OLI - You're probably right. I guess the rules are a bit of a double-edged sword. In my case, I was always ashamed of being a JW on some level because I knew sort of instinctively that it was wrong but couldn't find the hard justification in order to take action (largely due to the information control and phobia indoctrination) so my strategy in situations like this where the rules came up was always to avoid participating but do so in a way that was inconspicuous. If someone clincked their glasses, I was busy with something and awkwardly fumbled until I'd missed the moment. If someone was having a birthday, I would say I was on a diet and didn't want to eat cake. But you're right, the absurd rules definitely give the zealots in the cult more opportunity to segue into a sales pitch.
Toasting is Pagan - How many contradictions can fit in 2 pages, I found 5?
by jwfacts 41 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Freeandclear
It's a cult. Modern day Pharisees..... -
Barrold Bonds
slimboy: There's a WT from 2002? That has an article on birthdays and an article on wedding rings. It raises a set of objections and reasons why birthdays are wrong.
The article on wedding rings basically mentions the same issues but waves them off because all that pagan stuff was a long long time ago.
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Fencing
It occurred to me that this was a compromise to the fast growing numbers of studies and converts from cultures where the Piñata is an entrenched tradition.....
That's exactly what it was. When that article was released, Mexico and other parts of Central America were still the "crown jewel" of JW growth. Not to mention the rapidly growing Spanish circuit within the US. They were doing everything possible to not discourage that growth, and I'm convinced magically deciding pinatas were okay was a big part of that.
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mrquik
That's the difference between opinion & principle. A principle is supposed to be applied unilaterally & consistently. Anything else is an opinion. Of men. Which makes my opinion as good as the next guy's. So I'm raising my glass of Johnny Walker Red & soda as we speak, toasting my good fortune to be out of a cult....... -
Beth Sarim
The discourage toasting so much, just to make the JW's different from everyone else, unique, different, ''no part of the world''. Control, it's all about control. -
steve2
Apparently, if the brothers and sisters catch you toasting, you will be marked for certain destruction by Jehovah at the coming day of His wrath. It is that serious. -
Nathan Natas
OK, so toasting is WRONG.
Is a GRILLED CHEESE sandwich pagan too?
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pile2222
The same thing with ankle bracelets! My sister said that she was told that sisters should not wear ankle bracelets because in Biblical times only prostitutes wore ankle bracelets, with bells on them. So when I wore one (without the bells of course) to the meeting on a summer day one time my mom and my sister gave me the stare and said that I could have taken it off for the meeting at least. I didn't take it off but they did make me feel uncomfortable just with their way of saying it and their look. Also before the 1920's only prostitutes and stage people at theatres wore lipstick and make up, does that mean because back then it was a bad thing sisters now can't wear lipstick or make up either??? What stupid reasoning! -
Half banana
Any Christian religion which decries paganism is in ignorance or denial.
At least Pope Leo 10th had the audacity and honesty to mention with smug satisfaction to his colleagues at a famous dinner, "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us."
The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses are still struggling to match their worldly glory.
Christianity is simply paganism which had been officially sanitized by the Roman Catholic Church... the cult from which all other forms of Jesus-Christianity including JWs have descended. These pagan beliefs includes its key player Jesus who is nothing more than a literary incarnation of earlier dying-and-rising solar gods focusing on Spring sacrifice and the annual re-birth of the sun . The themes of the Bible from the beginning of Genesis to end of Revelation are thoroughly pagan.
Nothing is really sacred!
Jehovah's witnesses imagine that by avoiding a few cultural gestures, birthdays and toasting, they are pleasing God... it is trifling and silly... and shows facets of their mind bending demands for total obedience from a controlling cult leadership.
The idea of God itself is a pre-eminent pagan concept. The primitive folk explanation for the reason for the world's being is that a god made it and us.
As for pinatas they too seem to belong to the pagan world and so the GB are indeed hypocrites but we all knew that anyway. A little research on the net shows it was possibly connected to a spring ritual originating in China. So keep the Hispanic brothers on board and putting cash into the Watchtower coffers.
Perhaps we are going to see a number of changes in favour of religious tolerance from the JWorg, where to do so brings in more of the moolah?