" Nope. I don't have kids so don't see the point of it. It's just another commercial holiday for retailers to make a heap of money imo. Like Christmas: having to spend money I don't have."
Julia Orwell
I agree.
SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
JoinedPosts by SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
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58
Anyone Celebrating Halloween this Year???
by cognac ini started yesterday.
took the kids (they were both princesses) and my nephew to 3 different events.
got tons of candy and the kids had a blast.. .
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Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
by SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker inthis site is not maintained.
click here for the new website of richard dawkins.
matthew parris: as an atheist, i truly believe africa needs godby times online .
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
"
This site is not maintained. Click here for the new website of Richard Dawkins.
Matthew Parris: As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
By TIMES ONLINE
Added: Wednesday, 07 January 2009 at 4:00 PMReposted from:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece
Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.
It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.
Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.
We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.
Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.
This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. âPrivatelyâ because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.
It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.
There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: âtheirsâ and therefore best for âthemâ; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.
I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the âbig manâ and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.
Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.
How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? âBecause it's there,â he said.
To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.
Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete." -
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Mother Forces 5 Year-Old Son To . . .
by Zandor incan anyone here, lay person or professional describe or give insights into the effects the following has on a child?.
when my friend, the middle child of 3 siblings, was five years old, his mother took him by the hand and led him to the house where his father was having an affair with another woman.
she opened the door to confront her husband who was actually in the act of having sex with the other woman, and deliberately exposed her young son to this drama.. .
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
The trauma of the husband cheating lowered or created a emotional-blunting episode, her mind was fried and used her son to attempt to humiliate her husband only creating abuse with her child. It's a text-book case of bringing your kid in while fighting with your husband or wife trying to get them to pick a side. The wife was messed up in her head, trying to guilt her man and tweak her kids brain for life, I think she had a mental breakdown.
Is the wife totally wicked for doing this or did her brain freak out and do you find her circumstances should be weighed before judging her as a child-abuser? It's abuse inflicted on her kid but is she 100 percent guilty of going mental?
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Ran into a witnessing table at the park today
by confusedandalone ini just got in from my daughters homecoming(she is a cheerleader and these guys make a huge deal out of this stuff).
they play 3 football games of various age groups.
it starts at 8 in the morning and just ended at 1:30. i just got in the house literally 5 minutes ago and i had to share.
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Kojack, I got Pioneer Hours posting on JWN and I resemble that remark :)
Lois, it's all about Angelic direction and making it look real! I am working on the next Assembly Demonstration" now. It's titled "When the World Ignore's God's Watchmen! or Watchwomen (in this case) a gentle demo of two sisters starring at their watch, playing with a i-Phone 5 updating their status on Facebook and posting a great hidden location to witness (really to avoid witnessing) to fellow Pioneers on a locked message-board or private Instagram site.
I can say from a Sales and Marketing approach their method is built to avoid making a sale out of fear they can't answer questions about the products they are selling. Will this product (Present New Light) expire next year, so how can you get excited by selling merchanise the manufacture keeps changing? The spoof numbers generated in the Field Ministry and the Watchtower's lack of guilt knowing half of those Field Service hours are fraudulent prove they have no fear of their fellow man or God and Jesus Christ! It's a numbers game used to impress their own lack-luster or dull-eyed followers. The Year-Book is a failed attempt of the Annual Company's 10-K Form, everything about the Watchtower is based off "The Peter Principle" instilling their sales-force with a "Murphey's Law" view of the World.
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A Different View of "Peace and Security"
by Bobcat insince the wt this week has the prediction of a "peace and security" event, i thought i would include a comment from the new american commentary (nac, d. michael martin, pp.159-60) on 1 thessalonians 5:2, 3.. here is the wt's position, according to this week's wt study (sep 2012 study edition, pp.3 4):.
1 th 5:2, 3 is a "future development.".
it happens "just before that day of jehovah.".
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Bobcat, did you compare 1 Thess 5:1-6 from "The Message" Bible?
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5 1-3 I don’t think, friends, that I need to deal with the question of when all this is going to happen. You know as well as I that the day of the Master’s coming can’t be posted on our calendars. He won’t call ahead and make an appointment any more than a burglar would. About the time everybody’s walking around complacently, congratulating each other—“We’ve sure got it made! Now we can take it easy!”—suddenly everything will fall apart. It’s going to come as suddenly and inescapably as birth pangs to a pregnant woman.
4-8 But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation."
It captures the sense of Jesus Christ's warning and Paul's attitude that true Christians will be ready and not in need of six or ten men staring at the sky for signs from Above! Real Christians are told they will stand-out from the lazy ones unwilling to examine the teachings their teachers promote. Why did Jesus say a follower is "twice as worthy for Gehenna than the teacher, JWs have lots of evidence their teachings are false and their New World Society is full of unloving and calloused ones towards other followers of Christ worldwide. I told you the story of the JWs saying "It's not a big deal about the killings of the Christians in the Middle East because we don't have many JWs in those lands", that was a huge eye opening moment for me! It's true because I witnessed this same speech and attitude over my entire life with JWs. The truth about their conduct in Concentration Camps is coming forward too, they are not as great as we were told they were. It's not hard to imagine JWs would ignore their fellow non-Bible Student prisoners because they don't follow their group. JW love is conditional, half-hearted and frequent changes to hatred for no apparent reasons because of the thin-skinned nature of the zealots. Paul's words ring true to Christians, not to a Cult. People don't change, since I was a child I heard about the "great love" and "willing to die for my brother" and my experience is JWs are not willing to live for their own people or be a beacon Jesus said his true followers are! JWs usually are a family on your block not known for their kindness or concern for their street, it's just a hotel until God wrecks the World and your not a follower of the Governing Body so Your Gonna Die!
Historically speaking, true Christians never put a time-table or posted on their Calender (Fall of 1874, 1890? Fall 1913, 1914, 1917, 1920, 1925, 1975, 2014, 2025, 2041.....) thinking they could know by using Egyptian pagan edifices when their Master would arrive. Pre-Diluvian times while society was breaking down with extreme wickedness mankind had never experienced, life continued as it always had from the Begining. It's the Watchtower's agenda twisting Scripture to instill a fear of what might come, to avoid living and focus on any World Events, (The Fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 would finally allow the Russians to join the United Nations and hunt down all the Churches using their library, or being part of the UN.) ,(The Great Tsunami of of 2004) and Fukashima, does their finger ever hurt from all that pointing or pseudo-alarmist scare tactics they promote?
The Message Bible is closer to Paul's words and makes more sense with Jesus's warning of describing when the End would come and how people would act like people, like people have always acted. Paul's words are not describing the United Nations yelling "We have Peace and Security!" do they?
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Disfellowshipped but still forced to pay maintenance or alimony
by Markw1509 incan i ask for your opinion?
i have been disfellowshipped and divorced for a few years.
my ex-wife and my daughter have cut off all contact from me.
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Yes, regular courts provide a semblance of justice compared to the Kangaroo Court you experienced by mindless drones. Justice is served by allowing your daughter financial support, we made that agreement once we had kids brother. You deserve rights to see your child, wish you the best in your uphill battle against these antichrists!
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How I recently handled JWs at my door
by Christian guy inthe jws stopped by my house a couple weeks ago on a saturday morning.
i knew that with others most likely waiting for them out in the car they probably did not then have much time to engage in any serious conversation.
so i let them talk while i feigned interest in what they had to say.
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
I can see the beauty of the simple message the Apostles preached about the Kingdom Of God and the concentrated focus on Jesus Christ. Remember, it was my use of Jesus Christ's name that put me under suspicion from the elders and overseers. I was told "You have a unhealthy interest in using his name, we are under Jehovah's Kingdom and his is now ruling as King." I asked "When did God the Father ever give up control of the Universe to anyone, that's news to me and his Word denies that."
You threw those false teachers tricked by Bethel's proganda into a tailspin, a sprout of truth about the lord Jesus Christ might grow if God is willing (1 Corth 3:4-6). I printed out your article to study, thank you for a beautiful story and preaching the truth about our Master Jesus Christ! May he bless you for your courage and strenght displayed weilding the "sword of the spirit", you brought a Katana to their spoon fight. JWs brag they can't ever get Christendom to stay focused on any questions they asking, using a proof-text with much twisting and wiggling, they enjoy putting people on the spot like you did to them. They enjoy telling everyone in the Kingdom Hall how they ruffed up people's personal beliefs and "sent them packing to their Minister for additional information the followers were unable to explain to these self-appointed experts of the Bible.
I wonder how they felt, did it feel good to be on the receiving side of a Bible based spiritual lambasting? Your knowledge of God's Word and use of Jesus Christ's name makes the Cults unhappy, I love you Christian friend!
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The bible condemns Christian religions that teach, Wait!
by Crazyguy inknow where in the bible will you find christian religions being condemned for teaching the trinity or hell fire doctrines, but you will find jesus condemning those that come as messiah's or christs (both mean anointed) and declaring 'the time is near'.
you will also find paul cursing anyone that preaches a gospel different then the apostles preached as well as cursing those that change or add to the bible.
oh darn jw's thats you, you fit the bill in all of these!!!!!!
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Acts 15 prove's a Governing Body existed because the Governing Body told me so. Seriously a student of the Bible without presuppositions is not going to believe a cause of evil (men coming from Jerusalem to all the Gentiles preaching obedience to the Law and error in Christ) spreading throughout the World is support for a centralized authority. Antioch sent brothers out to ask why men from "The Governing Body" Jerusalem were spreading a false gospel and attaching works and obedience to a group of men with double-standards or two-faced religious practices. Paul again is correcting the head of the Governing Body because of his erroneous practices and teachings, sound modern to you?
"Galatians 2:11-21
New International Version (NIV)
Paul Opposes Cephas
11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in [a] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” [b]
Footnotes:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+2%3A11-21&version=NIV
The pain and suffering caused by their fear of the Truth is easy to discern, our religion was developed by yearning to know the physical (Esau) and avoidance of the Spiritual (Jacob). United Nations, wavering blood and organ transplant, Superior Authorites and inability to stay fixed on one meaning of it. The flickering "new light", the ever-changing Generation Mystery, policing the martial bed, invasive abuses and putting chains on Christians person freedoms. Yes, the Governing Body are the "Peter-Class" of denying Jesus Christ and spreading false doctrines and hypocritically wavering between allegiances of the modern Jew-Class and Modern Gentile-Class being rebuked by the Paul Class (opposers to their false gospel) of Apostates.
Let’s figure this out together, we have Isaac (Israel and Spiritual) and Ishmael (Egypt or fleshly) and brother Russell thinks a great landmark of the ancient representation of fleshly qualities (Egypt) is going to be a key to predict when the great leader of Spiritual Israel would return, that makes no sense! It’s pagan or occult practices if you ask me!
"New Living Translation
It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king's anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.Hebrews 11:27 http://biblehub.com/hebrews/11-27.htm
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Can I count all the PDF books I spammed? I had 1.5 Billion cyber-placements this month!
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Confessing Sins to Elders for forgiveness, Can Elders Forgive Sins?
by SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker inif i have a addiction to cocaine, gay-porn and rock-and-roll, where does the bible indicate i need to confess my sins to the elders instead of confessing my sins here and have members pray for me?
whose brain-child was this idea?
i would rather confess my sins to you because the elders are not known for keeping their mouths shut.
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SanLuisObispoTruthSeeker
Lois, we had elders I thought were perfect turning out to be bad guys. I am willing to bet nobody has ever seen a elder run off with another elder and leave behind two crying women. The Kingdom Hall is presented to the pubic as "the safe place to be" or "a family stayed home from meeting and their kid was killed in the street by a man who escaped a mental facility, if they were obeying Jehovah their child would still be alive!"
The Kingdom Hall is said to be a "Paradise or Lagoon of safety for sea-tired ships and vessels", my experience was the Kingdom Hall made you feel you were never doing enough and if you thought you were doing enough, there is something evil or sinister brewing inside your arrogant mind! How dare we think we did enough for Jehovah, we can't ever pay him back for our sins but it's best to error on the side of "die trying to pay him back with Field Service hours and time spent on Organizational building projects or donated professional time. Did you ever feel like you measured up with our Organization?