i've been communicating back and forth with an old friend from my teen years, who is now an elder.
i used to be a jw when i knew him and he was not very spiritual so i was completely surprised at his current status.
(before i get questions on if i am "interested" in this elder, i just want to say that i'm happily married to a super-cool guy and have no intimate feelings for this elder whatsoever.
Monica,
May I suggest these?
Prv23:23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
Prv19:9 A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.
Prv1:22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
thinker
that is bad !!
dave, has jehovah's witnesses society proved itself by what it teaches, to love man and god and wife and child and to act for the betterment of all?
which one of these ways mentioned does the society use?
question:.
genesis says that on the first day god creates lightand divides the light from the dark.
then on day four he creates the sun, moon, and stars to divide the light from the dark.
Thank you all for some very interesting opinions.
The reason behind the question is this:
I know a few people who profess a "literal" interpretation of the Bible and yet when I present them with questions like the one I posted they start using phrases like "symbolic" and "figurative". It is at that point that I tend to lose interest in the discussion, because it seems to me that there are LOTS of bible-based religions and mostly they disagree over which verses are literal and which are symbolic. For example, there is a small group of christians who handle serpents and drink poison. They read a certain verse and say "literal"; while the majority of bible-based religions say "symbolic".
It seems clear to me that if you can label various parts of the Bible as literal and others as symbolic (with a sprinkling of creative interpretation) you can make it say most anything you want.
I find it very hypocritical that people like C.T. Russel, Joe Smith, Martin Luther and hundreds more used their own freedom of thought to interpret the Bible and then insist that others cannot do the same.
If I were to state that nearly 100% of the Bible is symbolic, I would be denounced by all bible-based religions and most bible-believing people. Yet this would be the same method used by almost all bible-believers to explain their "literal" views of the Bible!
In the end each individual decides for him/her self what is the true, correct answer. If it makes sense to you, you may join that religion. But if you are the one to decide, why not read it yourself; without the interfering opinions of arrogant men who think only they have the one true interpretation? Because, after all, it is your own conscience which decides the issue.
Thank you all again for the opinions. I can't really agree with any of them, but I do enjoy a good exchange of ideas.
thinker
question:.
genesis says that on the first day god creates lightand divides the light from the dark.
then on day four he creates the sun, moon, and stars to divide the light from the dark.
Question:
Genesis says that on the first day God creates lightand divides the light from the dark. Then on day four He creates the sun, moon, and stars to divide the light from the dark. So, on day one, two, and three where did the light come from? How was it divided?
All opinions welcome.
thinker
some of us were discussing the other day the 'advantages' and 'disadvantages' of disassociating from the witnesses as against being disfellowshipped (for apostasy).. it seems from reading various experiences that most departing borgites choose to send in a letter of disassociation.
for them it saves the 'hassle' of being harrassed by the modern-day philistines, the elder class.
it also saves, to some extent, the reputation of the exdub.
Some excellent insights! All along I thought it didn't really matter much, as both (DA & DF); would get you shunned (with a few exceptions as posted above). I hadn't really thought much about it from the WT's point of view.
I do have a question though. I've never BEEN a JW. Just married to a DA'd JW. I've been shunned by active JWs all along. So, what's my status ? If I'm not DF, DA, and never been active how do I break through the shunning ? Any legal advice AlanF ?
thinker
serious questions for every serious believer in jehovah (or god).. .
i hope they will be helpful to jehovah's witnesses on this board, as well as to all who believe in god.
i think i have phrased the questions fairly, without emotionalism, and have not distorted the meaning of the bible stories (comments?)..
the second article of discussion in this issue is titled: "moving ahead to final victory!".
the article starts to talk about christs enthronement as king and in paragraph one, along with an illustration of crowned jesus riding on a white horse, it states: "we today, have clear evidence that this foretold enthronement took place in 1914.. since watchtower article discussions are always a one way dialogue, where the society speaks and the rank and file just listens, it is easy to make assertions.
in a normal two way dialogue, when one says "i have clear evidence" for something, the other party will not just nod his head in agreement, but would rather demand to know and see what this clear evidence is and would want to proceed and examine it thoroughly.
Hi Defender,
Concerning the 1931 name change to "Jehovah's Witnesses":
1931 [New name of "Jehovah's Witnesses" adopted, to "distinguish" themselves from "dissenters" and "Christians"] {WT 1931 278-9} [How then could any reference to "Christ" have been dropped when the declaration had been made that "We always refuse to be called by any other name than that of our Head [Christ]. Christians continually claiming that there can be no division among those continually led by his Spirit and example as made known through his Word." {WR Mar 1883 458} ?]
By gradually replacing locally elected elders with his own appointees, he (Rutherford) managed to transform a loose collection of semi-autonomous democratically-run congregations into a tight-knit organizational machine run from his office. Some local congregations broke away, forming such Russellite splinter groups as the Chicago Bible Students, the Dawn Bible Students, and the Laymen's Home Missionary Movement, all of which continue to this day. But most Bible Students remained under his control, and Rutherford renamed them "Jehovah's Witnesses" in 1931, to distinguish them from these other groups.
i wanted to give an update to all those who kindly offered suggestions on how to deal with my jw son's ultimatum' "go tell the elders, or i will".. these last few days have been an intense crash course in life for me.
having experienced my firstborn son, whom i gave birth to, wiped his behind, dried his tears, and helped to grow to adulthood with loving support, threaten to turn me over to the "authorities" (elders) for wrong thinking and wrong speech, has been a deeply disturbing experience.
learning the truth about the "truth" was shocking, but this is just a crying tragedy.. after he found a short email from a board friend, which inadvertantly got into our regular email box instead of my private one, i was given a week to go to the elders.
before i startm let mejust apologizein advance ifmy spacekey doesnt work properly!
!damn keyboard!
anyways, i have been lookingthru theposts here for several weeks, i findmany of theopinions well thought out.
Hello Golde,
I think you're the most unusual "active" I've ever heard of. Concerning those "dynamic changes that have happened in the org."
Thought you might like to see more about it:
http://quotes.jehovahswitnesses.com/
After seeing this site, it would be very hard for me to take the GB seriously. (I've never been a JW).
Take care
Thinker
obviously a lot of you are no longer jws, for whatever reason, but surely you can find something better to do with your time.
you seem to spend a lot of your spare time slating the society or picking holes in your former beliefs.. if you've left and think what jws believe is a load of rubbish, thtat fine, you cn do what you want, but why you have to go on about it?
if being a jw means so little to you, why not just leave it behind and get on with your life?
tedcobb,
I've never been a JW, so I don't have a grudge against them for anything. I came here for more information on this truly bizarre religion. Along the way I met some very nice people who were treated very badly. I now consider quite a few as "friends".
That's the reason I keep coming back. Hope you'll make friends here too.