Posts by Rabbit

35

I hope I'm not the ONLY one...

by YoursChelbie in

jw
friends

is there anyone besides me who would like to get a group together for dinner, maybe at a local tgi fridays?.

there's some faces i would really like to meet again.. i don't think that here in the dallas/north texas area, we've had a gathering in a while.. so if you have any suggestions for a particular day?

we could see when it would be convenient for most people.

Rabbit

Wake up thread...! bttt :-)

36

Question for ALL ex JW's or those who don't believe everything - (the answers here may help you and your answers may help others)

by EndofMysteries in

please answer the question(s) which corresponds to your current belief, if you believe in a. the bible and god.

b. just god, but no bible c. neither (atheist).

i'm asking for mutual benefit, in my quest for the truth (still a work in progress), some of the things i've run into you may want to think about, and in your answers will show if anything i haven't thought of or checked into yet, as well as all readying this.... (all the hours you've spent, vs just my own, having many combined may bring up a few good things for us all from everyones answers ).

Rabbit

EndofMysteries:

"The scriptures say a lot about your conscious, anything done in a bad conscious is a sin. Anytime you do something you question or know may not be right, is a sin. Whether your believe or not, or know the truth or not. It doesn't take the bible or anybody telling you, that murder is wrong, rape is wrong, etc. Jesus also said not by searching the scriptures could they find life, because of the way they lived. If the true God is 'perfect' in justice, he would have things done in a way that's fair for all. What's to say that he is not PURPOSELY having the truth very hard to find and not really in public eye? Because he wants to see what choices and how some would live if they thought it didn't exist or can't be found. He's allowing ones to show their true selves. Those who think they have it, even if wrong, may be building up a record of judging when they were guilty of other things and no more deserving. (As a JW, most of us are probably guilty of that. )"

I don't discount that there may be some kind of 'creator' or 'spirit type galactic designer' -- hell, maybe lots of them! But, as an agnostic -- I-don't-know... However, the Bible god has earned No respect and therefore, No belief in my mind.

If you take just one or two of the most violent episodes of the god described therein, it should make you wonder about "his" mental state.

1. Adam & Eve...according to the Bible, stole a piece of fruit. For that little disobedience, they were run out of Paradise and punished in such a way that they would eventually die (fair enough-they were "His" pets). But, "He" obviously screwed-up their DNA, so they would pass on EVERY disease, ailment, deformity, mental illness, etc. that ALL of mankind suffers with...all the way down to us. ALL of these descendants of the true guilty parties are INNOCENT and being punished for "...the sins of the father (and mother).

Plainly, that is UNFAIR.

2. Noah's Fantastic Voyage: OK, if the Bible god made everything, it was "His" to destroy. He apparently enjoys being a bully. So, He kills all but 8 people, all the animals, insects, trees, grass, etc., that wouldn't fit on Noah's little Ark. And, what's the FIRST thing He does after seeing what He had done to His beautiful creations ??? He promises to "...NEVER call down EVIL upon the ground again..." Gen. 8:21. (Next time they'll burn). He's always in DESTRUCT mode. Earlier, He said, "He REGRETTED making man..." That's...an 'All Knowing', All Wise, Loving God...???

Plainly, that is not Justice or Love or Wisdom. If, a human were to act as the Bible god has -- we lock 'em up. We can't lock up a concept, tho'.

17

When does a Jehovah's Witness graduate?

by miseryloveselders in

jw
friends

i live in a city with a few major universities.

last thursday, i got off work, and as i hit the main avenue on my way home, i noticed people with their graduation robes and caps on.

i saw parents ecstatic that their children were now adults, and had accomplished something both they and their parents could be proud of.

Rabbit

miseryloveselders

"It hit me, that if I missed all the meetings for the next year, I could pick up where I left off of relatively quick. The WTS isn't producing spiritually mature Christians as much as they're programming robots, or zombies who can repeat whats been repetitiously ingrained in them several times a week for year after year.

There is no graduation from Mother."

Oh, yes there is... and you have! Look at it this way -- the Watchtower fools us (teaches) for a while, that seems to produce some of the most independent thinkers around . And...we BITE !

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. ~Abraham Lincoln

31

JW Woman dies refusing blood....

by iknowall558 in

jw
friends

wendy cloete louwwe lost a sister in our congregation today, had severe depression and tried to take her own life.

sad thing is if the doctors stopped being petty and insisting on bloody and just gave her alternative blood volumiser sooner she might have been fine.

it took the elders hours to get her transferred to a new hospital.

Rabbit

goddamn sad and tiresome, religion is...

Imagine...if aliens, smart ones, were watching us short-lives wasting what little time we have left as individuals. On the faith that the invisible, always absent 1,000's of gods & goddesses are real. And, so important that we should be willing to sacrifice our 60-80 years over whatever that particular god reqiuires.

My JW mom died refusing blood, too. Was it a sacrifice? A WT assisted suicide? Both?

I think the aleins (the smarter ones) would shake their head in sorrow at what we do in the name of religion and a lot of us humans (nowadays) are starting to do that, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

Levant

Further information: Binding of Isaac

References in the Bible point to an awareness of human sacrifice in the history of ancient near-eastern practice. During a battle with the Israelites the king of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering (olah, as used of the Temple sacrifice). [ 18 ] (2 Kings 3:27).

In Genesis 22 as well as the Qur'an, there is a story about Abraham's binding of Isaac, although in the Qur'an the name of the son is not mentioned and assumed to be Ismail. In the Bible's verion of the story, God tests Abraham by asking him to present his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. No reason is given within the text. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an angel stopping Abraham at the last minute and making Isaac's sacrifice unnecessary by providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. Many Bible scholars have suggested this story's origin was a remembrance of an era when human sacrifice was abolished in favor of animal sacrifice. [ 19 ] [ 20 ]

Another instance of human sacrifice mentioned in the Bible is the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter in Judges chapter 11. Jephthah vows to sacrifice to God whatsoever comes to greet him at the door when he returns home if he is victorious. The vow is stated in Judges 11:31 as "Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." When he returns from battle, his virgin daughter runs out to greet him. According to the commentators of the rabbinic Jewish tradition , Jepthah's daughter was not sacrificed, but was forbidden to marry and remained a spinster her entire life, fulfilling the vow that she would be devoted to the Lord. [ 21 ]

Judaism

Current religious thinking views the Akedah as central to the replacement of human sacrifice; while some Talmudic scholars assert the replacement was the sacrifice of animals at the Temple - using Exodus 13,2.12f; 22,28f; 34,19f; Numeri 3,1ff; 18,15; Deuteronomy 15,19 - others view that as superseded by the symbolic pars-pro-toto sacrifice of circumcision. Leviticus 20,2 and Deuteronomy 18,10 specifically outlaw the giving of children to Moloch, making it punishable by stoning; the Tanakh subsequently denounces human sacrifice as barbaric customs of Baal worshippers (e.g. Psalms 106,37ff).

Judges chapter 11 contains a story in which a Judge named Jephthah makes a vow to God to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of the door of his house in exchange for God's help with a military battle against the Ammonites. Much to his dismay, his only daughter greeted him upon his triumphant return. Judges 11:39 states that Jephthah kept his vow.

The 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus understood this to mean that Jephthah burned his daughter on Yahweh’s altar, whilst pseudo-Philo, late first-century C.E., wrote that Jephthah offered his daughter as a burnt offering because he could find no sage in Israel who would cancel his vow. According to Jewish tradition Jephthah was punished along with the high priest Phinehas, who could have annulled Jephthah’s vow but refused. A modern commentator, Solomon Landers, believes that a plausible alternative is that Jephthah’s vow was most likely modified and that she was not in fact sacrificed, but rather, her fate may have been perpetual virginity or solitary confinement. [ 9 ] This is seen by others to be contradicted by scripture which says: "That from year to year the daughters of Israel assemble together, and lament the daughter of Jephte, the Galaadite, for four days"(Judges xi,40) on the basis that people do not mourn for the living. [ 67 ]

[edit] Christianity

In the Christian religion the belief developed that the story of Isaac's binding and of Jepthah's virgin daughter were foreshadowing for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and whose sacrifice and resurrection allowed the sins of mankind to be washed away. There is a tradition that the site of the binding of Isaac, Moriah, was also the city of Jesus's future crucifixion. [ 68 ]

The beliefs of most denominations of Christianity hinge upon a single, specific human sacrifice: that of Christ. Christians believe that in order to gain access to paradise in the afterlife each individual person must somehow become a partaker in that all-important human sacrifice for the atonement of their personal sins. Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians believe that they participate in the sacrifice of Calvary through the Eucharist, which they believe is really the body and blood of Jesus Christ that they eat and drink. [ 69 ] [ 70 ] Many Protestants, however, reject this, and believe rather that the bread and wine of communion are merely symbolic. Although early Christians in the Roman Empire were accused of being cannibals, [ 71 ] practices such as human sacrifice were abhorrent to them. [ 72 ]

[edit] Islam

The Qur'an strongly condemns human sacrifice, as a "grave error and sinful act" [ 73 ] and an "ignorant, foolish act of those that have gone astray" [ 74 ] , and speaks of how the "pagans were deluded by their deities to kill their own children" [ 74 ] .

Moral panic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search Preparing to burn a witch in 1544. Witch-hunts are an example of mass behavior fueled by moral panic. Senator Joseph McCarthy stoked a moral panic in the United States about Communist infiltration into American life

A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. [ 1 ] According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." [ 2 ] Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as "moral entrepreneurs", while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils." Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo. [ 3 ] The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic. [ 4 ]

41

If someone is benefitting from being in a cult, should we leave them there?

by Confuzzled in

jw
friends

if scientology has narcanon, and it has gotten people off drugs (although that 85% sucess rate they say they have is suspect), and becoming a jw sorta forces you into line, would it make sense to leave someone in if they were helping them?

if you knew somebody was a drunk, sex addict, drug addict, what have you, and they were studying, and it appeared that they were actually being helped (albeit by twisted means) would you leave them be?

like, if uncle jim was a fall down drunk that ran around on his wife, then someone introduced him to the wts, and it all stopped, would you still try and expose the cult even if they were actually helping and it was working?.

Rabbit

I think -- if someone needs/uses something like a cult and their life does change for the better, i.e. drugs, alcohol, crime, etc., fine. But, being in a cult will eventually hurt them and others. Leaving the cult -- doesn't mean they will retrograde their social progress.

Maybe, their minds are clearer and can continue to improve. I'd like to think most of us here -- are progressing as we get further away from our cult minds.

10

Ray Franz GB Committee Meeting Tapes - Really Destroyed?

by Mad Sweeney in

i was just reading over chapter 12 of crisis of conscience this evening and wondered what others think of this.. the gb promised copies of the tapes.

reiterated that copies were forthcoming.

then reneged on the promise.

Rabbit

Am I the only one here who thinks they were full of crap and that the tapes were never destroyed? What do you all think?

Any Bethel spies here? When you're cleaning Ted Jaracz's office, look through his desk and see what you find. LoL. ~Mad

That...is exactly, exactly why they destroyed them. Ya' just can't trust nobody these days! So, having 3 GoomBas doing the dirty deed seems just about right to me. (CYA!)

54

Holy spirit reveals stuff through GB--July 15, 2010 WT

by sd-7 in

july 15, 2010 wt page 22, 23:.

would all anointed christians shine?.

in a sense, yes, for all christians would participate.

Rabbit

It comes from Crisis of Conscience, IIRC, so if the Dub you're working on doesn't trust Ray Franz it's not going to work on him. Give me a minute and I'll try to find it. ~Mad Sweeney

It's not mentioned anywhere in the official literatire, right? Would the dub accept CoC as a source? ~Leolaia

Thank you Mad, I didn't realize Ray was the source. Leolaia, I don't know -- they seemed 'shocked and awed' that the below could possibly be true -- they demanded, "Where did you hear that ?! I don't believe it...!" But, maybe a 'good' book, would be a good gift?

a secretive, closed society of men, whose two-thirds majority decisions must then be accepted by all Christians as “revealed truth.”

After my JW mom died, the "revealed truth"/newlight changed -- hemoglobin was now (and, too late...) voted in as an acceptable fraction.

54

Holy spirit reveals stuff through GB--July 15, 2010 WT

by sd-7 in

july 15, 2010 wt page 22, 23:.

would all anointed christians shine?.

in a sense, yes, for all christians would participate.

Rabbit

"It's utter hogwash. They might pray to their Jewish volcano god for guidance but it still boils down to a 2/3 majority vote of the members." ~Mad Sweeney

I've known about the '2/3 vote' thing for a while, but, does anyone have a scan proving that? I need it for a dub. I think it could be a closer.

20

another earthquake 7.8 Indonessia

by Champion in

jw
friends

7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes northern sumatra, indonesia .

Rabbit

Interesting how much tectonic plate movement can possibly be influenced by our lil' yeller star.

9

A Man with (a?) Purpose

by Rabbit in

Rabbit

This guy is like we were once -- or maybe currently.

I graduated about the same time as he did. I am so, so, very glad I am not still waiting for Jesus (or anybody else) to return, before, I can go on with my life.

Think of how paralysed this guy became -- just like us -- as he put his whole real life on hold...to pursue a make believe 'future' life. Look at all the others that waited, 35, 100 or 2,000 years ! Look at the time wasted, the fights, wars and human religious caused tragedies.

It is sad...