Posts by Island Man

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

Island Man

"Doc- Jesus came to make his God and Father known (John 17), and the name "Jesus" means "Salvation of Jehovah". So you can't have one- no, you can't have one- no, you can't have one without the ooooooooo-thhhher!"

It's all well and good to say that but what is written in the NT makes it undeniably clear that early Christians focused heavily on witnessing about Jesus and, quite unlike JWs, show a complete lack of obsessive fixation on the use of the name YHWH or Jehovah. If a modern JW had written the NT you could be sure it would be totally void of most of the references to Jesus and would focus almost exclusively on Jehovah. A JW bible writer would never have written what 2 Peter 3:18 says! JWs consider it inappropriate to say such things of Jesus! This is a fact that you know and should be ashamed of!

JWs culture is a strange, deviant culture that is alien to first century Christian culture. First century Christians were not afraid to openly honor Jesus with their lips. JWs seem to shy away from honoring Jesus with their lips. They consider it to be idolatry. They scorn the idea of honoring Jesus. JWs are like the voice of strangers that Jesus warned about in John 10.

JWs scorn the scripturally given role of bearing witness to Jesus, which the NT sets forth for Christians, in preference for beggarly returning to OT culture. It's very telling that they completely ignore or play down the plethora of references in the NT to being witnesses of Jesus, to harp on one verse in Isaiah 43 that was a statement made to Jews under the old covenant. What did Jesus say about putting new wine into old wine skins?

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

Island Man

Not even the bible agrees with DocHouse's assertion that organizations tend to be more corrupt than individuals. The bible indicates the very opposite for it says that in the multitude of counselors (the plurality of minds as exists in an organization) there is wisdom and the one isolating himself (an individual acting on his own individual wisdom) will break forth against all practical wisdom. The bible also says that two heads are better than one. There is absolutely no wisdom to the idea that an organization is prone to making more mistakes than an individual. With the plurality of actors in an organization the shortcomings of one individual tends to be counterbalanced by the strengths of others. The plurality of heads means that issues are tackled by multiple brains as opposed to just one with the result that the correct solution is more likely to be arrived at and errors or bad decisions averted.

22

Seen smoking a cigarette

by Godsendconspirator in

i won't say i got "caught" because that would imply i was keeping my habit hidden.

i'm tired of constantly doing that with these guys.

yesterday, my friend and i were waiting for some people and decided to smoke a cigarette to pass the time.

Island Man

I just started a new thread on the subject of Watchtower's position on smoking, if anyone's interested:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/18390002/watchtowers-position-on-smoking-consistent-position-on-masturbation

19

Is Watchtower's position on smoking consistent with its position on masturbation?

by Island Man in

watchtower considers masturbation to be a form of uncleanness but not a disfellowshipping offence because the bible says nothing about masturbation.

a jw who masturbates is likely to face no more than losing privileges in the congregation.. like masturbation, smoking is considered by jws to be a form of uncleannes and like masturbation, the bible says nothing about it.

but a jw who smokes faces disfellowshipping.. yes, smoking is known to be deleterious to a person's health whereas the jury is still out on the adverse health effects of masturbation.

Island Man

Watchtower considers masturbation to be a form of uncleanness but not a disfellowshipping offence because the bible says nothing about masturbation. A JW who masturbates is likely to face no more than losing privileges in the congregation.

Like masturbation, smoking is considered by JWs to be a form of uncleannes and like masturbation, the bible says nothing about it. But a JW who smokes faces disfellowshipping.

Yes, smoking is known to be deleterious to a person's health whereas the jury is still out on the adverse health effects of masturbation. But if this issue of harm to ones health is the defining difference that causes smoking to be a disfellowshipping offence then what about many other practices that are known to pollute the body and to be deleterious to health; why aren't they also disfellowshipping offences?

For example, shouldn't JWs also be forbidden on pain of disfellowshipping, from eating certain foods that are known to contain carcinogens which pollute the body and increase the risk of cancer? Barbecue and many smoked and fried foods are known to be dangerous to one's health. What about certain occupations that necessarily expose one to certain toxic substances that pollute the body and can be deleterious to ones health just as much as smoking? How can it be OK for a JW to engage in these with no repercussions but smoking is not OK? Isn't that hypocritical?

Shouldn't Watchtower's position on smoking be the same as it's position on masturbation - spoken against as a form of uncleanness; removal of privileges if you practice it; but no DFing?

22

Seen smoking a cigarette

by Godsendconspirator in

i won't say i got "caught" because that would imply i was keeping my habit hidden.

i'm tired of constantly doing that with these guys.

yesterday, my friend and i were waiting for some people and decided to smoke a cigarette to pass the time.

Island Man

Is smoking 1 cig or less a day dangerous?
That's what I do.

It's less dangerous than being a chain smoker, but it's still more dangerous than being a non-smoker.

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

Island Man

truthseeker100, you had better know your place if you don't want me telling you how your Mother™ fornicated with the UN; and denied (in the country of Mexico) being married to her Husband™ for purely materialistic reasons.

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

Island Man

P.S. Don't go away mad just go away.

Am I seeing right? Did I just see a JW apologist come onto an "apostate"/ex-JW website and tell an apostate/awake JW to go away? What is this world coming to?

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

Island Man

DocHouse, did you say "Churchianity"? You don't sound like a JW. A JW would say "Christendom". You sound like a member of the Assemblies of Yahweh.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

Island Man

Simon, I take your point that revealing a person's country, on its own, is insufficient to identify someone, especially if it's a relatively large country with a "hay stack" number of JWs.

But if other details are known about a poster, then knowing their country could just become the last critical piece of the puzzle to identify them.

You must also keep in mind that this is especially true of some of us who live in very small countries where there are very few JWs thus making it not too difficult to identify an anonymous poster if their country is known.

I have no problem with a feature like a spinning globe with little points anonymously representing the location of each poster. That would give a nice feel of the international scope of the ex-JW community posting on here without individual poster identity of each point on the globe.

Your point about us being responsible by not giving out too much information is taken. But you must appreciate the fact that posters on here would have determined, in the past, just how much information they can share and how much is too much, within the context that their country of origin/location is anonymous. An awake JW may have determined in the past that revealing X, Y and Z about themselves is perfectly safe because no one knows what country they're in. Is it fair to come now and retroactively invalidate that poster's past assessment of the security of his anonymity by now revealing his nationality and thus putting his anonymity at risk when it was not at risk in the past?

30

Site issues: Jan 02 Update (Sign In)

by Simon in

i've deployed a fix for people affected by sign-in issues caused by having multiple accounts associated with the same email address.

here's how to activate the fix:.

you must attempt to sign in using the email address associated with your account (not a username) and must have access to that mailbox.. if there are multiple accounts associated with the email address then you will be shown a warning message with the option to have an email sent to repair your account.. the email will contain a link to a page showing all the accounts associated with the same email address and allow you to select the one you want to be active (it will disassociate all the other accounts from the email address).. once you have completed the process then you should be able to sign in as normal.

Island Man

I was having an issue where whenever I signed in using my email address I would have to keep signing in to the site again the next time I open my browser even though I checked the option to stay signed in.

Then when I signed in using my user name - Island Man - I noticed that I remain signed in when I reopen my browser. So I think the feature to keep you signed in works with user names but not email addresses. Either that or Simon fixed it at the same time that I signed in with my user name causing me to think that was the solution.