19 and the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and babylon the great was remembered in the sight of god, to give her the cup of the wine of the anger of his wrath.
20 also, every island fled, and mountains were not found.
21 and a great hail with every stone about the weight of a talent descended out of heaven upon the men, and the men blasphemed god due to the plague of hail, because the plague of it was unusually great.. meaning: the nations are of the twelve tribes of israel in the middle east.
Wow... thanks Elijah... was that first bit a review of that Hidalgo film? You know the one with all the horses?
You truly are a modern day profit! You're "cut and pasting" for the good of mankind, on behalf of our saviour Jesus Christ.
Keep up the good work - reading your posts keeps me going, keep using the sword of the spirit to cut through their 'worldly' logic. I hope and pray that our lord's holy spirit deletes all the consonants from the heritics posts.
well friends things had bad going very well for my wife recently.
she had been looking a the wts critically for quite some time now.
we would have daily discussions on how so many things didnt make sense.
Hi Miss G
I'm kind of envious, it seems you have people climbing over themselves to help! It just goes to show the Internet can be a wonderful thing.
It was nice to see your last post, but it also worried me a little... I think (if I understood correctly) that you are not currently baptized, but are thinking of taking that step? In my experience, from within the organization, baptism is seen as a wonderful and all important step in your 'spiritual growth'. I expect that your mother is also encouraging this move to baptism, from her point of view as believer, such a move could potentially save your life. Her insistence is understandable.
It's important to remember being baptized as a JW means dedicating yourself to the organization as well as God. Once baptized if you choose to leave the organization voluntarily or are ever disfellowshipped (DFS), all ties will be severed. Your mother (and other Witness family and friends) will have to sever ties with you. My family is currently in this situation, I can't stress enough how heart-breaking it is. My sister is DFS, every week she drops her children around to see our mother (still a witness)... every week she gets upset because she never makes it past the garden gate. She gets even more upset because she can't help our mother as age and ill health catch up with her. It's truly terrible.
Going back a bit... I really feel for you at this time, it truly can be scary. It must be even more intense for you, as your decision is also your children's. With time I found that my fears, those that lurked in the back my mind, disagreed with my more rational thought. When ever I got scared, I desperately tried to rationalize what I was scared of... sometimes it worked, sometimes I'd lay awake for hours worrying. All that's changed now is it 'works' 99% of the time. :)
I hope you, your husband and children all enjoy the family holiday. I think the scariest thing on Halloween, is how much I enjoyed myself - especially dressing up as a grebly and scaring my nieces and nephews! There's much to see and do...
jw's never get dfed for being fat?
please don't take this offensively if you are overweight, i'm a little chubby myself.
i'm not judging.
So are you saying 'self harm' is socially acceptable, as long as those around are not affected? In my experience often a smoker is encouraged to quit or challenged, not because of second hand smoke, but a genuine concern for the persons health. If you knew someone who was a smoker, who always smoked outside, would that make their habit socially acceptable?
Going back to the silly example of the dinner table, even if someone got up to go outside for a 'puff'... it's still socially acceptable for someone to say "You know Johnny you should quit, you're not doing yourself any favors". Isn't that so?
In my original post I didn't have a "thin person" ordering "three pieces of cream cake"... but OK, lets think about that. If I were at the dinner table, and my "thin" friend ordered "three pieces of cream cake", IMHO it perhaps might be acceptable for me to say something like "blimey xxxx, are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?", or "Wow, a third piece? You're really going for it". In fact that kind of behavior happens a lot in my experience - I get a similar reaction from my friends every time we go to KFC. "Two fillet burgers and popcorn chicken?" they ask.. :-0
Again I must stress I'm not trying to be offensive or confrontational. I really was commenting on how our society, in the developed world, doesn't tackle obesity at a social level, the way perhaps other issues are. I understand that this is primarily because peoples feelings can be hurt greatly by this issue especially. Personally I feel the problem of obesity must eventually be tackled at a social level, weight and diet related complications are causing more and more deaths in the developed world year on year. Perhaps if the risks of extra "cream cake" were better understood things might start to change.
I feel it's more important to have all forms of social confrontation in the open rather than festing underneath our social graces, as that is how social stigmatization and descrimination arises.
Please, please don't not confuse, or even suggest I am confusing a fat person with an obese person... they are NOT necessarily the same. The dinner table is not the place to tackle socially someone who you consider 'massively overweight'.
Respectfully
PS. There's a very interesting article here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/your_weight/whatis_facts.shtml (Title quote "Obesity is increasing worldwide and is becoming the world's biggest health problem. Recent reports suggest that it may soon overtake cigarette smoking as a serious health risk")
well friends things had bad going very well for my wife recently.
she had been looking a the wts critically for quite some time now.
we would have daily discussions on how so many things didnt make sense.
Hi gringojj
Although I can't really understand what you are personally are going through, I do perhaps have some understanding of what it's like to grow up a JW and then leave.
Your wife has been indoctrinated from the point she was able to understand. She probably knows intellectually that the religion makes little sense...which is why she is having doubts. Unfortunately powerful indoctrination can override any and all intelligent thought at times. For a while, even once I left, the fact is, sometimes I got scared - scared Amegeddon was coming, scared I'd made the wrong choice, scared even of demons. Demons I tell you - a grown man scared of demons - I watched a horror film one evening and actually thought perhaps a demon was watching me and laughing at me because I'd left the religion! Intellectually of course, I knew it was all rubbish, but that matters little.
It's always important to ask searching questions, especially when encouraging a loved one to leave the religion - but sometimes it's important to understand and talk about their fears. Continously knocking away at someone's foundation in life forces them to sure up the defences, we must strive to change the foundation, not destroy it.
I really hope your wife can overcome her fears and that you find the strength in each other to face the world.
PS. Imagine you entered a race, the prize was a £100,000,000 (or everlasting life, whichever)...in fact you win the prize just for finishing the race...the only catch is no one has told you how many laps you need to do...but you're pretty sure it's only a couple more laps...in fact everyone racing with you has told you "not long now, just a couple more laps"...In fact you remember someone told you when you entered "there are some clues when the race is about to finish, heavy breathing, thirst and tiredness"...you're certainly feeling that! So there you are running along, wondering how to spend the cash, and from the side lines someone you trust shouts 'There is no prize, you're running for nothing!'... how many more laps would you do?
jw's never get dfed for being fat?
please don't take this offensively if you are overweight, i'm a little chubby myself.
i'm not judging.
I think Cygnus was heading us on the right path. Obesity perhaps could be just one symptom of gluttony. Gluttony is more to do with the idea of wasting food, for example you "ate all the pies" because... (a) Pies turn you on [Addiction] (b) You just like eating pies [Overindulgence] (c) You didn't want to give them to the starving homeless person sat outside BK [You're a tight a*se].
It's also more subjective that it first appears... perhaps someone in the developed world may eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper - plus the odd snack! That of course doesn't make you a glutton. If that person was picked up, placed in the middle of a starving country and didn't change their eating habits, perhaps you'd have grounds to call them a glutton.
Despite this, I kind of understand why these things seem a little odd and IMHO I think social change almost upon us - certainly in a bigger sense than the JW issue. To get things in perspective, the vast majority of obesity is caused by poor eating habits coupled with a lack of exercise, I don't mean to be provocative but, most overweight people could with the correct motivation and support achieve their ideal weight.
Why is obesity socially acceptable? Smoking at a dinner table is now about as socially acceptable as picking your nose. If you see an obese person ordering 'another cream cake' at the dinner table would you dare say a word???
PS. I do not mean to offend in anyway.
no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.
rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.
one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.
Sorry for being new, but I'm having trouble 'fixing' some of you guys down. Firstly I must say, I'm really enjoying reading the friendly banter on acient grammar, it's been a long time for me. Personally I gave up debating on such matters the moment I began to believe the bible was not in any way 'inspired of god'. It seemed ultimately fruitless to me to ponder such things if, as I believe, it's a collection of books written by men. With that view in mind, I felt I was debating what the writer's view of his God was, not a divine picture of God.
As I've recently joined the forum, I've been reading a lot of posts, names are becoming more familiar and I'm starting to understand peoples viewpoints. So my real question is, hands up if you believe the Bible is actually inspired and if so, how important an exact understanding of the bible line by line is in your belief system?
I know it's a cheeky request.. but I get frustrated when I can't formulate a clear picture in my mind of what's what!
Sorry for attempting a subject hijack. If you've not heard though, I'm a bit of a troll... and us trolls do this kind of thing.
Ug!
.
to elaborate...we are all at and have been at varying stages of the healing/recovery process...what stages have you experienced...how did you deal with it and what are your plans for the future now you are on this path.. db74
I suppose I've been officially "out" for over 10 years now, dub born and raised I'm afraid. I still remember when I left 'officially' and had to move into the world on my own, thinking 'piece of cake, no problem'. I was shocked, quite literally...
For years after leaving, quite randomly, odd thoughts about Armageddon, demons etc.. would just pop into my head. Such thoughts often accompanied with a sinking gut wrenching falling sensation, you know, a bit like when you write an email complaining about your boss, click send and notice your boss's name in the To: field. I found it really unsettling, having such a 'funny turn' about things you don't even believe in? One thing I especially remember was the 'Thursday Jitters', every now and again I'd get agitated and depressed just because it was 'meeting night', often without being fully conscious of why.
Five years after leaving, then living with my partner of the time, I awoke on one particular weekend morning to the sound of a fighter jet flying near by. My first thought? 'Armageddon'. Breaking out into a sweat, I remember for a brief second sitting in bed thinking, 'OMG what do I do now?'. It so startled my girl friend she started to freak out purely at my reaction. When explaining myself, we both had to laugh - she probably thought I was insane!
Don't be fooled, if you're leaving the religion or have left and you've been indoctrinated for any period of time... it can take a while to clear out the cupboards. I know it did in my case.
Of course, having these thoughts and feelings does not mean you believe, or even should believe, I think it's quite natural. Hopefully I'm not the only one this has happened to?!
PS. I still have one hang up, sometimes whilst half watching the news my thought process may go something like this... 'Hmm, that newscaster quite sexy... I wonder what I'll have for dinner... [Breaking News] Arghhhh, could this be the start of the big A? Oh, must remember to put the bin out.... Spag Bol I think....'
i read the most extraordinary claim the other day.
"the bible is factual.
" i wondered, how could the speaker possibly back up such a claim?
Hi all
Thanks for the warm welcome! jgnat to show off my generous nature, I'd like you to have this... 
... no really, you must, really it was nothing...
Shining One: I really like the idea of being a troll, it sounds fun. Does it mean I can dress up before I post like in DnD? Perhaps being a troll will give my posts that extra edge - you know like Strength + 6, although I fear I may have to suffer an Intelligence -20 penalty. I can see from your last post that you also enjoy being a troll. I'd like to just clarify some what you've said...
1) I draw from scripture, viz. "In the beginning..." Genesis 1.1 and "In the beginning the Word" John 1.1.So point one proves you first irrefutable fact - "God exists outside of this timeline since time itself is a part of creation.".
2) Similiar scripture that applies (without getting down to specifics).Then, the old 'similiar scripture' moves on to confirm undeniably "God resides in eternity and He sees all, past, present and future (to us)."
3) Attributes necessary for the concept of an Almighty God as described Biblically.
I think I'm keeping up with this... point three probably covers quite nicely the "At death the soul goes to the realm of that existence, therefore (from a eternal perspective) all souls return and reside in eternity".
I mean, now that you've explained your reasoning, it's clear I was wrong in ever questioning (in my Trollish fashion) the absolute clarity of your previous post. Oh, I think I've just had an Troll Epiphany + 2, I now fully understand how all this fits into place, wow it's amazing... oh, wait, erm, no... no... sorry... hang on... urm... - it's was just gas, in more ways than one.
M*A*S*H - Trollsville, Third Hut on the Right.
now if they were only giving them to my children, i would raise cain, because it is an obvious attempt to imply that they have to provide what i am not.
it is also an influence ploy, in that by giving them a gift, it obligates them to use the gift.. but they gave them to all the kids and everyone at the book study.
the sweet part was that i actually showed up.
Nice post mrsjones5...
I think everything would go much more smootly for JW's if we all were all a little more good...oh I mean stupid...damn, I mean naive, no I've done it again... I do of course mean 'simple'.
Feel free to take notes, but make sure you don't write anything original down. You don't really need to take notes anyway, I'll let you into a little secret - don't tell anyone - but as I recall the answers to the questions are always in the same WT paragraph somewhere (or of course the answer is 'Jesus' or 'Jehovah').
Question 1. Where would you find the answers to the questions in the Watchtower.
PS. Did anyone else spend their entire time at assemblies playing 'initials'... where you draw a grid of dots, then take it in turns (with your disinterested friend) to connect up the dots until you can make a 'box'... the most boxes wins? I know I did - I certainly don't know how old Moses was when he died, but I could rain down fiery boxes of death on your a*se if you want to go one on one :-)
i read the most extraordinary claim the other day.
"the bible is factual.
" i wondered, how could the speaker possibly back up such a claim?
Wow... I've just joined this discussion forum, there are some wonderfully thought provoking posts! It's taken me a while to get here but I think it was worth it.
Firstly I can't resist but enquire Shining One, how you can be so resolute in your last post?
God exists outside of this timeline since time itself is a part of creation. God resides in eternity and He sees all, past, present and future (to us). At death the soul goes to the realm of that existence, therefore (from a eternal perspective) all souls return and reside in eternity.
It seems others in their posts have taken great care, choosing their words carefully, backing up their ideas with sound well rounded reasoning. Can I ask, is this, your quote (which is written as a statement of fact) a conclusion you've drawn yourself? Is it something you've read somewhere? I can't understand how you can be so unequivocal?
But getting back to it, I know it's a long way down the line, but I do have a small (some may say pedantic) problem with the original premise of the thread. I would like to "agree a different definition of fact". The definition given in jgnat's original post (one of the most interesting posts I've read in ages BTW) was
To me, a fact1 is something that at least two people can independently verify by observation.
...surely this definition is... how to 'prove' a fact as truth, as of course it's perfectly possible to have mistaken facts once believed to be true. I hate to muddy the waters, but IMHO most belief, scientific or religious, must be a matter of faith.
To pick a silly example... FACT: The earth orbits the sun - well at least I believe or have faith in that fact - I've never flown into space to verify it, and I certainly don't understand the maths proving it as such. You might say well it's been independently verified by observation - hmm, well what does that mean exactly? Well from my point of view, it means... some people I've not met, experienced something in "their reality" verifying the said fact. I would also say that it can be even more subjective that this!
I think it was the Inca's that believed a sacrifice was required to ensure the sun would come up in the morning, fact. Why is that a fact? Well it's been independently verified by observation. I expect hundreds of Inca priests observed and thought. 'Yep... Killed another kid last night and sure enough the sun did come up, must remember to wash down the altar for tonight'.
So getting to the point, the original post asked 'trust in Faith or trust in Fact'... I suppose what I personally asked myself was 'Can I believe in something that can not be proven or disproven as truth?' As a snap judgement I said "No", but as you can see from my reasoning, I personally can't prove or disprove most of what I've put my faith in anyway!
What's interesting to me is, the fact I think that God doesn't exists, kind of make me a hypocrite
