical that we are used to.. You can find him on you tube but may be embedded in his other simulation theory related stuff

13

2018-05-18-BOE--Instructions For Circuit Accounting!

by Atlantis in

2018-05-18-s-331-e-boeinstructions for circuit accounting6-pageshttps://we.tl/lm1hgyqxe3atlantis!.

MrRoboto

Almost, average Joe..

There is a "target balance" to be maintained to cover expenses that are incurred in between assemblies. ("might include the costs associated with a circuit overseer’s residence, the anticipated travel cost of the branch representative, or the rental of a facility in connection with the next assembly")

"Expenses that will be incurred during the next assembly, such as a per-publisher contribution that is made for the use of an Assembly Hall, should not be included in the target balance"

Any excess funds are to be donated to the world wide work.

So you can see that the assembly should be starting with an account balance of 0 but also with a deficit in the amount of per-publisher contribution.

Funny thing about all of that is that yes, you can make an interest free loan to HQ if there are excess funds, but all excess funds over the target balance at the end of the assembly are to be donated to the WWW, so there should never be any money to loan in the first place. Maybe they would loan the "target balance" in between assemblies, it's all online and should be easy to give/get but the instructions are not specific as to how they would have extra money (they already have excess funds to www)

Good to see straight from the whoreses mouth that they are still doing the per-publisher charge. If only the pubs knew...

52

144000 The numbers don't add up

by LevelThePlayingField in

in 1935 there were 63,146 who attended the memorial and 52,465 partook.

(proclaimers book page 717).

according to the bible teach book on page 78, it says, “since the days of the apostles, god has been selecting faithful christians in order to complete the number 144,000”.

MrRoboto

What you fail to take into consideration is that 'baptism is a requirement for Christian discipleship' and that baptism is only valid if the person has accurate knowledge of god and his purpose. So anyone baptized into another religion has an invalid baptism. This was stated in a recent Watchtower study.

I'm not sure the exact year the WT took that stance of rejecting baptisms of other Christian sects but it was taught for a number of years that a fresh baptism was not necessary.

Considering the above, most of the early "anointed" would be in the position of not having a valid baptism and thus not actually anointed (oops!) I would also argue that a) since the JW versions of accurate knowledge changes every year, all prior JW baptisms are invalid and that b) since JWs always have inaccurate knowledge anyways, with their cult twisting of scriptures, that all of their baptisms are invalid according to their criteria.

So no worries, plenty of slots open then.. Assuming the millions of Christians coming before them didn't take all the slots already.

JW theology is so full of holes and discontinuity that it would be laughable if they didn't have such bad effects on people.

Incidentally, when I started heeding the admonition to read the bible daily, the 144k deal was one of the first obvious flaws that I noticed.

13

Bible Teach Book points the finger at JW's themselves!

by The Fall Guy in

one of my all-time favourite illustrations:.

bible teach, chap.

16 p. 154 pars.

MrRoboto

And you can find an example in the same book. I forget exactly where it which scripture is referencing but the section that talks about the one who has died being awaited from his sin... If you look at the context of the verse, it's clearly a figurative use, dying to the world (so to speak) and living for Christ.

Then there's the insane reasoning on blood, also in the same book - turning instruction that was given for the sake of not stumbling Jews into a law for all Christians for all time.

I'll stop with those 2 as its enough poison to recognize the danger.

19

Hospitality - How not to.....March 2018 study article.

by punkofnice in

what do you make of this part of the march 2018 watchtower study edition?.

2 among other things, peter urged his brothers: “be hospitable to one another.” (1 pet.

4:9) the word “hospitality” in greek literally means “fondness for, or kindness to, strangers.” note, however, that peter urged his christian brothers and sisters to be hospitable “to one another,” to those whom they already knew and associated with.

MrRoboto

stuckinarut2 - the good samaritan showed exactly what you said but I would like to add just a bit to it.

The whole parable was in reply to a question: who is my neighbor?

immediately after the parable, Jesus asked "“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man..?" (the answer: “The one who had mercy on him.”)

So the lesson is that the neighbor is the one who makes himself a neighbor by showing mercy (although they mentioned mercy in the verses, obviously there is compassion, brotherly love etc too)

So keep that in mind when someone refers to the old "love your neighbor" line, it's basically the same as "love the one who shows you mercy"

To be fair, Jesus told the questioner to “go and do likewise" about showing mercy, essentially making yourself "neighbor" to others (then they will love you..?)

19

Hospitality - How not to.....March 2018 study article.

by punkofnice in

what do you make of this part of the march 2018 watchtower study edition?.

2 among other things, peter urged his brothers: “be hospitable to one another.” (1 pet.

4:9) the word “hospitality” in greek literally means “fondness for, or kindness to, strangers.” note, however, that peter urged his christian brothers and sisters to be hospitable “to one another,” to those whom they already knew and associated with.

MrRoboto

On the context that they gave, being written to a congregation with different cultures, essentially, at least several different xenos, the scripture would obviously have meant to be a xeno-phile, and not a xeno-phobe. Even the picture in the article was a great example of that idea but it was all lost in the gram ability of the bORG to twist things for their own (ab)uses.

I think it's worth noting here that during the release of the 2013 grey bible, one of the GB ( I think it was tight pants) hooked about twisting the scriptures... That was in reference to literally twisting the bible book to loosen the pages, but still, no shame.