BackseatDevil

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Posts by BackseatDevil

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  14

  RIP Alan Henning - murdered by IS.

  by quellycatface in

  1. social
  2. current

  shocking and sad news.. i cannot begin to express how i feel.

  it is the stuff of nightmares.. may his family have peace.. .

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  BackseatDevil

  Many people call hurricanes and floods "acts of God." They're not. You know what is an act of God? 9/11.

  ISIS.

  THIS.

  One friend on Facebook called these poeple "godless." They're not godless. This is the end result of devotion to the point of manic fear. And in that wake good people, a "decent, caring human being" as the Independent (UK) called him, gets butchered in a sick evolution of bullying and ego. Yet, it's such an old story... and although the names of the religions have changed, one solid fact still remains: Good people the world over, regardless of background, get OUTRAGED over other good people who get murdered for no other reason.

  I'm glad at the responses from this post. Yes, over the past 700 years the gods may have shifted, but human resiliency will march on, and this will not be forgotten.
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  75

  CO's visit ends with a bombshell!!!

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at the end of his final talk he said of the gb: they are telling the higher ups , "start getting ready we're not going to be around much longer!

  " and we expect the angels to release the four winds any day now!

  " my first thought was why are you building a corporate country club then?!

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  BackseatDevil

  The time of the end isn't all THAT urgent. My mother still hasn't called to apologize for being such a f**king lunitic, give shame of her ignorance, or offer sorrow for her destructiveness and complete alienation.

  She is not able to face her god with a clean conscience. So, I'm guessing the "higher ups" might be pressuring THE END, but the bottom feeders certainly show no signs of belief.
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  36

  But they are only 8 imperfect men!!!

  by notsurewheretogo in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm fed up of my still-in wife using this excuse that they can utter wrong beliefs and doctrines.. .

  the fact that there are imperfect humans involved in the organisation is very much irrelevant.. .

  we all accept, including jdubs, that these men are just men who may think and say wrong things like the rest of us as they go about their own lives.

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  BackseatDevil

  When it comes to eternal salvation from the almighty creater of the universe... why would it make sense to trust ANY men?
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  16

  Is this desperation or common? What have you seen?

  by Wasanelder Once in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a "sister" i know is in her late 80's.

  her friend was 90 and on her deathbed.

  (just a week ago.

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  BackseatDevil

  No religion on the planet could exist without the desperation of the feeble minded. That is, after all, the target audience no matter what the faith.

  It is impossible to make a call on this particular case as I don't know the type of people involved, but I will say that there is a cognitive displacement in the minds of those watching a loved one die. So much of this could just be the inability to let go and the refusal to accept the tragic outcome yet to be... a “grasping at straws” if you will.

  Furthermore, I was not aware that Jehovah's Witnesses allow Hospice in the first place. Hospice is the only legal means to make a person comfortable for death. In my own family, my mother took the matter of my father going into Hospice to the congregation in which the answer was that it was a “conscience” matter BUT to keep in mind that anyone that aids in the death of another would be considered a murderer in the eyes of god. So no Hospice.

  Also, every death we see causes us to fear for our own mortality. For someone in their late 80s, it's an inevitability, possibly within a decade. You know how time seems to speed up as we get older? Well, at 80-90, a decade is nothing.

  So there many reasons why someone who is older would cling to the delusions of a faith when face-to-face with the issue of mortality and death. Older people and the subject should be given a LOT of leeway regarding the subject, not only because of the conflicts I mentioned, but also because the earned that right to be bat-shit crazy if they want to. At that age, they mourn more deaths than celebrate births... So I honestly wouldn't just let them be.
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  33

  How Has Turning Athiest/ Agnostic Affected You?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many jws believed in god.

  now many here, do not believe in a deity.

  how has this affected you in your life?.

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  BackseatDevil

  Almost ALL of Jehovah's Witnesses do not physically or mentally act as if they believe in God. They will not take responsibility or accountability for any wrong that they do, and they can justify anything from theft to sins of omission as long as there is a sob story attached to it. They do not act as if there is a God who is looking at their human actions as if he were to judge character, compassion, love, honor, and integrity.

  They take this to the point where obeying an organization is more important than obeying god himself.

  So upon leaving and no longer believing in god, what is there that changes? What difference is it if you just admit the truth? Nothing actually changes except one thing: You are now accountable for your own actions. Good things are not “miracles from god” and bad things are not “attacks from satan.” That is pretty much the only change.

  Otherwise, good people are still good, moral people are still moral, mean people are still mean, and the cowardly will still be cowardly.
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  75

  CO's visit ends with a bombshell!!!

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at the end of his final talk he said of the gb: they are telling the higher ups , "start getting ready we're not going to be around much longer!

  " and we expect the angels to release the four winds any day now!

  " my first thought was why are you building a corporate country club then?!

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  BackseatDevil

  One would wonder why, with such urgency and lack of time, the Almighty would choose the lengthy and ineffective, human-to-human method of having the Governing Body instruct the teaching committee who coordinates with the writing department that gives the overseers information to tell the congregation, of which... only about half are expected to “get.”

  If time was of the essence, one would hope that God would simply just tell his followers directly. Either God doesn't trust his own faithful servants, or God likes convoluted hoops laden with the potential for human error.
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  22

  Did You Believe That You Were Going To Live Forever?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in either heaven or earth?.

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  BackseatDevil

  I can honestly say that after age 9 or 10, I totally made peace with not living forever... ever. At no time in my teenage years or adult life have I ever thought otherwise. And why would I? I grew into a person that refuses to take any aspect of life for granted.

  When you're a child knowing you're not going to play with the lions and eat fresh fruit from the trees... well, you learn to be appreciative of time.
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  27

  I Offer You This Choice

  by simon17 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  suppose the following choice were offered you, and you had to choose one or the other.

  which would you pick (and perhaps why):.

  1) you can continue living your life as it is, die when you might, and that's that.. 2) you can instead agree to die in 1 year in exchange for this: you will be granted access to the entire past and future history of intelligent life in the universe.

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  BackseatDevil

  Number 1.

  There is too much in Number 2 that I don't care about, then there is a question of what to DO with this information. Of the stuff that does interest me about the latter choice I have to say that I appreciate learning things according to my own person position on the evolutionary scale... So I that to add the cliche that it's about the journey, and not the destination...

  Spending every second of life on this journey appreciating it in that manner is what makes life fun... or at least my kind of fun.
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  81

  The King of the North is getting Angry...

  by rhodesboy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this topic is of a theological nature.

  if you have some scriptural insight, please share.

  grievances are not welcome!.

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  BackseatDevil

  @Band on the Run The John who wrote Revelation was not OF the Island of Patmos. That designation was given to him in later centuries. We do know that we was on Patmos at some point (Rev. 1:9). Chances were that he was a slave taken prisoner from the Jerusalem area and traveled through Asia Minor where, upon seeing Christians comfortable with the very Roman power which enslaved him, he wrote letters to the congregations in that area... and a REVELATION. He could have been on Patmos at the time of writing, or it could have been a slave stop-over. Most likely it wasn't an "exile" scenario outside being exiled from Jerusalem (not because of being a Christian). This is also noted in how Revelation is written in really terrible Greek... barely literate.

  The "Beast" of Revelation referred to Rome. And this was apparently common among the followers because in the Letter of Ignatius he also refers to Rome as "the beast." You are correct... he had no prophecy in Revelation... he was writing about what WAS... not about what will be.

  This all applies to Daniel as well. The book claims to be written in the 500s BCE, but it seems to be written around 187 BCE making it the last of the Old Testament documents to be written... and the writings projected PAST events AS IF it were prophesy. The reason why historians say it was written around 167 is because Daniel, in his four visions, gets everything correct in history... up until the year 164. What he foretold and what happened take a diversion.

  King of the North is Seleucid Empire and the King of the South would be some Ptolemy under one of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. His predictions about Ethiopia and Libya were completely wrong (Daniel 11:43), and where he alluded to the Maccabean Revolt, he fails to mention that in 164 BCE Judas Maccabeus re-took Jerusalem and was able to cleanse the temple. This was a MAJOR deal... so much so, the celebration of the temple reconsecration is what we now know today as Hanukkah.

  So to following either of these books as WORDS OF PROPHECY is purposefully taking a dive off a cliff into shallow water. The words didn't hold up in their own time, let alone for us 2000 years later... and they STILL cannot be read with any clarity. At what point do you look at someone who says, "No, wait! NOW I have the correct answer!! Trust in me!!" and believe them?

  At what point after two millenia do you just say "Look, there are only a finite number of words here in print. If you haven't figured it out by now, there's PROBABLY NOTHING TO FIGURE OUT."
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  34

  It's All About Tablets

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well, that seems to be the latest hot thing amoung witnesses.

  everybody buys a tablet.

  even the poor families that eat carb heavy meals are gettin' em.. maybe they can't afford the latest apple product like the maxi/mini pad or whatever they're calling it these days so a trip to ebay or overstock.com fills the bill.. use it instead of a songbook.

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  BackseatDevil

  Phonographs, placards, tracts, magazines, tablets...

  The method of mass-media isn't the issue when you have a century-long skid-mark in your underwear. LOL.