stapler99

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Posts by stapler99

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  36

  House to House and Door to Door proves to be a shame diversion

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  english standard version(2001).

  woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!

  for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.. .

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  stapler99

  What has been said is very true and I agree with it. If Armageddon was imminent there would be much better ways of warning about it.

  It's not necessarily true that the way a sect sustains itself has been designed by anyone. Sometimes you just have to hit on a design which works. Jehovah's Witnesses are old enough that even the people at the top are true believers, whatever you think of Rutherford et al. They seem to fill a niche - they have made converts and the high commitment and inward looking cultishness has been successful in keeping members. (High commitment? Yes, this makes it an important part of your life and makes you justify to yourself you have spent your time.) This is at the expense of a huge amount of members' time, of course.
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  37

  Comparing the old elder's handbook to the new...

  by undercover in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  as i've read through the new elder's book, something kept nagging at me about it.

  then i went to compare one passage in the new book to the old and it hit me.

  i've mentioned it on a couple of posts, but i wanted to start a thread on it.... what hit me was that the new book was like an instruction manual to supervisors in a plant.

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  stapler99

  Interesting, it is exactly as you say, the new manual is much more direct. I do not see why it should be secret - it is basically a procedures manual, as others have said.
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  3

  Swastikas on the tree: how the Nazis stole Christmas

  by BurnTheShips in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/swastikas-on-the-tree-how-the-nazis-stole-christmas-1848467.html.

  presents wrapped in paper covered with nazi symbols nestling beneath a tree adorned with swastikas and grenade-shaped baubles: welcome to christmas under adolf hitler's third reich.. .

  as a new exhibition in the western german city of cologne shows, the nazis tried to skew the christmas story to do away with the jewish baby jesus and impose their racist ideology and propaganda on the popular festival.. "celebrating the birth of a jewish baby was unthinkable for the nazis," juergen mueller, the chief researcher behind the exhibition, told afp.. "but christmas was too popular to be banned.

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  stapler99

  Er, wasn't Yule orginally a pagan Germanic fesitival?

  If we assume the swastika as a German national symbol this is no more offfensive than a cake tin with a Union Jack on it, or Stars-and-Stripes-themed wrapping paper.
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  39

  JW says "how could anyone learn the truth with only a bible"

  by clarity in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i would appreciate your help trying to explain to a jw, how someone could just read a bible on their own and understand what it is all about.

  without an organization.. also, how could nonchristians or pagans etc find out about christ without someone to teach them?

  after 45 years of using the bible, it is easy for me to say to jesus question "who will you go away to?

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  stapler99

  The answer that a JW would give might be like this...

  "The churches of Christendom have over-complicated the simple truth of the Bible! Honest-hearted ones who thirst after the clean waters of truth can discern by regular Bible study God's message for us in our day. Rather than being mired in obtuse, false dogma like hellfire and the Trinity, they are comforted by Jehovah God's loving promise of a new world soon to come.* They identify the only organization on earth fulfilling Christ's command to "make disciples" and are priviliged to gladly partake in this life-saving work."

  * For further information, take a day for a year...

  In other words, if you don't agree 100% with JW dogma you are being unreasonable. If you don't update your views when they change their mind, you are showing "independent thinking." Members of other Christian churches are trapped in false doctrine, by the same tyrannical organization that burned heretics at the stake and went beyond what the Bible said by saying the Earth didn't move. If you interpret the scriptures that do, in fact, mention heavenly resurrection, hellfire, the earth not moving, etc., you are being deliberately obtuse, because *obviously* these scriptures weren't supposed to be taken literally...
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  144

  Latest apostate warning in Feb 15 2011 Watchtower

  by dozy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  andre, who had served jehovah for years, had the bitter experience of being led astray.

  by apostate thinking.

  he felt that having a quick look at an apostate web site would not be dangerous.he recalls: initially, i was attracted to the so-called truths that the.

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  stapler99

  The way that they have described this experience seems very simplistic to me. I wonder whether this is indicative of a general dumbing-down to appeal to a poorer, less well-educated demographic.
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  10

  Quantitative Easing Explained...

  by darthfader in

  1. social
  2. current

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptuy16cks-k. .

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  stapler99

  It is activity like this that makes me think that government's hands should stay away from setting interest rates, and other forms of "fiscal policy". It is something that the market can take care of itself. Otherwise the rich and politically connected, the Goldman Sachses of this world, will make billions of dollars through complex machinations that the average voter neither understands nor wishes to understand.
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  19

  We don't baptize our children as infants, we let them decide - UTTER BULL****

  by jambon1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i always found that one particularly laughable.. the jw's would always look for plaudits because they don't christen/baptize infants.

  as if they are free thinking pioneers of christianity who let their children come to their own conclusions.. no, they don't baptize their children.. yet,.

  they would be happy to make a life & death medical choice for them before they are even old enough to think for themselves.they are happy to have their children 'fight the fine fight' on their parents behalf all the way through primary/high school.

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  stapler99

  I see two reasons for this. One is that is yet another among the countless doctrinal points which wouldn't seem important in themselves except to distinguish Jehovah's Witnesses from other religions (consider "Jehovah" is God's name, Jesus didn't die on a cross, etc. etc.). The other is that they are claiming that they don't force religion on their children - demonstrably, very many other religions put much, much less pressure on children than they do.

  It's just the same self-aggrandizing BS that oozes from every paragraph of their publications.
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  58

  What's your pet-hate Witnessisms? Mine is 'in the truth'. Blegh!!

  by oldlightnewshite in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what's your pet-hate witnessisms?

  mine is 'in the truth'.

  blegh!!

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  stapler99

  "fine". A fine talk, brother! A fine provision from the Faithful and Discreet Slave!

  "worldly" - as if to imply all non-Jehovah's Witnesses are wicked people.
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  14

  Do JW's (and uppity-christians in general) walk around with a false sense of accomplishment?

  by Joliette in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i ask this because so many times when i was growing up, i was told that a certain sister or brother wasnt spirtually enough because of this or that.

  i wanted to ask the person who said this: what makes you so spiritual, especially since you do the same thing that the so called unspirtually person does.

  except you do it behind closed doors..

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  stapler99

  Yes, they are certain within their beliefs which is how they make converts, and dogmatic preaching from the platform helps to maintain belief. Old zealous JW's enjoy their status within the congregation, believe it has all been worthwhile and of lasting importance - when it is nothing!
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  115

  Why didn't we ever study "Mankind's Search For God"?

  by gubberningbody in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  was there an official or unofficial reason that anyone knows of?.

  it seems to me that pretty much every publication was studied at the book study, but we never did that one..

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  stapler99

  Old thread, I know.

  agnonus, you may never see this, but you may have been remembering the Daniel book. For example, see p233 and p248.