Etymologically, it is simply a negative prefix "a" + "postate" (like the word amoral) meaning to stand away. Stand away from (truth) is an added connotation. Away from what? Anything under the sun!
Posts by venus
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32Apostate - what does the word mean to you?
by Tallon inover a period of time i got to thinking - what does the word 'apostate' mean to me.
having given it some thought, this is my view;.
the org has given the word its own definition and basically use it to demonise people and consider them pariahs.. however, the jw meaning of 'apostate' is a mere word and only has power if recognised as such.
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15
Independent reading of Bible results in better understanding
by Ireneus inin guided reading, you tend to get the understanding of the guide.
what if guide is blind?
religious leaders who understand ‘one innocent man should be killed to atone the sins of others are in bondage to darkness, hence there is nothing good to be expected from them.
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venus
I like your understanding on the question: “What does this have to do with me?” Something to be thought about!
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Water on Mars (Possibly life)
by pleaseresearch inthis has been an interesting story in the news recently.. just thinking, if in a few years time they drill down and discover water on mars and also some form of life.
does that for you destroy the bible in anyway?.
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venus
Just because water is found in Mars, it doesn’t mean it becomes favorable for variety of life forms as found on earth. Even when earth is favorable for variety of life forms, still “more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction)
Even if life may have been seeded there on Mars by some aliens (as documented in the film Expelled, Richard Dawkins, or as implied by panspermia proposed by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel) who will create provisions for sustaining those lives?
What Isaiah wrote still holds weight: "God Himself that formed the earth and made it .... He formed it to be inhabited" (Isaiah 45:18)"
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The Samuel Herd story may 8 wt mag
by waton ini talked to this simple man once in florida, where racial tension linger.
i can see why a sympathetic worker with a proven record as pioneer would end up in the top ranks, the hope being, that his effectiveness would rub off on the enterprise.
it shows that whoever runs wt does not count on the governing body to really run the enterprise.
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venus
waton,
This is equally true of women from Black Community. For example, Look at Condoleezza Rice who evaluated her own life: “I've been in enough positions to respect people with different views”—a very matured view JW GB is yet to cultivate.
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Christianity - God and the Scientists
by Brokeback Watchtower inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucz44kqphlo.
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venus
The narrator in the video laments in the end saying future of Christianity is bleak as the science progresses further and further.
But this may not be the case because it is true that Science can overthrow religions which misrepresent God, but cannot overthrow the belief in God because “science offers a surer path to God than does religion” (God and the New Physics, Paul Davis). If science analyses a flower chemically it may miss the more important point because looking at the same flower some scientists may be inspired by the contemplation of God’s beauty in Nature. It is deduction, a different faculty of understanding, from the intellect which often read between lines, as the etymology of the word intelligence suggests (from from Latin intellegēns, “discerning”, inter (“between”) + legō (“read”).
The mere data such as the composition of Periodic Table, DNA, Universe … havn’t any meaning for some whereas such knowledge generates some reaction in some scientists on a feeling level. That is because, unlike knowledge, understanding is born of the feeling awakened in us, a sense of awe, in response to mere data: “The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is good as dead.”—Albert Einstein.
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The Samuel Herd story may 8 wt mag
by waton ini talked to this simple man once in florida, where racial tension linger.
i can see why a sympathetic worker with a proven record as pioneer would end up in the top ranks, the hope being, that his effectiveness would rub off on the enterprise.
it shows that whoever runs wt does not count on the governing body to really run the enterprise.
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venus
waton
It has nothing to do with someone “with a proven record as pioneer ending up in the top ranks.” If this was really the case, there were many from the Black Community equally good from their very inception, and none of them were inducted into GB. GB was taken by surprise and utter shame when Kofi Atta Annan [from the Black Community] was elected as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1996. Obviously with much reluctance, after three years GB was forced to bring Samuel F. Herd (from the black community) in the year 1999.
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Jehovah`s Witnesses Do Not Have a Clergy Class.
by smiddy3 inno , they have the governing body { some would say the popes of the religion }.
and you do not under any circumstance go against what they say./ .
they also have branch overseers , district overseers .circuit overseers , and elders in a congregation .. they are all up and above the rank and file of the average ordinary jehovah`s witness and they are looked upon as such by the rank and file member as equivalent to a clergy class.. oh and lets not forget the legal department that has a lot to say in how the jehovah`s witness organization responds to allegations of child sexual abuse around the world.. and when an allegation arises about child sexual abuse the w.t.
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venus
In form, they are not clergy; but
in function they are clergy.
People can see something not in order when others are doing it. For example, JWs and Pentacostals accuse of Cathoics having Mother Mary as the Mediatrix, yet they have Elders offering prayers on behalf of their members.
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Christianity - God and the Scientists
by Brokeback Watchtower inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucz44kqphlo.
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venus
Myths are linked to history. For example, Poseidon was god of the sea, earthquakes, storms, and horses and is considered one of the most bad-tempered, moody and greedy Olympian gods. Now Russia has made a deadly weapon, named after this Greed God, Poseidon, that would “render NATO defenses "completely useless" as it is designed to create deadly tsunamis of radio active waves. Already this weapon is renamed as “the destroyer of the world.”
If the world is destroyed fully or in part by this weapon, new generation that would come on earth will re/create myths with god named Poseidon. Hence no one can be sure whether history precedes myths or myths precede history.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/20/europe/russia-new-weapons-videos-intl/index.html
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Explain why you are happy if you believe there is no afterlife vs when you joined JW's
by Bad_Wolf inone thing that has intrigued me are so many who have left, who are wholly convinced everything in existence is merely by chance now, also claim they wouldn't want to live forever, and perfectly fine if this is the only life.
now, i would understand that if you were raised into the religion.
i was raised into it.
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venus
Xanthippe
You put very beautifully when you wrote: “Religions don't have anything to do with our existence on this planet or anything that may be beyond. They're selling tickets for a gig they don't know the way to.”
Religions are collection of individuals, hence no better than an individual in perspective. Various teachings would emerge depending on what you believe.
For example, in some parts of the world, many believe that death is the end of man, hence pain, suffering and death are viewed very seriously.
In other parts of the world, many believe that life is eternal, species change only bodies; hence death and pain are a helpful mechanism so that people don’t become too egoistic.
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Irrationality of in important teaching
by Ireneus injesus used illustration to make things clear.
hence imagine yourself in a situation which reminds you of an important teaching:.
you are in a super market, and you are told: “someone has already paid for whatever you have purchased”[as churches teach through their ransom sacrifice].
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venus
I think it is the greatest miracle that world doesn't understand even a fraction of what Thomas Paine did!