two witnesses came to my door the other day and i politely told them that i was not interested.
they told me that it was ok and that what they were handing out was not anything religious.
i told them sorry and that i was still not interested.
I would have looked them in the eyes and said:
"Not religious eh? Well, if those magazines aren't religious then I'm not at home today. Now please go try to insult someone else's intelligence with your offer of non-religious magazines while I get back to not being at home."
does anyone know if it is mentioned in one of the old watchtowers about someone who made off with someones wife, both of whom were shot at the hall by the woman's husband?
someone told me this was in a watchtower, but i cannot find it..
I have heard of an incident like this happening in Barbados very recently - like less than 10 years ago.
humor plays a big part in a lot of humanity and we all like a good laugh but as far as i'm aware god's supposed word has no actual humor ,of course apart from being a joke itself ,why wasn't there a passage or something like "jesus farted and giggles broke out among them " or something, is anyone aware of any notations of humor ?
all to.serious really.
Here is a Bible verse filled with stinging irony and which proves that the Bible could not have been inspired by any wise god with the ability to foresee the future:
1 Timothy 6:1: "Let those who are under the yoke of slavery keep on considering their owners worthy of full honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may never be spoken of injuriously."
Ha ha ha! The writer thought that disobedient, disrespectful slaves would bring reproach on the religion but he was too short sighted and too primitive in his morality, to realize that his condoning of slavery would heaps mountains more reproach on the religion in the future. So his very exhortation meant to avoid bringing reproach on the religion - that very exhortation ends up heaping mountains of reproach on it! Ha ha ha!
l came to this conclusion based on the fact that humans are imperfect living in an imperfect world.the bible was written by imperfect human hands and is impossible to interpret with 100% accuracy.religion is man made to help control the masses..
I concur. To me the term "true religion" is a bit of an oxymoron - almost as much so as the expression "true lie". Religions are nothing more than organized systems of superstition. Religion is also like a dream - it seems to make perfect logical sense when you're in it but when you wake up from the dream and think back on it you say to yourself: 'WTF! that was so ridiculous! How could I not see how illogical and ridiculous that was while I was dreaming it?'
humor plays a big part in a lot of humanity and we all like a good laugh but as far as i'm aware god's supposed word has no actual humor ,of course apart from being a joke itself ,why wasn't there a passage or something like "jesus farted and giggles broke out among them " or something, is anyone aware of any notations of humor ?
all to.serious really.
There are actually passages in the Bible that speak negatively of joking and humor. I can't recall exactly where they are - maybe in Proverbs or Ecclesiastes - but the Bible does not approve of humor. That explains why there are no funny passages. All references to humor are portrayed in a negative light, associated with ridiculers and foolish men "in want of heart".
Jesus never cracked a joke. The closest the Bible comes to humor are passages that speak of God laughing at the demise of the wicked and Elijah ridiculing the prophets of Baal by suggesting to them that their god isn't answering them because he's busy in the toilet. There is no harmless, light-hearted humor purely as entertainment.
i was sitting at a local city event enjoying watching an activity.
a friendly looking woman dressed in blue jeans and a floppy hippy looking top came and sat down besides me.
she notices i am sketching and says she likes to do this too.
Call the number on the card she left you and tell her how you feel about what she did.
"I'm calling to let you know that after our meeting today I felt sort of used. First you pretended to be interested in something that I doubt now that you have any true interest in, to start a conversation. Dishonest. Soon as you got my contact info, you launched into your real reason for talking to me. Third, it distracted me from enjoying the event, and fourth, you made no effort at all in discussing any useful topic or conversing with me further. It was as shallow as it could get."
"Why Are You LookingForwardBackward to 1975?"
That would actually be a wonderful title for an ex-JW book about JWs! The title captures both the heightened, false expectations that their false prophecies bring; while at the same time highlighting the way they hypocritically dismiss their past failings as unimportant. It's a perfect book title!
i was wondering today what i would say if i ever were to be called to a judicial trial in the congregation, and my conclusion was that i didn't really have any biblical defense against it.
so i was wondering what you guys would recommend.
it seems far fetched to me that the bible condones a 1 vs 3 biased trial (where you already have been judged beforehand), instead of one where you have a unbiased judge, a defense and a prosecutor/accuser.
There is actually a scripture somewhere in one of the NT books that says to "reprove sinners in the presence of onlookers". What does that mean? Does it mean walking up to a stage and announcing "so and so has been reproved"? Is merely announcing that someone has been reproved, the same thing as reproving them in the presence of onlookers?
By way of illustration: If a Mob boss tells one of his henchmen: 'Shoot Lenny publicly', are the police also shooting Lenny publicly, when they later announce at a press conference: 'Lenny has been shot'?
It's pretty obvious that "reprove sinners in the presence of onlookers" means that gross sinners are not to be counseled and tried in secret but in the presence of others. This is what the passage in Matthew is alluding to when it says to take the sin to the congregation and if the sinner does not listen to the congregation then let him be regarded as a tax collector.
i was wondering today what i would say if i ever were to be called to a judicial trial in the congregation, and my conclusion was that i didn't really have any biblical defense against it.
so i was wondering what you guys would recommend.
it seems far fetched to me that the bible condones a 1 vs 3 biased trial (where you already have been judged beforehand), instead of one where you have a unbiased judge, a defense and a prosecutor/accuser.
There is no biblical support for a clandestine tribunal. In ancient Israel capital sinners were tried publicly at the gate. Watchtower has even said that the public nature of the proceedings served to dissuade unfairness on the part of the judges. So why are they intent on holding secret trials? What are they hiding? Aren't they interested in elders "trying" sinners fairly, in the presence of onlookers?
sometimes, comparing raw numbers provides a more clear-cut numerical picture of growth or otherwise than percentages.
below are the numbers for peak publishers (rounded off so that 4,1 represents more than 4,100,000) for each year throughout the 1990s and those for the last ten years.. year: peak* baptisms.
* peak publishers abbreviated - simply to show annual baptisms in relation to peak publishers.. the main point: .
I think it's the internet. The internet was very new in the 1990s and so it wasn't as widely available as today and there wasn't yet a whole lot of info online about JWs. But with the increasing availability of the internet, more and more damning info on JWs became available online so more potential bible studies are doing research on JWs and stopping their studies or refusing them altogether. The internet would be the death of them - and many other religions with equally questionable teachings and histories.
