if you aren't a "believer", does it bother you when someone says "i'll pray for you" or "i prayed for you"?.
one of my colleagues is an incredibly kind and sweet person, and i know she says it because she believes she's doing something good on my behalf.
i always say "thank you for thinking of me", because i know that's the spirit she's intending to convey and that she cares about the situation i'm in vis-a-vis my jw relatives, but she knows i no longer believe in god (at least not in the sense that she does) - i wonder does she think that a few prayers are going to change my mind?
As a Christian, I usually will only say "I'm praying for ___" to someone who is seeming to ask for prayer or someone I'm familiar with as being a fellow Christian.
So, if someone prays for me to become a believer, why am I still an atheist?
Free will.
just a thought from tonight's bible reading that kinda hit in a funny way.
in all my years i've never heard this scripture used like this.
*** rbi8 1 samuel 21:12-13 ***
Adelmaal,
It boggles my mind to think that some people are foolish enough to think that just because somebody who was a follower of God did something in the Bible that makes it acceptable behaviour. Those people were imperfect just as are we. Why should the fact that they did something wrong be justified or twisted to make it seem right?
Exactly.
i have been an opposer for 3 months now, i have already taken out a bible study by providing info by proxy.. i think i will put a notch in my bible!.
what methods have you used?
how many people have you helped leave?
I'm still working on helping my wife. There was also a girl in my class who either said she was a JW or her family was, but the way she was stating my wife was only DF'd because she couldn't live up to "their rules" leads me to believe she's a JW, herself. I wrote a letter in reply to hers explaining my feelings regarding my wife's DF'ing, the WT's obvious problems with interpreting the Bible, laying out numerous false prophecies and setting itself up as really the god of the org via their own literature that must be obeyed as if it was the voice of God rather than who's truly coming up with all their rules and changes. I explained Jesus said nobody comes to the Father but through him and asked where it mentions the org's involvement in that process, etc... Don't know if she read the full letter, but I'm hoping so!
Also, back in about '91, a JW man (I think around 50 yoa) came to my house 3 times to talk about religion. All I knew of the WT back then was they didn't believe in a hell and that Jesus was "a god." I don't know if this impressed him at all, but I compared Genesis 1 with John 1 and read numerous verses explaining hell and how the beast and false prophet (obviously human) were still shown as being in the lake of fire 1,000 years after being thrown in it at the time the devil himself is thrown into it, and it states they will be tormented day and night eternally, etc... By the end of the 3rd visit, the man left looking very down and almost looked confused. I was worrying about him, but if it wasn't him really thinking hard about what I said, maybe he was just really disappointed he couldn't get a kid like me back then into the org. I've always wondered what he was thinking when he left that last time, and he seemed like a genuinely good guy.
i was watching a program the other night in which a group of people were reinacting the early american colonist's lives.
they were supplied with homes and supplies which replicated the original conditions.
i found it interesting how hard of a time they had surviving.
Adam & Eve if we are to believe the account of Eve taking the apple off the tree that gave all sin ,where did the tree come from in the first place . If God was there to provide these fruit trees ,i am sure he provided most things because as new as babys they knew nothing.
As one who does consider the account true, I agree that God helped provide for their needs, though if they simply just ate fruits and vegetables, food would not have been a problem. AFA having no modern toilet-action going, etc., I'd think they probably just found a cool bush at least a little distance away and did the squat routine and likely used leaves to wipe with... You're right: what kinda' paradise is this with NO TP~?!?
jehovah's witnesses might sound like a harmless name for a religion but we know better!
knowing what you know now, what would you rename this cult??
?
Slaves of the Great Baloney~!
i have been on this board for around four years.
at first i took what went on here quite seriously, well for about three weeks, but it then became quite obvious to me that the depth of role-playing that went on on these boards was so deep-rooted that it would be a foolish waste of time to do anything more than to read some of the more informative threads and delegate the rest to entertainment.
i hope narkissos forgives me for quoting something that he wrote yesterday, but his thought clearly encapuslates the reason why it is foolish to presume that you know, or will ever know the person who is posting by what they write, and why judgments on a persons character are more than often fatally flawed.
am who i am on here and in life..some days i am bitter..some days i am frustrated..some days i am suicidal..some days i am funny and today for reasons that will remain a mystery i am happy....so however i am in life will be reflected by how i am on this board..it may well be my downfall as it was with my jc....but the bottom line is ..im just no damn good at lying
You (tijkmo), Odrade, and surely others posting after you have good points. there's really no way people can know for sure outside of possibly meeting people in person what people may be like in their actual everyday lives (even then, people can act differently around them than they do others).
That said, I feel I am brutally myself on any forum I've been a part of, other than the fact I can think ahead of time what I'm going to say rather than someone saying something to me and then it being expected I answer at that moment. I feel it likely that maybe most people are simply themselves but possibly just not revealing every single aspect of their lives to the public, much like they probably don't reveal everything to the mass public in their everyday lives. I don't feel that's role-playing but rather just being prudent.
And then there are surely those who are bored and probably like getting certain reactions. One forum I go to has a lot of trolling going on where a number of people have gotten banned or at least warned for having multiple moniker/screen names and who even have fun at playing the different monikers like different characters like they have nothing in common. I think that would likely be a very rare thing at a forum such as this (being that one forum is for totally expressing whatever, almost).
I basically take the posts as they are and won't discount anybody unless I feel there's a good reason to.
.
what do you think?
( i know, i know, very "minimus-ish" of me).
How is this even possible... can a "Pharisee" hinder or not permit someone ON THEIR WAY IN to not go in?How so? I thought we had free will and no one in actuality can make us do anything if we're determined to do it. Just a thought. Make sense?
u/d
I understand what you mean. I think what the scripture means is that people can use their free will to let someone else hinder them.
I think the Catholic church of years past as well as the WT are major examples of people submitting themselves into a role of being hindered, and I think many people do so out of innocence -- just being basically born into the WT -- or out of a lack of knowledge that submitting themselves to the WT doctrine puts the clamps on them to make any changes if they ever do see the need for change and recognize that they are being hindered/not permitted to live their lives correctly.
.
what do you think?
( i know, i know, very "minimus-ish" of me).
I also agree that the WTS is the very thing they preach so vehemently against.~Merry
I've noticed how they seem to be some of the very same things they had no problems judging the Catholics of previously being. I noticed an older WT quote stating that it was wrong for an organization to push too much for a strict adherance to oneness as well as how it was wrong for the Catholic church back then to say it was the sole means of correct interpretation of the Bible.
And, of course, there have been at least one or two quotes about other denominations that guessed the wrong date and so were false prophets. I'm sure there are more things that could be added to the list of things they've at least at some point preached against but now themselves do~!
[added edit: I do think the JWD is acting as a very good and beneficial gateway to an increasing amount of people ]
since leaving the jws and joining my current company i get asked every six months to give blood.
i've never done it and still feel as if i had an accident i would be very reluctant to have a transfusion.. if its not too personal can i ask what others views are on this and your experiences if any?.
crumpet
Since leaving the JWs and joining my current company I get asked every six months to give blood. I've never done it and still feel as if I had an accident I would be very reluctant to have a transfusion.If its not too personal can I ask what others views are on this and your experiences if any?
crumpet
As a never-been JW, I can say I used to give plasma (was broke and needed $), and didn't feel my soul was being sucked out of me, etc.~!
I actually gave plasma one time for money to go see a hardcore punk band, D.R.I., and I ended up slamming (slam dancing) all night and ended up losing half the sole of one of my shoes and a shirt sleeve and still felt totally energized by the end of the whole show.
I didn't feel like I was somehow "changed" after giving plasma, and keeping in mind that the rest of the blood components are then re-fed back into the body, so maybe the WT would consider that drinking blood, too, even though it was my own. So sad such obvious nonsense is advocated by the WT and has caused/is causing so many needless and terribly tragic problems.
.
'jehovah's witnesses do not waste time and money by building large church edifices to invite people to such to hear them preach .
let god be true p.1924.
'Jehovah's witnesses do not waste time and money by building large church edifices to invite people to such to hear them preach .
LET GOD BE TRUE p.1924
Seems like a beautiful venue to play a "Monsters of Rock" tour date, lol~!
