why believe in god, final part .
bear with me a moment while i inter the forbidden territory of explaining what i believe to be the spiritual message.. everything in the hebrew scriptures are an object lesion to show us what god does not want.
able and cain offered sacrifices as well as noah without god asking for it.
He recognized we were burdened down and oppressed. He
recognized the source of the oppression. RELIGION!
Very interesting! It's something I wouldnt have considered before coming to this site.. but it certainly makes me think. Like the Bible does state, his yoke is light. Yet so many of the harsh burdens put upon man (esp by the jws) are not light.
Thanks for an interesting post!
today we had a kind of family and friends get together.
we went to the hog trough (i.e.
im normal (as normal as a kid who grew up as a jw can ever be).
Venice,
Boy, do I know what you mean! I never attended any of my proms.. I think it still hits a nerve. Yesterday, in the evening, my family and I were leaving the museum and passed a nice looking couple that were going to the prom (I guess the museum was hosting it). My eyes kinda watered...I never had those prom-jitters, never had a corsage or even wore a fancy dress. *sigh*
Mazza,
we arguedWhat perfect words to describe my feelings. I was raised in it, never baptized.. kinda sat on the fence for years.. even when my son was a few years old I never participated in any holidays. Finally I had to take a good hard look at how I was going to raise my son. I had to realize that I could never put him through the isolation that I went through. While I know there are some jw kids that have healthy social lives, it is still hard to explain why you cannot do certain things. After going through kindergarten and seeing my 5 year old (at the time) not really know why he couldnt search for candy eggs in his class, I knew I had to rethink things.
that it's all very well to play games with our lives, but now we had responsibilities to two new lives - we felt it was time to abandon the
nonesense.
I am hoping to give him a wonderful childhood... hopefully with some wonderful memories.
Forgetme,
"I was hoping the new system would be here before we had to worry aboutIsnt this sad? It shows how many jw's dont and even cant think of the future in realistic terms. I know many family members who never put much thought into how they would handle things, only to find the situation fastly approaching. Then they reply with, 'wow, I was hoping the New System would be here by now.' I always say, 'well it isnt, so face reality in this world!'
this." Yeash...ya know?
what you need to know about, "jehovah's witnesses.
1. jehovah's witnesses don't think just the bible is enough:.
the watchtower, 5/1/57, pg.
I have a hard time with 'theocratic warfare', aka withholding truths from people.
If you think about it, Jesus felt everyone was entitled to know the truth. It didnt matter who you were... he would set an example to everyone. He laid it on the table...some listened, some didnt. How can anyone put themselves so high up as to determine what others 'need' to hear?
The problem is, most Witnesses think they are the 'pearls' and non-jws are the 'swine'.
ok even at my old age[8>] i still like the super hero action flicks.. the better ones anyway.
the first superman, the first batman and even some of the sequels to bat man were not bad.. how ever this week-end it seemed like everyone went to see spiderman all at once so i didn't go yet.. they just gave the stats on the news.. spiderman grossed over $$$114,000,000.00 so far and still counting.. did anyone go see it this week-end????.
and if so.
I loved it!!!!!
I am absolutely in love with Spiderman!!!
Actually, when I was little, he was my favorite Superhero. We saw Spiderman Friday night and loved it so much that we went back today and saw it again. Here, they are showing it every 1/2 hour so we walked right in, no problem.
I really liked the way they didnt take themselves too seriously...there is alot of humor and Toby Maguire was the perfect choice. He played the geeky, kind hearted, accidental hero absolutely flawlessly. By the end of the movie, I was convinced he was Spiderman.
My only problem was his love interest, M.J. I couldve played the part just as well!
The best action movie I've seen!! Can't wait for the next one!!
when the new song book "sing praises to jehovah" was introduced from the great publishing company in 1984, it was clearly and frankly admitted (suprisingly) that some of the old songs had to be dropped due to the fact they were copied from other religions and some even infringed copyright in this regard.
however, from an early age "we thank you jehovah" had always reminded me of "god save the queen" and this song was not dropped and continues to be regularly used down to this day.. i realise in later life that the two songs are indeed similar in a musical sense.
you can almost play one song on top of the other in places and the starting chord structure is identical.. also, the two songs both seem to have a certain feeling of reverence which i am not sure is conjured up by the timing and the harmony alone or by the meaning the songs have in terms of their lyrics and use.. it turns out the british tune has been used many times over by different people and even by other countries, as european visitors to britain in the eighteenth century noticed the advantage of a country possessing such a recognised musical symbol - including germany, russia, switzerland and america (where use of the tune continued after independence).
I dont know how God saves the Queen goes, but I do remember 'We thank you Jehovah' and can remember thinking it sounded awfully familiar when we sang it.
Come to think of it, I'm not a composer, but it seemed many of the Kingdom Melodies were hard to sing... they went real low then went straight up high, causing your voice to break.
Remember that one song? Dont remember the words..but the damn melody was crazy..went reallll low then upppp real high.
Something like:
(in very low voice) Dark days are here. Mankind in fear.
Things are all hell-a-cious, kids are too pre-co-cious.
(in very high voice) But the Bible gives us hope for the dead.
We love our God Jehovah instead.
(then goes back to low and high parts). It was insane!!
to anybody who cares, i have an announcement to make.
after reviewing all the great information on the internet and on this board, and with much praying and bible reading, i have made up my mind to stop studying.
i have written a letter to the sister i have been studying with explaining why (cowardly, i know but that's kinda the way i am)i have packed up all the books i've been given (what to do with them?
Congrats bchapp, and good luck on all your endeavors in life!
That reminds me....I've got a small walk-in closet filled with bound volumes and other WTBTS books. What do I do with them? I've thought of packing them up and tiptoeing up to the nearest Hall.. drop them off with a little note and drive off. LOL
Do ya think thats a good idea? I feel weird throwing them away..but not sure what to do with them! They're taking up alot of room though!!!
Jerome, thanks for posting links to the other threads. I'm going to check them out, they sound interesting.
1. who is the true god?.
2. what kind of god is jehovah?.
4. what does the bible mean when it says that jehovah requires our exclusive devotion?.
I never went over the baptismal questions, but I remember when having my weekly Bible study with a pioneer sister.... I would answer from 'my heart', not looking at the book ( I think we studied the Live Forever book). The sister would pause and look uncomfortable and keep encouraging me to say exactly what the paragraph said. I soon caught on, that I should keep my personal opinions and ideas to myself and just regurgitate what we just read. It got really boring, quick!
in my very first post i mentioned meeting the above and promised to relate my experiences - such as they are.. actually i have had a nasty chest cold/virus all wk and have not really felt well so please forgive the delay.. the meeting with ewart chitty took place in the virgin islands circa 1980/1981.
i believe he was on an expenses paid trip to the islands,nothing official,and the local cong.persuaded him to give a talk.the brother who introduced him made a big play of having a member of the governing body visiting us but before starting his talk chitty stated that he had recently stepped down as a member of the gb.. he then proceeded to give a run-of-the-mill unremarkale discourse.the next day he spent in field service with us and came to my house for lunch.at lunch he made a statement that left me thunderstruck at the time.. he said,"i don't get to anything like five meetings a week.i havn't for years.
" i remember it with crystal clarity - i can assure everyone that is an exact quote.i remember thinking that if any member of the congregation had said that he/she would have been in line for some serious counseling.yet here was a recent member of the gb saying that he didn't get to all the meetings.he seemed amazed when i told him that i actually made it ok to all of them.. that afternoon i worked with him in field service and was struck by something that seemed to hit me whenever i worked with a so called "bigwig" whether co,do or gb.
Decimus,
Thanks for relaying the experience! I'll be looking forward to hearing about meeting Ray Franz. Also thought it was very interesting that the former GB member didnt make all 5 meetings a week!
Ugh, I still remember hearing those talks about how, if we miss even one meeting, we might not be supporting a spiritually weak person. I remember thinking, 'gawd, now I'm responsible for everyone else's spirituality too?!?!'
Good post! Hope you feel better soon!
what you need to know about, "jehovah's witnesses.
1. jehovah's witnesses don't think just the bible is enough:.
the watchtower, 5/1/57, pg.
dung, that paragraph is so true...so true.
what you need to know about, "jehovah's witnesses.
1. jehovah's witnesses don't think just the bible is enough:.
the watchtower, 5/1/57, pg.
Hi Grunt,
Very interesting.. thanks for posting it. Its a good source of info that I can save and bring some points up to my jw family.
Thanks!
