For now, then, maybe reading these may help a little..
(Should work in the reverse)
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/207626/1/Best-way-to-step-down-from-being-a-servant#.VALX0V2t-o8
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(You can always refuse.)
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/147839/1/Have-You-Ever-Rejected-Being-Appointed-an-Elder-MS-Before-the-Announcement#.VALWF12t-o8
....
(This is just a great thread)
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/experiences/225279/2/I-worked-hard-as-a-Ministerial-Servant-and-all-I-got-was-this-lousy-drinking-problem#.VALQOl2t-o8
defender of truth
JoinedPosts by defender of truth
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32
Please help....in a dilemma..
by crazyhorse inplease help with this: when i was in college, there was a lot of talk about university and how all who pursue that are wasting their time and all that.
even before going to uni, there was a lot of pressurr on me concerning my decision.
during that time, two elders sat with me for appointment as ms and asked me if i have freedom of speech in the org since i'm going to uni and i said no.
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defender of truth
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77
Give me a reason not to go back
by chukky 594 inbeen out now for 10 yrs but life is a mess.
starting to think its because i have no spiritual compass.
why shouldn't i consider going back?.
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defender of truth
chukky 594, it would be really nice to hear from you, just to let us know how you are going on and if you have read any of this..
Of course, your final decision is none of our business, but any feedback would be great. If we didn't care, we wouldn't post :) -
2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
Theology searching for an answer to this problem solves nothing, and really means nothing, if the God of Christian theism does not exist. Searching for a loving God that exists but allows things like the Tsunami disaster to happen reminds me of this quote:
"I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian. The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat — which wasn’t there. “That may be,” said the philosopher: “but a theologian would have found it.”
– Julian Huxley
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
Ruby said: "Indeed social science tells us that some connections produce bad things in some parts of the world whereas those same connections produce good things in another part of the world and this is what makes life unfair and fragile."
Why does a God of love and justice allow life to be unfair? -
2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
Ruby said: "Something along the lines of a truth process would establish why the asian tsunami caused such huge loss of life in that area under those social conditions"
... Something along the lines of God stopping the Tsunami, would have established that he loved the people who were killed by it, and that he loved their families.
Mark 4:35
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples,“Let us go over to the other side.”
36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
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Ruby said: "Another aspect of Theism in action would be to ask the people who lost family and property how they feel now. Do they still see themselves as victims? Which organisations or what thinking helped them to heal?"
Have you ever lost someone in death that you couldn't ever replace? Some wounds never heal.
You sound like a philosopher with no experience of what they are talking about. -
2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
Psacramento said the following:
"A god of love can still choose HOW and WHEN to express that love and it may be in a way that we find horrific based on our understanding."
"As some hard-line fundamentalist would say, 'No one is innocent, so no one is above suffering'.
We may not like the argument, but it is a valid one."
"I openly admited I do NOT have an answer for this question that would satisfy an unbeliever and presented one that I personally have a hard time refuting myself and believe MAY hold part of the answer.
All I know is that God does allow suffering and I do NOT know why."
"It may seem to you to be morally repugnant to allow the death of 250K people and I agree 100%, even the death of ONE person is one too many if it can be avoided, BUT that doesn't have any bearing on whether there IS a reason for it happening.
We may not like the reason or agree with it, but it is still a reason."
"If it doesn't then suffering has no point, if there is a purpose (such as to develop compassion) then it (suffering) has a purpose."
@Psacramento- So.. even with all of your theological training, after spending time putting together the main points that you've made regarding the topic, from your posts on this thread;
the best that you can offer in defense of the Christian God, in a discussion of the important and life-altering (life ending for many victims) issue of why God allowed the tsunami to kill those people and berieve countless others, is basically:
"All these death must have benefited someone, although I don't know how they did.
This is an argument that even I don't feel comfortable with or find entirely satisfying. I may or may not agree with it morally depending on whether or not it was necessary, which I do not know.
All suffering may or may not have a purpose, but my point is that we should understand that it could have a purpose, although nobody knows what it is yet."
Without your even providing a specific example, this is comparable to defending illogical nonsense like the Trinity doctrine merely by saying:
'Well, God COULD BE (from a human point of view) entirely illogical, contradictory and incomprehensible, or He may not be, but you must admit that it is possible that such a God exists, although I am not entirely convinced that he does, I just have a hard time refuting it as being a possibility. Just because the Trinity's existence is wholly unverifiable; along with being contradictory, illogical and nonsensical, doesn't mean that there is not a valid and believable explanation of it that we are yet unaware of.'
... After all, nobody can PROVE that all suffering from natural disasters has no hypothetical greater purpose to make us 'better' people;
except, that is, by looking at the available evidence, such as stories from events like the Tsunami (if you have even read or seen the accounts of what some families have been through), or by using our own human logic. Logically, for instance, the people killed in the Tsunami are not now 'more compassionate' people..
And if the people who lost loved ones are supposed to have been purposefully allowed to go through that horrible experience, then their loved ones were seemingly nothing but cannon fodder, expendible pawns that were better able to serve a greater purpose once they were dead.
Therefore, your statements seem essentially meaningless, unless I've missed something.
To summarise:
Your hypothetical God, (who IS love, but at times can choose not to show love, according to you)
that you defend with a hypothetical argument about all suffering having a purpose, hasn't told us, even if he existed, what the hypothetical purpose for allowing suffering is...
(maybe because he doesn't exist, therefore there is no purpose? No, that's too simple.) -
77
Give me a reason not to go back
by chukky 594 inbeen out now for 10 yrs but life is a mess.
starting to think its because i have no spiritual compass.
why shouldn't i consider going back?.
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defender of truth
a Watcher isn't being sarcastic, he is a believing JW.
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And as for slimboyfat..
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/265690/1/Goodbye-JWD-JWN-my-last-post#.VAEK5l2t-o8 -
2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
"But she has lost her joy and sense of purpose."
humbled- I'm sure that mostly everyone reading this thread feels deeply for her, and having lost someone myself recently in a sudden and shocking way, I hope you can give her my condolences, if that means anything from a complete stranger..
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According to the best defense that Psacramento has offered on behalf of fundamentalists, such an event as the accident involving your friend's son had a purpose.
It seems odd to me that (even assuming the accident did have a purpose, which I find repulsive personally) this so-called loving God has not told her what that purpose is, or that all kinds of suffering has a purpose, or even let her know that her son is safe and well in some kind of afterlife.
Yet the Christian God IS love?... -
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NEWS UPDATE: Stats from Bethel
by Da.Furious ini received some statistics from a friend in bethel in brooklyn.. here are the numbers:.
jw.org:840 million visits1 billion publication files downloaded150 million videos watched/downloadedwebsite available now in 540 languagespublication available in 700 language for downloadover 100,000 online bible study requests availablenew caleb/sofia video will be available from 1 september (topic: caleb & sofia's visit to bethel) .
pioneers: 167,000 vs 2010 no of pioneers: 132,000 - increase of 6.1%p.a.
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2596
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty inyesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
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defender of truth
Ruby- Are you suggesting that God did not know how to make the earth capable of supporting life without natural disasters? Or that God can't work out how to undo his work now, and is powerless to prevent these disasters from happening?
Please be specific in saying how this relates to the topic.