most of you will remember the story that came out at the beginning of august (this year) dealing with anthony burton, who barged into a jw service, and robbed the congregation at samurai sword point.
well, he received 5 years, a fitting halloween sentence.
see "5 years for church heist.
Most of you will remember the story that came out at the beginning of August (this year) dealing with Anthony Burton, who barged into a JW service, and robbed the congregation at samurai sword point.
Even though what this guy did was wrong, the image I have in my head of him barging into a kingdom hall with a katana is just to cool not to chuckle at.
one thing for now that i'm afraid to talk about is who i really am on this forum.there are various reasons for this fear and i suppose that it means that the wt.society still has some control over me.. i really want to open up and reveal my real name and address and picture and family and history etc.and connect with others who may know me and are on this forum.
one day i will,but now is not that day.. is there anything that you are afraid to talk about?.
blueblades
I'm pretty quesy about putting up to much personal info as well, I'm still active in my congregation and I don't want to leave just yet. Atlhough my old friends are going to disagree with me no matter how I explain it to them, I still value their approval to an extent. Ah well, such is life...
as i was accessing my files on strike9 i noticed what i thought was a watchtower cover in the random files window.. i checked it out and found it was a user called 'gita' the files have public access so i don't think i'm breaking any laws by posting this.. i thought it was pretty funny and worth sharing (if you're watching, gita, forgive me!).
i seem to remember another site that does this sort of spoof cover.
can anyone tell me the address please?
LOL, these are funny!
since mere words do not suffice and personal experience is just that.and since the act of knowing,reaching and touching god defies all words,and one has never had that personal experience,what then?.
do life and death questions remain unanswered and answered if you believe in a belief system based on the written word of others and then your own leaf of faith?.
since there have been centuries of change in the social,political,language,geographical and religious fields and schools of thought,the current bible is incomplete,many books have been deleted from it in order to preserve the church's power.the most glaring purge was at the ecumenical council of 325ce.. there isn't much left to answer the question except death itself.we buried my brother yesterday and i wonder if he finally has his answer.. blueblades
I actually believe more strongly in God now then I did when I was brainwashed by the WTS. I someone was ask me to explain why I believe he exists, and offer proof, I would have a hard time putting my answers into words. Its more of a deep feeling know rather than a intelluctual beleif, I just KNOW. I feel closer to Him every time meditate or take the time to become more aware of my surroudings. To me, God is no longer some sort of anthromorphic lawgiver with super megaton apostate killing lightning bolts floating around in heaven somewhere. Rather, he (or 'it') is the universe and that which transcends it, the eternal Spirit that is eternally evolving and expressing itself through myraid forms, with love as the bond that holds it all together. This love manifests itself in enlightened men, and in people we meet every day. Like most dubs, I used to utterly despise the concept of evolution, but I don't anymore. We might have evolved from pond scum, but so what? Even pond scum is part of the Oneness.
By the way, if anyone wants to check out some of the scriptures destroyed by the early chruch, you can read them here:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlalpha.html
The Gospel of Phillip and the Gospel of Truth are especially good.
i went to a party last night.
as i stood there enjoying the gratifying numbness of a bourban, i couldn't help but feel a vast disconnect between myself and the scene at hand: ridiculously loud music with the bass at three times it's normal level, sweaty bodies smoking with abandon the filthy weeds between their fingers, people coming in the door shouting a barbaric "what up!
" someone's on the porch getting sick.
Whenever I used to go to a witness gathering or wedding, I would always just sort of hang out in the background, occasionally talking to someone but never really joining in. Generally I just sort of felt disconnected from everyone, like I didn't belong. Of course, part of that is probably just my personality...
.
of leaving the organisation?.
did it help?
I went to a psychologist for a while, though it was mainly because my mother thought I needed to learn how to be less introverted. The thing is though, I think part of the reason for my being introverted was due to growing up as a witness. My psychologist seemed to think I was fairly normal, if a bit shy, up until one point that is.
I got baptised out of a sincere desire to serve God and commit myself to a spiritual path, but the exclusivist theology of watchtower began to frustrate me more and more over the years. Eventually, I got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore and just sort of blew up to my psychologist (I wasn't yelling mind you). I spent almost a whole hour telling him about how life is totally meaningless, either a vengeful god is going kill us all because we once saw harry potter, we're an illusion, or our lives are a tragic accident of athiestic chance and we're nothing more than highly evolved pond scum. The poor guy seemed a tad schocked, I had never vented quite like that before. He commented that he had never meet another person with the same worries as me.
Now, after I no longer believe the WTS owns God, I can say that I'm much happier.
were you considered a 'good mate'?.
did you feel like a piece of meat?.
guys/girls' opinions welcome.
Ya know its funny, I probably wasn't considered the most spiritual young brother in my hall since I didn't reach out for that many priveleges, but I got in less trouble than everyone.
i've been lurking on this site for the past two months and just now decided to post.
i was raised a witness, and got baptised only a couple years ago.
however, shortly after my baptism i started having doubts, and began to suffer from low self esteem.
Thanks everyone.
i think, it's time to stop asking questions of the Elders untill you know how you are going to exit the cult.
I tend to avoid the elders now. The only one I actually felt comfortable talking to stepped down over six months ago.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0146&query=whiston%20chapter%3d%232&layout=&loc=1.1
flavious josephus was a jewish historian, who lived around the times near when jesus was supposed to be alive.
(from 37 ce to circa 100 ce).
I don't know if this is true or not, but Moses might have kept his Egyptian name since it was in Egypt that he learned most of his spell-craft and esoteric knowledge. Egypt used to be to the ancient world what India is now to the industrialized western world. It was from both them and the Babylonians that the Jews recieved much of their religious inspiration, and then adapted it to their own culture.
The sudden change God makes between a diety of vengeance in the old testament and a diety of love the new testament was something I had always been questioning for quite some time. Its part of what made me become a Gnostic. The term "personality", as we understand it, is to limiting to apply to Absolute, it creates all sorts of nonsense.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0146&query=whiston%20chapter%3d%232&layout=&loc=1.1
flavious josephus was a jewish historian, who lived around the times near when jesus was supposed to be alive.
(from 37 ce to circa 100 ce).
Enishi, Being washed clean in the blood actually goes back to the ancient worship of childbirth. Before the patriarchal gods nature was like a god, procreation was divine. And there was a fear of women who could bleed and not die. Many men began rites of bleeding to immitate womens mentrual cycles which used to coinside with the lunar cycles.
Interesting, I had read somewhere that the ancients associated the process of procreation with the creation of the universe. It makes sense, considering that there are many symbolic representations of positive/negative, or active/passive forces in the first books of Genesis, like the the spirit of God moving over the waters and whatnot.
In ancient religions women and snakes represented wisdom. You can see why the bronze age god of war wouldn't like that, even in Egypt the god's wife was always in the house of Pharoah.
In Gnosticism, Sophia, or the female element of divine man represented wisdom.
Did all the supposed wars of Israel in the promised land take place during the bronze age? I had always wondered why God seemed more violent in the early books of Genesis, it almost seemed as if his personality changed along with the writers perception of him.
