Pressman, where was god when the great tsunami of 04' struck and killed a quarter million people. Where was he during the great China earthquake a few years back that flattened elementary schools and squished innocent children like bugs. Where was your Great God during the Touhoku earthquake that sent a tsunami to wipe out coastal towns as if they had never existedz? JWs died. Babies and children died horrifically. Where was your God Pressman? Your God, the only one in this universe WHO KNEW what was going to happen... Where was he you arrogant, condescending know-it-all? Where was the divine warning? I'm waiting for the answer and will no doubt be kept waiting to my grave when I die an old old man.
Bonsai
JoinedPosts by Bonsai
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56
Question for atheists and nonbelievers
by pressman ini profess to teach the truth to you all and get you to all to think and believe.
believing in christ through his words and not through evil religious cults, like hoj and jw, can and will save you.
do you all realize that every time you are victorious and receive something of value through your hard work and sweat, it was our holy god who blessed you.
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Conventions, Kingdom Halls, Relief Funds, and Other Financial Scams and Schemes of Jehovah’s Witnesses
by Watchtower-Free ina few seconds ago this hit the net todayhttp://jwvictims.org/conventions-kingdom-halls-relief-funds-and-other-financial-scams-and-schemes-of-jehovahs-witnesses/.
conventions, kingdom halls, relief funds, and other financial scams and schemes of jehovahs witnesses.
jehovahs witnesses often note that at their meetings (like church services), they dont pass a collection plate.
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Bonsai
Very informative article. My former congregation sold their Kingdom Hall because the building was getting too expensive to keep up repairs. They were planning to build a smaller building on a smaller property. Then the new donation arrangement went into effect. They had to turn over the several hundred thousand in their funds to head quarters. Now they will have to make a new loan, starting from scratch, (which will be paid indefinitely) by members who are already paying donations to the neighboring congregation that they are sharing with. The irony is the neighboring congregation was well along into paying off the loan that they had made to pay for their new hall built over a decade ago. Now their loan also starts from scratch and has to be paid indefinitely from here on out. So, where oh where, did the money built up by two congregations( over 500,000$) go? I still can't wrap my head around it. -
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Where did the Buzz go?
by snugglebunny ini recently came across the very first kingdom song i ever heard.
twickenham, 1955. i was just a kid then of course, but i do recall the "buzz" that seemed to permeate everything, not dis-similar to that of an international rugby match.
people were smiling while singing their hearts out, the lunch-time queues for the cafeteria full of old friends getting re-aquainted, young lads and lasses eyeing one another and blushing furiously, sessions 2 untl 4 then 7 until 9.30 giving folk plenty of time to socialise.. where did it all go wrong?.
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Bonsai
I remember when the quick builds were fun as well. It was exciting for the locals to be a part of it even if they didn't have any particularly useful skills. Now it's all regulated and business-like. -
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Is door to door activity over?
by badcompany injust curious about others experience.
i've been living just a few miles from a kingdom hall for 9 years.
i've been called on 0 times.
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Bonsai
Pulled into my driveway today and what do I see? 3 well-dressed witnesses looking at me! They were canvasing the neighborhood (yet again) and looked for an excuse to stop on by and see if I've grown a third eye or something. So hard to play nice. Sigh. -
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Being in a cult - what good did it do?
by Garrett inso, here's a bit of a different point of view.
while most of us will agree that our time within the jw cult was rather terrible, however, i'd like to look at another aspect.
did anything good come out of being in a cult and then waking up from it?.
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Bonsai
Village Idiot,
Thanks for the reply. I agree for the most part.
You could have acquired those skills and contacts without the negative effect of the Witnesses. I will admit, though, that the Ministry School does hone your public speaking skills and draws some introverts out.
True, there are many roads to learning, but as i was a born-in and indoctrinated from birth, I didn't have a choice. I simply used the avenue I had to gain those skills and am thankful to have gotten them.
Just trying to be positive.
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My first "disagreement" with standard JW thinking
by TTATT_Paladin inabout two years after i was baptized, i had this incident.
i looked at it as an isolated incident at the time, but now realize it would have had basically the same result with 99.99% of any jws not members here.. i will keep it short.
i was talking with a person who was raised in the religion.
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Bonsai
Half Banana,
You bring up an interesting topic for research. Where can I read more on Ashera and the pantheon as well as the connection between the Hebrew religion and the Canaanite religion? Thanks.
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45
Being in a cult - what good did it do?
by Garrett inso, here's a bit of a different point of view.
while most of us will agree that our time within the jw cult was rather terrible, however, i'd like to look at another aspect.
did anything good come out of being in a cult and then waking up from it?.
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Bonsai
I'm still not convinced that this religion is a cult. If it is, then most all other religions on this planet are cults one way or another. People run around screaming in gibberish (tongues),. People go around threatening that one might roast in an eternal hellfire. People claim that they have been Born Again! that all sounds just as cultish and looney to me. I feel no more victimized than if I were born into a Protestant or Catholic religion.
I feel that i was raised in a high control group that exposed me to many negative things and some positive things. I realize there are those with worse experiences than I, but speaking for myself, this religion helped me to learn a good set of morals( which I realize are just common sense), they exposed me to some of the good things written in the bible. Being a witness helped me to overcome the beginnings of substance abuse. I met many good people who taught me a lot of good principles in life. This religion helped me to make many contacts so I could travel to many countries with ease. It taught me how to be a good, persuasive public speaker. etc. etc. I lived. I learned.
I like the positivity of the O.P. because it is not a weakness but a strength to be able to take something good from the bad, or build something from that which is broken.Thanks for that Garrett.
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Is door to door activity over?
by badcompany injust curious about others experience.
i've been living just a few miles from a kingdom hall for 9 years.
i've been called on 0 times.
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Bonsai
The door-to-door work sure is alive and well where I am. They come around almost twice a month! It's getting pretty ridiculous at this point.At one point I ran into witnesses on four consecutive days last week. I've faded out for almost half a year now, but they still can't seem to take a hint. -
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Japanese torture of American prisoners in WW2 revealed
by fulltimestudent inthis is not a new story.
the japanese military in ww2 were barbaric in the way they treated captured servicemen.
i was about ten when my father's best friend came home from a japanese prison camp.
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Bonsai
WW2 was a horrible time for all nations. I have seen first hand the lingering scars of war in Japan.Yet, look how far Japan has come? Today they love the west and admire North Americans/Europeans/Australians etc.. In elementary schools there are many books students can access which show the gruesome realities of war (torched bodies and starving children)-they well know the sins of their great-grandparents and they openly bash the government of that time for deceiving its people and doing terrible things.
In Tokyo over one hundred thousand were killed from napalm bombs after Japan had all but been defeated.
They were nuked twice and still they forgive today and try to get along with their neighbors and the west. I wish the same could be said for China and the Koreas, although I feel like South Korea is on the right path.
Both sides have learned from WW2 and I feel there is hope for mankind. Hope for religion? Well,,, that is another thing.
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Why do we get TTATT and others don't?
by quest81 ini have thought about how ttatt came full circle for me.
how the connecting the dots was simple and just made sense,.
how silos of information are literally at our fingertips today.. why is it that the ones we love cannot get ttatt?.
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Bonsai
For me there was a time TTATT wouldn't faze me a bit. I was conditioned to cast aside TTATT as twisted teachings of demons to clusterflup your spiritual mind.
You could have told me pedo's were prevalent and getting away with abuse and I would have said wait on the Big J. You could have expressed your frustration that the overlapping generations teaching was unscriptural and illogical and I would simply say you gotta wait on the Big J. You could tell me that the Org. joined the U.N. as an NGO for a decade and I would have (with relish) said it's theocratic warfare.(keep your friends close and your enemies closer). You could tell me that there is absolutely nada archeological evidence to support 607 B.C.E and i would have said just wait, something will no doubt be uncovered to support it by archeologists any day now.
Up until a few months ago, I could easily provide an excuse/ answer to anything that challenged the org., simply because we are trained from the beginning to trigger defense mechanisms in our mind that stop us from thinking deeply and honestly about troubling information we receive. Without thinking, we use patented responses like:
You are an apostate! That is apostate material!
Take it up with God in prayer.
Wait on the Big J.
We are a perfect organization run by imperfect men so the light keeps getting brighter and brighter.
What are your motives for looking at that information?
(Without considering the info) Where did you get that information? etc.
What I didn't have a defense for was seeing the mental anguish, the sad faces of those who came to meetings month after month, year after year who were trying to get reinstated while being coldly shunned by everyone in the congregation. There has always been a constant stream over the past 12 years of df'd ones (in every cong i have been in) trying to come back. They sat in the back in assigned seats being treated like trash. One would finally be reinstated, but another would come along Then the next one would go through it, and the next...
Having never been df'd or publicly reproved myself, I could never relate to or rationalize Jesus' teachings of love. mercy and forgiveness with the treatment of those who were trying to get reinstated. Watching the anguish of these people year after year was like a thousand paper cuts that finally I couldn't bear anymore.
Emotion, not logic, is the core of faith. Yet, often times it is emotion rather than logic that when let loose it becomes the trigger that destroys our indoctrination.